Today I replaced my MacBook Pro 2015 retina screen. My wife dropped her cell phone on the glowing apple on the back, and that's BARELY a piece of very thing glass onto the liquid crystal display. So, the glowing apple advertisement for Apple was a weakness in the design, that resulted in needing a screen replacement.
This was how my screen "worked" after barely hitting the glowing apple on the back.
Apple wanted $700 for the repair, and I bought the part off eBay for $263.99. At a savings of $436.01, it made sense for me to do this repair myself in two hours. None of our contracts are are $200 / hour, and I didn't want to deal with the hassle of a new laptop and setting everything up. I figured the repair would be quicker, and cheaper, than a replacement.
This took some tools from ifixit, which I already had for cell phone screen replacement, and this really helpful guide.
The weirdness part about this repair was how many missing parts my computer had, before beginning. Apple was the only company to work on this (before me) so it's not like I took it to some sketchy repair shop operating out of some guy's van on Central Ave in Albuquerque.
This was the most interesting thing, an extra screw:
I studied computer science, not electrical engineering, but I can tell you a screw connecting two leads like this is not how to design a circuit.
In addition to the "extra" screw, there were some screws missing which hold the case together:
Granted, the two on the bottom are different size than the other eight screws, and it can be really difficult keeping all your screws together while working on a repair.
The last interesting missing part was ONE plastic cushion along the hinges, the other was there:
Image from ifixit. I didn't take a good picture of this.
None of this missing pieces were actually super important for the continued operation of my computer. It was just bizarre taking a look at Apple's handiwork, and seeing where they weren't actually any better than one of the sketchy repair shops.
The most uncertain part was the disassembly. I was concerned I'd break a connector, and then either have a much bigger repair job, or my computer would end up as junk. That's why I took a backup first, and decided I'd spent $263.99 on this, but $700 would be better spent on a new computer. After disassembling this successfully, I was pretty sure I could put it back together without breaking anything. Whenever I was unsure, I just kept going slower. That's why this took two hours, instead of the one the ifixit guide recommended.
This is what it looks like after disconnecting your screen from your 2015 MacBook Pro.
Then, you have to send your wife a thumbs up picture after you're pretty sure you didn't destroy anything.
After following the guide in reverse, and putting everything back together with the new screen, I powered it on, and it worked. It's also amazing how scratched, dirty, and generally abused, my old screen had become.
It's alive!
I really, really like ifixit. They try and combat the throw away culture of making everything un-repairable, and the assumption that people are incapable, and/or unwilling, to understand how something works well enough to repair it.
* Despite that, I am not opening up a hardware repair shop.
