I have an iPhone 5s bought in 2014 when it was the latest. It had been functioning satisfactorily until this August. I was traveling and in order to charge it I had to balance it precariously on top of a switch board. Needless to say it fell flat on it’s face twice. After that it began freaking out, the touch screen would not respond and it became difficult to take calls. On examining it in the sunlight there was a hairline crack on the screen. Being an Indian and not believing in the ‘use and throw’ policy of the west I took it to the authorised Apple Service Centre. It was an impressive place with service technicians sitting in a row across the table to customers, who where telling them the problem with their phones. The technicians would nod sympathetically.
There were plenty of glamorous faces waiting for their turn. In order to get an appointment with a technicians I had to get a token from a machine at the entrance. It spat out a slip with a number printed on it . When my turn finally came I found myself sitting across a young man wearing the mandatory Apple tee shirt. I told him my problem and he nodded sympathetically. Then he gave me a solution, “most probably the display is damaged” he said.
I felt like kissing him for his brilliance.
“You can leave the phone and we will have to send it to Bangalore for diagnosis”.
Sounded okay so far to me so I nodded.
Then came the double whammy, “In case the display has to be changed it will cost you ₹14000/-” he said.
“Can you say that again!” I said not really believing my ears. He smiled and patiently repeated himself. I immediately picked up my phone and thanked him profusely for his time and politely enquired whether I owed him anything for the consultation, which he graciously declined. I also asked him how much I would get for a buy back offer, to which he referred me to sales department. There I discovered I could get a princely reduction on the purchase of another model of ₹2000/-.
Now what to do with the phone was the question. Repair would cost 14k and exchange would get me 2k, choice between the Devil and the deep blue sea.
So I decided to take a second opinion. Gym trainers are the people to get the best advice. They deal with a cross section of people. One of them advised me to go to the electronic market in front of Shani Mandir and seek the repair shop of an individual. He apparently was very famous and everyone knew him.
Shani Mandir is very congested area and parking is a nightmare. I decided not even to attempt parking there and instead parked at least half a kilometer away and walked into the market, feeling happy getting some more mileage on my fitness tracker.
He did turn out to be a well known person because on enquiring I was told to walk down a particular lane and his repair shop would be at the end. The problem was there two repair shops at the end of the road and since I only knew the name of the person it was difficult for me to decide which was the correct shop. I also didn’t feel like barging into a shop and enquiring whether it belonged to the person as they would definitely be rivals. So I went to a neighbouring shop dealing in electronic parts and asked him. I was surprised when he claimed to be totally oblivious of such a person. So I entered one of the shops and saw the person behind the counter was a Sardar. Wrong shop I thought and immediately made an exit. Then I went to the next shop and was relieved to find the name of the owner written in small print on the board.
On entering the store I was surprised to find that they also had a set up in a similar to the Apple service center, albeit on a smaller scale. The person manning the counter asked me the problem and went further than sympathetically nodding, he expertly removed two screws at the base of the mobile then with a metal spatula he levered the display off. First time I had seen the inside of an iPhone. I could make out the black battery in an interior coloured black. I remembered Steve Job was particular that the inside should also be as presentable as the outside.
Again the diagnosis was a display problem and that it had gone into an automatic mode. You press one app and another is activated.
“The display may have to be changed” he said. “Okay!” I replied and waited for the whammy. “Original display will cost ₹3000/- and first copy will cost ₹1500/-“. I was a little amused with the terminology. There are degrees to duplicates, first degree and so on. I remember shopping for fake Swiss watches in Dubai. The shopkeeper refused to say fake, “It’s a replica Saar!”, they were Malayalees.
I was tempted to ask how much a 3rd or 4th copy would cost.
He went on to say that they will get back to me once they determine that the display has to be changed. Then I was given a sketch pen and asked to sign on the screen, presumably to prevent any replacement.
Two days later I got a call saying the display needs to be changed and I foolishly opted for the original. The phone came back as good as new. I have put it up for sale on OLX but the replaced ‘original’ display is eating my profit margin ☹️. But every cloud has a silver lining and at least it’s better than the ₹2000/- buy back.