Now that’s what a cracked iPad looks like.

Good morning,

Every now and again I’ll snap a picture of a device that we receive for repair and share it here on the blog.  Some are normal “cracks” and bends; others are smashed up pretty good.  For some reason, my blog readers love looking at smashed units…so Carl at my Mission, Kansas store sent this picture to me last night:

Now that’s what a cracked iPad is supposed to look like, right?

I often wonder how these things happen…obviously this unit was dropped…but the exact story gets lost in the repair sometimes.  This unit appears to have been “dragged” along the concrete, like it fell off the roof of a car or slid down the driveway.  Most of the time, it doesn’t matter to us “how” it happened, but knowing sometimes satisfies the curiosity!

Have a cracked iPad Screen?  No problem.  We will take care of that repair for you, just drive on down to one of our locations (no appointment necessary) or give us a call and we’ll send FedEx to pick it up from your location anywhere in the USA.  Yes, even where you live, wherever that may be.

844-459-0105.  Ryan

MacBook Pro Retina Screen Repairs – not an easy task.

Hello there Mac lovers…

Have you ever wondered why the screen on your 13″ or 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display looks so amazing?  Yes, the “retina” piece has a lot to do with it – Retina displays have a pixel density that’s so high, your eyes can’t discern individual pixels at a normal viewing distance. This gives content incredible detail and dramatically improves your viewing experience.

The other slightly lesser known fact is that they are assembled in a clean room which mates the LCD with the glass and “seals” the entire assembly from the elements and the environment – The problem with this is that fixing a cracked screen or glass cannot be done by the “casual” technician.  They are simply too hard to separate without the proper tools and techniques.

We recently had a customer try to make the first attempts at removing a glass panel on his own:

Can you see that discoloration in the middle of the screen in that picture?  That where he tried to heat it up.  He said that the glass bubbled out like a balloon, and when it cooled it returned to “normal” shape.

Yes, heat is part of the process, but you cannot put these screen assemblies into an oven, in front of a space heater or use a hairdryer to correctly remove the glass.  Physics simply doesn’t permit it.  Kudos to this customer for trying to resolve this repair on his own; it how I got started in the business (repairing stuff on my own), but this was like starting to hike by trying to conquer Mt. Everest.  Not likely!!

At Mission Repair, we have repaired thousands of MacBook Pro Retina Screens; and our pricing beats the competition, and most certainly beats Apple’s replacement price by a few hundred dollars!

If you find yourself in a bind and have a cracked MacBook Pro Retina Display, do not try to do it yourself – you may end up causing more damage than you want to deal with.  Give us a call 844-459-0105 or you can place your order online here.  We’re ready to help you.

Ryan

 

Now THIS is a bad MacBook Pro battery!

Hello there and good morning!

We’ve been receiving an unprecedented amount of blog reads in this first month of 2016, thank you and I really appreciate it.

I’ve blogged before about MacBook batteries “puffing up”, or even popping open and leaking.  It becomes more and more common the older these units get.  We have even seen batteries fail in the MacBook Air as I posted earlier.  Take a look at this recent battery that we removed from a customer’s MacBook Unibody (this is an Apple OEM battery I will add, not a 3rd party or “copy”):

 

I visited my Mission Store yesterday and was helping solve a few problem when I came across this unit that needed to be removed from the premises immediately.  Not only is an exploding battery like this just terrible for the computer (it needs further repairs now too!) but if the gasses from this battery leaked out and into our tech lab it would be smelling and toxic.  This is one that need to get to the recycling depot asap.  We don’t want to cause a fire or make anyone sick at the office that’s for sure!

Here are some tell-tale signs to look for if you suspect that your battery might be heading in this direction:

1.  The computer stops taking a charge or won’t run off of battery power.
2.  The trackpad on your computer stops clicking.
3.  The spacebar or the “lower” keys feel different when you depress them.
4.  Your trackpad pops out of the case, from the bottom up.

The Apple software will also tell you when your battery should be replaced, and it’s a good idea to follow through with that advice and have your battery replaced.  I mean, it is a portable computer so you’re going to want the battery to be as good as possible, right?  Right!!

We can most certainly replace the battery for you at Mission Repair – just check out our website or give us a call and we’ll be happy to set the service up for you so you can get back to doing your emails from the coffee shop, the living room or even the beach.  Wherever you’d like to be…

Have a good morning, Ryan

The Book of Eli – believable except for this one small thing.

Good morning,

Have you seen the movie The Book of Eli?  I saw it when it came out, and I’ve recently seen it again at home, I really like it.  Please: if you haven’t seen it yet, you might not want to read this blog because there may be spoilers in here for you…but it’s been out since 2010 so I know that I’m not giving away anything new.  Spoilers below, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

For a refresher, the movie is set thirty years after war turned the world into a wasteland.  A lone warrior named Eli (Denzel Washington) marches across the ruined landscape, carrying hope for humanity’s redemption. Only one other man (Gary Oldman) understands the power of what Eli carries, and he is determined to take it for himself. Though Eli prefers peace, he will risk death to protect his precious cargo, for he must fulfill his destiny to help restore mankind.

It’s an epic story as we watch Eli move across the country from the east to the “west”, where his destiny takes him.  This movie might be a reality some day, and the book he is carrying (the Bible) may restore humanity in itself.  This is a believable and a possibility.

Now, we don’t learn until the end of the movie, but Eli is carrying a King James Bible that is written in braille.  We also learn that he is blind…and possibly has been blind (or can see with some sort of divine intervention) for the entire movie.  I can see that if there was some sort of spiritual “protector”, that a blind man could possibly walk among the deserted landscape, his path being laid out for him.

Not only can Eli maneuver the wasteland without sight, he can also ward off groups of attackers without a scratch, he can also hunt with his trusty bow and shoot a bird out of the air – blind – for “dinner”.

During his “down time” every day, he pulls out his book and reads it.  Every day.  For 30 years.  This leads him to memorize the entire Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse.

Eli traverses and overcomes.  He’s guided by a voice in his head that told him that he must protect this book and he is personally lives by the “message” of the Bible, basically to do more for others than for yourself as he puts it.  All believable, albeit maybe a little bit of a stretch.  I concede that a man can probably memorize the Bible if read every day over 30 years.  I personally know a man that memorized the Webster’s dictionary over several years, so I’m going to agree it can be done.  Shooting a flying crow out of the sky with a long bow seems like an impossibility, but heck, everyone gets lucky once in a while.

There is one part of the movie that is truly 100% unbelievable.  One tidbit that I just can’t grasp and it really makes me wonder about life as it is today…

Eli carries a 3rd Generation iPod with him so he can “wind down” at the end of the night to sleep.  This is where Hollywood meets the impossible.  Being in the iPod Repair business…I know there there is NO WAY that this 3rd Generation iPod would still be working after 30 years!!

Firstly, look at the condition of the thing.  These needed to be clean for the touch buttons to work correctly.  Period!  These iPods had hard drives in them too, and they are not “hearty” to put it lightly.  There’s not a hard drive on the planet that can take the abuse that this one has and still work after 30 years.  I’ve worked in the high-tech industry for 20+ years and have personally spent time at Dell, Seagate and Maxtor in their Hard Drive reliability labs.   NOPE.  I DON’T BELIEVE IT, THIS HARD DRIVE WOULD BE A CLICKING PAPERWEIGHT.

The screen on this iPod isn’t cracked.  Come on guys, not realistic at all.  ENOUGH SAID.

Plus the Li-ion 850 mAh batteries that came in these devices only lasted about 2 years – MAX.  How is this one working after 30 years?  IT’S NOT POSSIBLE.  He charges his iPod somehow off of a 12 volt DC battery – which is a tricky task by itself – but the battery would have long expired.  Even the Almighty wouldn’t be able to help Eli here!

Finally, and this is probably the most important note…it’s presumed that Apple along with every other company plus the internet, power, computers and everything else is just obliterated and gone due to the war…there would be no way for Eli to add, remove or change his music.  I don’t care if he had 1000 songs on there…

Eli would have been drooling on the side of the road sucking his thumb long before he made it to Alcatraz.  No one can keep the same playlist for 30 years, it’s just IMPOSSIBLE 😉

OK hopefully by now you realize that I’m somewhat making fun of the iPod since I’m in the business of repairing them.  Yes, I have personally repaired countless 3rd Generation iPods like the one Eli is carrying…and yes they were touchy devices that needed TLC.  Have you seen the movie?  I feel like if this scenario does happen to all of humanity in the future…I’ll be the shopkeeper that you see in town that offers to charge up Eli’s battery.  Yep, that’s where this old iPod repair technician will end up.  Bartering a battery charge for some KFC wipes and a Zippo.  For now, at Mission Repair we take cash, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express and Paypal.  The Internet still works today!

I had fun writing this one, Ryan

 

 

Want to mail in your device for repair? Coupon code inside!

15% off all repairs for our “After-Christmas” Sale!

That’s right! 15% off all mail-in repairs until Sunday 1/24/16 at midnight! Use coupon code “BROKEN” to receive 15% off your new repair order made tonight through Sunday night on our repair website, or you can call in to place your order.

Every year we have customer call to have devices repairs that they received just a month earlier; it’s why January is so busy for us. We are receiving an unprecedented amount of broken devices in our service lab that customers received new as Christmas presents, but somehow had some sort of an “accident” that necessitated a repair. We are here for you and helping those unlucky customers with a 15% coupon for all Mail-In Repairs. Remember that this coupon cannot be combined with any other discounts or “Got Repair” benefit discounted repairs.

Have a good January, Ryan