Apple’s Horizon Machine for repair of cracked displays to be available at more locations

Apple's Horizon Machine that repairs cracked displays will now be available at more locations, Reuters reported.

The microwave-sized machines that had largely been a secret until recently, had been mostly located in Apple retail stores around the world and in a handful of third-party repair centres. However, with repair wait times growing at some of its busiest retail stores, Reuters reported that Apple will supply about 400 authorised third-party repair centres in 25 countries with Horizon Machines by the end of the year. That figure represented around 8 per cent of Apple's 4,800 authorised service providers worldwide.

Apple had a pilot programme running for a year with Horizon Machines installed at a handful of third-party repair centres in the Bay Area, London, Shanghai and Singapore, as also at Best Buy stores in Miami and Minneapolis.

Repair and replacement of iPhone screens, was being done at many authorised and unauthorised centres without the help of Apple's Horizon Machines. A number of states had also introduced legislation that would "require manufacturers to supply repair manuals, diagnostic tools and authentic replacement parts at fair prices to independent technicians and the general public," according to Reuters.

According to commentators, the proposed legislation was designed to help smaller repair shops make high-quality repairs and bring repair prices down.