The Vergecast - The Digital Doctor will see you now

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

A few years ago, Leo Mastrolia started a gadget repair shop. Little did he know he’d eventually become known across the internet as The Digital Doctor, and would learn to fix practically every gadget you can think of. On this episode, which is part one of our conversation with Leo, he tells us about his journey as a gadget fixer, the growth of his social channels, and how right-to-repair fights and upgrade cycles are affecting life in his store. Further reading: ChatGPT’s Computer History tracks your clicks and keystrokes Amazon is trying to crush class action suits before they get started Uber partners with Zipline on Eats drone deliveries Disney D23 2026: Everything announced for Star Wars, Marvel, and more Digital Doctor Repairs on YouTube Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed. We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to [e-mail] or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of tiny screwdrivers. I'm your friend David Pierce, and today on the show we're talking about repair shops. My guest is a guy named Leo Mistrolia, who you might know from the internet as the digital doctor. He started a repair shop a bunch of years ago. That has grown, and next to it has grown a big content business. So we originally invited Leo on the show to talk about Ramageddon. We were curious what he's been seeing in terms of repairs, how people are thinking about keeping devices longer, All that good stuff.

But we ended up having a really long conversation about how repairs work in general and how he's thinking about the content side of his business and what it means to be a repair shop and a creator in the world we live in now, plus just some fun stories from the digital doctor shop. So we're actually going to do this episode in two parts. Today, you're going to hear Leo's story about what his life has been like as a creator, as a person working on gadgets, as a person thinking about the future of electronics and how real people can use them. Really fun. And then tomorrow, we're going to get deep into the weeds of Ramageddon

and how it's changing the gadget business. So for now, the story of Leo coming in just a second. But first, here's everything else happening on the verge today. I'm Nathan Edwards, and this is 90 seconds on the verge for Monday, August 17, 2026. It's a new opt-in feature in chat GPT's MacOS app that lets your agent learn from the actions you take on your computer to help finish tasks you're in the middle of and suggest skills and automations based on how you use your computer, according to the company. The company says it doesn't save images, video, or audio, and it ignores incognito and private browser tabs, but it does track mouse clicks, typing, and app switches.

Have fun with that. I will not. On Friday, Amazon updated its terms and conditions with new language. Customers now have to agree that any dispute will be resolved with binding arbitration and agree to a class action waiver. Amazon took similar language out of its terms and conditions in 2021. Uber is partnering with the drone delivery company to deliver Uber Eats through the air. The company announced a partnership with Zipline, which operates in Japan, Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, and Dallas-Fort Worth. They am to start delivering this year and reach one million daily drone deliveries by 2029. It's one of many recent delivery deals, thanks to new FAA rules.

DoorDash launched a similar program last month. And finally, Disney held its D-23 fan event this past weekend with a new trailer for Avengers Doomsday, a new X-Men cast, some Star Wars stuff, and a teaser for a CGI blueie movie. I'm just going to say it. There's too much bluey stuff now. You've got to let the dogs rest, Disney. You can read more at Theverge.com. That's 90 seconds on The Verge for Monday, August 17th, 2026. I've got a text.

The summer might be almost over, but a new bombshell has entered the villa. Meet the voices of DeepGram Flux TTS. I'm Drew. Low-key casual. I'm Alexis, an upbeat morning person. I'm Haley. Always cheerful. Flux TTS has some real personalities that are ready to speak.

can interrupt, pause, and keep talking without losing the plot. Fancy a chat, come try all the voices free through September 12th at deepgram.com slash keep talking. Terms apply. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start, Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated, pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. All right, let's talk repairs. Joining me now, Leo Mishulio, the digital doctor. How are you? Good. How you doing? Thank you for having me.

My pleasure. Thank you for being here. So we have a lot to talk about. It turns out that your story sort of intersects with every single thing we ever talk about on the Vergecast. But I want to start with the beginnings of digital doctor repairs, because I think you started this five or six years ago, at a moment where, if I'm being completely honest, starting a gadget repair shop would have been a very strange, like if we were friends at that time and you were like, I think I want to start a thing to repair people's gadgets. I would have been like, that's a weird idea.

Why on earth would you do that? So rewind a little bit for me and tell me the sort of origin story of this repair shop of yours. Funny enough, too, you're going to get a kick out of this. I decided to open up in the peak of COVID too. Oh, true. I thought that was a great idea. Yeah, physical retail. Yeah.

What could go wrong? So I was 18 years old. I was working at Wawa. I was doing overnights and I also got a job of working at another cell phone repair shop fixing phones because I would be atrocious with my phone. I would always be breaking it. Eventually got to the point where I asked my former boss, Bill, I said, hey, can you give me a job? Like, I want to learn how to do this. I want to stop giving you all this money every month, you know, because I was breaking my phone constantly.

And he took the chance. He said, yeah, come on. So I worked with him for about a year. I saved up all the money I had. College wasn't really for me. So I knew I wanted to do something on my own route. I've always been, like, very self-driven. And there was a local spot in town that was for rent.

So I decided to just take the leap of faith. I spent every last dollar I had. Like I said, it was the middle of COVID. But it was an essential business. I knew that since everybody's working remote, they need phones, tablets, computers, everything for work. And there was nothing else in the area also besides a couple of small kiosks in the mall, but the closest mall is about 45 minutes away. So I decided to take the leap, and it really did play out really,

well, so I'm very blessed. Was it a big success from the very beginning? No. It's interesting timing in that. Like you're just saying, everyone at that moment had just bought a bunch of new devices. Yeah, absolutely correct. And everybody was trying to figure out all their work from home gear. Everybody had upgraded their laptops.

This was when, like, everyone on Earth bought a Peloton. Yep. So your timing in that sense was really good. Yeah. Did it pan out right away? So, I mean, just like starting any business, I'm sure even when you guys started the verge. Like, it takes time to build up that momentum. I remember the first six months of having my business. I was still doing overnight at Wawa, and I changed my direct deposit. So I'd go into the

business account, kind of supplemented a little bit. And that kept me afloat until I actually saw build the client base. And then ever since then, I mean, year after year, it's just been getting crazier and crazier. What were people bringing you in those early days? Like, do you have memories of the first few things that came in? Yeah, mostly the simple stuff, like screen repairs and batteries, a lot of tablets, computers with water. damage. Really depends on the type of day. I always tell people, because this is a very common question I get asked, like, what do you

mostly see the most of? I tell them, it depends on the week. Like, I feel like it comes in waves. One week, it'll be only Samsung phones. Interesting. The next week, it'll be only game consoles, like PlayStation's. And then week by week, you get an influx of different things. But in the early days, it was definitely just a weird mix scattered here and there, you know.

We are dangerously close to validating everybody's conspiracy theories that these companies design their products to all fail at about the same time. Yeah. But it's like if you get, you know, the run of iPhones two weeks before the iPhone event every year, it's like, listen to Apple, we've got you. It's not a conspiracy. I mean, it is true. Even with the new liquid glass update that they release, all those older phones,

they're really struggling to keep up. Yeah, that's very true. So at what point do you look at this business and say, okay, I've started this repair shop, it's going pretty well. People are starting to find me. I would assume a big part of it is kind of the local experience. Right? People like having a place to go where they can talk to a person as opposed to, you know, trying to navigate YouTube or figure something out of her phone. Like a huge part of this is the customer experience. At what point do you then turn and think, okay, there's a, there's a content business here. I want to start making content as I'm actually doing the job. Was that part of the plan at the beginning? It wasn't until about a few years ago. I dabbled a little bit. I mean, if you scroll far enough on my page, I've released a couple of videos here and they.

because content has always been like my dream ever since I was a kid. I always wanted to be a YouTuber. I did like stop motion animations. And if anybody remembers, go animate out there. I used to do like some really crappy animations on there. Nice. But like filming and creativity and YouTubers I grew up on like,

all I watched as a child was YouTube like Ray William Johnson, all these big creators at the time, Smosh and all these other guys. And techs always, you know, inspired me too. Like I've always wanted to get like a new PC and stuff like that as any kid wants, you know? Yeah.

But the real take off. happen until I was more established in my business. And the reason the content side of my business is so, like, just performing so well is the same reason my actual business is performing really well. It's because it's like what you said. People just want to come in and have a personalized experience. Like, all right, that's the guy that's going to help me because unfortunately in today's society, most people unfortunately don't really care to help you out. They're just there to collect the paycheck, go home. If there's something that's a little hard or challenging, they just say, oh, sorry, I can't help you. Go elsewhere. And they want to push that burden on.

to somebody else. But these are mothers and parents and people that like need their devices. Like you can't go about your normal life without having tech going to the DMV appointments. Everything is online. So it's a very crucial step that you need to have all these devices working and their full ability. But like I said, the main thing is, you know, because I'm just so personable with people and I just want to help people out. That's why they keep coming back. And that's why they like the videos as well. So I imagine though that there's a day where you decide, okay, I'm going to you know, strap a GoPro to the top of my head just while I do business

and then just sort of see what happens. Like there's a real, I'm just going to put this camera on my face and see what happens energy to some of your videos. Is that how it went down? So I actually reached out to a close friend of mine. Our name's Alea. I reached out to her and I was like, hey, like,

I'm looking for more people. My business has really taken off. Like I really need some help. Like, just if you want to be like a secretary and sit up front. And she's like, hey, like, I do social media and like I can really help you out. I think if we do some skits and work on stuff like this,

like we can really grow something. And I was like, all right, let's try this out. So when I first started making my videos, we did a lot of skit videos. Do not watch them. They're absolutely cringe, terrible. I don't want to take them down because I like seeing the progress. Sure.

But I'm imagining like the office but set at the digital doctor store. Basically, okay, I love this. This is great. Terrible, terrible. But then eventually we started seeing like very common. If you go on Instagram, it's mostly meta footage now, like people wearing the meta glasses. Eventually, we decided to switch to those and say, like, hey, how about you just show yourself fixing and helping people out? And ever since then, I mean, it blew up.

Do you get people now who come to the store and want to be content? Yeah, I would say 90% of people that come in are probably because they watch the videos. I mean, a lot of times they'll come in and say, hey, I love the videos. I drove from Brooklyn. I like a lot of people from the city drive an hour and a half, two hours to come see me. Tons of people from out of state drive in. But do you think it's because this is a thing I've always wondered about channels like this, where you are sort of, it's content, but it's also a business.

And for whatever reason, for the longest time, my feed was filled with kids getting haircuts. Like, for whatever reason, I just ended up on cool haircut TikTok. You know what I'm talking about, right? We were on the same side of the algorithm for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I found myself wondering for the longest time, like, they would talk about, you know, these people drill four hours just to get their haircut by me. And it would be like, okay, do they do this because they think it's going to be an awesome haircut? And they saw the haircut and were like, I want that. It's definitely the content. It's because they want to be on the channel. I think so, yeah. Okay. Okay. Do you ever get people who you come in, who come in and they're like clearly playing a character and being weird and you're like, you need to cool it? You know, not really because I've seen other creators where that's their genre, like, their niche is like, their video is always, like, crazy story.

I'm not going to name names, but there's another creator who does, like, the same type of videos I do. And, like, the people that come in are very over the top. And it, like, feels like, I wouldn't say scripted, but definitely, like, more stage and, like, awkward. I like to keep my channel, like, completely, like, genuine, just put on the glasses, record, do what I normally would do. the cameras are on because you come into my store, I'm going to treat you exactly the same way that I do with the glasses on or off. And I think that's why it resonates so well is because people know if they come in, like, I'm going to just help them out, treat them like a person. It's going to be a pleasant experience. I can hang out with my cats, you know, and life's good.

The cats are a very important part of the channel. Some people come in just for them, believe it or not. Yeah, I would assume. And I really like, there's a moment in like two thirds of your videos where you try to find the cat. And for some reason, that always makes me laugh. They're always like, where's the cat? We want to see the cat. So I'm like, I don't even know where he's at. It's great. So at some point, I would imagine, the business is going well, the content business starts to grow. These two things start to feed each other, I would assume, right?

So that you get more business, which leads to more content, which leads to more business, which leads to more content. Do you separate those things in your head that you have the repair shop and you have the content business and they are different things? Or do they increasingly smash into each other? So that's a really, really good question because this is the most. main issue I've been running into recently is how do I balance that? How do I balance the content and the business? Because the content obviously, like you said, gives me more business. So I can't lack on that and like the viewerships and like people from Philippines and New York and India and like all over the world reach out because they love the videos. They're never going to come in. You know,

they're countries away. So I don't want to let those people down. But also I can't let the physical business. If you drop off a device, I can't let that also take a hit because I'm sitting there recording content all day. So my main goal over the next few months is try to build up more of a team, like team of editors and filmers. This kind of helped me leave that workload because I'm just simply one person. And my tech, Dominic, he's way too busy with repairs. Like we'll get down like 30 devices a day and there's still a stack of like 300 devices in store because we also accept mail-ins. So like they're just coming in all the time. So it definitely is something I don't have a direct answer to yet because I'm still trying to navigate it.

Does it change the thing in your mind when you start getting big in this particular way? Like, not only does the volume go up, but like I saw one of your videos where your face appears in a reflection. And there's this big kerfuffle in the comments that's like face reveal. We see Leo now. You are a celebrity in a way now, right? And it's definitely a different way of thinking about the business. And I think I ask this in part because I've seen so many things like this go from I am a, business that makes content about my business to I am a media company that happens to have a

retail store, right? And it ends up being a really different kind of phenomenon. And I think particularly coming from where you come from where it's like, I did this not to be a content business, but because I wanted to start this repair shop. And that business is also going very well for a bunch of reasons we should talk about. It just strikes me as keeping that thing sort of pure in the way that you want it to be is going to be continually harder as the business of content gets bigger and bigger. For sure. And especially because, like, the type of content I release now, like, I like doing it. I absolutely love doing customer interactions and stuff, but I also do, like, long format videos, and there's a lot of stuff on the long format that I can do that I can't do

in a short. And I really want to be able to experiment with stuff like that, like tech reviews and stuff like that, but simply I just don't have the time. I'm pulled in every different direction. I mean, theoretically, your content business is big enough now. You have a couple of million followers across platforms, you could, with a straight face, just say, screw the repair shop, I am going to be a tech YouTuber now. Has that thought crossed your mind? A few times, I have a very big problem of letting people down, though, and I have built up a crazy big local base of like just moms and grandpas and stuff that come to me for everything. And those people, like, what are they going to do? I know a lot of creators are doing that that also have stores. They're just strictly focusing on the

content, which is always a possibility, but I haven't really made a decision yet of where I want to take it. But I have some ideas of different directions. I just want to try to handle all the eggs in one basket as long as I can until I have to make like a serious change, you know? Yeah. What is the oldest stuff you see people coming in consistently with? No, I don't mean like, I'm sure somebody is showing up with the seven, but is there like a generation of devices you're starting to see more and more of now? Honestly, this happens a lot in my business is like when I first started, it was mostly SEs and 11s and XRs and like a few 12s and 13s. And then the next year, it like just moves over.

Interesting. Like the next couple generations is the most common repair. And then the real old ones like you barely touch, you do like one or two a week. Like now it's mostly 15, 16, 17s. And like 13s a year ago, super popular repair. I was doing iPhone 13 repairs every day, 10, 15 a day. Now it's like one or two, you know, if that. You see the migration of people moving over to the newer generation.

And then it's usually not the newest phone, but a couple before that is the ones that are people fixing the most. Interesting. I guess that makes sense. And it's sort of a bummer that it's not older than that. You know what I mean? Like even the fact that the 13 has kind of fallen out of your purview. It has. That's not that old a phone.

And I think it says a lot of. about the moment that we're in, that even with phones, I think people are still upgrading more frequently. Like, my guess is most people are holding onto their laptops much longer than they used to. They just last longer than they used to. I think top priorities, the phones for sure. The laptops, most people, they don't really care about. Yeah, and I think we're all so trained to upgrade our phones every couple of years that the idea of it still mostly does what I need it to, I'm just going to keep it. I think it's still pretty rare. And it's, it's, It seems like that's kind of what you're seeing, too.

Yeah, no, definitely. That's really interesting. So what are the big problems people come in with? I assume I can guess, right? Screens, batteries, other various, I dropped it, and something happened. But I noticed on your channel one thing I'm constantly shocked by is how many specific software problems people are having. Some of it is like I can't use my phone, but some of it is also like I, people seem to constantly have weird pop-up problems on their phones that they don't know how to solve. How much is the breakdown kind of hardware versus software problems people are having?

If I had to guess, I would say probably about 25% is software based. And more so, it's software towards Android phones, more than anything. Like, Android phones have very common issue when it comes to the bloatware apps. Like anything that's PDF reader or weather apps, these aren't legit apps. What they do is they call pop-ups. And then when you go to hit the X, it'll literally download more and more of them in. and then eventually the phone just becomes unusable. Just add, add, add, add, add.

So I think Android phones definitely have more of a software issue when it comes to stuff like that, but even iPhone users, especially if they've gotten the phone fixed before. Sometimes the screens will just freeze up and you have to do a soft reset. Kind of stupid, in my opinion, that all phones now, you have to hold the power with the volume buttons, even on the Android phones, the same way in order to turn the phone off

because older people, they're like, I'm hitting the power button, it's not doing anything. But a lot of times, too, iPhones will have that issue where they just freeze, and there's no way to turn it off unless you do a soft reset. But if your phone's not working, how are you going to Google it?

Yeah, it's a really interesting one. And I think that's such a funny example of it is a very simple thing to know the right answer for how to turn your phone off. Yeah. But it is actually incredibly unintuitive how to turn your phone off. It's a strange state of affairs.

What about on the hardware side? Is there anything that might surprise me that you see a lot of these days? Well, I'm down in Jersey Shore. So, I mean, we do in the summertime, definitely a lot of water damage. which people still take their phones into the ocean and the pool. Despite all belief about phones being waterproof, they're water resistant.

They'll say waterproof to a certain degree, but I always tell people, I don't trust it at all. I have a lot of customers, they come in, they get a splash from a wave. It eats through that adhesive, especially salt water, gets in the phone. Yeah. I was going to say, waterproof also does not include salt water. And super doesn't include, like, dirty shore salt water. That green water, yeah.

And another thing, too, is rice. Don't put your phone in rice. I mean, the only thing that rice is good for is, you know, you're not charging your phone because that's like being in a bathtub and dropping a toaster while you're in there. It fries everything. So the best thing to do is turn the phone off. If you could take it to a repair shop so they can open it up, dry it up, clean it with alcohol, to prevent any future corrosion.

But honestly, the best thing to do if you get water damage is just back it up, you know, fix the bare minimum and go trade it and get a new phone because water damage is always tricky. Apple News Plus has everything you're into, all in one place. Over 500 publications covering the topics that matter most to you. Thousands of recipes from celebrated food publications around the world. Local news from all 50 states. Sports coverage from across the globe. Audio stories you can take anywhere.

And daily puzzles exclusive to Apple News Plus. All of it curated just for you. New subscribers try it free for one month at news.com slash learn. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery

and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operational. More time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. The first ever all-electric 2026 Subaru Trail Seeker is the EV for the Trail Obsessed. With up to 444 kilometers on a full charge and DC fast charging from 10 to 80% in about 30 minutes in ideal conditions. Plus, ample ground clearance and symmetrical all-wheel drive make the 2026 trail.

Seeker the most capable EV Subaru has ever built. Test drive it at your local Subaru dealer or visit Subaru.ca. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get. Like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system. And it's ready to go from day one

so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow. AI Cloud ERP for any size this. You're mentioning wanting to do right by customers, and it does seem like that particular calculation you're describing, like, should I do nothing? Should I fix it and give it back to you? Or should I do the minimum viable amount so that you can go trade it in? I'm imagining you're doing that math constantly. Walk me through that process a little bit. Depends on the person. So you can kind of gauge a person's needs by how they're coming into you if they're like, And usually they'll tell you to.

Like, hey, they come in in a panic. Oh, my God, I have all this appointments. Like, I have an appointment. I got a flight later today. And I need this phone working. My tickets on there. You know, so you can kind of gauge, all right, they need a fix now. But what I like to do in certain situations where it's like water damage, like, let's

down water damage for a second. With water damage, I tell them, hey, I can get this phone on and working, especially because I plug it in, it's vibrating, but nothing's on the screen. But if you take a look here, like the cameras, they're super fogged up. So water's by the cameras. I'll pop it open, I'll show them. Hey, the entire inside of the phone's wet. What I recommend, I give them multiple options.

I say what I recommend is do the bare minimum, fix it, trade it in. But if you want to fix it and keep using it, that's on you, but I'm just trying to save you the money and the headaches moving forward in the future because, you know, water damage is always very, very annoying. And I just, I try to lay out as many options as I can. I let them choose. And I never try to push anybody in the right, like in the direction that I want them to do. I just want them to make a decision if they say, hey, I want to go somewhere else.

that's fine, you know, make your own decision, as long as you're happy with it, and that's pretty much it. I would assume that most people are in some kind of hurry by the time they get to you, right? It's, it's, I either need this now, or it's very important and I need it or something, like, you're never catching people in a sort of mega chill moment of their lives. You know what No, no, very rarely, very rarely. The reason people come in and they, like, speak so highly about us, like, these guys are the best, da-da-da, is because we come in at, like, some of their worst moments, unfortunately, you know, when they're, like, freaking out.

And we're all super calm and, like, we know, we're all capable of people. And, like, we know, like, we've seen this hundreds of times before. I think we fixed close to, like, 25,000 devices in, like, the last couple years. Wow. So we've seen this issue several times over again. Me and my entire staff can fix an issue, like, in our sleep at this point. So we're just very, oh yeah, no problem. Like, it's cool.

Like, we'll do it for this and it'll be done. And like, and you can see the hesitation. Like, are you sure? I'm like, I'm pretty positive. But yeah, it definitely, when you can speak to them, like, as a human and like just kind of talked them out of their worries too a little bit and be like, listen, it's going to be fine. That, like, that does a lot for people. Yeah.

How did you learn how to do all this? When I was working at the other shop, he pretty much taught me everything I needed to know, like the bare minimums. But once I finally opened up my store, to be honest, there was a lot. why I didn't know how to do. But when you're starting a business, you basically just say yes to everything, you figure it out, you do research, all that information's on. You know, I fix it, really good guides of how to like take apart devices.

YouTube's always a great resource. And then also forms like Reddit and stuff, you'll always find great information on there. I was going to ask if you were like very confidently telling a customer you could help them and then going to the back and like loading up a bunch of YouTube videos. And I thought you were going to say no. And then I was going to tell you I don't believe you. In my early days, no, for sure. Am I? Now I don't do that, but back then, yes, definitely.

What was the hardest skill to learn in that sense? Ooh, probably soldering. Sodering is always a little tough, you know, just getting a feel for it, like the right amount of temperatures and using the flux and just like keeping your hand steady because like you knock a capacity off the board, now you've got to fix that. I'm not the best when it comes to micro-soddering, but when it comes to like HDMI ports and charging ports on iPads, like those are super simple. Basically, you teach anybody in like two hours,

to do it, they can do it confidently. But yeah, that's definitely like the hardest, like, learning curve, but like diagnosing the motherboards is where it gets really tricky. Wait, tell me more. Why? So you have a lot of different components on motherboards, especially when you get to phone microseodering. If you ever look at an iPhone motherboard underneath the microscope, it is the most fascinating thing you'll ever witness in your life because it's like an entire city in there. And a lot of these components are smaller than the tip of a tweezer. So if you're trying to remove something, replace it, it's very, very difficult. And you need a lot of specialized equipment, too,

in order to work on motherboards, like power supplies, so inject power into the board, thermal cameras to see what's heating up. There's also like a couple other tricks, like, in order to diagnose. Then also you need schematics, which a lot of these companies, if we're talking about right to repair, don't want to provide to independent shops. So you're going based off of information that other people have and just testing out, you know, testing out power and kind of guessing, all right, that's the correct amount of power, It's similar to this other board. And then it gets pretty tricky, though.

And I would assume, I mean, especially when you think about things like Android phones, there's just a million of them. And every one of them is slightly different. And every one of them has slightly different problems and slightly different combinations of things. Is it sort of every new phone is a special flower that you have to figure out? Or do you get to the point where I've seen the only 12 problems anybody actually has and I can fix them all? You described it perfectly, though. It's slightly different.

So, like, same principles apply across all iPhones. Sometimes they make massive changes, like with the backglass. On older iPhones, you would need a laser to cut the adhesive holding the backglass. You'd have to scrape it and then glue a new piece on. Now, they did a full 180. They were reverted back to, like, the old iPhone 4s and 5s, where the backglass is actually a panel that you could pop off and pop on, which, honestly, I greatly prefer much easier.

And it saves a couple of. customer mad time. It's a lot more like cheap because you don't need a $2,500 laser to cut it off. Certain things will make like a big difference on, but like screens for the most part, they're all the same. Like all iPhones are pretty much the same. Samson's 99% of the time too. They're all the same. Maybe like the connectors a little south of where it was on the last model. Sometimes they have two connectors. Sometimes it's one. Sometimes it's connected to the charging board. But it's all pretty much the same principles. What's your sense of a reasonable amount of this for people to take on for themselves? Because I'm thinking about what you said about soldering. I'm very impressed. And also, I don't think

it's reasonable to expect most people to have the equipment, ability, and interest to do soldering for themselves, right? So it's like, if my charging port gives out, I think me replacing it is beyond the scope of what a reasonable person should be able to do. But like, should I be be able to open up my phone and replace the battery, I think is maybe something you could talk me into. So I'm curious, as you think about, like, the skills you want to sort of teach to people who come into the store so that they don't have to come into the store for that thing anymore, what's on that list for you? So mostly software, I mean, when it comes to actual, like, hardware repairs, there's a lot of risk involved. Like, if you're doing a battery on an iPhone, you have to

remove the screen. There's a chance that you rip the screen. Now you got to replace the screen. Or if ripped the proximity sensor. Now your face ID doesn't work because that's serialized with the phone. Same thing with the battery. There's always a risk of, you know, you puncture the battery because you didn't use enough heat or alcohol. Now you have a fire, your phone's on fire. Not a good day. I did that once. That was fun. Yeah. I've had a couple blow up in the syrup. It's not a good experience. Nothing like evacuating a 20-story building that I was in because I poked a phone battery. Were you doing a review? Were you doing a review? I was doing a review and it was about a phone that, in theory had a

replaceable battery and I was, I had a sort of side by side of here's what a replaceable battery looks like and here's what a non-replaceable battery it looks like

and I had to peel out the non-replaceable battery basically and punctured it as I was doing so. Luckily, just a lot of smoke and no fire, but most of the time, that's all that happens

is it plumes that nasty stuff. Yeah, I still caused a lot of trouble and got my company in a lot of trouble. But yeah, that's the sort of thing that I think, like, I got accused when we made that video of doing that, like, as a bit, just to prove the point.

I was like, no, you don't understand. I was trying my hardest to do this correctly. You got to get, like, a nice heating pad. Keep it on there for a couple minutes to loose that adhesive. And then, like, good amount of alcohol, isopropoles, safe to use on, like, any phone, tablet computer. Yeah, I should have called you before I did this. But yeah, but I think you're right that that, even that is probably beyond what you can expect of most people.

Yeah. And unfortunately, I don't like that because I, I, when you were talking about. It's like the removal batteries. They should switch back to removal batteries. Like, yeah, would that cut my business down significantly? Of course, yeah. But it's the right thing to do for the consumer because you have these people. They're stuck spending all this money when it's needless. They don't need to. Make the back cover removable so you get to pop it open like they used to do. Put a battery in and you're good to go. You can replace your own battery. It'll save everybody a lot of time and money, but these phone companies don't want that because

their main excuse is the waterproof ability. But like I said, phones aren't waterproof. All right. Last thing in them, I'll let you go. There's a new kind of gadget coming out now, whether it's smartwatches or smart glasses like you're mentioning. It sounds like you have some of the meta raybans. We are in a phase of trying to put a computer into every imaginable shape and size of thing. They're getting smaller.

They're getting more complex in all these ways. What's your role in that future? Are we going to need repair shops? in the same way? Are you going to be able to do your work in the same way as these things get smaller and weirder like this? So to be honest, people always ask me, like, are you worried about competition? I say, no, I encourage more people to get into this field because there is a great opportunity for young people to learn a new trade. And it should be taught in trade school, honestly, because there's no real schooling for this. It's a really good opportunity for a lot of

people to get out there and whether it's just doing in-home calls and just setting up printers for people that are a little bit older, you know, software-based, hardware issues, data recovery, like fine, detailed data recovery. Most of these shops that you talk to, they're overwhelmed what work because there's so much demand and there's just not enough people out there to fix them, especially when you have the carriers, Best Buy, the Geek Squad, they don't touch it. They just sell you a new one, Apple even. Most of the time when they say, oh, yeah, like we have AppleCare, we're going to give you,

you know, we're going to fix it. Most of the time, they just take the old one and give you a new one. and they charge you, you know, $100 or whatever it is, and they just give you a whole new phone and there's no information on it. So honestly, I recommend if you're young and you're, you know, thinking about getting into this industry, you should definitely start taking a leap,

start doing it on the side, help out friends and family, and you can really grow a great company no matter where you are because every household has probably 10 to 15 devices now. Yeah. Have you repaired any of these things yet? Like, are you, have you gotten your first, I don't know, a pair of meta glasses or like, are people bringing you their dishwasher?

with, they're like, this has a chip in it. You fix it. Yeah. This is what I mean. Like, everything is a computer now, right? So the idea of, I think for the most part, you can categorize kind of phones, laptops, PCs are all close enough to each other. But now we're entering this phase where like, in theory, everything is a gadget.

Everything is connected. Everything is a computer everywhere. And you're going to cause people are going to start to have like smart home disasters that they're going to ask you for your help on. I've done a lot of nest, like nest issues where. I go to their house and the heater's not working. And most of the time, it's just, if you go to the schedule in the app, you know, they just didn't have the timer set right, and that's literally all it is.

But yeah, no, it's people bring in strange things. I have worked on this animatronic where one of the wires got desodered. So I solder that on, a windshield wiper motor where the wires popped off. Oh, wow. Random things, but like it's tech everywhere. Like you said, a lot of the meta-glasses come in. Common issue with those is the, battery where it connects is on the side, like right next to your eyeball, where the

capture button is. The issue with those is sometimes when you put on the glasses or disconnect itself internally, and there's no really good way to open it. So if you just squeeze it really hard, I found out, it reconnects that connector and then the battery start working. Oh, interesting. But you can't really find parts for them, and they also don't like coming apart either and going back together in one piece. So I have three broken pairs of meta glasses that are sitting in my drawer at the shop that I don't know what to do with. Because certain things you just can't really fix, unfortunately. What's the biggest project sitting in front of you right now?

Like, when you get back to the shop, what's the, what's the one you're like, oh, God, how am I going to do this? The endless stack of PlayStation's. We'll clear out 25, 50 PlayStation's, and one day we'll just sit there and spend like 12 hours working on PlayStation because they're either overheating or they have an HDMI issue because the HDMIs are built notoriously bad on them. And also, they get so filled up with dust that you can't really clean them without disassembling the entire console.

And then the third issue is the liquid metal. It slowly over time, off the constant heat cycles. So slowly droops itself off the CPU, like the main chip. And then the console overheats. So, yeah, probably tackling that. Fair enough. All right. Well, I should let you get back to it.

But thank you for doing this with me. This is so much fun. I'm so glad to have you here. We'll have to have you back. Yeah. Thank you for having me. All right. That's it for the show.

Thank you to Leo for being here. And thank you, as always, for watching and listening. If you have thoughts, feelings, feedback, questions, if you have gadget repair things you want to talk about. I now have Leo's email. Not to brag. We can get in touch. Maybe I can get him to answer your questions.

You can also reach out to us. Vergecast at theverge.com is the email. 866, Verge11 is the hotline. We love hearing from you about all this and everything else. And remember, if you enjoyed this episode, stay tuned. Tomorrow. Also really good. Leo has some great thoughts on where we are in the gadget world right now

and whether even he can get parts in a ramaget in time. It's good stuff. And if you want to support everything that we're up to, the very best thing you can do is subscribe to The Verge. Go to theverge.com slash subscribe. It gets you all of our podcasts ad-free, including this one. It gets you all of our exclusive newsletters. It gets you all of our coverage of Ramageddon and everything else.

Everything. The verge.com slash subscribe. Thank you in advance. The Vergecast is Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. This show is produced by Josh Kahas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. We'll see you tomorrow. I guess Leo and I will see you tomorrow.

Rock and roll.