Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple's Proprietary Software Locks Kill Independent Repair on New MacBook Pros

motherboard.vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 455 posts

Re: Apple's Proprietary Software Locks Kill Independent Repair on New MacBook Pros

#51

Post by microcolonel »

floatingatoll wrote: post #8

This is an excellent step for protecting MacBook Pro users against hardware invasions (such as US and China border authorities). If you trust the user to replace hardware, you permit the user’s hardware to be altered by malicious actors. By restricting final approval of hardware replacement to a vetted subset of all humanity, you ensure that it’s vastly more difficult for the vast majority of malicious humanity. Yes,…

> If you trust the user to replace hardware, you permit the user’s hardware to be altered by malicious actors.

The correct way to handle this, however, is to offer to sign the customer's key for a given unit or order, with a mechanism for succession (i.e. simultaneously sign a successor key, and expire the current one).

Re: Apple's Proprietary Software Locks Kill Independent Repair on New MacBook Pros

#54

Post by paulie_a »

paxy wrote: post #38
threeseed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also used to believe that privacy was only for spys but I have very quickly changed my position. Gays, minorities, journalists, dissidents, whistleblowers etc are all being targeted and jailed in many countries in the world. And in China it's entire swathes of the general public. And so much of this is directly attributable to lax privacy and security. And I don't know believe that there is a huge market for cheape…

The repair market for Apple products isn't huge precisely because Apple has done everything it can to kill it.

The repair market for apple laptops is probably small anyways because apple is a small fish in that market. Why bother?

Re: Apple's Proprietary Software Locks Kill Independent Repair on New MacBook Pros

#55

Post by rad_gruchalski »

ams6110 wrote: post #42
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All cars pretty much, mainly thanks to emissions regs

Part of the reason I only buy older cars, so I can work on them myself. I enjoy it as a hobby, and it saves me a lot of money.

Time is money. I charge more per hour than my authorized bmw dealer charges me.

Re: Apple's Proprietary Software Locks Kill Independent Repair on New MacBook Pros

#59

Post by paavoova »

gst wrote: post #37
bsheir74 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prohibiting 3rd party repairs doesn't make you any safer than you are now. If you were concerned about hardware attacks you could continue to bring your computer to the apple store, and never have to worry. All this action does is remove options for those of us who do wanna fix their own machines. And this is assuming you trust apple to inspect their parts closely. Their computers are still made in china. Why couldn'…

> All this action does is remove options for those of us who do wanna fix their own machines. I don't see how this removes any choices. It's still possible to buy other non-Apple hardware that doesn't have those restrictions.

Consider this: the majority of the consumer demographic is largely ignorant to these issues. As such, Apple's largest customer demographic is in no place to make informed decisions. By restricting hardware and serviceability, Apple directly fosters mass consumerism by selling non-repairable, disposable gadgets. This undoubtedly contributes to climate change and non-renewable resource drain. Even if every Apple customer decided to make a change with their next purchase, you would still have a huge number of devices heading to the landfill, all simply because of Apple deciding to impose hardware restrictions for profit.

And note that, as mentioned in the article, Apple is actively lobbying against Right-to-repair, which will help other corporations get away with similar practices. So for how long is it "still possible" to have any choice whatsoever? Can you buy, for example, a mobile device with an open baseband? No - already the consumer can't vote with their wallet nor have choice in many, if not most, matters of consumer technology.

Re: Apple's Proprietary Software Locks Kill Independent Repair on New MacBook Pros

#60

Post by chx »

p2t2p wrote: post #20
Aloha wrote: post #14

If you don't like the particularities of how with how a business does business, don't buy their products. If enough people agree with you, the company will either go out of business, or will change its business practices. The what amounts to hand wringing over Apple, mostly gets people flustered, without actually changing anything, but perhaps the direction of a few electrons somewhere.

I do change something. I've got Thinkpad T25 with linux on board as my next computer instead of mac. I've got off iCloud Drive - replaced it with SyncThing + Dropbox combination (Dropbox to deliver stuff to iPhone). I've got off from Apple Music - back to owning my music (I endlessly tired of "this album is not available in your country"). The only thing left to figure out is photos - but I think I'll just slap toget…

The ThinkPad Anniversary Edition 25 is an anomaly alas. Wish there were more like it. But, I have mine too :)
Post reply on HN