What is an iPhone digitizer?

I know that there are a ton of question about the “digitizer” on your iPhone, or any other touch-screen smartphone these days. We here at Mission Repair are experts and very familiar with iPhone digitizers, glass, and screens. We repair them by the thousands every month. Let’s see if we can demonstrate what the digitizer is here under a glass panel:

This is the digitizer on an iPhone!

The digitizer is fused UNDER the glass cover. It’s the electronic component that senses the touch of a human finger through the glass, and is designed to allow the unit to be controlled by a fingertip. This is the “input” of the device and it’s very thin and transparent.

The point is that you cannot replace the digitizer alone. Since it’s part of the glass, in the event of a touch failure it needs to be replaced with the glass and vice versa. So if you have a cracked iPhone glass, you’re going to get a new digitizer as well. If you have an iPhone that doesn’t respond to touch, you’ll also get a new glass. It’s just the way it’s designed.

You might see these assemblies marketed as:

• iPhone glass
• iPhone digitizer
• iPhone touch screen
• iPhone glass screen
• iPhone screen
• iPhone touch panel

For all intents and purposes, these terms are all interchangeable and are all the same thing. Are you in need of one of these parts? Here’s a list of glass/digitizer repairs that we sell here at Mission Repair:

• iPhone 2G Glass Repair
• iPhone 3G Glass Repair
• iPhone 3GS Glass Repair
• iPhone 4 Glass Repair
• iPhone 4S Glass Repair
• iPhone 5 Glass Repair
• iPhone 5C Glass Repair
• iPhone 5S Glass Repair
• iPhone 6 Glass Repair
• iPhone 6 Plus Glass Repair
• iPhone 6S Glass Repair
• iPhone 6S Plus Glass Repair

Don’t forget our wide selection of iPad Glass Repair options!

Remember, you might see these glass panels for sale cheap – be sure to inquire about the required digitizer that is fused to the glass from the factory – without it, the glass is useless. You cannot replace the glass or “remove” your good digitizer and reinstall it onto your iPhone without advanced equipment and lots of training. It just doesn’t work! These assemblies are built together and must stay together. I hope this information helps!

2015 Mission Repair Blog in review.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see it.

We definitely hit a few “highs” this year on our blog, and by far reaching over 1 million unique new readers was one of the best.  I’ve been aiming for that goal for some time now, are we are on our way to 2 million!

One of our most read blogs is still from 2011 titled “What is an iPhone Digitizer“.  We’ve definitely gotten some mileage out of that one!

Thanks again for everyone’s readership, we really appreciate it.  Take your time traveling as the 2015 year closes and you can count on the fact that we will be here in 2016.

Sincerely, Ryan

 

To Repair Or Not Repair?

Hello everyone,

To repair or not repair? That is the question of the week. With every September, comes an Apple media event. With an Apple media event, comes newly released products and with newly released products comes that question. . .Should I repair this broken Smartphone screen? Some of you might be looking to switch from an Android or Windows phone, some of you might be limping along, for as long as you can, to get a glimpse of the new products before you make your decision. And some of you might be just like my friend Darrin, his iPhone 5S is perfectly fine (but he’s been living with a cracked screen for some time), but he’s the kind of guy that likes the newest product that Apple has to offer! For those of you that are saying that, this post might not be for you 🙂 So lets talk for a moment on what Apple is expected to release via the rumor mill. We are anticipating two new iPhone products. The iPhone 6 with a 4.7″ screen and the iPhone 6 with a massive 5.5″ screen.

The iPhone 6 should bring the following features:

-Rounder and thinner designs
-Tapered screens that apparently taper off at the edges
-Optical Image Stabilization for clearer pictures and a 10MP camera
-A sapphire screen for superior scratch resistance
-iOS8

So with those features in mind, the question becomes, can I live without the latest and greatest from Apple? I’m going to stay with my iPhone 5 for a while…faced with the same dilemma, it is easy to see from the information provided, that Apple is not going to release a game changer tomorrow for me.

Alright, so I know my opinion may not be that convincing, but let me shed some light on the facts of repairing over replacing:

-It is usually cheaper to repair your Smartphone, than replace (Consider the new 2 year agreement you are about to sign up for)
-It’s green (Meaning you don’t have to contribute to a growing worldwide e-waste problem)
-You don’t have to deal with the hassle of moving over all of your data over (I recently had to do this…not fun)
-It most cases, you are supporting a local business

Ok, so if you are dead tired of your old iPhone 3GS or Samsung GS3 and are just ready for something new, let me make a case for you. Did you know that you could sell that old Smartphone? You can find many business that will buy your old device from you. You could also sell them yourself on eBay or Craigslist and Apple has even started their own trade in program so you can use that against the purchase of new products in their retail stores. In every case, you will make substantially more with a fully functioning Smartphone than a broken one. It logical.

I hope this sheds some light on why its a good thing to repair instead of completely replace your smartphone when an event like tomorrow is upon us. If you choose to repair and keep, repair and replace or repair and give away as a gift, the common denominator here is REPAIR! Don’t let that smartphone end up in the garbage or in your bottom drawer for years to come!

Take care, Ryan

Top 5 ways to ruin your iPhone.

Hello friends-

Ruin is a strong word, I should say “ruin your day”, because in all of these cases, the iPhone can be fixed! It’s why we are in business.

I thought it was time for us to run some data through our system and come up with the top 5 ways our customers have reported damaging their iPhones. This data is similar for iPods and Android phones. Without much more to say, let’s see what and why things are happening to our customers in real life!

We will start with #5:

5. It just happened.

Unfortunately we hear this a lot. “I set the phone down and the next time I picked it up, the screen was cracked”. Or, “I left my phone in the car overnight, and now it won’t turn on.” These types of issues are a mystery. Spontaneous breakages. I think it’s the aliens that did it. In reality, a lot of issues happen without us ever knowing why; it’s no secret that electronic devices will all eventually fail naturally over time.

4. Animal ate it.

Well, I can’t really say “ate it”, but truthfully there are many times that either the family dog thought the device was a chew toy, but we are also going to include dogs stepping on devices in this one. We hear this a lot: “my dog stepped on my iPad” and the next thing you know is that we’ve had to replace a cracked glass on the device.

3. Pulled by the cord while plugged in.

It’s never a good idea to plug your iPhone in then string the cord across the hallway so that your iPhone is sitting on a table. This is a recipe for disaster, and now that white cable that you treasure so preciously just became a tripwire for the next unsuspecting passerby. This issue causes a lot of cracked screens and charging port problems.

2. Liquid Damaged.

I just heard this on Friday: “I had my iPhone in my back pocket, started to pull down my pants to use the restroom…and ker-plunk my iPhone went into the toilet.” We love these (not really). Truthfully clean toilet water in the iPhone doesn’t scare me that much; but some of my technicians might think otherwise. Spilling a glass of water, jumping into a swimming pool with an iPhone in your pocket, or dropping your iPhone into a glass of beer at a Rolling Stones concert have all been reported.

AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON IS……………..

1. Dropped!

There’s not much more to say about this one. Drops are clearly the number one reason that customers call into Mission Repair for service. Some customers even state “I dropped my iPhone from about 3 feet onto the carpet. I can’t believe that it cracked!”. Believe it. To be honest I dropped my iPhone AGAIN this weekend (I left it in my lap while driving my truck, then just got out and forgot it was there) and it fell onto the concrete driveway. I watched it for a minute, picked it up and it was still in tact. Somehow. I think that I have 9 lives like a cat when it comes to things like this, but I’m on #8.

And there you have it. Straight from the customer’s experience. Let me give you one more “abstract” testimonial from a long-time customer of ours that flies with the Blue Angels Navy Team. Lt. Amy Tomlinson took her trusty MacBook with her on a flight, and slammed the canopy of her F/A-18 Hornet crushing the screen. She called us at Mission Repair and we got her back in working order in no time. I’ve recently talked with Lt. Tomlinson and asked her about that MacBook. She was proud to say the she upgraded herself into a new unit; but the original “smashed then repaired” laptop was still being used by her mother after several years. That’s just awesome!

Have a great week, I’ll be back soon.

Ryan

How do I send my broken phone to Mission Repair?

Hello again folks-

We are constantly asked “How does your service work?” or something to that effect- and we’ve done a good job of explaining this on our website. But I agree that sometimes it can be a little confusing and websites might be easy for some, but unclear to others. Let’s see if this blog might help.

Firstly we take repairs in from all over the USA. We are not just a “local” walk-in type store; in fact, 90 percent of what we do is mailed in. Maybe you didn’t know that.

When a customer places an order with us, there are several options available to get the device in to Mission Repair.

1. You can just send your device into us however you’d like.

That’s right. Many of our customers have packaging material and a way to ship units into us. Simply just use mail, UPS, FedEx or any other carrier of your choice and when we receive it, we’ll input into the repair system.

2. You can have us email you a shipping label.

This is by far our most popular option. Customers can typically find some kind of box to ship their device into us. Once it’s packaged by the customer and an order is placed in our system, an email label will automatically be generated and emailed to the customer. It’s then printed out and taped to the box. This label is pre-paid and will be carried by FedEx. Once the label is attached, the customer then either calls FedEx for a pickup, drops the package at their business shipping department for FedEx pickup, or is taken to the nearest FedEx Office location for shipment.

3. We can send the appropriate shipping materials to you, with a FedEx return label already affixed.

This is for the truly seamless experience. We’ll deliver an appropriate box to you at your location. You slip your device into the box. You seal it with the provided tape. You call FedEx for a pickup, or deliver it to the nearest FedEx Office location. Simple, fast and even my grandmother could figure it out. You know grandmas need help from time to time!

4. Just drop it off at one of our locations.

This is clearly for those customers that are within driving distance from one of our stores.

Just stop on by during normal business hours and drop it off! We don’t require appointments, and are open 7 days a week for your assistance. Come on in and say hello, we’re happy to have you stop by. Don’t see a location in your area? Just hang tight. We are talking about our next location that will be announced soon!

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back soon with more great info.

Ryan