Update: 1/5/10

See all of our iPhone “Do-It-Yourself” warnings posts at this link. They have become some of the most popular posts on the MacMedics Blog because they are true. Check’ em out!

So we’ve been over this before, but well meaning folks are still trying the Do-It-Yourself route on iPhones.

By our calculations you might save about $40 by doing the repair on your own, when trying to fix an iPhone 3G. If you make a mistake it’s going to be more. Also, if you’re considering this route, be sure to factor in all the costs.

1. Parts (are they real or copies?)

7. What’s the risk factor of doing a complex iPhone repair you’ve never done before.

The people that sell the parts are often the same people that make the step-by-step videos. Yes! it looks easy on video, because they edit out all the re-tries to remove the broken glass, the part where they get cut, and where they crack the LCD and/or destroy the iPhone’s frame.

When you take apart an iPhone the first few times, you’re going to mess something up. We know because we’ve seen the end results. Even if you bail on your DIY repair and come to us, our service might end up costing more if we have to un-do a previous repair attempt. MacMedics has performed the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S screen/lens/glass/digitizer repair hundreds of times, so we know what we’re doing, and we can do it fast!

We had to share this e-mail and photos with you. The names have been removed to protect the innocent.

“Hi, I wanted to contact you to find out if you can help me fix my iPhone 2g.

Thank you.”

See this photo in a large size

Needless to say, this iPhone is likely beyond our help. As this is really bad and it does not appear to be disassembled in a static safe workspace to boot.

Thank you to our loyal MacMedics clients, who keep bringing us more iPhones to fix AND for telling their friends about us.

We’re finding that more and more iPhone users are just super, super dependent on their iPhones. Heavy duty users can’t even stand to leave their iPhone for same-day service (Usually only a few hours). So, to help the people that need a repaired iPhone 3G right now, we now offer Emergency While-You-Wait glass/digitizer service for the iPhone 3G (iPhone 3G S Emergency service is coming soon!)

Just bring your broken iPhone 3G into our Millersville Mac Lab and we’ll just install a new iPhone 3G top glass, digitizer, home button, and frame (all at once) for you in about 5 minutes. Maybe you’re catching a flight out of town (at nearby BWI), or you just need to get back to work right away, we’ll do it on the spot for you.

A nice side benefit, is folks that have both the common broken glass (the iPhone 3G lens) AND a broken LCD (the screen under the glass) and want their iPhone fixed on the spot can also have the repair done in about 5 minutes.

The price for this service is $199. with a 1-year warranty on the new part. Show us that you’re following MacMedics on Twitter or sign up for the MacMedics e-mail newsletter and we’ll knock off $10 this or any other iPhone, iPod, or Macintosh service!

Just give us a call at 1-866-MAC-MEDICS for more details.

We’ve been doing tons of iPhone 3G and 3G S repairs, so a big thank you to all of our new customers for sending units in, and many thanks to old customers for all of the referrals!

Our most popular repair continues to be the iPhone 3G glass/digitizer repair, which we perform with one-way FedEx shipping for $109.99. MacMedics is now also offering the iPhone 3G S glass/digitizer repair as well for $129.99 with one-way FedEx shipping.

We’re also adding a new iPhone 3G repair to our repertoire, as we now offer the iPhone 3G USB dock connector repair for $80 including one-way FedEx shipping.

Another new repair to join our list is the Nano 4th Generation glass lens replacement, which we offer for $69 with one-way FedEx shipping as well.

If you need to send us one (or more) of your sick iPods, iPhones, or Macs for repair, you can use this form to send with your unit. It even has a USPS shipping label you can clip out if you are sending via U.S. Mail.

Don’t forget we’re one of only a few repair firms that take trade ins of ANY iPod or iPhone in ANY condition. Use the value of something that’s just hanging around gathering dust to help defray your repair cost. Just make a note on your repair form, and use a piece of masking tape to label your trade in as “CREDIT”

Thanks, and always feel free to get in touch via e-mail if our service team can be of assistance or if you’d like to request two-way FedEx shipping for any repair. We’ll just e-mail you a PDF of a pre-paid FedEx label for return shipping. For this service we’ll add just $10 to your bill.

The Baltimore Sun published an article about MacMedics titled Local companies thrive with Apple on Thursday July 9th. BaltTech Blogger and Baltimore Sun Reporter Gus G. Sentementes wrote about how MacMedics has survived and prospered though both the highs and lows of Apple.

The article can be found here.

Thank you to all of our MacMedics clients and friends for making MacMedics possible and for supporting us since 1989.

I would also like to thank the Baltimore & Washington tech community (including a ton of folks from the Chesapeake Regional Tech Council and all the shout outs from attendees at their 5th annual BBQ held at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation HQ in Annapolis) for all of their support and various Internet and Twitter mentions. MacMedics is a member of the GCTC and we encourage other local tech firms to also consider membership.

Update 12/27/09: Be sure to see our new post with new pictures from next generation “fake” iPhone.

See large size photo here.

As you can see the case back is not fingerprint resistant.

See large size photo here.

The box looks pretty real, but it’s much taller then a real iPhone 3G box.

See large size photo here.

The crew here at MacMedics HQ in our Millersville, MD office often gets to see all kinds of crazy and interesting Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone carnage and unusual service/repair situations. We were all caught off guard on Friday when a new client called to ask if he could bring in a “counterfeit” iPhone 3G for us to examine. We told him to bring it on it anytime. We were not really sure what to expect.

Well, Friday was growing long, and we had visions of the evening’s Orioles vs. National game in Baltimore. Late in the afternoon our fake iPhoner showed up with the device he had bought off of eBay. Turns out, he’s going to try and get his money back and in order to do so PayPal requires that a local expert look at the situation, write a letter, and document the situation. Well, we’re not really experts on counterfeit iPhones, but all that was required was to point out as many differences as we could find, and to explain why we believe it’s not the real McCoy. As sort of a joke we went ahead and filmed the following YouTube video.

Update 7/1/09 – Thanks to Gus Sentementes of the Baltimore Sun’s BaltTech Blog for his post about our fake iPhone adventure! Also, thanks to www.macsurfer.com, www.macrumors.com, www.wired.com, www.boingboing.net, and www.cultofmac.com for the link to this post.

After I shot the below video, I did test some of the other features on the unit. While the icons look very much like the real iPhone 3G, the features were not easy to navigate to. As you can in the video I tried to go back to the “Video” part of the iPod function, and I could not get that navigation link to work in the video. The unit also has a pretty decent FM radio in it. I was fooling around with the different functions and tried the FM radio, and it requested that I plug in headphones. It wanted the headphones in so they could act as the radio’s antenna. The unit was smart enough to know the headphones were not plugged in and it also noticed when I did plug them in to test the radio. I tuned in our local NPR station (so not super high power) WYPR 88.1 FM and it came in great.

The video we took (via a real iPhone 3G S) is available below. So far it’s been viewed over 120,000 times!