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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

#391

Post by gjsman-1000 »

How much of this, I'm curious, is changing now that Jony Ive is gone?

Think about it. Since he left, Apple is bringing color back to their designs, bringing back ports other than Thunderbolt, abandoned the Butterfly keyboard, made the MacBook Pro 16" thicker to improve battery life and cooling, added the discounted business rate to the App Store...

Now, this doesn't mean Apple will continue improving or will make Right to Repair happen. However, I think that with Jony's departure, something may have, just may have, snapped within the company, and they seem to be looking at changing their ways just a little bit.

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

#392

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

walrus01 wrote: post #367
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 pe…

The term counterfeit is here being used by some people to mean 'genuine parts sold off-license', which is much more like a bootleg copy[1]. That is, it's the same item sold off-license.

To some extent words mean what people who use them intend to mean, but in my opinion we shouldn't be calling parts from the same production line counterfeit, because the word implies forgery.[2]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleg_recording

2. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/counterfeit

Edit: changed a word for clarity.

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

#393

Post by sfRattan »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #288
Macha wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how you replace the RAM on Dell's ultraportable line: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Dell_XPS_15_9550 The last Intel Macbook Pro? Get out your soldering iron: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+16-Inch+2019+Tea... Similarly, if you want to replace/upgrade/perform data recovery for the storage? https://www.windowscentral.com/upgrade-ssd-dell-xps-15-9570 Apple? Forget about it. Hope you paid the inflated…

That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about how if your Surface has a problem with screens spontaneously cracking, will Rossmann even mention it? He won't. He knows his crowd, and he keeps quiet about criticizing his crowd's products. Also, this myth that Apple storage prices are inflated needs to die. The SSD speeds are unlike PC SSD speeds on all but the most expensive PCs, and Microsoft charges more f…

"Yes, he talks about John Deere, or medical devices, but he never talks about HP, Lenovo, Dell, Surface, Acer, or any PC manufacturer flaws, many of which have flaws worse than Apple's. This is what makes him look dishonest because laptop repair is his specialty - he should be awesome at detecting or pointing out how they have problems too, but he caters to the PC crowd and says nothing." - gjsman-1000 [1]

"He won't. He knows his crowd, and he keeps quiet about criticizing his crowd's products." - gjsman-1000 [2]

"Alright, so today we're going to be taking a look at the new Surface and by taking a look at I mean watching somebody else's YouTube video on the new Surface because hell if I'm going to be walking in to buy one of these pieces of crap." - Louis Rossman [3]

Rossman's video continues for a half hour to bash the Surface Laptop's lack of repair-ability and general poor design...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27257606

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27258123

[3] https://youtu.be/yswp0Bio4Oo

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

#394

Post by whoknowswhat11 »

worik wrote: post #311
nrp wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s business and design philosophies revolve around control. In exchange for locking down everything, they promise you a seamless, high-performance, safe experience. That extends to designing products in a way that end-user repair is not a consideration, to locking down access to the App Store (see the Epic trial), and more. I personally think it’s a bad direction to go in, especially with the outsized power Appl…

As a Apple developer it is not a "seamless, high-performance, safe experience". Anything but.

They are focused on the users - not the developers. We already have a sense of the insane dark patterns developers can deliver on the web. Pop up and under ads with unhittable close boxes, recurring subscriptions that can only be cancelled in narrow windows by calling a UK phone number.

Seriously - look at the coalition Epic put together for their trial. Almost everyone on there has some sort of abusive billing process / history.

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

#395

Post by duped »

xyst wrote: post #82

Apple's fight against right to repair while pushing materials to the public that state they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint is the absolute peak of hypocrisy. I understand the closed off design of their products is a result of the Steve Jobs era, but why can't the current leadership make a change? Why can't Apple make their products easily repairable while making them aesthetically pleasing? The typical "…

I mean before you call it hypocritical you need to take a holistic view of the supply chain. Electronics manufacturing is incredibly wasteful, even if you're making something that can be repaired!

Apple is at least working towards more sustainable technologies than traditional manufacturing. Photolithography is fucking awful for the planet and yet foundational to many devices, just for example.

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

#396

Post by dralley »

jrockway wrote: post #299
joana035 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what should he do to computers he spent time and money to fix and clients abandoned? Throw them into the bin?

I think you make clients pay a deposit, and if they don't pick up the laptops, send them to the state's lost property department. If that isn't possible, I guess you buy the laptop from the customer for some token small amount of money, and then sell it back to them when they come to pick it up. If they don't show up, it's legally your laptop.

> If they don't show up, it's legally your laptop.

That's the whole problem. He tries for a couple of months to contact them (calls, emails, etc) and if they don't even respond, after around 9 months they get put into the resale bin.

His policy is "no fix, no fee" so I would presume there's no deposit. If there is no transfer of money it seems difficult to make even a weak legal argument that the laptops were "purchased". That is why Rossmann found the whole situation ridiculous.

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

#397

Post by schoolornot »

webmobdev wrote: post #338
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…

My problem is I can only get the chips and schematics I need to effect the repair on the Chinese Internet Exactly. And we need legislation to make it happen. In India, I remember someone started a multi-brand service centre for cars. The automobile industry ganged up on him and refused to supply original parts to him. He had to go to the courts, and the courts ruled for him and in favour of consumer rights and made i…

Would hope such legislation articulates exactly what parts of a "phone" would need to be made available. There are hundreds of parts in an iPhone. It's unreasonable to expect that Apple or any vendor have the resources to make sure every single part, large and small, is available to 3rd party repair shops.

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

#398

Post by whoknowswhat11 »

bstar77 wrote: post #24
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #2

Rossmann is seriously a national treasure. Along with Lex Fridman the two Youtube personalities irrefutably prove fair mindedness, humility & sincerity is valued. My fears that content online would eventually consist of nothing but selfies, food pics & competitive victimhood are somewhat reduced. I'd like to see Rossmann on Fridman's podcast.

I find Rossman insufferable due to his hyperbolic approach to shaming Apple and having a bone to pick with just about everyone- he's the definition of a narcissist. I agree in principle to "right to repair", but Rossman's motives are purely financial and self promoting. I've watched over 100 hours of his content and realized that his audience is primarily made up of anti-apple PC Master Race fanatics that just want t…

I could not have said it better. This apple employee (BTW - making $20/hr) didn't detect this weird thing I did to scrw up this laptop and so was going to send it to Apple tech people.

Dude, if you can find folks to work for $20 / hr with the people skills to fix stuff day in and day out for while dealing with insane repair volume - you could manage your own apple store.

Here's the bottom line as an actual customer. I have NEVER been disappointed in the reliability of my iphone. The one time I broke it I walked in an AppleCare had me out same day with a new device. They are also surprisingly waterproof (I know, just resistant supposedly).

Does any of this have to do with gluing everything down? How do I know. But my phone has kept on going through some rediculous stuff, so I don't care. Solder everything, glue on top. And USB-C on my laptop keeps on flaking out while lightning seems to seat more reliably.

AND my "non repairable" junk iphone seems to have INCREDIBLE re-sale value in comparison to whatever else is out there. So apple IS designing for the long haul, and market rewards that. My wife has an old iphone still getting updates for some reason (in android land this is crazy talk).

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

#399

Post by newsclues »

xyst wrote: post #82

Apple's fight against right to repair while pushing materials to the public that state they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint is the absolute peak of hypocrisy. I understand the closed off design of their products is a result of the Steve Jobs era, but why can't the current leadership make a change? Why can't Apple make their products easily repairable while making them aesthetically pleasing? The typical "…

If they want to sell thin and light appliances ok.

But give me the choice to buy a repairable long term platform and I’ll stay invested in the ecosystem and pay a premium for thicker repairable MBP

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

#400

Post by someguydave »

chrisseaton wrote: post #340
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…

> I mean complete assemblies like iPhone displays. As far as I know, there's no "legitimate" source for those So how are legitimate high street shops in the west doing it? You can’t convince me every town in the UK has a criminal operation working in the open doing screen replacements?

apple authorized stores and retailers can buy modules or send them to apple
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