California-based iFixit is best known for its teardowns of newly released gadgets. The company has pulled apart everything from laptops to smartwatches and is known for flying members of its staff to far-flung locations in order to be among the first to obtain the newest iPhone or iPad. Though these teardowns can be extremely informative, iFixit’s bread and butter are its repair guides: the company has been teaching users the ins and outs of DIY gadget repair for more than a decade.
While its name might suggest it is all about Apple, iFixit has a healthy number of Android device repair guides and the site today launched a special portal for Android users willing to get their hands dirty. Speaking via the official iFixit blog, the company referred to this new Android portal as the first phase of “Project: Android.”
Along with repair guides, the company is selling replacement parts for the most popular Android devices. Right now, replacement parts are only available for a dozen devices, but the company says its goal is to become a comprehensive resource for Android device repair and “exciting new partnerships” should help expand the catalog of Android parts.
“[…] Taking on the Android ecosystem is a much bigger challenge. There’s just a lot more ground to cover,” iFixit’s Julia Bluff said today. “While Apple has just 10 different models of iPhones, Android has at least 4,000 different phone models in use right now—and almost 20,000 distinct devices total. That’s a lot of repair guides to write—but we’re on our way. We already have guides for 252 Android devices—which means iFixit now officially hosts more Android guides than we do Apple guides.”
At launch, the Android portal includes special sections for tablets and smartphones as well as a smaller selection of guides for media streaming devices (for all you Nexus Q owners) and smartwatches (the watches category currently includes just three models — the Moto 360, the G Watch and the Gear Live). The repository for phone guides is a lot more expansive and covers the well-known companies like HTC, Samsung, and LG, along with newer companies like Xiaomi and OnePlus. The lesser known phone makers, like Caterpillar and Fair Phone, are also represented.
If you don’t see your phone listed, do not despair. iFixit is working with technical writing students at 40 universities around the US to produce more guides, so the Android portal should grow pretty quickly.
[source]iFixit[/source]
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