Apple's Proprietary Software Locks Kill Independent Repair on New MacBook Pros • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by Aaargh20318 » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:14 AM UTC

paavoova wrote: post #45

JohnTHaller wrote: post #9

The iMac Pro is similarly locked down. All while Apple fights against Right To Repair legislation.

It's absolutely baffling how so many seemingly educated, knowledgeable people such as those found in tech can support these anti-user practices via their support of Apple's products. It goes further than just Apple's hardware products: some people prefer to build "Hackintosh" systems (OSX running on non-Apple hardware) and a common problem is dealing with wifi-adapter whitelists. Why would you ever want to consider u…

> It's absolutely baffling how so many seemingly educated, knowledgeable people such as those found in tech can support these anti-user practices via their support of Apple's products.

It's probably to do with the T2 chip which among other things handles full-disk encryption and TouchID. It seems extremely likely that this is for security reasons.

If I had the choice, I would choose security over the ability to tinker with my hardware any day.

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

#312

Post by sundvor » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:19 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #275

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…

This is due to liability law. O2 is liable for the condition fo the phone they sold you, but if Apple take on the repair they adopt liability. Apple has a contract with O2 to repair the phone, not with you whom they don't have a contractual relationship with. They can't just waive that contractual relationship for every singe purchaser of Apple products from third parties world wide, it would open them up to a lot of…

I got an S8+ from Samsung on release via Telstra in Australia.

There was an issue with the screen, so I took it to Samsung in Melbourne Central. They confirmed the issue and were happy to do an on the spot replacement if Telstra didn't have any left in their nearby store - for admin reasons it was just a bit better to do that.

Telstra didn't, so I took Samsung up on their offer - very happy to have it resolved straight away. None of the BS as in the GP post with Apple.

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

#313

Post by dreamcompiler » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:24 AM UTC

afandian wrote: post #284

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely they decided devices needed to be as light and cheap to manufacture as possible and a by-product of that is being unfixable.

It might be the result of a compromise but it is still an active choice. I think it is within the remit of a designer to think how the product will be serviced.

Some designers maybe. Jony Ive clearly couldn't care less about repairability.

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

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Post by wilsonnb3 » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:35 AM UTC

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.

Seems like a strange hill to die on, so to speak. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed the ads in the start menu for more than a few seconds.

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

#315

Post by artur_makly » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:41 AM UTC

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…

you can add all of LATAM to that list. FAIL

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

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Post by pmontra » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:43 AM UTC

imron wrote: post #239

growt wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are there 23 countries in North America?

https://www.countries-ofthe-world.com/countries-of-north-ame...

The extent of North America is quite country dependent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America#Extent

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

#317

Post by nasredin » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:45 AM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #299

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 device…

FWIW every single Apple user I know had problems. From the deliberately ill-engineered flimsy cables to the Apple's BSOD-equivalent.

None of them upgrade their iOS firmware. Even grandmas know not to click "update".

BTW thanks for the UI dark patterns Apple assholes.

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

#318

Post by chiefalchemist » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:49 AM UTC

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #304

wjnc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

I hope we get a "right to repair" law in EU, where the seller is required by law to provide repairability services next to their regular warranties. That means that, as a seller, you must provide a service to repair (and replacement parts) for "reasonable" prices for anything you sell. For example, if you're selling notebooks, you must be able to provide notebook parts and repair as well for the products you sell. Co…

Maintainability is a feature, so to speak. Another option would be to purchase the product that best fits your needs, including warranty, repair, parts, upgrading, etc.

If Brand A decides it's best to not provide Feature X and you __need__ Feature X, then you can decide that Brand A isn't for you.

If anything should be legislated it should be publishing the details about warranty coverage, average cost or repair, most common repairs, as well as turnaround times. Then, with that info, let the consumer make the decision that best fits them.

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

#319

Post by nickflood » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:50 AM UTC

King-Aaron wrote: post #289

ssijak wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with dell warranty/service.

Have you had bad experiences with them (genuinely curious)? The only time I've had to use dell onsite service, they came out the same day... So I bought their 12 month onsite warranty, but I also figure that after 12 months I'll feel happy to start doing repairs myself. Side note, I'm not normally a massive Dell fan by any stretch, but no one else had a 8750h/16gb ddr4/1060 geforce for the money I wanted to spend (an…

Unless you'll get one of the defective units, you'll love your Dell. The plasticky coating os quite durable and it doesn't feel cold to the touch like the aluminium body of a MacBook. Still has sharp edges IMO.

If you'll get a bad unit, I advise you to return it immediately and re-buy. Their replacements come from refurbished units and their refurbishers are no good at fixing everything, and sometimes introduce other issues, so you'll be guaranteed to hate Dell's guts after going thru couple rounds of replacements (as per Dell subreddit). Onsite repair should be fine, though.

I personally like to tinker with my Dells, had performed a not-so-economical upgrade from 9550 to 9560 on mine with great fun and overall just enjoy the 15" laptop. One mistake I made is assuming that the touchpads on 13" XPS would be as good. Boy was I wrong, now my wife's suffering through one. It's the same across 9350 and 9360,but may have been fixed on the 9370, I haven't tried it yet.

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

#320

Post by consp » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:52 AM UTC

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.

> 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.

As far as I know, this is not allowed in most of the EU if you bought the device outright.

On the other hand: The customer probably bought the phone with a O2 combination contract in which case it is a phone-on-a-loan (as in banking). In that case the provider is responsible as seller and loan provider, and the Apple store employee is correct to refuse unless O2 has a direct servicing agreement with the Apple store.

If he bought it outright (even through O2) and O2 doesn't provide reasonable service (missing your phone for three weeks isn't reasonable) he can request repair within warranty at the factory but will most likely have to pay for it himself and then send the repair cost to O2 (which they will argue against doing in order to avoid paying). The "factory" can refuse to do so and send the customer back to the seller in which case he/she should argue for a quick repair or stop the contract with reimbursement.

It's a complicated problem, but the Apple store was most likely correct in this case.