Apple will now let you do some DIY laptop repairs at home, for a fee. The company is expanding its self-service repair program from just certain iPhones to include its MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops with M1 chips starting tomorrow, according to a press release.
However, as with its previous smartphone program, there’s still one big problem: home repairs require a full set of proprietary parts that customers will have to purchase from the company, as well as tools that Apple encourages you to rent or buy them. a premium Apple also announced that it will expand its DIY repair program for phones and laptops in Europe later this year.
For the current incarnation of the program in the United States, a laptop repair rental kit will cost $49 (including shipping) for one week of use. The kits will include all the tools specific to a particular laptop model, though apparently not the main parts, which will have to be purchased separately.
The cost of the laptop rental kit is the same as the £79 massive two-part iPhone repair rental kit currently available on Apple’s website. However, Apple spokesman Nick Leahy told Gizmodo via email that laptop and phone repair kits are significantly different. “For example, with the iPhone, we ship a heated screen opener, which is not necessary for Mac repairs,” he clarified.
In addition to the rental kit option, customers will also be able to permanently purchase individual tools and parts. The individual price of these parts will vary depending on the solution, but will likely be higher than buying tools from other sources, which the wording of Apple’s announcement discourages.
For reference: The parts alone to replace an iPhone 12 battery sell on Apple’s site for $70.99, which doesn’t include the cost of the tools needed for the repairs. Just one of those necessary tools, a torque controller, retails through Apple for $80 (although you can buy torque controllers elsewhere if you’re experienced enough to know what will work for the job) . Compare that to the estimated cost of replacing the iPhone 12 battery through Apple’s repair service, which is just $69.
Leahy could not immediately provide price estimates for a DIY MacBook Air battery replacement, but the online estimate for the service through Apple is $129.
Since the DIY repair option can easily be more expensive than paying Apple to do it for you, it’s clear that the company isn’t interested in making its tools and parts accessible to all of its customers. Even with the rental option, you can’t just rent the tools you need, you have to get the $49 kit.
In fact, the company says this in its announcement: “For the vast majority of customers who have no experience in repairing electronic devices, visiting a professional repair provider with certified technicians who use genuine Apple parts is the safest and most reliable way to get a repair,” Apple wrote.
Historically, the company’s Mac laptops have been aluminum “black boxes.” Something goes wrong: a trackpad breaks, a screen cracks, a battery dies, and for years the only solution available to most has been to make an appointment at the Genius Bar. Even independent repair shops have not been safe from the company’s extensive and ongoing fight against the right to repair.
However, updates to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act made last year meant that repairing your own devices should be easier. The arrival of Apple’s DIY kits is something of a shift in the right direction, but the cost of official Apple parts and tools (even for tool rentals) is still prohibitive.
We’ve also reached out to Apple to ask if Mac replacement parts will require a serial number, which is a practice in place for the iPhone self-repair program that prevents third-party stores from having a steady supply pieces by hand