My old Apple iPhone 5S didn’t look like it had been dropped so much as spiked. Fortunately, it still showed dim signs of life beneath its powerfully shattered screen. I wanted to get it up and running as a dependable backup, but I didn’t feel like waiting for an appointment with Apple and paying full price for parts and labor. So I hit up iGeeks, a small shop just off Upper State Street, owned and operated by Daniel Guerrera.
Within seconds, Guerrera had unfastened the damaged screen and was removing strange gunk from the phone innards with a tiny scraping tool. He talked as fast as he worked. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, Guerrera graduated from Dos Pueblos High School and then the Art Institute of California – San Diego, where he specialized in graphic design and computer science.
While designing ads for a friend who was doing iPhone repair, Guerrera showed an interest in the trade and learned firsthand from his buddy. Slowly, this new line of work took shape. He moved back to Santa Barbara, opened a hole-in-the-wall near La Cumbre Plaza, and then shared a retail space at the Sandman Inn on Upper State before landing at his present location about two years ago.