Restart Radio: A phone box turns repair shop

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While commercial repairers of small electricals are increasingly hard to find on the high street, there’s one category of repair businesses on the rise: smartphone repair shops. Even though a lot of people are still giving up on their partly broken devices, often waiting for an upgrade, an increasing number of options exists for people interested in repairing mobile phones and tablets, at least from key brands.

Alex Perjescu is co-founder of Lovefone, a London-based repair company which has been innovating by offering quality service at a speed that is unmatched by manufacturers’ official repair centres. A large portion of their work focuses on iOS devices. During the show, Alex tells us about their new development: a repair shop housed inside an iconic London red phone box in Greenwich. Lovefone is testing the concept, hoping to open additional phone boxes in London and beyond in the future. Alex also shared Lovefone’s main concerns and challenges going forward, especially the miniaturisation of devices making them less easily repairable. He also comments on the recently documented flaw in the iPhone 6 touchscreen chip.

Links:

• Lovefone turns UK’s disused telephone boxes into tiby repair shops (Dezeen magazine)
• Touchscreen chip flaw renders some iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices useless (The Guardian)

[Feature image “Telephone Box in Snow” by Flickr user CGP Grey is licensed under CC BY 2.0]