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Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

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Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#131

Post by greedo »

ndnxhs wrote: post #63
torgian wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this isn’t exactly true. You can repair your own phones, you just need the right tools. China is well known for this. Repair shops that have the right tools (vacuum heating chambers, etc) are able to take apart and repair phones.

How many people are buying vacuume heating chambers to swap a battery vs throwing the phone in the bin and buying a new one.

I don't have the tools to repair the fuel injectors on my car, should they become clogged with carbon. I take my car to a repair shop, where the cost of the tools (and the skills) are amortized across a number of customers.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#132

Post by greedo »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #125
BurningFrog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if every manufacturer is doing it, there are probably good reasons for it. I doubt they've all gone mad at the same time.

Yes, but the reasons are it damages the second hand market and reduces product lifetime -- the outcome for society/environment is worse, the profit for the company is greater.

Is that really true? Say Apple uses a manufacturing technique that makes the product more reliable, but less repairable. Eventually, the two criteria meet an equilibrium where the device is no longer useful because its apps aren't supported, or it's too slow.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#133

Post by greedo »

sh87 wrote: post #27
BurningFrog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if every manufacturer is doing it, there are probably good reasons for it. I doubt they've all gone mad at the same time.

No removable batteries, no expandable memory, no headphone jack and now the notch. All undeniable evidence on manufacturers copying(?) Apple's choices at least in phones. As a user, I strongly feel these are not in my best interests. And I realize I am not alone in this. Apple being the magnitude that it is now, cannot afford to make choices to attract folks like me with their 'reimagined' and 'breakthrough' innovati…

If there's a market, why isn't anyone addressing it? As geeks, we love the idea of upgrading and repairing computer hardware, but the majority of the market HATES it. They just want something that works. So much of the desire by geeks for removable batteries reminds me of someone wanting an engine crank (like on the Model T) in case the starter fails...

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#134

Post by alkonaut »

everdrive wrote: post #126
alkonaut wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone is surprisingly repairable, and after the switch to the rounded chassis (with iPhone6) I’d consider it more repairable than the earlier iphone5 form factor. The only part that is using any significant adhesive is the battery, it can’t be fit because it needs to be able to grow, so it is fit into a too large space using a piece of adhesive tape to not move around. The phone is built to be quickly servicable…

I get your point, but wouldn't it be nice if there was a user-removable battery, like you'd have in an old dumb-phone? I know that modifies the engineering (aka, the phone must be thicker) but it's not clear to me that there's much a of a real benefit to a phone being especially thin?

I don’t think it would make much difference. An extra mm wouldnt matter much but I wouldn’t want to sacrifice any water resistance for it.

Over the lifespan (ownership) of e.g 3 years I usually replace the screen at least once, usually also some other component. Having the battery user replaceable wouldn’t make much difference, it would be 2 services instead of 3 in case the battery died.

I never replaced a battery on any of my 3 smartphones nor on any of the 4 dumbphones before them.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#135

Post by alkonaut »

tinus_hn wrote: post #100
alkonaut wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone is surprisingly repairable, and after the switch to the rounded chassis (with iPhone6) I’d consider it more repairable than the earlier iphone5 form factor. The only part that is using any significant adhesive is the battery, it can’t be fit because it needs to be able to grow, so it is fit into a too large space using a piece of adhesive tape to not move around. The phone is built to be quickly servicable…

A major difference is that Apple does not sell parts to anyone who is not a licensed repair partner. All these screens you can put in your phone are fakes, refurbished or parts of stolen phones.

This is a good point: iphones are easily serviced physically but you may not get the parts.

There have also been rumors that some parts would not be replaceable unless you used original parts but I have never had any problems with “original” parts (eg refurb screen with new 3rd party glass), obviously if a phone required parts one could not buy it can’t be considered user serviceable at all.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#136

Post by alkonaut »

mooman219 wrote: post #105
alkonaut wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone is surprisingly repairable, and after the switch to the rounded chassis (with iPhone6) I’d consider it more repairable than the earlier iphone5 form factor. The only part that is using any significant adhesive is the battery, it can’t be fit because it needs to be able to grow, so it is fit into a too large space using a piece of adhesive tape to not move around. The phone is built to be quickly servicable…

In the past, without warning, they bricked phones with refurbished screens. These are Apple manufactured screens, just ones not original to the phone (repaired by third parties). Using third party screens used to work, but the firmware now checks for this and disables brightness controls if it detects them. This also happened without warning after an update (I believe 11.1 or .2). It might not be hard to fix the phon…

Do you have any source where I can read more about this? Is this for particular models? Refurbished screens work well on iphone6 on latest iOS as far as I can tell

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#137

Post by greedo »

Yetanfou wrote: post #30
petedoyle wrote: post #7

Given Apple's strong stance on privacy and not making backdoors for encryption, etc-- could they possibly be trying to prevent supply chain interdictions from the likes of the NSA? [1] Or be trying to detect things like we saw this week? [2] [1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/18/the-nsa-cisco-and-the-issu... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

No, they're trying to make sure they get their pound of flesh any time one of 'their' devices needs to be repaired. If the NSA (et al) are really serious about having hooks into Apple products they'll make sure to get them [1], glued screens and batteries and firmware kill-switches notwithstanding. If it were about privacy and security Apple could have the device display a warning when it detected tampering and leave…

Pound of flesh? They're offering battery replacements at $29. That's probably a loss leader since it's 30 min of labor plus parts.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#138

Post by colejohnson66 »

tinus_hn wrote: post #100
alkonaut wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone is surprisingly repairable, and after the switch to the rounded chassis (with iPhone6) I’d consider it more repairable than the earlier iphone5 form factor. The only part that is using any significant adhesive is the battery, it can’t be fit because it needs to be able to grow, so it is fit into a too large space using a piece of adhesive tape to not move around. The phone is built to be quickly servicable…

A major difference is that Apple does not sell parts to anyone who is not a licensed repair partner. All these screens you can put in your phone are fakes, refurbished or parts of stolen phones.

MacRumors did a good write up on the “underground” repair ecosystem. Third party screens are almost always not color calibrated, etc.

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/14/inside-the-iphone-repai...

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#139

Post by JJMcJ »

bjoli wrote: post #2

Apple is really undoubtedly the king of making their products impossible to repair. This doesn't bother me much since I have long abandoned apple. What bothers me is that everyone follows their bad example. Not only is a modern phone impossible to open, everything is glued in. Even laptops are like this. I have even seen other manufacturers stop using underfill in their phones, just like apple. Probably to make broke…

The original Mac Classic had the CMOS battery soldered to the motherboard.

It also had a sealed case, voiding warranty.

The iPod was "sleek", and being able to open the case to replace the battery "would have made it less sleek".

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#140

Post by craftyguy »

greedo wrote: post #137
Yetanfou wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they're trying to make sure they get their pound of flesh any time one of 'their' devices needs to be repaired. If the NSA (et al) are really serious about having hooks into Apple products they'll make sure to get them [1], glued screens and batteries and firmware kill-switches notwithstanding. If it were about privacy and security Apple could have the device display a warning when it detected tampering and leave…

Pound of flesh? They're offering battery replacements at $29. That's probably a loss leader since it's 30 min of labor plus parts.

They only started offering it at that price after great public outcry when it was exposed they were purposefully slowing down older devices..
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