Don’t Drop Your iPhone Now: Repairing It Is a Problem

If, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, you are in Minneapolis and you drop your iPhone, who will repair the cracked screen? If you’d like an authorized repair, with Apple Inc.-certified parts, the options are suddenly limited. Apple’s retail stores, and the service centers inside of them, are closed indefinitely. Similarly, Twin Cities-based Best Buy Co., which offers authorized Apple repairs in its stores, is not repairing products in-house at this time. Apple maintains a modest network of authorized repair shops, but — thanks to Covid-19 business shutdowns — the closest one available to repair an iPhone is nearly 200 miles away, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. That leaves one reasonable authorized repair option: Mail in that iPhone and wait.

Admittedly, this might not appear to be the most pressing issue during a pandemic. But consider: Covid-19 is spreading at a time when dependence on personal technology is more important than ever, connecting Americans to family, work, health information and news. As that dependence has grown, manufacturers of electronics — from mobile phones to essential medical equipment like ventilators — have made design and policy decisions that restrict device repair to themselves and their chosen representatives. In normal times, those decisions might amount to an expensive inconvenience for consumers. During a pandemic, they raise a pressing question: Who will repair our stuff if the manufacturers can’t or won’t?