apple lcd screen repair cost made in china

As part of the highly sophisticated fraud scheme run by organised teams, rings of thieves were buying or stealing iPhones and removing valuable components like CPUs, screens and logic boards, replacing them with fake components, said the report on Monday citing more than a half-dozen former employees familiar with the fraud.

The thieves would then walk into an Apple Store and return the iPhones, claiming they were broken. After receiving the replacements, the thieves then resold the valuable parts.

Apple gradually tightened the norms surrounding its repair practices to check the fraud, leading to a drop in the fraudulent repairs in the region from a peak of 60% to about 20%.

Use our “Get an Estimate” tool to review potential costs if you get service directly from Apple. The prices shown here are only for screen repair. If your iPhone needs other service, you’ll pay additional costs.

If you go to another service provider, they can set their own fees, so ask them for an estimate. For service covered by AppleCare+, your fee per incident will be the same regardless of which service provider you choose.

Your country or region offers AppleCare+ for this product. Screen repair (front) is eligible for coverage with a fee by using an incident of accidental damage from handling that comes with your AppleCare+ plan.

The Apple Limited Warranty covers your iPhone and the Apple-branded accessories that come in the box with your product against manufacturing issues for one year from the date you bought them. Apple-branded accessories purchased separately are covered by the Apple Limited Warranty for Accessories. This includes adapters, spare cables, wireless chargers, or cases.

Depending on the issue, you might also have coverage with AppleCare+. Terms and Conditions apply, including fees. Feature availability and options may vary by country or region.

We guarantee our service, including replacement parts, for 90 days or the remaining term of your Apple warranty or AppleCare plan, whichever is longer. This is in addition to your rights provided by consumer law.

Replacement equipment that Apple provides as part of the repair or replacement service may contain new or previously used genuine Apple parts that have been tested and pass Apple functional requirements.

Your product is eligible for a battery replacement at no additional cost if you have AppleCare+ and your product"s battery holds less than 80 percent of its original capacity.

Use our “Get an Estimate” tool to review potential costs if you get service directly from Apple. If you go to another service provider, they can set their own fees, so ask them for an estimate. For service covered by AppleCare+, your fee per incident will be the same regardless of which service provider you choose. We"ll inspect your product when we receive it. If additional damage is found, you could pay an additional fee.

Your country or region offers AppleCare+ for this product. AppleCare+ includes battery service coverage, which means your battery can be replaced at no charge if we test your product and its battery retains less than 80% of its original capacity.

AppleCare+ also provides coverage for accidental damage from handling, and each incident is subject to a service fee. Your AppleCare+ also offers Express Replacement Service.

The Apple Limited Warranty covers your iPhone and the Apple-branded accessories that come in the box with your product against manufacturing issues for one year from the date you bought them. Apple-branded accessories purchased separately are covered by the Apple Limited Warranty for Accessories. This includes adapters, spare cables, wireless chargers, or cases.

Depending on the issue, you might also have coverage with AppleCare+. Terms and Conditions apply, including fees. Feature availability and options may vary by country or region.

We guarantee our service, including replacement parts, for 90 days or the remaining term of your Apple warranty or AppleCare plan, whichever is longer. This is in addition to your rights provided by consumer law.

Replacement equipment that Apple provides as part of the repair or replacement service may contain new or previously used genuine Apple parts that have been tested and pass Apple functional requirements.

As part of its new $149 iPhone screen replacement service, Apple has installed advanced display calibration machines at its retail stores that help simplify the process for employees.

A picture of the new machine was published this week by 512pixels.net, offering a glimpse at how iPhone 5 screens are replaced behind the scenes at Apple retail stores. Employees conduct the repair, and the machine is used afterward to automatically calibrate the display"s functionality.

One Apple retail employee reportedly said the new machine is like "bringing China to the Genius Room," referencing the fact that Apple"s iPhones are currently built overseas by Foxconn.

iPhone repairs are said to have been made a priority for employees of Apple"s Genius Bars. With sales of 47.8 million iPhones last quarter alone, Apple"s smartphone sold more than every other product in the company"s portfolio combined.

Word first surfaced earlier this week that Apple began repairing iPhone 5 screens in its stores as part of the company"s overhaul of its AppleCare warranty program. Previously, broken units were swapped out for refurbished devices.

AppleInsider first reported in May that Apple would begin conducting advanced in-store repairs of iOS devices. Beyond iPhone displays, retail employees will be able to replace cameras, sleep/wake buttons, and logic-boards by July.

The Information is reporting today on Apple’s five-year struggle to tackle iPhone repair fraud. The scheme centres around crime gangs who were buying or stealing iPhones, removing valuable parts like CPUs and screens, and then claiming their devices were broken at Apple Stores and getting the Genius to replace them under warranty. The parts were then sold on.

At its peak, Apple was seeing 60% of warranty repairs in China and Hong Kong as being fraudulent, literally costing Apple billions of dollars per year. Apple first started taking the problem seriously in 2013, and the report goes on to detail the cat and mouse game that then ensued between the criminals and Apple as the company tried to tackle iPhone repair fraud …

Apple retail had taken a very laid back approach, swapping out faulty iPhones as long as they didn’t appear to be intentionally damaged. It had been estimated by executives that fraud represented less than 10% of claims.

However, in 2013, an Apple data scientist counted the number of iPhones that switched Apple IDs after being repaired. This provided a very good estimate of the number of fraudulent replacements, as legitimate customers would naturally log back in to the same Apple ID they were already using. Criminals getting repairs for stolen iPhones lit up like red flags across Apple’s system. The problem of iPhone repair fraud was finally taken seriously inside Apple.

This counting showed the actual reality; more than 60% of repairs in China were fraudulent. The Information says that in the 2013 financial year, Apple had set aside $1.6 billion for warranty repair costs. The company ended up spending $3.7 billion in that period, with much of that gap explained by Chinese fraud.

Initially, Apple stopped allowing walk-in repairs and required reservation systems that supposedly ensured proof of ownership was provided. The system was beaten by hackers who exploited vulnerabilities in the web system who sniped all the time slots.

Apple then required candidate iPhone devices to run software diagnostics which would identify any fake parts inside, without requiring store staff to disassemble components and perform inspections. The thieves circumvented this by simply making the iPhones not turn on.

Some criminals were even more sophisticated. They acquired Apple customer records for iPhones that had already been sold, and then configured their fake iPhones to report these already sold serial numbers, including physical etching. This would fool Apple into providing warranty repairs for iPhones that should really already have expired coverage.

Apple adapted, but the fraudsters were relentless. In one particularly violent case, a manager at an Apple Store was threatened with a cattle prod when criminals tried to bribe out customer data.

Apple now requires all warranty iPhone replacements to be sent off to special repair centers that can do more rigorous testing. Apple even added security measures to its iPhone components, including invisible dyes on batteries, and coating iPhone CPUs in special waterproof sealants that are tuned to specific wavelengths.

The Information report blames Apple’s internal secrecy as one reason why it took Apple so long to get on top of this problem. It took time for supply chain logistics, manufacturing and AppleCare departments to collaborate and work together on meaningful solutions.

It took almost five years, but it seems like Apple’s practices is finally countering the criminals and iPhone repair fraud is being reduced. It is now estimated that fraudulent repairs in China have dropped from the peak of 60% to about 20%. However, Apple is now facing similar issues in other markets, like Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. It’s a never-ending war for the world’s biggest company.

“Original” screens are those containing LCDs manufactured for Apple. “Copy” screens are compatible replacements entirely designed and manufactured by third-party companies not associated with Apple.

LCD display panel can have poorer resolution (i.e. looks “coarser”), worse brightness, contrast and vibrancy and reduced refresh rate amongst other problems.

Changes in specification from original can result in battery and performance issues. Certain badly-engineered screens could even damage the backlight circuitry.

Customers who bring their iPhones to us for a screen repair are offered two choices of replacement- an original or a “copy” screen. The most common response is “Is there a difference- and which one would you recommend?”

Originals are those screens containing LCDs that were manufactured for Apple. So-called “copy” screens are compatible replacements, but designed and manufactured entirely independently by third-party companies, typically in China.

Our answer is simple- the original screen is the one we’d go for ourselves, every time. Some people think we make more money on them, but this isn’t the case. We recommend originals because they’re far higher quality and the price difference is fairly small.

We’d rather only fit original screens. The only reason we don’t is that many people will shop around and choose purely on price. As such, we need to offer the cheaper copy screens to remain competitive and avoid losing these customers. In some cases, they didn’t even know there was a difference in the first place- especially since it’s not in some shops’ interest to draw people’s attention to the issue!

This may well be the worst copy screen we’ve ever come across. As a result, the unfortunate customer has ended up paying twice to have their screen replaced- we’re sure that had they been properly informed, they would have chosen an original in the first place.

While the difference in price between copies and originals can vary across devices, it’s generally around £10 – £14 extra to have an original screen fitted. This really isn’t a lot considering the improved quality and reliability.

We compare our prices to our competitors- and we know that we come out of it favourably. While we have to offer copy screens to remain competitive, we always advise customers to go for the original.

When you’ve spent- directly or indirectly- several hundred pounds for an iPhone with a Retina display, it doesn’t make sense to replace it with a lower-quality screen that can make a £400 phone look like a £40 one! Not only that, but you’re likely to have fewer issues, and a longer-lasting screen.

There’s nothing stopping any random person without training or experience opening up a smartphone repair shop. As a result, the industry is full of companies with little skill or experience who are only interested in getting hold of your money and installing the cheapest parts they can find.

Many- if not most- don’t even acknowledge the existence of copy screens, let alone explain the difference to the customer. Hardly in their interest to do so if they only fit cheap, low-quality copies. Some of them can hardly be blamed- they know so little, they’re not even clear on the differences between OEM, non-OEM and copy displays themselves! Others can be more deliberately misleading… and some outright lie.

Generally, these shops are looking for the cheapest price on replacement screens.. When offered a copy at a half or a third of a price of the original, they’re going to go for that. That might be fine if they offered the customer a cheaper price- what we disagree with is selling “supermarket beans” (i.e. the copy screens) at “Heinz beans” prices!

Heading towards the “blatantly fraudulent”, we’re aware of companies that shamelessly fit copy screens while claiming them to be original. Worse, they’ll take your broken original screen and sell that to a recycler for more than they paid for your copy!

Obtained or manufactured “off the clock” via the same production line that produced them for Apple- in some cases, from the stockpile of parts that didn’t meet Apple’s standards, or

Apple tightened up their supply chain around 2015, which reduced the number of screens available for repairs and increased their price dramatically. A lot of companies went bankrupt, and Chinese manufacturers responded by making their own “copy” screens from scratch. At first, these weren’t much cheaper than the Apple ones, but the price soon fell.

We should be clear that- despite the name- “copy” screens aren’t direct copies of the Apple originals. Rather, they’re compatible replacements that have been designed from scratch and- as a result- vary in some respects that have an effect on usability and quality.

One of the most important differences between an original and a “copy” screen is how the digitizer (touch sensor) is designed. Apple has it manufactured as part of the LCD itself, whereas the copies have it on the glass.

Although there are only a small number of manufacturers of the bare LCDs themselves, these are then bought by countless other companies who add the remaining components needed to turn these into a complete working screen. As a result, you could easily end up with an LCD from the best “copy” manufacturer, but the digitizer/touch (as part of the separately-manufactured glass) from the worst.

There are countless digitizers out there, and you can only take the supplier’s word that the quality is good. Many ship good ones at first, then switch to cheaper parts to make more profit. This is particularly bad with the iPhone 6S and 6S+, since Apple moved the chips responsible for touch processing onto the LCD itself. As a result, you’re not just getting a copy screen- you’re getting copy chips too.

The performance specification (power drain, etc.) of most copy screens isn’t identical to the originals. As a result, they can drain the battery more quickly and mislead the operating system which was optimised for the original screen design.

It’s even possible that this mismatch could damage your backlight. We do a lot of subcontracted repairs for less-experienced shops, and get backlight repairs in almost every day. We’ve had cases where we fixed the circuit, fitted the new copy screen to test it, and had it break the circuit again!

Copy screens can disrupt the touch ID fingerprint reader. With the 6S, 6S+, 7 and 7+, the home button- part of the 3D touch- is part of the screen assembly. Frequently the home button flexes on aftermarket designs don’t work properly and stop the touch ID working- annoying if you use it to unlock the phone or log in to your bank.

We’ve seen many lift away from the frame that holds them in place. This usually results in the flex cable getting torn, and the screen needing replacing. You don’t even need to have dropped the phone- this often happens through general everyday wear and tear.

That brings us to another major issue with the copies. When you drop an Apple original, the glass often breaks, but if the LCD itself is intact, you can continue to use it until it’s fixed. With the copies, the touch/digitizer is on the glass and stops working when that’s broken. Even worse, the LCD itself is more likely to break due to the thinner and more fragile glass.

We’re not convinced this will happen, since Apple recently changed their repair policy to accept iPhones with third-party screens. However, it is possible that copy screens could be stopped from working via an iOS update, since those make a number of security checks.

That’s how I felt again and again as I jumped through hoop after ridiculous hoop to replace the battery in my iPhone Mini. Part of that was the repair process — mostly, it was how difficult Apple makes it to even get there.

Last month, Apple launched its Self-Service Repair program, letting US customers fix broken screens, batteries, and cameras on the latest iPhones using Apple’s own parts and tools for the first time ever. I couldn’t wait. I’d never successfully repaired a phone — and my wife has never let me live down the one time I broke her Samsung Galaxy while using a hair dryer to replace the screen. This time, armed with an official repair manual and genuine parts, I’d make it right.

That Apple would even let me buy those parts, much less read its manuals and rent its tools, is a major change of pace for the company. For years, Apple has been lobbying to suppressright-to-repair policies around the country, with the company accused of doing everything it can to keep customers from repairing their own phones. It’s easy to see this as a huge moment for DIY advocates. But having tried the repair process, I actually can’t recommend it at all — and I have a sneaking suspicion that Apple likes it that way.

The thing you should understand about Apple’s home repair process is that it’s a far cry from traditional DIY if you opt for the kit — which I did, once I saw the repair manual only contains instructions for Apple’s own tools. (You can just buy a battery if you want.)

I expected Apple would send me asmall box of screwdrivers, spudgers, and pliers; I own a mini iPhone, after all. Instead, I found two giant Pelican cases — 79 pounds of tools— on my front porch. I couldn’t believe just how big and heavy they were considering Apple’s paying to ship them both ways.

Step one of opening an iPhone is, basically, using a hefty machine to suck the screen off the top. Here, I wasn’t microwaving a jelly-filled sock to loosen the Apple goop holding my screen down! Apple lets you rent an industrial-grade heat station that looks like a piece of lab equipment, right down to the big red safety dial you twist to release the emergency-off button and the suction-cup-tipped mechanical lifting arm. It looks pretty cool.

I slip my phone in a perfectly sized “heating pocket” that clamps a ring of copper around the iPhone’s band to evenly distribute the heat and melt the seal around the screen, realize in horror that I’ve invited the “Hot Pockets!” jingle to live in my head rent-free, then spin a dial to raise the arm that separates the iPhone’s screen from its body.

Or, that’s how it’s supposed to work, anyhow. The heating machine threw an error code partway through my first attempt, and Apple’s manual didn’t explain what to do if that happens after you’ve stuck your phone inside. So I wound up heating it twice in a row. And yet, that still wasn’t quite enough for my screen to “immediately” pop up when the suction cup arm began to lift the glass. The manual did cover that situation, making me spin a second hidden knob to put more pressure on the suction cup, but I started freaking out when I saw what looked like cracks spider across the screen. (It turned out it was just suction cup residue.)

Once the screen was loose, I cut through the softened glue holding it to the iPhone’s frame with Apple’s single tiny adhesive cutter, which also gave me a little trouble. The blade got caught when I wedged it under the corners of the screen, and I had to yank it out without accidentally sending my phone clattering to the ground. The kit comes with a perfect-fit tray to hold your phone steady and extra suction cups to hold the screen without stretching the fragile ribbon cables but nothing to hold the tray itself.

The manual pictures a technician holding the screen with one hand while cutting adhesive with the other, but I also had to hold the tray to keep it from sliding around. Image: Apple

Apple also provides a set of fancy torque drivers to make sure you don’t screw down the phone’s tiny screws too tightly, but it’s a bit of a chore. I must have dropped Apple’s incredibly tiny fasteners a dozen times while removing the slivers of metal that hold the screen’s ribbon cables in place, as well as the bottom speaker that Apple makes you yank to get at the battery. Presumably just to make it more difficult to repair, Apple requires three different screwdriver bits just to remove the screen, and none of Apple’s bits are magnetized to keep the screws from slipping.

When it finally lay open on the table, I couldn’t help but gawk in wonder at my iPhone 13 Mini’s precisely packed guts, and I realized I was having fun! Slicing open my phone was a thrill. But a lot of that thrill came from not knowing whether my phone would survive surgery — Apple tools or no.

From there, it was time to swap out the battery. Once I finished cursing at the far too easy to tear tabs that held in the original lithium pack, I used Apple’s fancy battery press with a rolling arm to seat — but notsquish — the new battery down. But I could have done that with my fingertips; I’d have much rather had a tool to properly align the battery, which I had to yank and reposition after plopping it down a millimeter too far south, or a tool to test whether you’ve properly reseated the battery and display connectors. But I’ll get to that.

Next, the instructions had me apply an actually helpful precut adhesive sheet designed to stick my screen back to the frame, which was easy to slot into exactly the right place and press down with my fingers. Then came a huge spring-loaded press (with a veritable slot machine of an arm) to close the phone once more. But even with the press, my screen wasn’t perfectly flush with the frame afterwards, perhaps due to the extra glue I didn’t manage to remove.

With my phone closed up again, I held down the power button. Nothing. No bright white Apple logo — no response at all. For one horrible moment, I realized Apple gave me no way to test whether the battery and display connectors were actually seated (they probably weren’t) and had me close up the phone anyhow.

But I wasn’t done yet. The single most frustrating part of this process, after using Apple’s genuine parts and Apple’s genuine tools, was that my iPhone didn’t recognize the genuine battery as genuine. “Unknown Part,” flashed a warning. Apparently, that’s the case for almost all of these parts: you’re expected to dial up Apple’s third-party logistics company after the repair so they can validate the part for you. That’s a process that involves having an entirely separate computer and a Wi-Fi connection since you have to reboot your iPhone into diagnostics mode and give the company remote control. Which, of course, defeats a bunch of the reasons you’d repair your own device at home!

And, if I’m telling you the truth, the second most frustrating part didn’t occur during the repair either. If it were just me, I’d have aborted the entire process before Apple ever shipped 79 pounds of equipment to my home.

It would be an understatement to say that Apple has a history of resisting right-to-repair efforts. Before the iPhone, replacing a battery was typically as easy as inserting a thumbnailto pop off your phone’s back cover; afterwards, phones largely became tricky to even open without specialized tools, which arguably pushed customers to replace their perfectly good devices when they might have only needed a new screen or battery. Also see: batterygate.

In recent years, the company has actively lobbied against right-to-repair legislation in at least 20 states, sneakily pushing California, as one example, to postpone its bill. (The bill died in committee again this very week.) Apple cracked down on unauthorized repairs by throwing warnings or even disabling features if you repair phones with non-“genuine” parts, though it walked some of that back after an outcry. And it put together a contract for indie repair shops that was reportedly so invasive, many refused to sign it.

So, it didn’t surprise me when Apple’s press release about the program warned “the vast majority of customers” away from their own repairs, or when I needed to enter my phone’s IMEI to prove I owned my phone, or how I had to enter a six-digit code to prove I read the repair manual, which not only suggests you need three pages worth of tools but also a jar of sand in case your battery catches fire — one of many not strictly necessary items that don’t come with the kit. Apple also only includes instructions on how to use its own special tools for repairs, so you’re on your own if you want to try a more low-key or inexpensive DIY approach.

$69 for a new battery — the same price the Apple Store charges for a battery replacement, except here I get to do all the work and assume all the risk.

Let’s be clear: this is aridiculous amount of risk for the average person who just wants to put a new battery in their phone. And it’s frankly weird for Apple to insist on you covering the full value of the tools. “It’s not like when you rent a car they make you put down $20,000 as a safety deposit,” my colleague Mitchell Clark points out.

The more I think about it, the more I realize Apple’s Self-Service Repair program is the perfect way to make it look like the company supports right-to-repair policies without actually encouraging them at all. Apple can say it’s giving consumers access to everything, even the same tools its technicians use, while scaring them away with high prices, complexity, and the risk of losing a $1,200 deposit. This way, Apple gets credit for walking you through an 80-page repair, instead of building phones where — say — you don’t need to remove the phone’s most delicate components and two different types of security screws just to replace a battery.

To me, those giant Pelican cases are the proof. It would cost Apple a fortune to ship 79 pounds of equipment to individual homes all over the country, even with corporate discounts. The Verge is obviously far, far smaller than Apple, but it would cost us upwards of $200 just to return those cases to their sender. Yet Apple offers free shipping bothdirections with your $49 rental, plus a dedicated support team to validate your parts and facilitate returns. (Though, apparently, it doesn’t do the latter anywhere near its Silicon Valley HQ: when I took the support team up on its offer of picking up my battery, they told me they didn’t have a driver within 250 miles of my location, and I should just drop it off at the nearest Home Depot.)

I don’t think Apple expects anyone to seriously take it up on the offer of self-service repair kits. It stacked the deck in favor of taking your phone to an Apple Store, where it can tempt you to buy something new instead. The real victory will come months or years down the road, though. That’s when Apple can tell legislators it tried to give right-to-repair advocates what they wanted — but that consumers overwhelmingly decided Apple knows best.

The rumor that the China made iPhone LCDs can’t survive the upcoming iOS updates existed for quite a long time which aroused panic among repair shops. Many repair shops who want to use/have already used these screens to compete with authorized repair are wondering, will Apple brick these iPhone to kill the third party repair? We ETrade Supply don’t think so and here is why:

Do you still remember that users sued Apple for bricked iPhone due to "error 53"? The situation is almost the same except only few people have let their home button be replaced by third party repair shops. How many China made iPhone LCDs have been sold? We don’t have the exact number. However, from what we know, the number should be over 1 million pieces at least. Will Apple brick millions of iPhones just to kill third party repairs?

Same rumors for the 4/4S screen before. The OEM LCDs for 4/4s died out for quite a long time, all screens supplied were China copy one since 2 years ago. Not a case of bricked phone/unusable have showed for the updating to the new iOS system.

The most possible reason that this rumor has been created—is just to cut the price of the China copy iPhone LCD and more possibly-- the demand for it.

A week before the Apple event in March 2016, the rumor was “China made iPhone LCDs can’t survive in the coming iOS 9.3 updates”, the price of these LCDs dropped significantly and everyone was holding their orders, waiting to see the result. Within one week, the price has dropped around $10/pc. After people found out that they did survive, the price increased again and here came the rumor “the China made iPhone LCDs won’t survive the iOS 10 updates”.

Since last June, more and more repair shops have accepted the China made iPhone LCDs because less OEM screens are supplied. A large certain amount of demand of OEM iPhone screens has been moved the China made ones. The rumor that “the China made iPhone LCDs won’t survive the newest iOS updates” will sure bring some demand back to those crappy OEM screen which have been used for quite a long time/ refurbished for multiple times.

The rumor is “ALL the China made iPhone LCDs won’t survive the iOS 10 updates”, not only for 5 series. As we all know, there are already China Made 6 screens in the market. Those who stocked large amount OEM 6 screens will be happy to see people still paying high price for the OEM 6 screens for quite a long time.

The supply chain of cell phone replacement parts is sophisticated, unclear and without any standards, which make it look more like gambling. Find a reliable long-term relationship partner who can grow with you is the key to success for repair shops. If you have any questions regarding the China made LCDs, please leave your comment below!

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

But while Apple is far from alone, it offers a window into why the success of some prominent companies has not translated into large numbers of domestic jobs. What’s more, the company’s decisions pose broader questions about what corporate America owes Americans as the global and national economies are increasingly intertwined.

Apple was provided with extensive summaries of The New York Times’s reporting for this article, but the company, which has a reputation for secrecy, declined to comment.

This article is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former Apple employees and contractors — many of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs — as well as economists, manufacturing experts, international trade specialists, technology analysts, academic researchers, employees at Apple’s suppliers, competitors and corporate partners, and government officials.

Privately, Apple executives say the world is now such a changed place that it is a mistake to measure a company’s contribution simply by tallying its employees — though they note that Apple employs more workers in the United States than ever before.

They say Apple’s success has benefited the economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. And, ultimately, they say curing unemployment is not their job.

“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

Mr. Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen, according to someone who attended the meeting. He then pulled his keys from his jeans.

People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also carry their keys in their pocket. “I won’t sell a product that gets scratched,” he said tensely. The only solution was using unscratchable glass instead. “I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks.”

For over two years, the company had been working on a project — code-named Purple 2 — that presented the same questions at every turn: how do you completely reimagine the cellphone? And how do you design it at the highest quality — with an unscratchable screen, for instance — while also ensuring that millions can be manufactured quickly and inexpensively enough to earn a significant profit?

In its early days, Apple usually didn’t look beyond its own backyard for manufacturing solutions. A few years after Apple began building the Macintosh in 1983, for instance, Mr. Jobs bragged that it was “a machine that is made in America.” In 1990, while Mr. Jobs was running NeXT, which was eventually bought by Apple, the executive told a reporter that “I’m as proud of the factory as I am of the computer.” As late as 2002, top Apple executives occasionally drove two hours northeast of their headquarters to visit the company’s iMac plant in Elk Grove, Calif.

But by 2004, Apple had largely turned to foreign manufacturing. Guiding that decision was Apple’s operations expert, Timothy D. Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive last August, six weeks before Mr. Jobs’s death. Most other American electronics companies had already gone abroad, and Apple, which at the time was struggling, felt it had to grasp every advantage.

In part, Asia was attractive because the semiskilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn’t driving Apple. For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies.

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.

For years, cellphone makers had avoided using glass because it required precision in cutting and grinding that was extremely difficult to achieve. Apple had already selected an American company, Corning Inc., to manufacture large panes of strengthened glass. But figuring out how to cut those panes into millions of iPhone screens required finding an empty cutting plant, hundreds of pieces of glass to use in experiments and an army of midlevel engineers. It would cost a fortune simply to prepare.

When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant’s owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.

“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”

An eight-hour drive from that glass factory is a complex, known informally as Foxconn City, where the iPhone is assembled. To Apple executives, Foxconn City was further evidence that China could deliver workers — and diligence — that outpaced their American counterparts.

The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. “The scale is unimaginable,” he said.

“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

In mid-2007, after a month of experimentation, Apple’s engineers finally perfected a method for cutting strengthened glass so it could be used in the iPhone’s screen. The first truckloads of cut glass arrived at Foxconn City in the dead of night, according to the former Apple executive. That’s when managers woke thousands of workers, who crawled into their uniforms — white and black shirts for men, red for women — and quickly lined up to assemble, by hand, the phones. Within three months, Apple had sold one million iPhones. Since then, Foxconn has assembled over 200 million more.

The company disputed some details of the former Apple executive’s account, and wrote that a midnight shift, such as the one described, was impossible “because we have strict regulations regarding the working hours of our employees based on their designated shifts, and every employee has computerized timecards that would bar them from working at any facility at a time outside of their approved shift.” The company said that all shifts began at either 7 a.m. or 7 p.m., and that employees receive at least 12 hours’ notice of any schedule changes.

Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.

Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Some aspects of the iPhone are uniquely American. The device’s software, for instance, and its innovative marketing campaigns were largely created in the United States. Apple recently built a $500 million data center in North Carolina. Crucial semiconductors inside the iPhone 4 and 4S are manufactured in an Austin, Tex., factory by Samsung, of South Korea.

But even those facilities are not enormous sources of jobs. Apple’s North Carolina center, for instance, has only 100 full-time employees. The Samsung plant has an estimated 2,400 workers.

“If you scale up from selling one million phones to 30 million phones, you don’t really need more programmers,” said Jean-Louis Gassée, who oversaw product development and marketing for Apple until he left in 1990. “All these new companies — Facebook, Google, Twitter — benefit from this. They grow, but they don’t really need to hire much.”

It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.

But such calculations are, in many respects, meaningless because building the iPhone in the United States would demand much more than hiring Americans — it would require transforming the national and global economies. Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.

Manufacturing glass for the iPhone revived a Corning factory in Kentucky, and today, much of the glass in iPhones is still made there. After the iPhone became a success, Corning received a flood of orders from other companies hoping to imitate Apple’s designs. Its strengthened glass sales have grown to more than $700 million a year, and it has hired or continued employing about 1,000 Americans to support the emerging market.

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ImageIn China, Lina Lin is a project manager at PCH International, which contracts with Apple. “There are lots of jobs,” she said. “Especially in Shenzhen.”Credit...Thomas Lee for The New York Times

At the same time, however, the electronics industry was changing, and Apple — with products that were declining in popularity — was struggling to remake itself. One focus was improving manufacturing. A few years after Mr. Saragoza started his job, his bosses explained how the California plant stacked up against overseas factories: the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove was $22 a machine. In Singapore, it was $6. In Taiwan, $4.85. Wages weren’t the major reason for the disparities. Rather it was costs like inventory and how long it took workers to finish a task.

Even Mr. Saragoza, with his college degree, was vulnerable to these trends. First, some of Elk Grove’s routine tasks were sent overseas. Mr. Saragoza didn’t mind. Then the robotics that made Apple a futuristic playground allowed executives to replace workers with machines. Some diagnostic engineering went to Singapore. Middle managers who oversaw the plant’s inventory were laid off because, suddenly, a few people with Internet connections were all that were needed.

Mr. Saragoza was too expensive for an unskilled position. He was also insufficiently credentialed for upper management. He was called into a small office in 2002 after a night shift, laid off and then escorted from the plant. He taught high school for a while, and then tried a return to technology. But Apple, which had helped anoint the region as “Silicon Valley North,” had by then converted much of the Elk Grove plant into an AppleCare call center, where new employees often earn $12 an hour.

After a few months of looking for work, he started feeling desperate. Even teaching jobs had dried up. So he took a position with an electronics temp agency that had been hired by Apple to check returned iPhones and iPads before they were sent back to customers. Every day, Mr. Saragoza would drive to the building where he had once worked as an engineer, and for $10 an hour with no benefits, wipe thousands of glass screens and test audio ports by plugging in headphones.

As Apple’s overseas operations and sales have expanded, its top employees have thrived. Last fiscal year, Apple’s revenue topped $108 billion, a sum larger than the combined state budgets of Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Since 2005, when the company’s stock split, share prices have risen from about $45 to more than $427.

Some of that wealth has gone to shareholders. Apple is among the most widely held stocks, and the rising share price has benefited millions of individual investors, 401(k)’s and pension plans. The bounty has also enriched Apple workers. Last fiscal year, in addition to their salaries, Apple’s employees and directors received stock worth $2 billion and exercised or vested stock and options worth an added $1.4 billion.

The biggest rewards, however, have often gone to Apple’s top employees. Mr. Cook, Apple’s chief, last year received stock grants — which vest over a 10-year period — that, at today’s share price, would be worth $427 million, and his salary was raised to $1.4 million. In 2010, Mr. Cook’s compensation package was valued at $59 million, according to Apple’s security filings.

A person close to Apple argued that the compensation received by Apple’s employees was fair, in part because the company had brought so much value to the nation and world. As the company has grown, it has expanded its domestic work force, including manufacturing jobs. Last year, Apple’s American work force grew by 8,000 people.

While other companies have sent call centers abroad, Apple has kept its centers in the United States. One source estimated that sales of Apple’s products have caused other companies to hire tens of thousands of Americans. FedEx and United Parcel Service, for instance, both say they have created American jobs because of the volume of Apple’s shipments, though neither would provide specific figures without permission from Apple, which the company declined to provide.

“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”

What’s more, Apple sources say the company has created plenty of good American jobs inside its retail stores and among entrepreneurs selling iPhone and iPad applications.

After two months of testing iPads, Mr. Saragoza quit. The pay was so low that he was better off, he figured, spending those hours applying for other jobs. On a recent October evening, while Mr. Saragoza sat at his MacBook and submitted another round of résumés online, halfway around the world a woman arrived at her office. The worker, Lina Lin, is a project manager in Shenzhen, China, at PCH International, which contracts with Apple and other electronics companies to coordinate production of accessories, like the cases that protect the iPad’s glass screens. She is not an Apple employee. But Mrs. Lin is integral to Apple’s ability to deliver its products.

Mrs. Lin earns a bit less than what Mr. Saragoza was paid by Apple. She speaks fluent English, learned from watching television and in a Chinese university. She and her husband put a quarter of their salaries in the bank every month. They live in a 1,080-square-foot apartment, which they share with their in-laws and son.

At dinner, for instance, the executives had suggested that the government should reform visa programs to help companies hire foreign engineers. Some had urged the president to give companies a “tax holiday” so they could bring back overseas profits which, they argued, would be used to create work. Mr. Jobs even suggested it might be possible, someday, to locate some of Apple’s skilled manufacturing in the United States if the government helped train more American engineers.

Economists debate the usefulness of those and other efforts, and note that a struggling economy is sometimes transformed by unexpected developments. The last time analysts wrung their hands about prolonged American unemployment, for instance, in the early 1980s, the Internet hardly existed. Few at the time would have guessed that a degree in graphic design was rapidly becoming a smart bet, while studying telephone repair a dead end.

In the last decade, technological leaps in solar and wind energy, semiconductor fabrication and display technologies have created thousands of jobs. But while many of those industries started in America, much of the employment has occurred abroad. Companies have closed major facilities in the United States to reopen in China. By way of explanation, executives say they are competing with Apple for shareholders. If they cannot rival Apple’s growth and profit margins, they won’t survive.

The pace of innovation, say executives from a variety of industries, has been quickened by businessmen like Mr. Jobs. G.M. went as long as half a decade between major automobile redesigns. Apple, by comparison, has released five iPhones in four years, doubling the devices’ speed and memory while dropping the price that some consumers pay.

Before Mr. Obama and Mr. Jobs said goodbye, the Apple executive pulled an iPhone from his pocket to show off a new application — a driving game — with incredibly detailed graphics. The device reflected the soft glow of the room’s lights. The other executives, whose combined worth exceeded $69 billion, jostled for position to glance over his shoulder. The game, everyone agreed, was wonderful.

What exactly is short in the market? Your iPhone’s screen is one solid unit made up of several elements that are fused together with OCA (optically clear adhesive). The exterior glass, the digitizer panel (touch sensor), the polarizer and LCD panel. The LCD panel is the key component that is in short supply. Originally Apple had 3 manufacturers to produce LCD panels (LG, Sharp and Toshiba). Apple’s authorized manufacturers have the exclusive technology to produce LCD panels. Other Chinese manufacturers can copy the glass, digitizer, polarizers, OCA, flex cables, backlights, frames and everything except for the main component of the LCD assembly.

How were we getting these parts before? A big leak in Apple’s supply chain. The iPhone 5, 5S and 5C all share most of the same raw components including the LCD panel, the only difference is the flex cable and plastic frame. Independent factories in China can produce these components and can manufacture any 5 series assembly from an LCD panel. Shown on the left is a pulse pressing machine, used to connect the flex cable to the LCD. We use one of these to repair LCDs with damaged flex cables.

So what’s happening?A few things, first Apple has cut off LG and Toshiba, making Sharp their exclusive supplier for iPhone LCD panels and implemented very tight security. Secondly, they have had Foxconn destroy stockpiles of series 5 LCD panels to reduce the parts and material leakage to factories that re-engineer them for the independent repair industry. Along with this strategy, Apple has instructed Foxconn to reduce series 6 materials leakage from their manufacturing centers. Lastly, Apple is working aggressively with US Customs to seize inbound parts.

How long is this shortage going to last? In short,we have no idea. At the time of this writing, LCD prices have been steadily rising for 6 months and replacement iPhone 6S LCDs cost twice what Apple charges for their repair service. Apple does not intend to compete with independent repair shops, instead they are squeezing the profit out of the industry. LCD refurbishing may help shops cut cost but without new LCD panels entering the system it won’t last long.

What does this mean for the independent repair community?Apple is the only repair operation that is immune. Even the Chinese LCD refurbishing plants used by the large chain repair companies are running out of LCDs. Continually rising costs may push out the big chains but with lower overhead and clever problem-solving, the owner-operated shops stand a fighting chance.

What can we do?Apple has done everything in their power to protect their repair monopoly. When there’s only one repair shop around, prices and wait time goes up and quality goes down. Apple has every incentive to eliminate the parts market. Don’t let them. Check out the Right to Repair Bill.

Having checked out your video, I personally will not use the aftermarket screen as a replacement for my X. It just doesn"t have what I expect for a $1000 USD phone. I recognize that $300 USD for a replacement is hefty but the aftermarket screen does not appear to have the quality that I would expect for my phone.

Today marks a set back for the right to repair movement. Henrik Huseby, a Norwegian small business owner and repairer lost his legal battle against $1 trillion company Apple in Norway’s Supreme Court. With this decision, Apple continues to effectively shut off access to refurbished or after market spare parts for independent repairers.

Apple claimed that Huseby was allegedly importing “counterfeit” iPhone screens. Huseby denied this, saying that he simply used refurbished iPhone screens that he never advertised to the public as “genuine” parts from Apple.

While the Oslo District Court ruled in 2018 that Huseby did not violate Apple’s trademark, because Huseby never claimed to be using unused original spare parts, the Court of Appeal ruled in 2019 that the imported screens are illegal copies. The case was then brought to the Supreme Court.

“This is a big victory for companies like Apple who want to shut down small businesses like mine and control the prices of repair. They can claim that the cost of changing a screen will be the same as buying a new one, so there is no value in repairing. They are blocking their competition and creating a monopoly” says Huseby.

Huseby took a considerable risk taking this case all the way to his Supreme Court, when other businesses in the same situation have given in to Apple in order to avoid trial and considerable legal expenses.

He was supported by €10,000 in donations to his crowdfunders that arrived from hundreds of donors from Norway, Europe and the rest of the world. After having paid fees for his appeals, he now faces severe financial consequences, which include paying his own legal team and €23,000 to Apple.

The Norwegian judges made the final decision purely assessing trademark violations on these screens, based on obscure and technical details that are entirely invisible to consumers. They didn’t revisit the ruling of the Court of Appeal, while Huseby still maintains they were refurbished.

Refurbished screens made in China come from companies that remove smashed glass from the high-quality original Apple LCD and apply a new glass on it. Usually the rest of the assembly is an original, reused part, and the glass is made by a third party.

As Huseby puts it, Apple uses intellectual property law as a “weapon” by putting multiple logos and QR-codes on each component part of its screens, knowing that the Chinese grey market will not specifically cater to repairers in other countries that zealously enforce intellectual property. This creates a kind of “roulette” for repairers who want to import affordable, refurbished parts from China. Apple can then ask customs authorities in these countries to seize refurbished parts shipments.

Meanwhile, Apple refuses to sell genuine spare parts to independent repairers in Europe. So they have a choice: buy either inferior generic parts or refurbished or after-market parts, like the kind Huseby bought.

Apple’s aggressive use of intellectual property in order to shut down independent repairs will ultimately raise prices for consumers, if they are forced to choose Apple’s far more expensive authorised repairers who have access to new, genuine parts. For example, while Apple in Norway charges 1 959.75 NOK (185 EU) for mail-in service to replace the screen in an iPhone 6s, Apple’s authorised repair services in Norway charge 2699 NOK (255 EU), more than three times as much as Huseby charges, 800 NOK (75 EU).

A recent Eurobarometer survey by the European Commission shows that almost 8 in 10 Europeans think manufacturers should be required to make it easier to repair electronic devices or replace parts.

This costs the planet too, as high prices for repair push consumers to cycle through products faster and faster. A report by the EEB showed that extending the life of European smartphones by just one year would save the CO2 equivalent of taking one million cars off the road.

“This case was both about Apple using its power to pressure Norwegian authorities and control the process, and about the letter of the law being inappropriate to the moment we are living. Extending mobile lifecycles via repair is the best way to reduce their environmental impact, and refurbished parts are the greenest and cost-effective option.”

The Right to Repair European campaign has helped with his fundraising efforts and is now calling for measures to prevent other repairers like Huseby having to go through this again.

We are now holding the European Commission to its commitment to “a Right to Repair” in the Circular Economy Action Plan, to ensure universal access to affordable genuine spare parts for all electronics for both repair professionals and consumers.

To inform them of Apple’s environmentally damaging, anti-competitive win in Norway, we are sending a letter to EU Competition Commissioner Vestager and European MEPs from different political groups.

This very articulately and eloquently written article reports very bad news on all counts and a depressing legal and environmental precedent. The Norwegian Supreme Court needs its backside kicked hard for this disgracefully inequitable, illogical and perverse decision that is not remotely in the wider consumer, public or environmental interest. The Norwegian authorities have clearly been politically pressurised by Apple using its ill-gotten commercial power. Time for a serious boycott of capitalist Apple and its over-rated restricted products by all technology consumers – there are plenty of perfectly adequate and cheaper open-source alternatives on the market.

I do not understand how copyright laws can apply to physical objects. A copyright is used to protect visual and auditory information. I can see it may be a violation of trademark if someone advertises or claims to be using official manufacturer parts when it is not official parts. But if the claim is not official parts, then there should be no reason for a manufacturer to hinder a party from using them to refurbish or repair a product.

Once Apple has sold a phone, it should have no control of