How many people drop a mobile and crack the screen every day? In 2017 O2 reported that around 7.5 million people have a broken screen. Today I suspect that this is a lot higher today.

Screens are one of the most the in demand repairs that are carried out today. In some cases the phone can only be repaired by a manufacturer or authorised repairer. Cost is always a factor and some look for cheaper options or the ability to repair it themselves.

The ability to purchase spare parts for mobiles has been available for a long time from online places like eBay and manufacturers have found ways to stop the home repair and unauthorised repair markets such as by adding in device ID’s onto each hardware component and tying these to the main board so it stops working once you swap a part out.

Things are changing with Apple now announcing the ability to soon purchase spares from Apple Repair Shops with 200 parts available for the iPhone 12 and 13.

This is a great move towards the goals of sustainability as devices will be able to be repaired more easily and the broken parts can be returned to Apple as stated in their announcement – “Following the repair, customers who return their used part for recycling will receive credit toward their purchase.”

Online forums and videos have made repairing devices easier as you can follow a set of instructions or watch someone else doing it. An example of a repair video Apple Broke iPhone 13 Screen Repairs.

The better part is that the parts can come with a manual to help you repair, which will provide an official way to do this.

With the drive to be more sustainable and pressure mounting on recycling techniques and sending items to land fill companies are providing better ways at recycling. The Royal Mint is building a smart phone recycling centre to extract metals such as gold from phones.

It would be good to see other manufacturers allowing the ability to repair devices by providing spares.

So is it easier to repair a phone? It will be easier to obtain parts and instructions, however repairing a phone is still a challenge due to the many connectors and cables between the boards and components together. Care is needed if undertaking this as you may cause other damage during the process.

Further Reading

Looking at upcycling a mobile phone