Safe and profitable? Apple will allow Russian service centers to officially repair their equipment

The American company Apple announced the expansion of the cooperation program with independent service centers (IRP - Independent Repair Provider). Russia has entered the list of countries that may apply for participation this week. So repair services will be able to receive original components, repair manuals and diagnostic tools from Apple.

“The Apple Independent Repair Provider program will soon become available to more than 200 countries, that is, in almost all states where Apple products are sold,” the company said. “Now there are more than 1.5 thousand points of independent suppliers of repair services serving customers in the USA, Canada and Europe.”

Only those service centers in which certified Apple gadgets who have surrendered annual online examination at an authorized testing center will be able to become participants in the IRP program. If there are appropriate certificates, services may apply for participation in the program. After consideration, they will gain access to free training in Apple products, as well as to original components, tools, diagnostic means and repair management.

Together with Russia, service centers from another 37 countries, including Afghanistan, Japan, Turkey, Brazil and others, will be able to participate in the program this week. Until the end of 2021, the company plans to connect even more than 120 countries, for example, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia and Uzbekistan.

The editor -in -chief of the iPhones.ru portal Nikita Goryainov told MBH Media that judging by how IRP works in the USA, it has not only positive aspects.

“The program itself looks positive. <...> However, the cooperation program at the moment (judging by the situation in the United States) has several important restrictions that may affect the real benefit of the program for the final consumer, ”he said.

According to him, the fact is that under the terms of the contract in force in the United States, Apple will sell only a few types of spare parts to partner service centers.

“Say, the battery and display will be able to buy, but no matters of the motherboard level. These can only be ordered by an authorized service center, the status of which is not provided for by this program. Secondly, becoming a participant in this cooperation program, the service center is actually obliged to refuse to use non-original spare parts in any repairs, ”added the editor-in-chief of iPhones.ru .

At the same time, he noted, Apple has the right to inspect the participant at any time, and if non -original spare parts were used in more than 2% of his repairs, then for each case it will require $ 1,000.

In addition, according to Goryainov, the IRP program partner will not be able to become a service center that uses the images and the Apple logo as its brand, and also puts a symbol on signs or site. However, a large number of service centers resort to such advertising.

This is far from all the difficulties that gadget repair masters may encounter. For example, the program participants will have to publish on their website a notification that their organization is not an authorized Apple service center. Also, when concluding the contract, customers will have to sign the consent that they trust the repair of the unauthorized center. Given all these factors, in the United States, many organizations refused to participate in the IRP program.

“But so far we do not know what conditions will exhibit Apple to the program participants specifically in Russia. I hope that they will not be so strict, otherwise it will be more profitable for simple service centers. Most of them did not interfere with the impossibility of ordering the original spare parts at all: they simply deceived the client, claiming that their spare parts are original, or they got restored original spare parts inside the market from other service centers and from Chinese suppliers, ”concluded Goryainov.