We have fixed a LOT of iPads since they hit the consumer landscape, probably more than any other iPad repair company out there. From all over the world, in fact: United States, Canada, Abu Dhabi, England, and Mexico, to name but a few.

And with that exposure comes experience. Something YOU will want to have on your side when deciding who to send YOUR iPad to when you accidentally damage it (and believe me, one day, you will!).

A great example of quantity driving quality is the “phantom input” test we now perform on every iPad screen that we change out. What the hell is that?, you must be asking. Well, on just a handful of iPads that had a smashed display, they had also sustained damage to their logic board (motherboard) from the initial trauma that broke the screen.

But the interesting thing about these iPads was that the damage was not entirely evident right from the start. It wasn’t until we learned that the digitizers were acting as if the screen was being touched when they were sitting all by themselves did we realize that we had to improve our quality control testing after each iPad repair.

At first we believed the new digitizer must have failed, a bad part, and that’s why the screen was acting like a ghost was using it. But when that same screen was placed in another (never dropped or damaged) iPad, the same new digitizer worked flawlessly – no phantom inputs.

So in typical milliamp fashion, we quickly devised a simple test that every iPad that we repair must go through (and dutifully added it to our in-house device management system called millihub), wether the digitizer was repaired or not: The Phantom Digitizer Input Test.

What we do during this test is pull up this page on our website directly from the repaired iPad, and zoom in so that we can see the following image:

ipad-phantom-input-test

And then you leave the iPad alone. If the image moves off the inverted triangle (or zooms in or out), you will notice this, and if the screen detects a tap/click, you get an image that tells you that the test failed. We let currently let this test run for 30 minutes.

Note: You must change the settings temporarily on the iPad so that it does not turn off and stays on for the duration of the test.

So long, ghosts!

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

iPad Repair Box Again and Again

Thought I would share a cool little way that we encourage our customers to help us recycle.

In this example, we ask our iPad repair customers to help us re-use the super-awesome box we send their iPad to them after we are done fixing it so that it can be used for someone else. Not everyone elects to do send the box back to us, which is fine, but every so often we find a customer that is game and mails the box out.

If they do this, we also encourage them to include a short note or their specific ‘broken iPad story’ along with it, so that we can share it with others. Recently, a customer named Terry sent us his iPad box, along with the following short note:

“Sorry for taking so long to return the box! Thanks for the great service, I missed my iPad and was very satisified with the work you guys did to bring it back to its former glory.”

Perhaps one day you will be using the same box we used for Terry’s iPad – and that’d be cool.

Regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

As you may have read in an earlier post, we have recently implemented a new device management system called ‘millihub’, and the results of all our hard work are starting to pay off. Providing timely updates via email has never been so automate for our employees, and it has never been so good for our customers.

Customers appreciate the notification when their device arrives, when it gets evaluated and we have determined what parts are needed, when we repair the device, when the device passes testing, and when the iPhone or iPod or iPad ships out, as evidenced by this recent review we received of milliamp.com:

milliamp.com_Reviews_01

And then a few days later, this one:

milliamp.com_Reviews_02

Like anything we do, we know there is always room for improvement. Customers may want to have these updates texted to them instead of emailed, or maybe even tweeted to them. Other customers may want pictures or perhaps even video of their in-progress repair as it happens. iPhone app, anyone? All doable, for sure, with millihub.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

Milliamp BBB Reviews (and Renews) Membership

Milliamp just renewed its’ membership with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for the third year in a row, but does so with mixed emotions. We have been in business for five years now, and we joined the BBB because we believe having the BBB logo on our website helps gives customers peace of mind knowing that they are doing business with a legitimate company.

But most people do not realize that, while the BBB does a cursory overview of a business before it ranks them, the BBB does not actually perform a physical inspection of a company, or perform any true due diligence to determine if a company is trustworthy or not.

In fact, lots of people believe the BBB is some kind of US-government-sanctioned entity that interviews businesses, speaks with hundreds of their customers, performs a credit check, and then meticulously ranks each business. Few (if any) people really know that the BBB uses an algorithm, or perhaps better defined, a grading scale, when it comes to judging where a business ranks on its’ A to F chart.

Last time I checked (and I rarely check), Milliamp LTD had an A ranking with the BBB:

milliamp.com BBB

That’s great, I guess, but the method derived to get to that grade is quite mysterious. Just like you cannot really give a person a credit rating if they don’t have or use credit cards so you can see if they pay off their charges in a timely manner, the BBB has difficulty ranking a company if there are no complaints, wait, I mean submissions.

I did a bit of research into this for this post during my recent vacation (yeah, I know, lame), and I learned that your BBB grade is also based on others in your industry: if you have a few rotten apples as competitors, and their grades with the BBB suck, and you have decent responses to your complaints, your grade will likely go up. It’s not quite as simplistic as that, there are several criteria, including how long you have been in business compared to your peers, but you get the point.

See, in order to get a grade with the BBB, it actually helps if people submit a complaint with the BBB, and then you end up resolving the issue with the customer in a timely manner. If you resolve the issue to the customers’ satisfaction, there’s a good likelihood that your grade will move in a positive direction. Bumble your response with the customer, or let’s say you don’t get a notification that you even have a complaint with the BBB and it goes unresolved, and your grade will drift to the negative (in addition to getting an email from the BBB, they actually call now, too, which is a nice touch and helps reduce the chance of not knowing that there is an outstanding issue that needs to be addressed).

There is something else that most people do not realize: to display the Milliamp BBB logo on your site and Milliamp BBB stickers on your door, you need to pony up for your membership. We just paid $500 to be able to use the BBB seal on our site and shop for another year. Still worth it, I suppose, largely because of the conclusion most people draw about your business when a company is a member of the Better Business Bureau, but as time goes on, I find myself continuously evaluating the need for such bluster.

It is also argued that businesses that have paid to be a member of the Better Business Bureau actually get a grade weight in their favor, giving them a leg up over other businesses in their vertical that are not members of the organization.

There is even a grass-roots movement to “out” the BBB – these guys at bbbroundup.com have an undeniable distaste for the Better Business Bureau, and it seems their mantra is to help get the word out that a ranking from the BBB is not a real indication of the trustworthiness of a business. Companies that have A+ ratings can still rip you off, and companies with F grades can provide superior service.

I suppose having the BBB is better than nothing for consumers, but it needs to be viewed by shoppers as just one factor to consider when deciding to do business with a company, and not the be-all end-all decision point for shoppers.

This is one of the reasons why I like to post my personal contact information on our website – if I have a customer that is upset, or someone that is on the fence about doing business with my company and needs some re-assurance, I want them to call me so we can figure it out.

Unbeknownst to most people, submitting a complaint to the BBB might just boost the companies’ ranking that you are attempting to negatively influence.

One thing that frustrates me about the BBB is that there is no way for a customer to submit a compliment about a business on their website – it is for submitting a complaint or nothing.

The only way that I am aware to get a complement on the BBB site from a customer is to first have them submit a complaint, and then resolve it to their satisfaction, and hope that the customer details your response and confirms that the matter has been resolved.

Another thing I do not like about the current grading scale is that the BBB has no idea of how many total customers a business has. Knowing this number, and then viewing the number of complaints submitted, would greatly help this organization gain some credibility with its’ ranking equation. But one must quickly see that the BBB would have to rely on the business itself for these numbers, and that could easily be abused, so I can see why they have opted to exclude such a measurement.

I know a few (disrespected and respected) companies in our repair field that simply want no part of the BBB – they would rather let their BBB rankings fall where they may, and hope customers never head to the Better Business Bureau website, or they hope that the consumer is enlightened and understands the subjective nature of the BBB ranking, the flaws of which were mentioned here. By taking this path, they also avoid having to pay the aforementioned annual fee to be a part of the BBB.org.

In conclusion, I urge customers searching to know more about Milliamp LTD to read the hundreds of customer testimonials (which include actual order numbers to help prove their authenticity) that are on our website, or give us a call or email with your questions or help with a particular concern that you have, and then evaluate our response. And please do not forget that you always have my ear, too.

What do you think about the BBB? Have you found the BBB to be useful in any way?

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD

Hola! Thought I’d make a quick post and share with you some of the more unusual things I spotted during my recent trip to Cancun, Mexico with the familia this past week.

First off, we saw lots of sun-burned people! We took great care to make sure we had tons of sun screen on, and re-applied throughout the day, but we still got too much sun in some places. But sights like this woman’s tan marks, I mean, burn marks were everywhere we went:

sunburned-broad

This next shot was pretty cool – it is off a Dominos pizza delivery motorcycle. I was hoping that there would be more Spanish on the signage than English, but this is how they look in Cancun near all the hotels:

dominos-pizza-motorcycle

This next shot forced me and my wife to do a double-take. It’s a screenshot of my facebook application on my iPhone – seems that I actually OWE someone messages – note the negative 2 that you see here. Most likely this had something to do with me turning off roaming or being on a different cellular system, but it was interested nonetheless!

facebook-owe-messages

Finally, thought I’d show you the Google Logo you see whilst in Mexico – the search results for keywords like ‘ipod repair’ where different there from what you might see in the United States, as well. Pretty interesting stuff:

google-mexico

All in all, it was a nice, relaxing trip, and the whole family ended up having a great time. Plus, I got a chance to work on my Spanish speaking skills, which I might continue to refine with some software in my down time – can anyone make any Spanish language software recommendations for the iMac we have at home?

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

Well my wife talked me into it and we snuck in one more vacation before the end of Summer – Cancun, Mexico! I was actually kind of dreading this trip – too much going on at the office these days. But I am coming around – it’s beautiful here and the people are very friendly. Went to the beach today and I was amazed that the sand was cool, despite the blazing rays of the sun beating down on it. And the water from the ocean was perfect and the waves just right. Of course, my daughter got the required braided hair to further prove to the guys hawking excursions that we were tourists, just in case they could not tell.

Oh, and here’s a short video of the kids goofing off just before we headed back out to the pool:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Had a brief scare this morning to find that my 6.5GB Microsoft Office email file (.ost) was corrupt – apparently it should never exceed 2GB – guess it’s time to archive some of these emails, huh?! Had to delete the file and re-build it up. It’s been running for about eleven hours now, and still going strong. Hope I am not being charged by the megabyte. So that means if you need to get a hold of me, email is still a good way to do so!

Buenos noches,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

hola-from-cancun

We get lots of email each day, and you would not believe some of the stories we hear from our customers about exactly how their precious iPhone or iPod or iPad became damaged.

Well, we received an email from the curator of The CPU Shack Museum the other day, and he was looking to increase his collection of processors, specifically, iPhone processors. We were happy to oblige, and combed our shop for a few spare, broken iPhone motherboards. Shipped ‘em off today, in fact, just to help this worthy cause.

So if you want to learn more about microchips and the central processing unit of your favorite computer, pda, or other electronic gizmo, you need to head to one of the most comprehensive, if not quirky, sites, The CPU Shack Museum.

This website has gobs of information and interesting pictures of chips and sexy silicon, and even some pretty gutsy claims ([and I am paraphrasing:] “8-bit microcontrollers will not be replaced with their newer 16 and 32-bit bretheren for decades.” – the nerve! )

This pictures shows you some of the packages that rolled into the museum while its’ curator was out for a few days:

the-cpu-shack

Have a great weekend, everybody. I am off to Canun, Mexico with my family this coming week, but will still be checking email if you need to reach me. And of course, my crack staff is at the ready (210-568-7473) to help you out.

Will most definately try to get a blog post or two posted up here about our trip during that time.

Regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

Where mp3 players and tablet computing are concerned, there really aren’t any worthwhile alternatives to Apple’s iPod and iPad, but where smart phones are concerned, the iPhone is great, but its not the only exceptionally awesome device out there. We at Milliamp have certainly taken note of the latter point, there are a wealth of impressive (and popular!) smart phones available on a multitude of networks! These devices’ offerings vary in form, function, color, size, interactive style, etc etc, but there is ONE thing that binds every single smart phone out there… THEY BREAK! Whether a touch screen, an LCD, a failing battery, water damage, or a worn key pad, smart phones will encounter human inflicted damage! So, with all of this in mind, we have begun to explore the myriad devices that need repair and are considering expanding our Award Winning repairs services to those devices.  Are you excited yet Milli-Fans!?!?! You should be! but don’t go and change your Facebook status (at least not yet) to proclaim to the masses that “You can’t believe it, but Milliamp will finally fix my HTC EVO’s broken glass!” because we haven’t completely settled on the devices for which we will begin to offer repair services. However, we can tell you that we are seriously considering expanding our services to different devices in the very near future, so stay tuned to our website and blog for information regarding these new services, you could even use a comment on this blog post to suggest a device for which we should offer services! It’s definitely worth noting that even though we have visions of smart-phone repair grandeur dancing through our heads, we still have our feet firmly planted on the ground and have not forgotten where our business so humbly began 5 years ago, DIY repair kits. It’s been a while since we have offered new DIY repair kits, complete with tools and instructions, for sale, but that, too, is about to change. We have already completed the photo shoot for the new instruction manuals and are in the process of carefully planning out the instructions themselves. So, I’ll leave you with that juicy morsel and the suggestion to look out for EIGHT brand-spanking-new DIY repair kits. Commence to jumping for joy.

Hello friends! Wow, its been awhile since ive written one of these things. Sorry about that. Well, this year has been going by super fast….maybe too fast? At the beginning of May I realized something…..I needed a vacation. We’ve been sooooo busy for months, I needed a little break. So I decided I wanted to go to California. I havent been there since I was 6 years old (23 now). I have tons of family out there that has been asking for me to go out there for years and years. I decided it was time. Now I could decribe to you all the cool things I saw and did….but I know what you want to know…..what did I eat?!

In-N-Out : So ive  had  friends and family hype this place up for years now, so i knew I had to stop and see what it was all about. My good friend and fellow technician, Jon, told me to make sure I got my burger ANIMAL STYLE. So I did. It kinda reminded me of culvers, or freddys here in San Antonio. It was a good burger and the animal style was interesting. Although I dont see myself craving it any time soon. They had great customer service though! Overall, this place gets a 7 out of 10.

Lotaburger: I found this place in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Sadly, it was dissapointing. It has the look of an old fashion burger, but unfortunately it had the taste of an old burger. The beef had no flavor and the rest of the burger was pretty much the same. Not very good customer service either. They get a 5 out of 10.

Stahmanns: This is a pecan farm/candy store that I found in New Mexico back in 2002 when I lived there for the summer. They have the best pecan….everything!!! The stuff is a tad expensive, but its worth it. Pecan Candies…..I cannot elaborate anymore. 10 for 10!!

Original Tommys – The BEST burger I had the entire trip. This spot is located in LA. They have a few other spots, but you know you’re at the original when there is no where to sit and they have counter tops all around the parking lot. Yep, no sitting here! You have to stand to eat your burger. The thing that made the burger great for me was the chilli they put on it. It goes soooo well with the flavor of the beef. Mmmm…..I still crave this 3 weeks later. 9 out of 10.

I stopped by a few more spots for burritos, shrimp and other things…..but I cant remember names and locations. I might post a pt. 2 to this post later, but we’ll see. I hope you get to have a vacation this summer too. Go out and eat something you’ve never eaten before…….I wont…..but you can!!

Quite a busy week, but productive. Devices seemed to be bottlenecking at Quality Control Testing a bit this week, so I jumped in to give David (who also doubles as our in-house Seinfeld Trivia Expert) a hand. Our new system has a kink in it that makes outbounding devices a little kludgy right now, so tag-teaming it until this gets fixed next week made sense.

Here is a shot from Thursdays shipment of evaluated and repaired iPods, iPhones, and iPads heading out to a few of our great customers:

boxes-shipping-out

Have a great weekend, from your pals at milliamp.com!

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com