Apple’s Self Service Repair expands to Europe

Grab your courage and your soldering iron as Apple’s Self Service Repair for recent iPhones and Mac notebooks expands beyond the US for the first time.

Okay, so it's hardly the Maker revolution, but a year after launching in the US Apple’s Self Service Repair is now available in eight European countries, providing repair manuals and genuine Apple parts and tools through the Apple Self Service Repair Store. All of which means that customers who wish to complete their own repairs will be able to perform many of the most common repairs for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and Mac notebooks with Apple silicon. 

Repairer beware though. By ‘common’ Apple certainly doesn’t mean ‘easy’. This New York Times ($) article serves as a decent caution to anyone thinking of saving themselves a bit of money by taking the DIY route, the unfortunate journalist destroying his iPhone screen with a single, irreversible error.

As the BBC points out, you need 16 tools and to follow a combination of 61 steps to remove and then replace the screen on an iPhone 13, which is a fair deal to master.

Apple alludes to this in its announcement of the service, saying that the program “enables customers who are experienced with the complexities of repairing electronic devices the opportunity to complete their own repairs.” The operative word there is ‘experienced’. And it is very much worth pointing out that a botched repair will invalidate any existing warranty on a product.

But still, for those willing to take the plunge, the Self Service Repair Store provides access to more than 200 individual parts and tools, as well as repair manuals. The tools offered through Self Service Repair include torque drivers, repair trays, display and battery presses, and more. Apple will also offer a week-long tool rental kit for $49, so that customers who do not want to purchase tools for a single repair still have access to the pro kit.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on. But being the sort of person who can superglue his fingers to his nose (don’t ask), if it’s all the same to you I think I’ll try a Store first if things go pear shaped with any of my Apple devices.