

The Cost of Cracking - omarish
http://priceonomics.com/phones/apple/#cost-of-cracking

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JVIDEL
Isn't it funny how people scoff at _ruggedized_ phones for being "ugly" but
then go and slap all kinds of chintzy cases and screen protectors to their
fragile phones, making them much uglier than the rugged variant and just
barely more resistant to damage than without all that crap?

Mind I have never broken a phone, and I take good care of all the units I have
had, only replacing them due to obsolescence.

~~~
samstave
I am on my 15th iPhone since it originally launched. I dont like cases and
screen protectors. (they make it hard to pull from my pocket)

I HATE how fragile they are -- I have replaced many a screen and cracked glass
on these things.

But one of the many design flaws that irk me about the iphone is no lanyard
attachment hole on the freaking thing.

It should have come with a lanyard and a hole to attach it to.

Had apple done this from day one - I bet the number of broken phones would
have been greatly reduced.

~~~
anoved
I don't deny that cracked screens appear to a problem, but surely you agree
that going through _15_ iPhones makes your case a bit of an outlier?

~~~
samstave
Considering most of those phones all broke and cracked on the very first drop,
I'd say not really.

I have dropped my 15th unit, my current iPhone 4 one time so far on the
sidewalk of SF -- it landed on its corner and has a dent and a scratch. I feel
lucky that I have only dropped it once in 8 months.

The things are fragile. There is no denying that. With the iPhone 4 introduced
with now 100% MORE glass to break! (the rear panel) I think its actually
irresponsible of apple to not put a lanyard hole on the damn thing.

~~~
eropple
With respect, I think a greater part of the problem is mistreating your stuff.
One, two, even three broken phones I can see. _Fifteen_ indicates a problem
with the user.

My iPhone 4 fell out of a pocket as I was getting out of my car and cracked
the back glass, which was a cool $70 out of my pocket. I got a replacement
back and it's fine again, but I made goddam sure not to drop it again.

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huhtenberg
Damn. So this is not about _software_ cracking.

~~~
dfc
I'd love to know how many (if any) people saw the title and thought cracked
screen and how many people voted the story knowing it was about cracked
screens...

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PostOnce
If I'm on hacker news and I see the word cracking, I immediately think
piracy/etc. Cracktros. Not broken glass. :P

~~~
mpk
If I'm on hacker news and I see the word cracking, I immediately hope this'll
be some old school "let's open up IDA and see what's what here" article.

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edog1203
Apple only charges $29 to repair a cracked iPhone 4S back glass.

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nchuhoai
Just mentioning that the Apple Store is always good first place to go to. I
got mine replaced for free when I cracked my iPhone 4.

~~~
rdl
The Genius Bar employees have very wide latitude to waive charges. If you're
polite/friendly with them, and if you are obviously competent and able to make
their job easier (show up on time or slightly before, don't complain if you
have to wait, have all the debugging steps done, be able to assist with simple
debugging steps, HAVE THE MACHINE FULLY BACKED UP BEFORE ARRIVING, etc.),
they're more likely to waive charges.

Another tip for OSX apple machine service: have an "apple:apple" temporary
account created (as admin) for them to run tests, rather than having to log
them in to your account or give them your password, especially if you use
filevault. I don't really know what the equivalent is for iOS -- maybe turn
off passcode lock before showing up?

~~~
dfc
How do you help _debug a cracked screen_?

If they have admin access who cares if they do not have to login as your
account? Does filevault use a separate password?

~~~
rdl
There are lots of repair issues other than cracked screen; I meant the general
case. But yes, even with a cracked screen, back your shit up using the cable
before going into the store -- it'll save a step for the Genius and make it
more likely you get a free screen.

A fresh account is less likely to have random stuff (desktop full of files,
random app windows, customized settings, ...), so it's easier for the tech to
work with. They usually ask for the username/password, and note it somewhere
-- if it's the default (apple/apple), it's easier for you (you don't need to
change your account password) and for them (if the note gets lost, or if your
password is absurdly long or complex).

With Filevault 1, you'd be safe as a logged-out user even from an admin on the
system. With Filevault 2, they went FDE, and assumed systems are dedicated to
single users, or that unix file permissions would be the only protection
between user accounts, so one admin account can read everything. (I actually
use separate drives when I send machines in for repair -- doing this on the
MBA is slightly harder and requires a service tech agreement with Apple).

This applies even more so if you have something like PGP disk or Trend or
Wingate or whatever which makes booting more complex.

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engtech
off-topic, but couldn't find a contact form on the website.

Priceonomics need to improve their search results. If you navigate through
categories the results are well organized... but if you try to use search it
does not organize the data properly.

I can drill down through your results to find the Honda Civic prices per year:
<http://priceonomics.com/cars/honda/civic/>

But I can't _search_ for those results.
<http://priceonomics.com/search?s=honda+civic+2006>

There's the same problem with phones. Navigating the listing to phones I can
find the iPhone 2G: <http://priceonomics.com/phones/apple/>

But if I search for the iPhone 2G:
<http://priceonomics.com/search?s=iphone+2g>

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efsavage
It appears that cities with high heat and humidity have more cracked phones
than others.

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chops
I've broken enough phones in my life to know that I need to have
protection[1], and frankly, I love the rugged size of the otterbox defender on
my Moto Photon.

I'm notoriously clumsy with my gear and would rather spend the $50 for a nice
big rubber case (improved grip and drop prevention) than wait to drop it.

Beyond that, come summer time, I'm a big time beach bum, but I still have to
run my business and that means bringing the phone to the beach. Having an
"almost completely contained" case is a godsend to protect it from the
occasional drop in the sand.

Frankly, I'd rather prevent than repair, though I'm not exactly afraid to take
the phone apart should I bust the screen, but I might as well invest a few
bucks to make it near-indestructible. It just makes me feel better.

[1] Broken two flip phones in half, smashed the screen on a few others,
dropped two in water (one toilet, one lake, not that an otterbox will help
that much), ruined the shit out of the buttons (power, volume, keys, whatever)
from sand. I'm sure I'm missing some.

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rmason
It appears from the chart your chances of dropping your phone and having the
screen crack are higher in the South than the North.

Could it be that Houston summer heat makes your hands sweaty and that means
you're more likely to drop your phone? Yet another advantage of living in a
frigid climate.

~~~
metageek
Yeah, but up here we're more likely to slip on ice and drop ourselves.

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rdl
Interesting. Maybe you could do a rational economic calculation based on value
lost per destructive event, frequency of events, and odds that such event will
happen before a non-protected event (loss, theft, crushing which exceeds the
resilience of a case). Compare that with the cost of a case and the value lost
by using a case (ugliness, size).

Although I took my magpul case off my iphone 4 today (to use a tascam im2
microphone), and it's really hard to hold the glass surface, compared to the
nice plastic surface of the case.

~~~
Too
Are you planning to smash enough phones yourself to reach statistical
significance?

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lincolnq
So how much money can someone make buying cracked phones, fixing them, and
reselling? I guess it only takes one person doing this to normalize the price
of a cracked phone.

~~~
midas
I'm not sure, but I love that the ratio of the price to fix a cracked screen
vs the value created by doing that is roughly the same across all model of
iPhones. Put differently, it makes sense that you can always make a little
money by fixing up iPhones. You'd expect people to value that more than just
the cost of doing it (no uncertainty, not having to look around, etc).

~~~
mdda
The opposite is also true : There's a pretty fixed mark-up for 'cracked' Apple
TV 2s. I imagine people are buying used ATV2s, rooting and reselling...

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afterburner
Check eBay for parts! From a simple search I can see that a replacement back
for the iPhone 4s costs about $4 including shipping. Nowhere near the $120
iCracked charges according to this article.

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aMoniker
I cracked the screen of my iPhone 3G a few years back. Rather than get it
replaced, I decided to keep it like that since the touchscreen was still
perfectly functional. I thought it made an interesting juxtaposition, and I
loved the looks of horror mixed with pity people would give it whenever I
nonchalantly used it in front of them.

