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iFixit

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iFixit
Company typePrivately held company
Founded2003; 21 years ago (2003)
HeadquartersSan Luis Obispo, California, U.S.
Key people
 
Users1,200,000[2]
Content license
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA[3]
Websiteifixit.com

iFixit (/aɪˈfɪksɪt/ eye-FIX-it[4]) is an American e-commerce and how-to website that sells repair parts and publishes free wiki-like online repair guides for consumer electronics and gadgets. The company also performs product tear-downs of consumer devices. It is a private company in San Luis Obispo, California founded in 2003, spurred by Kyle Wiens[5] not being able to locate an Apple iBook G3 repair manual[6] while the company's founders[7] were attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Business model

An iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit

iFixit has released product tear-downs of new mobile and laptop devices which provide advertising for the company's parts and equipment sales.[8] These tear-downs have been reviewed by PC World,[9] The Mac Observer,[10] NetworkWorld,[11] and other publications.[12][13]

Co-founder Kyle Wiens[14] has said that he aims to reduce electronic waste by teaching people to repair their own gear,[15] and by offering tools, parts, and a forum to discuss repairs.[16] In 2011, he travelled through Africa with a documentary team to meet a community of electronics technicians who repair and rebuild the world's discarded electronics.[17]

iFixit provides a software as a service platform known as Dozuki to allow others to use iFixit's documentation framework to produce their own documentation. O'Reilly Media's Make and Craft magazines use Dozuki to feature community guides alongside instructions originally written by the staff for the print magazine.[18]

On April 3, 2014 iFixit announced a partnership with Fairphone.[19]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, iFixit and CALPIRG, the California arm of the Public Interest Research Group, worked with hospitals and medical research facilities to gather the largest known database of medical equipment manuals and repair guides to support the healthcare industry during the pandemic.[20]

Reception

In September 2015, Apple removed the iFixit app from the App Store in reaction to the company's publication of a tear-down of a developer pre-release version of the Apple TV (4th generation) obtained under Apple's Developer Program violating a signed Non-Disclosure Agreement, and accordingly, their developer account was suspended.[11] In response, iFixit says it has worked on improving its mobile site for users to access its services through a mobile browser.[21]

In April 2019, it was revealed that some Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S devices contain a physical Easter egg reading "Hi iFixit! We See You!",[22] demonstrating that device manufacturers are aware of iFixit.

In March 2022, Samsung announced that they would be collaborating with iFixit to provide a self-repair program and parts store for a range of their electronic devices.[23]

In April 2022, Google announced that they would be partnering with iFixit to provide replacement parts for their Pixel series of smartphones.[24]

Educational Collaboration

In iFixit’s success they have chosen to partner with almost 100 universities to give students real world experience on repair and technical writing. Since the inception of this practice, over twenty-eight thousand students have had the opportunity to write repair and troubleshooting guides, with over fifty thousand manuals being posted by students alone. Students utilizing this opportunity are given direct guidance from iFixit's educational page (edu.ifixit.com) and their technical writing team. Students participating in iFixit educational collaborations are commonly in a technical discipline (Engineering, Technical Writing, Computer Science, etc.) and are exposed to a course such as Technical Writing in their curriculum. A project such as this has immeasurable value for students in these disciplines, as in the technology field, it is extremely common for professionals to write very detailed documentation for their company for product creation. It is also common for professionals to write very general documentation for the consumer to operate, repair, and troubleshoot a product.

The educational collaboration consists of five main modules. The first is “Getting Started”. In this milestone, students are prompted to create their iFixit accounts, and, with their instructor’s assistance, are placed into teams and select or are assigned a device for their project. Once teams are assigned, students create a submit a project proposal, and send it to the technical writing team at iFixit.

The first official module is “Milestone 1”. In this milestone, students conduct research on their selected or assigned device, gathering as much information as possible on common issues, to use in their troubleshooting page, the next aspect of Milestone 1. Students are to compose a troubleshooting page and submit the draft to the iFixit technical writing team.

The second is “Milestone 2”. In this milestone students create the page for their device. This page includes photographs of the device, a section for troubleshooting, background information, technical specifications, and any additional information are created for each topic. As is common with all milestones, once finished, students will submit a draft of their device page to the iFixit technical writing team.

The third is “Milestone 3”. In this milestone students compose a repair guide for the device; how to replace broken components in the device. Utilizing clear photographs and annotations, students will write these repair guides for others to have access to. Once finished, students will submit their draft repair guides to the iFixit technical writing team.

The final is “Milestone 4”. In this milestone, students are finishing their projects, reassembling devices, finalizing all guides, and reviewing all of their work. Once everything has been finalized and double checked, students are to submit their work to the iFixit technical writing team so that their work may be published on the website.

[25]

See also

References

  1. ^ Wiens, Kyle. "Kyle Wiens". kylewiens.com.
  2. ^ "Leaderboard". Archived from the original on 2017-01-03. Retrieved 2015-05-18.
  3. ^ "Content Licensing". Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  4. ^ "IFixit Channel Trailer!". YouTube. March 29, 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2022.
  5. ^ "Triangulation 373 Kyle Wiens, iFixit | TWiT.TV". TWiT.tv. Retrieved 2018-11-19.
  6. ^ "Meet the $21 Million Company That Thinks a New iPhone Is a Total Waste of Money". inc.com. 5 April 2017. Archived from the original on 5 April 2017. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  7. ^ Wiens, Kyle (14 June 2013). "Fix Things, Never Force It: Lessons From Grandpa". theatlantic.com. Archived from the original on 17 June 2013. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  8. ^ "How iFixit Uses Teardowns As Marketing 3.0, by Leander Kahney, Cult of Mac Sep. 18, 2009, retrieved July 2, 2010". Archived from the original on September 24, 2009. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  9. ^ "17-inch MacBook Pro Gets Torn to Pieces". PCWorld. Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  10. ^ "iFixit Shares MacBook Air Take Apart || The Mac Observer". www.macobserver.com. Archived from the original on 10 August 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  11. ^ a b Brown, Bob (30 September 2015). "Apple gives iFixit app the boot". Network World. Archived from the original on 2 October 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
  12. ^ "iFixit in the Press". Archived from the original on 12 April 2012. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
  13. ^ "iFixit in the Press and Media". www.ifixit.com. Archived from the original on 10 August 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  14. ^ Wiens, Kyle (20 July 2012). "I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why". Harvard Business Review. Archived from the original on 22 December 2014. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  15. ^ Taub, Eric A (20 July 2010). "Cooling Your Laptop, or Your Lap?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 23 July 2010. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  16. ^ Biersdorfer, J. D. (22 September 2010). "Ways to Remove a Broken Plug". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 23 July 2012. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  17. ^ Wiens, Kyle (7 October 2011). "Why Fixers Will Save Our Planet". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 19 January 2012. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
  18. ^ Foresman, Chris (2011-08-18). "Dozuki will drag service manuals kicking, screaming into 21st century". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2023-01-06. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
  19. ^ iFixit and Fairphone – Fixing The Cell Phone Problem Archived 2020-06-08 at the Wayback Machine, IFixit e-mail of April 3, 2014 (web version)
  20. ^ Goode, Lauren (May 19, 2020). "Right-to-Repair Groups Fire Shots at Medical Device Manufacturers". Wired. Archived from the original on May 20, 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  21. ^ Wiens, Kyle (2015-09-29). "iFixit App Pulled from Apple's App Store". iFixit. Archived from the original on 2023-01-06. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
  22. ^ Robertson, Adi (2019-04-12). "Oculus says 'tens of thousands' of its new controllers include secret messages". The Verge. Archived from the original on 2021-02-09. Retrieved 2021-05-02.
  23. ^ Amadeo, Ron (2022-08-03). "Samsung and iFixit launch repair program for flagship phones and tablets". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2023-01-06. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
  24. ^ Amadeo, Ron (2022-06-30). "iFixit and Google launch official Pixel parts store". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2023-01-06. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
  25. ^ https://edu.ifixit.com/ |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=iFixit
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