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One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

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Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#161

Post by slver »

bogwog wrote: post #65
slver wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He released a video recently where he basically said that it doesn’t matter if they’re easy to repair. As technology gets more advanced, so do repair shops. > It’ll be harder for the average Joe at home, but that’s precisely why independent repair shops that can offer competitive prices are so important. So you'd really recommend that Joe at home should repair their own Windows laptop or Android phone? Sorry but "g…

By "average Joe" I'm not referring to someone like my grandma or you, I mean someone who isn't a professional repair shop with specialized equipment, but still knows a few things about technology. I've repaired tons of my own devices over the years. The most "hardcore" repair I've done was replacing a blown capacitor in a Samsung monitor. The monitor was like $200, and the new capacitor cost less than a dollar. I'm t…

> I've repaired tons of my own devices over the years.

Many of us have but again, minituarization, specialization and integration means this gradually becomes impossible.

The age of generic parts is over. Things get built at scale, for a specific purpose, highly integrated, and tiny.

Unless maybe you can chisel out your own SoC replacement from some sand and metal.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#162

Post by devwastaken »

defaultname wrote: post #3

Rossmann is an important voice in the right to repair, however I do feel like he leaned into a certain audience, pandering to them a bit as a reliable target for ad impressions, and it has undermined his credibility. I hear about Rossmann most now when some vicious Apple detractor uses him as an authority on things having nothing to do with repair. For instance Rossmann did a video titled "Apple watching & logging EV…

He wasn't wrong in any of those videos.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#163

Post by Nextgrid »

stephenr wrote: post #154
Nextgrid wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not wanting to have to actually get certified to do authorised repairs There is no such thing as "authorized repair" when it comes to Apple. It's authorized "overpriced parts-changing" at best. Their "independent repair programme" is a bullshit PR tactic that thankfully seems to have failed. Apple's IRP is absolutely not viable for a repair shop. You can't even stock parts in advance (so the minimum turnaround time…

> There is no such thing as "authorized repair" when it comes to Apple. I guess the authorised service centers I've taken Macs to since the late 90s were figments of my imagination then?

My point is, none of it is repair. It's blindly replacing parts, the same thing that the Apple Store would do, at the exact same prices.

Given that Louis Rossmann appears to have made a successful business out of his "unauthorized" repair, consumers demand more cost-efficient options, which also happens to be better for the planet as it's less wasteful.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#164

Post by ehsankia »

chrisseaton wrote: post #38
jarenmf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised when people don't even know more mainstream science YouTubers like vsauce or veritasium. I've asked a class of ~20 college students whether they know vsauce and I was surprised no one knows him.

You’re probably massively overestimating how relevant YouTube is for most people.

And even then, Youtube has so many sub communities. For example, in some parts of the internet, people like Jeffree Star, James Charles and the rest are huge, but I'd wager most people here don't know them.

Similarly, a lot of people here may be familiar with English edutubers, but did you know there are a ton of massive creators in other non-English countries? How many of these [0] do you know?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_YouTubers

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#165

Post by caymanjim »

teatree wrote: post #147
josephg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one aspect of Friedman I really enjoy is the quality of his guests. I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to attract a lot of guests who I’ve never heard of, and yet are super interesting to listen to. For example, I loved his interviews with Joshua Bach and Jim Keller. I’d never heard of either of those guys before they went on Lex Friedman’s podcast and they’re both brilliant.

A HN reader not knowing Jim Keller is a bit surprising. He is a well known name in tech communities.

I'm a moderate consumer of DIY engineering/repair/tech and science content on YouTube and I haven't heard of nearly any of the names in this thread. I don't aggressively seek out content. There's a lot out there to weed through.

Most of my YouTube comes from mainstream pop science like Veritasium and Arvin Ash; science hackers like Nile Red and CodysLab; geeky DIY like Ben Eater; repair porn like My Mechanics; and whatever YouTube's recommendation engine throws my way based on those entry points.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#166

Post by novok »

stephenr wrote: post #154
Nextgrid wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not wanting to have to actually get certified to do authorised repairs There is no such thing as "authorized repair" when it comes to Apple. It's authorized "overpriced parts-changing" at best. Their "independent repair programme" is a bullshit PR tactic that thankfully seems to have failed. Apple's IRP is absolutely not viable for a repair shop. You can't even stock parts in advance (so the minimum turnaround time…

> There is no such thing as "authorized repair" when it comes to Apple. I guess the authorised service centers I've taken Macs to since the late 90s were figments of my imagination then?

That 30 yr old program is not the current program he is describing.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#167

Post by bogwog »

slver wrote: post #161
bogwog wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "average Joe" I'm not referring to someone like my grandma or you, I mean someone who isn't a professional repair shop with specialized equipment, but still knows a few things about technology. I've repaired tons of my own devices over the years. The most "hardcore" repair I've done was replacing a blown capacitor in a Samsung monitor. The monitor was like $200, and the new capacitor cost less than a dollar. I'm t…

> I've repaired tons of my own devices over the years. Many of us have but again, minituarization, specialization and integration means this gradually becomes impossible. The age of generic parts is over. Things get built at scale, for a specific purpose, highly integrated, and tiny. Unless maybe you can chisel out your own SoC replacement from some sand and metal.

Is this trolling? Did you read past that sentence you quoted?

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#168

Post by bloggie »

gambiting wrote: post #158
bloggie wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens a lot, I have done it myself. When you buy enough volume you can buy custom packaging, or custom chips from these vendors. The license can be exclusive, for example if Apple asked for some development that cost them some NRE fees, or it can be non-exclusive, and the vendor can decide not to sell the custom version due to insufficient demand or some other non-technical reason.

Fair enough, but the final result of that change is that what used to be a 50c + labour repair is now a full motherboard replacement because you can't buy the chip separately.

I agree, but I think it's much more likely that Apple simply did not consider this case, rather than actively working against having commonly-available replacement components on every board. Apple does not replace components, they replace motherboards. I think you'll find that as volume increases, this kind of practice becomes more common, as a way to reduce cost, increase yield, reduce board size, etc. And, that this will be true for even lower volumes in the future as customized silicon becomes more feasible at lower volumes, such as 10k or 100k units, as we're seeing with companies like SiFive popping up.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#169

Post by Akronymus »

sodapopcan wrote: post #156
judge2020 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a factor is overestimating just how many people 'get into' YouTube culture. Only roughly 74% of American Adults use YouTube[0], and the average daily watch time is only 42 minutes[1], not much time to explore and watch videos outside of your own interests. Vsauce's videos are great (including the recent ones), but they're mostly a remnant of YouTube culture past, and 10-20 million views a video[2] is not a lo…

Ya, I’m a heavy YouTube watcher (a couple of hours a day maybe?). I’m aware of vsauce and clearly I retested in tech but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full video. I mostly watch conference talks when it comes to tech videos.

> I mostly watch conference talks when it comes to tech videos.

I think I have watched literally >30 hrs of programming talks during the last month. Conferences just are more entertaining than most other content lately.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#170

Post by slver »

bogwog wrote: post #167
slver wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've repaired tons of my own devices over the years. Many of us have but again, minituarization, specialization and integration means this gradually becomes impossible. The age of generic parts is over. Things get built at scale, for a specific purpose, highly integrated, and tiny. Unless maybe you can chisel out your own SoC replacement from some sand and metal.

Is this trolling? Did you read past that sentence you quoted?

You replaced a capacitor. Is that supposed to render what I said invalid?
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