25 year-old's company makes millions on cracked iPhone screens [video]

yeah thought the same. There are like 3-4 shops that do this in every city. When my girlfriend recently cracked her iPhone 4 screen i just went on ebay to get a new one for EUR 38 (Germany) and repaired it myself. Works totally fine now, i wouldnt do this on a brand new iphone 5 though ;)

iCracked repairs almost every aspect of an iDevice including power buttons!

This is definitely an issue, but I wouldn't say that Apple refuses to touch it.

My power button crapped out on me several days ago, and I got it replaced under the stock warranty (NOT Apple Care) with no questions asked by making an appointment at the Genius Bar. Another friend did the same thing at a different location, and they again fixed her phone with no hassle.

I offer this personal anecdote to others in case they find themselves in a similar situation: try going into your nearest store and see what happens.

Is $150 considered cheap in the US? I only ask as I had my iPhone4S screen repaired for just under £30 here in the UK by a local electronics shop and the quality was outstanding.

Huh? This doesn't make any sense. There is no IP right that lets you prevent non OEM parts to be installed in a product. If that were the case mechanics would all be out of business. There must have been another issue here.

Sounds like they was raided for having stolen OEM parts or likely something else illegal. Apple isn't a government body, they don't have licenses. There are a few reasons a business can be raided, taxes (and Miami clubs were notorious for not paying them) is damn near the #1 reason.

You can't use parts with Apple's logo on them.

Contra-anecdotal evidence: I owned 3 iPhones over the years (original, 3GS, 4S) and never used a case. I never broke anything on them. The only concession to preservation I made was to make sure it was the only thing in that pocket (no change, keys, pocketknife, etc. in there with it)

My Galaxy's screen broke the first time I dropped it :(

The 3G clearly had a much stronger screen. The 4 and up screens scratch as soon as you look at them the wrong way. Had a 3G for years and 0 scratches, had a 4S for a week and got 2.

We believe that this is absolutely scalable as we've watched successful growth into national and international markets. On the technology front, we have created an incredible on demand geolocational dispatch and communications service. Our unique iOS app for our worldwide iTechs empowers them to be connected to this service at all times allowing them to successfully run their businesses. We're really doing some pretty exciting things beyond fixing phones and we can't wait for everyone to see what's next with our technologies.

It is just a PR piece to get attention of potential funding sources. As I mentioned previously in my comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5272017, I don't believe numbers add up. Business is unlikely to be scalable or around in next 5 years.

Well venture funding helps you take advantage of a time window really. That is, if we added substantial cash resources to this company could it capture way more market share and be in a much better position in 5 years (vs not taking cash now and growing organically) If yes, great. How big is the market? Needless to say there are a lot of screens out there and they're growing fast. Tech should only matter here in that is it being used well to out execute competitors as a service based business.

Having had several android phones, I can definitely say the gorilla glass 2 on my nexus 4 works and feels a LOT better than any other phone I've used regularly. (I don't like the slick back so much, have a rubber case for that reason)... I've only dropped it once (in a parking lot) and lucky it didn't break.

I have seen plenty of plastic phones break too. I'd rather have something that works better in my hand.

The capacitive technology that powers multitouch screens requires (or works much better with) glass, I believe. Also, LCD technology itself requires glass. The less and thinner the layers, the closer it feels like your finger gets to the image, and the better the UX is. There are iPhone cases that essentially do what you are suggesting with a plastic overlay.

Me too, my Bold was so much better. I miss that week of battery life, I'm forever charging this thing. Admittedly the iPhone does more, my bb browser sucked, but the camera was great, the damn thing could get run over by one of those stupid big pick up trucks and still work and the keyboard was a million times better than touch on the iPhone. I switched because I got sick of waiting for bb to bring out something new. Finally they have so maybe it's time.

I think glass seemed cooler so they went with it, maybe the front needs it for their current tech in screens, but making the back on the 4 out of glass was just bad design.

Haha, still working on the millions part. We're launching an insurance company, buyback, and redistribution in the next 6 months so we're really excited about that.

Thanks for the comments, good and bad :)

Prices vary from iTech to iTech so we need a bit of information to connect you with an iTech to find out the price for their services.

If you're interested, we also have mail-in and DIY services that you can check out on our shop here:

http://shop.icracked.com

The glass on the devices appears to be "generic", not really "apple glass". They manufacture them in China. This is a great article on them; http://www.inc.com/30under30/burt-helm/icracked-aj-forsythe-...

Yes, the iCracked iPhone 4 screen repair usually runs around $80 with a 99 Year Part Warranty. iPhone 5 Parts are more costly right now and thus the repair cost is higher.

In the IPhone 5, the glass and digitizer are bonded. Apple charges $149 to replace them. I'm sure it's possible to do it cheaper.

i believe iphone 4s and 5 have welded glass or something making it much harder to replace alone. as a result usually they replace lcd+glass which make it much more expensive.

That's pretty much true of any body in the Apple ecosystem though should they take a direct interest.

So it's just like App companies then.

Indeed. Throw-away society, bad for the environment.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted.

You could have made the same point without saying "Stupid title".