On the sidelines of the Flash Memory Summit today, I met with iFixIt CEO, Kyle Wien, to talk about his San Luis Obispo company (about 2 hours South of Silicon Valley).

iFixIt helps consumers repair their own Apple laptops, iPods and now the iPhone. In a nutshell, the company sells components (screens, batteries, drives, logic boards...), new or used, as well as tools through its website and provides for FREE how-to guides to do the repairs yourself, for a fraction of the cost that you would have paid at Apple or one of the professional repair shops. Officially, Apple is not too happy about that. Especially when it claims that some parts are "non-user replaceable" and when days later iFixIt publishes a guide on how to do it yourself. For iFixIt CEO, it's not only absolutely legal but you won't void the product's warranty if you do it! So what's the catch? Well, you'll need to be a bit handy, which is not really my case. But at least for people like me, it gives an idea of how much I should spend to repair my MacBook/iPod and avoid scams! The video interview is coming soon (iMovie crashed and lost everything :-(.