Think twice about that iPad.

Hello everyone-

We’ve seen it far too often; we receive an iDevice (like an iPad, iPod or iPhone) come in for a repair or diagnosis only to find this screen upon boot up:

This is a screen shot from an iPhone that was deliberately erased by it’s owner; presumably because it was lost or stolen. As you can see, only the original owner with the original email address and password can active it.

This feature is a security measure in the newest releases of the iOS on Apple devices, and it is working…and before giving away or selling your iOS device, be sure to erase your content and settings (in Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings). When you erase your content, Find My iPhone and Activation Lock are also turned off.

If you hand over your phone to another person (especially if you sell it over the internet and ship it to them) but DON’T erase your content, you can still do it remotely. If your phone is “lost” and you don’t want a potential stranger to access your data, you can erase and “deactivate” the phone leaving it worthless to the new owner as shown above.

We know what this means when we see this upon boot up at our service lab; typically customers buy a phone second hand not knowing whether the phone has been deactivated and it usually ends up bad for the new purchaser.

Buyer beware: if you purchase a used phone and it’s running iOS7 or greater, make sure that the device has been removed from the original purchaser’s accounts or you may end up with an expensive paperweight or in the worst case a stolen device. No one wants that.

Anyway, I thought that this was worth talking about as we’ve seen too many customers end up sour about their purchase. I’ll also remind you that if it sounds good to be true, it probably is – but you already knew that!

Alrighty- have a great weekend and I may see you at our Mission location tomorrow as we are performing several upgrades to the tech area in the morning. Stop by and say hi!!

Take care, Ryan

More iPhone 6 “Sapphire Glass” discussion.

Hello again everyone-

If you haven’t heard, there’s a lot of talk about the sapphire glass in the iPhone 6 due to release shortly, and we’ve learned lately that it’s possible the the 64GB model will indeed come with a sapphire glass.  In fact, we’re prepping services for the iPhone 6 as we speak:

 

We know that the technology and production is there; companies like Apple are making sapphire screens using manufacturers like GT Advanced Technologies. Apple may limit the use or release the sapphire screens on a limited basis initially; my personal guess is that if Apple unveils the “iWatch”, it WILL have a sapphire crystal screen on it. There might even be a “hybrid” sapphire glass formula a few sources have reported.  But heck, I really don’t know for sure.  I’m not Apple.

It still begs the question: Will customers really fall in love with the sapphire screen?

It’s logical that it will be more scratch resistant. That’s good. However I’ve personally owned just about every iPhone and I have never had a “scratched” screen problem.  It seems to me (coming from the repair industry) that a scratched screen would most likely mean a cracked screen. There’s little info on how well a large sapphire screen will stand up to a typical “cracking” scenario.

I’ve read that sapphire is more brittle than glass and is likely to be more prone to breakage than Gorilla Glass. Time will tell, but personally I’m not sure if I’d spend the extra money on a sapphire “option” quite yet – if there is one coming next week.

Food for thought…what have you heard?  I’ll talk to you again soon, Ryan

Gesundheit!

Good afternoon friends-

How was your Labor Day? I had a nice relaxing day yesterday…all except for the fact that my allergies to the pollen in the Kansas City area have been terrible. It feels like I’ve been eating OTC allergy medicine for my meals recently 😉 The last couple of weeks have been a little miserable, and it seems like Sudafed just isn’t helping any more at this point. So I’ve upgraded to the pseudoephedrine/cetrizine combination which seems to be working…

So I think I have the itchy eyes and sneezing under control this afternoon which feels great! I normally don’t have this kind of “hay fever” this late in the year; it probably has something to do with the climate changes in the world today.

Anyhow, that’s enough about my medical problems for today and I’ll be back tomorrow with a few great blogs. I have the ideas flowing. Did you see Melanie’s blog earlier today about our new pricing on the iPhone, 5, 5C and 5S screen repairs? It’s been a huge hit.

I’ll talk to you again tomorrow, have a good night.

Ryan

HINT: Mission Repair Labor Day weekend specials are coming! Check out the new price on iPhone 5C repairs.

Good morning – this is a quick “spoiler” blog for the upcoming Labor Day weekend specials that we’ll be running. The prices are already starting to drop.

Today, the iPhone 5C Screen Repair has been lowered to $109. That’s for the parts and labor to be installed on your phone. If you have a cracked screen on your iPhone 5C, this is the lowest price that you’ve ever seen for the service that you’ll receive from Mission Repair!

There are many other great specials that will begin shortly. Want to know how to be the first on the list to know? Just sign up for our newsletter here and join the tens of thousands of other subscribers that gets Mission Repair info fast. If you sign up, you can always unsubscribe with no worries about a ton of SPAM coming your way. I hate junk email, I wouldn’t do that to you.

We’ll be back with money saving deals available only at Mission Repair very soon!

Take care, Ryan

Cement shoes.

Hello again everyone-

Wow, the construction progress is really coming along up at our Mission Repair Express location. I want to apologize for all of you that braved the construction mess yesterday. If you stopped by our Mission, Kansas location for a smartphone repair you saw that the sidewalk directly in front of our store was GONE! The jackhammers came out yesterday morning and drilled all day long.

Today, we have a BRAND NEW BEAUTIFUL sidewalk! The contractors said that we can walk on it in about 2 more hours, so the construction “pain” is almost complete. The issue is that it’s wet now; so if you make the trek in the next hour you might find yourself with some cement shoes. Please be patient – the weather is cooperating with us and it’s HOT outside. My guess is that within a couple of hours it will be ready!

Thanks for your patronage. We had over 50 people walk in to our Mission location yesterday despite the construction; thank you. I promise that it’s almost over!

Best, Ryan