This is probably already used for countries where Apple has no local presence. Here in Israel there are no Apple labs, so up till this year iPhones had to be sh

This is probably already used for countries where Apple has no local presence. Here in Israel there are no Apple labs, so up till this year iPhones had to be shipped to Apple Ireland for repairs. (but Macs and iPads could be repaired by authorized, non-Apple labs due to a less-stringent repair policy) Recently the news reported of a specific authorized reseller gaining the option to repair iPhones here, and sometimes even outright replace them -- all authorized by Apple. Maybe this programme made that possible.