iFixit: a Repair Service at Home
Just like people need sometimes to consult a doctor to improve their health, our gadgets intermittently require technical support. Even if you are not so handy with repair and don't totally understand mechanical details of your favorite device, there is still no reason why you should get upset about the money and time you might spend on mending a damaged tool. Today, the world's largest repair guide iFixit helps you save money by giving step-by-step instructions on how to take apart the components of smartphones, tablets, games consoles, cameras, PCs, Mac computers, and even cars, and get them fixed correctly.
iFixit is a wiki-based website which was developed by a group of enthusiastic engineers in 2003. Their primary purpose was to provide users with easy-to-understand repair manuals for different popular gadgets because they strongly believed that a good online guide would reduce the number of e-waste and the environment would be better protected. So, as a result, we have a helpful resource which really teaches people how to fix almost anything.
In general, the iFixit service consists of three main parts: guides, answers, and store. Let's have a look at each of them.
Guides
According to iFixit's reports, the guide part of the site contains thousands of comprehensive photo and video instructions for PCs, Mac computers, phones, tablets, cameras, game consoles, and cars. Of course, not every problem of any possible device model is described and solved, but the most frequently faced troubles of popular devices are successfully dealt with. So, to find a solution for your problem, you should first access the website, find and click the Guides button at the top of the page, choose the type of the device you need to repair (Tablet/Phone/etc), find the developer of your device (Apple/Blackberry/etc), specify the model, and finally choose the necessary aspect of the issue. Then you will see easy-to-follow instructions with each step explained and demonstrated by highly depictive photos. The content is so informative and the pictures are so illustrative that, I guess, you can hardly fail to manage your problem.
It should be also mentioned that every user of iFixit has an opportunity to edit any texts and photos in the manuals. Moreover, a user is empowered to create own repair guides, teardowns, device and troubleshooting pages. To share technical knowledge, he or she just should register the account on the site.
Answers
iFixit
A friendly iFixit community welcomes users' questions about repair issues and actively tries to answer them. More than 55,000 questions and answers fall into different categories and supply you with the needed information.
Store
Can any mending be imagined without tools and replacement parts? Probably, not. To carry out a significant repair of any device, you need professional-grade tools. iFixit has taken care of it as well. On the site you can visit online shops to buy what you are looking for at a reasonable price. Many sets of tools by manufactures from different countries are presented there. A great number of instruments are accompanied by true feedback stories of people who have used them.
Briefly I'd like to point out some additional interesting features of iFixit service:
- In the Teardown section you can see how a gadget looks inside.
- The Skills section offers you to improve the skills necessary to perform certain kinds or repairs.
- The Donate Your Device option allows you to give an old device to iFixit team to get a repair guide for it in future.
- The iFixit service supports the most popular mobile platforms (iOS, Android, and Windows Phone).
- The iFixit website creates the warm atmosphere for its users.
- The iFixit service has accounts on Twitter and Facebook, as well as own blog and YouTube channel.
