You don’t need to replace your iPhone parts at an Apple store, but if you don’t, will it end your iPhone’s warranty?
Phones break, and while that’s a part of life, getting a phone fixed is also something equally in our control, particularly where you do it and if it saves you money. While an in-warranty phone may come with a degree of savings, depending on what’s broken and how it happened, you may opt to get something replaced elsewhere beyond the official store, because sometimes those elements can cost serious money.
Take what happens when you drop and break an Apple Watch. When the screen is smashed to smithereens, and you just know you shouldn’t be using it (because it’s broken glass), Apple can charge well over half the wearable’s outright price to replace the screen if you don’t have AppleCare, but will drop the price back to something closer to a quarter the cost if you do.
We’re still not entirely sure if everyone needs AppleCare, but it can save Apple customers money if they’ve purchased big ticket items like an Apple Watch or an iPad, and are worried they’ll need a screen replacement.
But what if you end up repairing outside of Apple, and going to a third party repair shop: will this void your warranty?
Will you void your iPhone’s warranty if you repair outside of Apple?
The good news is that if you decide to get your iPhone repaired outside of Apple, you won’t break the warranty for the iPhone. Australians get two years of iPhone warranty before AppleCare is involved, and that means you have two years worth of Apple’s prices for battery failures — which are typically free — plus whatever Apple charges for screen replacement if you break something yourself. We’re not suggesting you’ll always need to pay Apple for that, but if screen damage was incurred by a drop, you might want to expect that.
Apple’s service costs will naturally differ from third party repairers, not to mention availability, since you have to book for Apple, so it won’t be altogether surprising if some people opt to repair an iPhone using a third party rather than Apple itself.
If you do, however, Apple’s iPhone warranty won’t be broken for the replacement parts, but Apple won’t cover the replaced parts. Specifically, Apple’s iPhone warranty in Australia acknowledges that it won’t apply:
to damage caused by service (including upgrades and expansions) performed by anyone who is not a representative of Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (“AASP”)
Specifically, it means that if you get an iPhone screen or battery replaced by someone other than an official Apple repairer, if that screen or battery breaks, Apple won’t replace it as part of your Apple warranty. You won’t have voided or killed your iPhone warranty, but those parts won’t be replaced for free as part of your iPhone’s standard warranty.
