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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

#361

Post by WalterBright »

loceng wrote: post #244
Nextgrid wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason it can be done in China is because those shops illegally obtain the parts (whether counterfeit or stolen, since Apple won't intentionally sell them to anyone) and resources (schematics, software, etc) to be able to do so. This situation is both good and bad. Stolen parts are good, in the sense that this grey market at least allows consumers to repair devices cost-effectively. It's also bad, because besides…

It's a signal when humans will do something against the law - and generally it seems to be a fair response to excessive control or at minimum a counterweight to the actions of a selfish for-profit or industry. Piracy comes to mind as well: if content becomes too expensive, requiring monthly subscriptions to too many places or then unreasonable cost to buy a specific film or series - then more people will pirate, and…

You're right. When there's massive non-compliance with the law, there's something wrong with the law.

For example, Prohibition, the war on drugs, gambling prohibitions, etc.

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

#362

Post by bronson »

Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #217
paulgerhardt wrote: post #208

Living in Shenzhen, it’s shocking how easy it is to go out and repair stuff. Living in Palo Alto, it’s frustrating how hard it is. I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, introducing repairability laws won’t solve the problem. I am perfectly happy upgrading the memory on my MacBook Air with a reflow air station rather than swapping out some dims if it means my laptop is half as thick and twice as rugged. I’m also just as hap…

Part of that could be the ratio of part cost to labor cost. I do agree that there's no culture of appreciating schematics around Palo Alto.

Not since Jim Williams died. :(

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

#363

Post by rowanG077 »

walrus01 wrote: post #352
Nextgrid wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason it can be done in China is because those shops illegally obtain the parts (whether counterfeit or stolen, since Apple won't intentionally sell them to anyone) and resources (schematics, software, etc) to be able to do so. This situation is both good and bad. Stolen parts are good, in the sense that this grey market at least allows consumers to repair devices cost-effectively. It's also bad, because besides…

> those shops illegally obtain the parts (whether counterfeit or stolen, since Apple won't intentionally sell them to anyone) and resources (schematics, software, etc) to be able to do so. This situation is both good and bad. Stolen parts are good I really doubt that many of those genuine repair parts for iphones and macbooks are stolen , in the sense that somebody loaded up a pallet and took it from its manufacturer…

It's not theft. But still it's most likely a contract violation of the contract between the production company and Apple. Apple would never in a million years allow any of their suppliers to sell Apple specific parts to the aftermarket.

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

#364

Post by ThrustVectoring »

walrus01 wrote: post #357
Nextgrid wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean chips per-se, I mean complete assemblies like iPhone displays. As far as I know, there's no "legitimate" source for those, it's all either outright stolen, counterfeit or bad/rejected parts. > because reverse logistics (how you deal broken/returned goods) is already a huge cost center and the legislation as proposed would make it more so How would right to repair affect that? And if it wasn't profit-moti…

> it's all either outright stolen, counterfeit or bad/rejected parts The other very common possibility is that it's what's called a "ghost shift" where the factory runs a whole production run on a possibly overnight work shift, creates a batch of product for sale to third parties, and then resumes their legit-for-transfer-to-apple production run the next morning. Happens with all sorts of electronics manufacturing in…

"ghost shift" production with the trademarks is counterfeit, but isn't without the trademarks. Regardless of marking it's still likely unauthorized use of intellectual property.

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

#365

Post by Nextgrid »

walrus01 wrote: post #356
paulgerhardt wrote: post #208

Living in Shenzhen, it’s shocking how easy it is to go out and repair stuff. Living in Palo Alto, it’s frustrating how hard it is. I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, introducing repairability laws won’t solve the problem. I am perfectly happy upgrading the memory on my MacBook Air with a reflow air station rather than swapping out some dims if it means my laptop is half as thick and twice as rugged. I’m also just as hap…

> I am perfectly happy upgrading the memory on my MacBook Air with a reflow air station Probably 0.01% of Apple product owners in North America also own a hot air reflow station and have the skills/practice to use it safely on a very densely populated laptop or phone motherboard. I would also wager that if you were to look at the pay scale for skilled electronics repair people capable of safely doing so with little r…

> By the time you were to pay for the repair service and the parts it might not be economical.

Louis Rossmann proves that such a business does work and is profitable while remaining significantly cheaper for customers (otherwise he wouldn't get any business).

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

#366

Post by josephcsible »

samatman wrote: post #360
josephcsible wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you know that it is to spite repair? Can you name a single advantage of pentalobe screws over pre-existing standard screw heads like Torx? If not, then Occam's razor is how I know.

I can in fact. Really tiny Torx screws are easy to strip the head on. I've done it more than once, to my considerable regret. Pentalobes are harder to strip, because a pentagon is less like a circle than a hexagon is. Are they the Platonic ideal of a screw head for the exact size used in iPhones? No idea, I'm not a mechanical engineer. Just a klutz who has stripped a few tiny Torx screws with my big ol' meat hands.

Isn't Torx basically a hexagram rather than a hexagon? To me, pentalobe looks closer to circular than Torx does. Also, how much have you worked with tiny pentalobe screws compared to tiny Torx screws? Is it possible you've seen the latter strip more just because you've used them more?

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

#367

Post by walrus01 »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #364
walrus01 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's all either outright stolen, counterfeit or bad/rejected parts The other very common possibility is that it's what's called a "ghost shift" where the factory runs a whole production run on a possibly overnight work shift, creates a batch of product for sale to third parties, and then resumes their legit-for-transfer-to-apple production run the next morning. Happens with all sorts of electronics manufacturing in…

"ghost shift" production with the trademarks is counterfeit, but isn't without the trademarks. Regardless of marking it's still likely unauthorized use of intellectual property.

I mentally make a distinction between "counterfeit" products which are actually authentic and good quality, unlikely to hurt the consumer, but arguably cause some harm to apple's IP, and "counterfeit" products which are actually poor quality clones made by inferior production lines. It's unfortunate that the same term is used for both.

Presumably a high volume and skilled third party repair shop and its purchasing people will be a crucial role in buying and distinguishing between the two types of hardware.

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

#368

Post by lotsofpulp »

WalterBright wrote: post #361
loceng wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a signal when humans will do something against the law - and generally it seems to be a fair response to excessive control or at minimum a counterweight to the actions of a selfish for-profit or industry. Piracy comes to mind as well: if content becomes too expensive, requiring monthly subscriptions to too many places or then unreasonable cost to buy a specific film or series - then more people will pirate, and…

You're right. When there's massive non-compliance with the law, there's something wrong with the law. For example, Prohibition, the war on drugs, gambling prohibitions, etc.

I can think of societies with massive tax evasion, from all economic classes of people and where bribes are normal. Is there something wrong with laws requiring tax payments and banning bribes?

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

#369

Post by walrus01 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #365
walrus01 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am perfectly happy upgrading the memory on my MacBook Air with a reflow air station Probably 0.01% of Apple product owners in North America also own a hot air reflow station and have the skills/practice to use it safely on a very densely populated laptop or phone motherboard. I would also wager that if you were to look at the pay scale for skilled electronics repair people capable of safely doing so with little r…

> By the time you were to pay for the repair service and the parts it might not be economical. Louis Rossmann proves that such a business does work and is profitable while remaining significantly cheaper for customers (otherwise he wouldn't get any business).

I think this works by volume of customers in the NYC metro, but might not be viable for a repair shop in a smaller city. I would be very interested to see if a similar specialist could financially support the salaries of a few full time techs in a much smaller metro on the scale of, for example, Spokane WA.

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

#370

Post by dataflow »

rowanG077 wrote: post #363
walrus01 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those shops illegally obtain the parts (whether counterfeit or stolen, since Apple won't intentionally sell them to anyone) and resources (schematics, software, etc) to be able to do so. This situation is both good and bad. Stolen parts are good I really doubt that many of those genuine repair parts for iphones and macbooks are stolen , in the sense that somebody loaded up a pallet and took it from its manufacturer…

It's not theft. But still it's most likely a contract violation of the contract between the production company and Apple. Apple would never in a million years allow any of their suppliers to sell Apple specific parts to the aftermarket.

> It's not theft. But still it's most likely a contract violation of the contract between the production company and Apple. Apple would never in a million years allow any of their suppliers to sell Apple specific parts to the aftermarket.

Then it only concerns those parties and it's literally not our business to worry about.

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