I managed several hundred Apple tablet/phone devices.
Repairs were so expensive, and so temporary and shite, that we stopped bothering and just binned the lot.
It costs £30 to replace an entire huge Chromebook screen panel, using a small screwdriver.
It was costing us £75 per iPad screen, with specialist repairers, using specialist equipment, which - if the casing was even slightly dented - they could never guarantee and it would fail in time. The record was a device with three repairs, beyond which all the repairers said it wasn't worth their time touching it and it would just fail again.
For iPads: Home buttons, under-screen sensors, power buttons and the corners of the metal cases. Once they were done, forget it.
Yet with the same amount of Android phones, Android tablets, Chromebook Tabs, etc. we've had a tiny handful of repairs, and with MULTIPLE TIMES the amount of Chromebooks, our repairs are all done in-house in about 10 minutes and with a minimal charge for parts only.
Apple devices are just inherently unrepairable. Before COVID, all three of our repairers went bust one after another (and hence we needed to find new repairers) and all told us that there was almost no margin on Apple repairs, even if they used recon or third-party replacements. And we did not deal with fly-by-nights or the guys in the market or anything like that. We're talking established companies specialising - and advertising such - in repairs of (usually) Samsung and Apple devices primarily, with premises, permanent technicians, websites, guarantees, collection/delivery services, contracts, etc.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
