

25 year-old's company makes millions on cracked iPhone screens [video] - martin_
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/power-pitch/25-old-millions-cracked-iphones-123419416.html

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ibz
I was traveling in Laos last year and I fell while riding a scooter through
the jungle and my iPhone cracked. As I reached Cambodia, I walked in a random
phone repair shop in Phnom Penh and had my screen completely replaced in 10
minutes for about $40 (probably overcharged for being a tourist). Still using
that same iPhone now, one year later. I would imagine phone repair shops
everywhere can do this, or not? While watching the video, I almost felt like
watching The Onion.

~~~
kayoone
yeah thought the same. There are like 3-4 shops that do this in every city.
When my girlfriend recently cracked her iPhone 4 screen i just went on ebay to
get a new one for EUR 38 (Germany) and repaired it myself. Works totally fine
now, i wouldnt do this on a brand new iphone 5 though ;)

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jpdoctor
They can augment their income by fixing broken power buttons, which is a
growing problem that Apple refuses to touch:

[https://discussions.apple.com/message/22136029#22136029](https://discussions.apple.com/message/22136029#22136029)

~~~
martin_
iCracked repairs almost every aspect of an iDevice including power buttons!

~~~
gkoberger
How? I don't see the power button option on the site.

[EDIT] Seems martin_ meant you can buy a new button/sensor and a repair kit,
and then follow instructions similar to these: [http://www.imore.com/how-diy-
repair-stuck-or-broken-iphone-4...](http://www.imore.com/how-diy-repair-stuck-
or-broken-iphone-4s-power-button)

~~~
martin_
The issue selection is definitely limited. An "other" category would be a good
idea!

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hemancuso
Interestingly - in the past few weeks the Genius Bar in most locations (I can
confirm boston/cambridge) has gotten a calibration machine letting them do a
screen replacement in store for $150 (cheaper and done by apple). Refurb is
$229.

Tough to compete with that.

[http://gizmodo.com/the-apple-stores-new-mystery-machine-
help...](http://gizmodo.com/the-apple-stores-new-mystery-machine-helps-
unbreak-you-511625021)

~~~
Peroni
Is $150 considered cheap in the US? I only ask as I had my iPhone4S screen
repaired for just under £30 here in the UK by a local electronics shop and the
quality was outstanding.

~~~
hemancuso
I was just comparing the rates for iCracked and Apple. There is a place in
harvard square that does it for $50.

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brianbreslin
A friend of mine runs a repair shop in Miami. He told me that a few of his
competitors were raided by the DOJ for doing unlicensed repairs using Oem
parts from china. Apple apparently didn't want anyone other than official
stores doing repairs. Guy whose shop was raided had thousands in parts
confiscated.

~~~
joonix
Huh? This doesn't make any sense. There is no IP right that lets you prevent
non OEM parts to be installed in a product. If that were the case mechanics
would all be out of business. There must have been another issue here.

~~~
oscillator
The parent said it was OEM parts.

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kayoone
Apple should just fix their phones. Its ridiculous how fast the screen cracks
on an iPhone. I have so many friends (me included) who had a cracked iphone
4/4s/5 in the past few years while my brother drops his Galaxy S2 all the time
and the screen is totally fine.

~~~
chiph
Contra-anecdotal evidence: I owned 3 iPhones over the years (original, 3GS,
4S) and never used a case. I never broke anything on them. The only concession
to preservation I made was to make sure it was the only thing in that pocket
(no change, keys, pocketknife, etc. in there with it)

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abhiv
Genuinely curious about how this is a venture-funded company. How is this
scalable? Is there any tech involved at all? (Not that technology is necessary
to be venture-funded, but it helps with nonlinear growth.)

~~~
randomdrake
We believe that this is absolutely scalable as we've watched successful growth
into national and international markets. On the technology front, we have
created an incredible on demand geolocational dispatch and communications
service. Our unique iOS app for our worldwide iTechs empowers them to be
connected to this service at all times allowing them to successfully run their
businesses. We're really doing some pretty exciting things beyond fixing
phones and we can't wait for everyone to see what's next with our
technologies.

~~~
halcyondaze
Use more buzzwords, please.

~~~
jusben1369
Thanks for the chuckle.

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pjbrunet
What I want to know: Why can't these phones use plastic screens? Good acrylic
is more clear than glass, lighter, safer, more durable. I wouldn't be shocked
if iPhones were designed to shatter easily.

I'm seriously thinking of switching back to my ancient Blackberry: plastic
screen that doesn't crack, battery lasts a week, make calls by pressing one
button, I can turn it off and on easily...

~~~
pak
The capacitive technology that powers multitouch screens requires (or works
much better with) glass, I believe. Also, LCD technology itself requires
glass. The less and thinner the layers, the closer it feels like your finger
gets to the image, and the better the UX is. There are iPhone cases that
essentially do what you are suggesting with a plastic overlay.

~~~
zurn
Citation needed - from what I've experienced most older Android devices have
plastic screens and multitouch works fine, and they don't break when dropped.

If there are glass layers in there somewhere, maybe they're somehow protected
by the plastic. Or maybe the all-out antiscratch optimized glass in iDevices
is just much more brittle than regular glass.

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JoshTv
You can always make money out of broken stuffs/junks/trash. With the right
idea, skill,and marketing; people can earn millions like these guys did.

~~~
aj_icracked
Haha, still working on the millions part. We're launching an insurance
company, buyback, and redistribution in the next 6 months so we're really
excited about that.

Thanks for the comments, good and bad :)

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TheBiv
I loved his smile when asked why he is building the company...it made it seem
like he wanted to say "Because I can make a lot of money with it", but luckily
he chose the right answer of framing who his service is helping. Really great
execution there!

------
crgt
My iPhone screen is cracked. Do I really have to give up my contact info just
to find out how much it costs to fix it with this service? Or did I just miss
pricing on the mobile site somehow?

~~~
randomdrake
Prices vary from iTech to iTech so we need a bit of information to connect you
with an iTech to find out the price for their services.

If you're interested, we also have mail-in and DIY services that you can check
out on our shop here:

[http://shop.icracked.com](http://shop.icracked.com)

~~~
jusben1369
FWIW's I think your story and brand is much more powerful if it's the same
price no matter where and when. Maybe it's tough to make it comparable between
Manhattan and small town USA (where the expectation around the labor cost is
dramatically different) but if you could somehow pull it off I think it would
be good.

------
belorn
Can't apple just add some more DRM into the screen, which would then allow
apple to simply take over the market that Forsythe have built up?

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tomkinstinch
Where does iCracked get the displays/glass? What's to prevent Apple from
drying up the supply?

~~~
hello_newman
The glass on the devices appears to be "generic", not really "apple glass".
They manufacture them in China. This is a great article on them;
[http://www.inc.com/30under30/burt-helm/icracked-aj-
forsythe-...](http://www.inc.com/30under30/burt-helm/icracked-aj-forsythe-
anthony-martin-2013.html)

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robmcm
I have a friend that started doing this years ago for iPods and is still going
for all apple's iOS devices. I used to do a lot of his web work back in my uni
days. [http://www.iphonerepairs.co.uk/](http://www.iphonerepairs.co.uk/)

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jusben1369
Hmmm. I googled, found a college kid nearby, met him at Subway and he did my
(4) in 30 minutes for $75. 3 months later no issues. Maybe the 4 is
meaningfully cheaper?

~~~
kenrikm
Yes, the iCracked iPhone 4 screen repair usually runs around $80 with a 99
Year Part Warranty. iPhone 5 Parts are more costly right now and thus the
repair cost is higher.

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tagabek
This is really neat. I really appreciated the point that he made about
"empowering people to take control of their financial futures".

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pathikj
This could work. I met a college senior few weeks ago and he talked to me
about how he recently started a small venture with a similar tech background
but a different business model, that is, buying broken phones for cheap,
repairing them and selling refurbished at much better price. His volumes made
no sense to me then. Now I see the big picture.

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jskonhovd
Phone repair and insurance is a huge business. This seems alright. A
intelligent consumer can find a deal better than 200$, but convenience is the
more important to a lot a people. Some people don't care how expensive it is,
they need their phone the next day.

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namuol
It's pretty easy to do. My sister just gave me her old cracked iPhone 4
because she thought it was worthless. It still worked fine, but I fixed the
screen for about $30 and a few hours of sweaty-palm dis/assembly. Works
perfectly now.

~~~
hippich
i believe iphone 4s and 5 have welded glass or something making it much harder
to replace alone. as a result usually they replace lcd+glass which make it
much more expensive.

~~~
aliston
You can generally buy the digitizer + lcd on ebay for about 30 bucks. It's a
lot of small screws, but really not too difficult to swap out. Took me about
45 minutes.

~~~
m-r-a-m
For any phone I would recommend buying the digitizer/lcd combined. It's such a
pain to separate the two (on phones where it's even possible) and only
slightly more expensive.

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smcguinness
I've tried a couple times to have a repair through icracked but never got a
reply from them. Always got a message that said 3-5 techs were notified, but I
guess they didn't want to repair my cracked iPhone.

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MrMan
i am not saying it will happen, but apple could put them out of business in an
instant...

~~~
jusben1369
That's pretty much true of any body in the Apple ecosystem though should they
take a direct interest.

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glomph
It is depressing that it is news that there is money in fixing popular things.

~~~
jrochkind1
Indeed. Throw-away society, bad for the environment.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted.

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NameNickHN
Stupid title. Should've been "cracked iPhone displays". I read "cracked
iPhone" synonymous with "jailbreaked iPhone".

Also, nicely written press release.

~~~
fxthea
You could have made the same point without saying "Stupid title".

~~~
rorrr2
But then we would be less correct.

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cheery
Pick a fatal design flaw in popular product, such as fragile display in
iPhone. Build up a repair service around that flaw.

If I invented a similar get-rich-quick-scheme I might also grin like a
trollface and that guy in the video.

