The mid-February Mobile World Congress in Barcelona became a groundbreaking event for introducing a blizzard of Android phones, other devices, and their apps. While the open architecture of the Android platform has made it the “next new thing,” one certainty still exists: In the hands of human consumers, devices, no matter what makes their guts run, will still break. When that inevitably happens, your independent repair shop is still around the corner.
The buzz was in Barcelona because the Androids were coming. Not in the sense of humanoid robots set to conquer the Spanish city – but instead like high-tech Conquistadors in reverse. This incarnation is the newest techno-rage – a blitz of Android phones, appliances, and applications at the ready to invade world consumer markets. Stars were featured, things yes, but akin to human celebrities being showcased at the Golden Globe awards. Chipsets such as the BCM4760 for personal navigation or perhaps Broadcom’s BCM4329 chip that is integral to Google’s Nexus One. Think of Android handsets from Huawei, or Motorola’s new Droid smartphone.
Android means new features for smartphones and smart feature phones. Despite occasional malware that is able to sneak in to the open architecture like the proverbial Trojan horse, new vistas are being conquered and you don’t even have to peer through Windows to find them.
Smartphones and their cousins will continue to make a splash in market share pools, and the Android architecture is only making them more ubiquitous. But what happens when your expensive Android smartphone or smart feature phone makes a real splash in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and there’s not a Trojan to be seen? What happens when it lands and cracks on a cement walkway (and there are several of these in the world now that cement is no longer a novelty)? While its open architecture won’t help it, an independent repair shop very well might.
At independent repair shops, the Conquistadors are expert service techs trained in the functioning of cellphone innards, ready to fix anything – even an Android smartphone – that is walked into the convenient shop by its owner, usually a consumer. What tale of woe that is related by the human, or perhaps by the telltale Android if it’s sophisticated enough – is of little consequence. “My pet crocodile crunched my phone,” a customer might assert. Without judgment regarding the wisdom of keeping such exotic pets, a canny service tech will know how to fix your broken gizmo – assuming that magic or an act of God is not the downlow. Such service techs can be found at independent repair shops – you bet they can.
Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.
