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You are here: Home / Smart Phone Tips / Caution: Having your iPhone 6 repaired by an independent repair shop could permanently brick it

Caution: Having your iPhone 6 repaired by an independent repair shop could permanently brick it

Posted on February 8, 2016

iphone-6-plusDo you own an iPhone 6? If so, I have a warning for you: Think twice before you decide to have it repaired by an independent repair shop.

If your iPhone 6 is running iOS 9, having anyone besides Apple make a repair involving the Home button assembly will likely cause the phone to lock up and display an “Error 53”. And let me tell you, Error 53 is bad.

In short, Error 53 will “brick” your phone, and your only recourse will be to buy a new one. And no, you won’t be able to retrieve your photos or other important files from the phone’s flash memory. 

There is currently no fix for Error 53, even if you take it into an Apple service center to have them remove it. The Apple techs will simply tell you there’s nothing they can do.

Apple claims they made the decision to have iOS 9 brick iPhones that were repaired by independent repair shops as a security measure because replacing the home button assembly could defeat the phone’s built-in fingerprint ID functionality.

And now for my second warning: If you have an iPhone 6 that has already been repaired by a third-party repair center and is running iOS 8 or earlier, DO NOT update the phone to iOS 9! If you do, your phone will almost certainly be bricked immediately after it boots up into iOS 9 for the first time.

Bottom line: If you have an iPhone 6, you’ll have to bite the bullet and have Apple make any needed repairs if you ever plan to run iOS 9 on it. And depending on where you live, that could mean sending the phone off for repair and having to make do without it for days, or even weeks.

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