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

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

#291

Post by dannyw »

bigbugbag wrote: post #248
United857 wrote: post #177

I'm speculating this works similar to iOS developer signing, where each device has a unique HW-fused ID, and only Apple can issue a cryptographically-signed provisioning profile with that ID to allow you to load software onto that device. In this case, each HW subsystem probably has its own unique ID which is hashed together; replacing one invalidates the hash and requires Apple to re-sign the system's "provisioning…

Unique hardware Id is incredibly useful to identify and track devices and people around.

Yes, so if you get your Mac or iPhone stolen it’s useless to the thief. This already happens with iCloud Activation Lock, but people just disassemble the motherboard and sell parts like the screen instead.

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

#292

Post by zimpenfish »

chewyland wrote: post #259
sgt wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We mitigate this risk by just having a spare device or spare laptop on premises. It works and it's cheap. We use tons of Macs in a business setting, and we're definitely not going back to PC's. The PC's were a nightmare (not in terms of the hardware, but because of the sofware) from a management and administration perspective. Primarily because of Windows. Using Macs running macOS has really been a gamechanger.

As a MacBook owner MacOS feels like abandonware to me. When I reboot into Bootcamp and Windows 10 I feel like I'm using a machine 10 years in the future.

Whereas when I boot my games box into Windows 10 and it sits there saying "Applying updates" for 45 minutes before rebooting and then thrashing itself into unusability for another 45-60 minutes doing ... something ... I feel like I'm being trolled by MS.

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

#293

Post by bionoid »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #190
muse900 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, and the more I think about it, the more I feel that apple products have started becoming inaccessible to me too. From what I understand they want to protect their brand by building quality and repairing with quality as well. Issue is that they are lacking on employees for what they want to do. A week ago I was in the apple store in London, a guy next to me bought one of their new flagships through o2 a…

I don't normally give salty replies on HN but I have to say no. This is incorrect. > Issue is that they are lacking on employees for what they want to do. That is not the problem. The problem is many of us do not accept the world in which everything, down to the hardware we touch is just licensed to us. Some of us live to hack, crack and diy. We are jealous of the right to repair, tinker and transform.

> Some of us live to hack, crack and diy. We are jealous of the right to repair, tinker and transform.

Completely off topic, but here in Norway we also have a right to reverse-engineer software if the vendor can't or won't provide what you need to complete an integration. This has been the case since the 1960s if I remember correctly, and it's still in there after revising the law this year.

Ref: Åndsverkloven of 2018 §42 [0] (in Norwegian), https://lovdata.no/lov/2018-06-15-40/§42

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

#294

Post by lotsofpulp »

bigbugbag wrote: post #278
lotsofpulp wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it just status when Apple is the only vendor providing a device that just works with the least time spent fixing it or updating it or removing all the malware that came pre installed on it? My grandparents and uncles and aunts aren’t looking for status. They want to open their device, press FaceTime and see their grand kids. They don’t want to spend time fighting out which login to use on which service Google…

I deal with this grandparents videocall situation, none have an apple product but android tablets and linux computers and it's working as intended. I also deal with how every macbook plugging the ethernet cable on my home network just crashes with the multilingual error message explaining that nothing can be done except turning off the macbook, no other device does this, apple device privilege I guess. Do I have to m…

My elders don’t even read English, I just don’t see how Google and Windows offerings are as usable as Apples. And in fact experience shows they weren’t, I tried and all the login and quality issues made me go out and set everyone up with FaceTime. Although their recent decision to hide the switch camera button was asinine, they mostly kept it clean and consistent and easy to use.

Same with iOS. If I give the same elders a Windows or Linux or Android device, who knows what kind of malware they will click on when visiting their news websites or clicking WhatsApp links. But with iOS, I never have to worry about malware. All they have to do is go back to the home screen and kill the website or process.

That’s not marketing, that’s creating software and hardware that meets a need. A need for privacy and security and usability with minimal hassle.

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

#295

Post by pjmlp »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #256
bigbugbag wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> apple-only, apple-only, apple user lock-in, apple walled garden, apple. > don't tell me I can do this with something else than apple. Of you cannot play windows game on your linux box and you cannot get the same experience you have in the walled garden outside of it unless you change and adapt you devices. I have a client with a Linux ecosystem and a single iphone, apple does not provide itunes for linux so making…

Basically everyone in my family used to call me for tech support (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins), but in the past 3 years or so, I’ve convinced everyone to iPhones and iPads and MacBook Airs, they have have basically zero tech support calls to me. Everything just works as long as they keep track of their Apple ID and iCloud login. There is definitely value to not spending any time or brain cycles worr…

With Portuguese salaries it is cheaper to spend the difference sending the family members to our trustworthy PC repair shop and there is still budget left after a couple of years.

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

#297

Post by wjnc »

andr wrote: post #93

The impact of this will be much bigger outside of the US, as most countries outside of North America do not have a single Apple Store. In those countries, usually there is a licensed repair provider, but the customer experience can be drastically different. In Bulgaria, I've had to wait of over 3 weeks for a simple in-warranty repair of a MacBook, like a keyboard replacement. Using unlicensed repair stores has been t…

It might be totally unfeasible for a consumer to get your rights over a small repair, but you do have EU-law protection for your rights as a consumer.

Article 3 of the directive [1] states your rights quite clearly: "Any repair or replacement shall be completed within a reasonable time and without any significant inconvenience to the consumer, taking account of the nature of the goods and the purpose for which the consumer required the goods."

If the seller does not meet these guidelines (possibly enacted in local law, but this has to be within the framework set by the directive) you can annul the contract and get your money back. For a laptop, 3 weeks seems unreasonable and with significant inconvenience.

The bigger point is that Apple seems to be totally in denial of European consumer law and actively seeks to hinder timely and convenient repairs. That is one that should be addressed at a European level. They allow stores to sell their product without being able to offer the minimum warranty. Via EU-law that's a problem for the seller, not so much Apple, but the EU could argue that it's Apple that is setting the agenda and hindering stores to give proper warranty.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

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

#298

Post by raesene9 »

petepete wrote: post #262
raesene9 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW you might find that Windows 10 Pro + WSL can get you a lot of what you want in terms of desktop capabilities. MS have been improving the WSL/Windows Interop quite a bit. I find that for things like scripting, text file manipulation and connecting to Linux servers, WSL works fine.

But I'm not prepared to have Candy Crush adverts in my Start Menu, which counts Windows out. Additionally, I know I can deactivate them by jumping through a couple of hoops, but that's not the point.

Out of curiousity, why do you feel that's not the point? Customizing an operating system after installation is a common part of the process for any system

Having to remove unwanted software seems like an odd reason to rule out an entire environment.

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

#299

Post by theshrike79 »

theonemind wrote: post #138

These videos created by a third party Apple repair shop convinced me to ditch Apple: https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos?view=0&sor... He goes into the poor practices they use in manufacturing in general that literally every other manufacturer gets right. They might use under-sized capacitors to save room on the board. The first "unibody" they advertised had two aluminum parts glued together. Some of th…

Rossmann is advertising his own repair shop with those videos. And of course he sees only the bad stuff, since he repairs the broken ones.

MKBHD explains the issue pretty well here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndphYju6PVM

tl;dr Apple produces craptons of stuff, if just 0.01% of it fails, it's thousands of devices - and those users jump to social media to bitch about it, making it seem like a huge number of devices is affected.

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

#300

Post by sadmikerafles »

sgt wrote: post #249
foepys wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this reason MacBooks aren't really business devices in my opinion. What kind of business is okay with the service Apple provides? You have to send one employee to the Apple Store (if there is even one located near you), maybe get a replacement device, maybe wait for 2 weeks for it to return? This is so much more expensive than buying Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. with on-site support. On top of that you often get repair…

We mitigate this risk by just having a spare device or spare laptop on premises. It works and it's cheap. We use tons of Macs in a business setting, and we're definitely not going back to PC's. The PC's were a nightmare (not in terms of the hardware, but because of the sofware) from a management and administration perspective. Primarily because of Windows. Using Macs running macOS has really been a gamechanger.

In what world is OS X more manageable on a large scale than Windows, that's the reason it's used in every large business to start with.
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