Repair outfit iFixit has released an iOS app providing access to its repair guides and AI-based assistance for fixing your hardware, though it also provides a help tool that already exists in Settings.
While known for its regular teardowns of Apple's hardware, iFixit is a major source of repair guides and manuals, as well as tools and components, for various hardware issues its users may have. On Tuesday, it brought out an app to help users more.
Introduced on Tuesday, the iFixit app combines multiple parts of the iFixit empire, providing a one-stop shop for users to fix stuff for themselves. The app, a free download from the App Store for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro, gives access to those same repair guides available from the website.
If you find the solution, you can get recommendations for tools to conduct the repair, which iFixit will gladly sell to you. Likewise, if you need a specific component, that can be purchased as well.
An AI repair assistant
The app does go further than just providing manuals and ways to repair broken hardware. Just like the rest of the tech industry, it's also using AI.
The FixBot AI assistant has been trained on the iFixit library, all to answer a question you may have about a problematic iPhone or a damaged game controller.
The AI is capable of diagnosing the fault, explaining the solution, and the steps to the user. There's also a voice mode for hands-free queries, in case your hands are midway through a repair.
The iFixit website shows that the app is free, but a paid "Enthusiast" version will also be available in the future. That version will include OEM service manuals, as well as more advanced diagnostic options using voice and an iPhone's camera.
The price of the enhanced AI option was not disclosed.
Battery worries
At the same time as providing information for fixing devices, there's also a feature to warn about another potential issue.
As part of the app, users can check the status of their battery's health. Over time, as the battery degrades, the amount of charge the battery provides also slowly reduces, with 80% being the typical value when a battery replacement is warranted.
However, iPhone users won't immediately see the battery health until they supply some information, including the original capacity, rated cycle counts, and other data points. It also advises sharing analytics data for more accuracy.
While the inclusion of a battery health tool does help some users, it does duplicate the functionality that Apple already provides to users. The Settings app has a Battery Health section, including whether the iPhone is performing as expected, the maximum capacity, and how many cycles it has been through.
Though it is too early to tell if the opinions of iFixit will differ from those of Apple's own tool, it may be an extra notification nagging users already worried about the battery health.
AppleInsider's position on charging cycles and battery health is this — just use your device and charge when you're by a charger. The on-device battery management systems handle everything better than any human action will, so stop wasting your time thinking about it.
A return to the App Store
This is not the first attempt by iFixit to be present in the App Store. Indeed, it previously had an app that ran on iPhones.
In 2015, Apple banned the iFixit developer account and pulled the app from the App Store. It was taken down in response to iFixit making a teardown of a fourth-generation Apple TV dev kit that it had received as part of Apple's pre-release program.
At the time, iFixit admitted that the pulled app was outdated anyway, with major bugs resulting from the introduction of iOS 9. Instead of rewriting the app, iFixit decided to concentrate on the website instead of a "substantial rewrite to a bunch of iOS 4-era code."
