Good news for “older” iPhones! OS 9.2.1

Hello there everyone,

AppleInsider today reported that the iOS 9.2.1 update can potentially make iOS 9 a smoother experience for people with older iPhones, according to a new series of YouTube videos featuring side-by-side comparisons with devices running iOS 8.4.1.

Although installing 9.2.1 still causes an iPhone 4S or 5 to boot slower, once in action the software can load apps as fast or faster than 8.4.1 in many circumstances, according to the article. Boot times are said to be speedier than 8.4.1 when running the software on an iPhone 5s, which was also the first iPhone with a 64-bit processor.

A consistent problem with iOS has been the tendency for devices as little as a year or two old to suddenly see slowdowns after upgrading to a new version. This is despite the fact that Apple will deliberately disable some processor-intensive features on older hardware.

A lawsuit filed last month accuses Apple of misleading customers with the claim that iOS 9 is compatible with devices ranging back to the iPhone 4S. In reality Apple is practicing planned obsolescence, the case charges, since people who update a 4S will take a performance hit but find themselves unable to downgrade to 8.4.1 or earlier — nudging them towards buying newer hardware.

We all know that these devices update and upgrade faster than our contracts allow, so unless you’re one of the few that just simply wants and can afford the newest piece of hardware every 6 months, you’ll want to extend the life of your “old” device for a long as possible to maximize your investment.  That’s where Mission Repair can help, so if you have a problem with your phone, we will be happy to take care of it for you.  If you want to upgrade your software, at least Apple is still helping some of the older units at the moment, enjoy!

See ya, Ryan

iPhone 5 series screen assemblies – in demand.

Hello friends,

It’s come to everyone’s attention in the repair industry that iPhone 5, 5C and 5S screens are in limited supply, and vendors have already started raising prices on some screens due to demand.

Let’s play “What’s in the box?” With parts in high demand, sometimes our orders are short!

In fact, there are some vendors that are already out of stock on popular items like the Black iPhone 5S; with no ETA on new inventory. This is apparently the result of the Apple production lines shutting down manufacturing of these parts, and with not a lot of stock on hand, the supplies are drying up quickly.

It’s easy to forget that we had a similar situation a couple of years back for the iPhone 4 lines of screens- and it takes the retooling and setup of a new production line in a different manufacturing plant to solve the issue. It was scary at the time, but we will be back at normal production rates – and probably lower prices – when the move is over.

So we may be in an iPhone 5/5C/5S screen drought here very soon; we will keep you posted with news and releases of parts as they come to us, but for the immediate future is seems that we will be OK. At Mission Repair we’ve done our best to grab inventory quickly and get stock on our shelves to attempt to ride out any shortages that may come about.

I’ll let you know more as we are made aware. Ryan