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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

#501

Post by neop1x »

spamizbad wrote: post #226
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…

Right to Repair isn’t demanding manufacturers make all memory socketed: but if a RAM chip goes bad they are asking that a new one can be purchased legally and soldered in place. Right now, there are many 40-cent components in laptops a repair shop cannot purchase from component manufacturers because Apple, or Asus or whenever told them not to sell it to 3rd parties. Or proprietary firmware flashing tools, or what hav…

And some parts are can't even be swapped from one genuine device to another - home buttons used to be like that. But in newer iPhones that applies for other components too. IIRC some of them can be reprogrammed somehow but it is additional difficulty not nornally seen in other brands.

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

#502

Post by toyg »

ako wrote: post #492
m1el wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the seller paying for the manufacture of these parts, or is Apple. I don't know the actual situation, but let's say for the sake of argument; - Apple pays $1M to make 1M chips, with the contract that forbids making these parts to sell third parties. - A Shenzhen shop pays $15K to make 10K of the same parts, the manufacturer breaches the contract, violates Apple's IP and makes extra parts for the shop. None of th…

If the design of the chips is created abd owned by apple, using that same design to manufacture chips for someone else, is theft of design. Apple spend a lot of time and money creating that design.

The amount of time it takes to make anything is not relevant to the question of whether something can be stolen or not. Parent poster is being pedantic, probably for the sake of making an old point about IP piracy, but let's keep things grounded.

This sort of scenario is a clear breach of contract, regardless of laws surrounding IP. Apple seems substantially unable or unwilling to retaliate for breach of contract against their own Chinese manufacturing partners. This is a substantial loss of control that sooner or later will come home to roost - because if this can happen to the richest company on the planet, it likely happens to anybody who manufactures anything in China. Simply put, China is the Far West when it comes to civil disputes; "we" ignore this state of things because the margins are still good enough to go there anyway. It's like running a supermarket in a bad part of town: as long as the profit it makes is higher than losses from vandalism and theft, it will stay open. At some point this might stop being the case.

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

#503

Post by listic »

blueboo wrote: post #292
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 can't agree with respect to Lex Fridman, who began humbly hosting the MIT AI Podcast until he saw a payday by riding AI hype to being a techno-Joe Rogan. Like who you want to like, but "irrefutably...sincer[e]" does not apply.

Hate to derail a thread, but why is Joe Rogan popular at all? I think he is a poor host.

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

#504

Post by neop1x »

rockbruno wrote: post #229

It's absurd how difficult it's to repair a MacBook. I have a 2009 MacBook that needed to have its keyboard replaced after my mother dropped coffee on it. Not only I had to disassemble the ENTIRE MacBook to reach the keyboard, the keyboard itself is covered by a plastic sheet that is super glued to both the MacBook and the keyboard. It took an enormous amount of time to remove the glue, and not only the keyboard was c…

Yes and look at Macbook 12 retina [1] and remember.. keyboard is one of the things to worn out quickly and can also be easily damaged by liquid spill. Also notice the video is fast-forwarded many times during the procedure.

[1] https://youtu.be/CizrupL_02o

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

#505

Post by syshum »

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 today is not that repairability laws impede my progress here (they certainly don’t exist in China either).

While repairability laws do not exist in China, Anti-repairability laws also do not exist in China.

In the US we have layers upon layers of regulations to the impede or outright prevent repairs on electronics and other devices.

I am not sure if "Right to repair" is the correct path, or if removing these anti-repairability laws would be a better path.

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

#506

Post by syshum »

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…

>>Note that I am not excusing apple's terrible repair parts availability or pricing

Actually that is exactly what you are doing, and you know that is what you are doing or you would not have needed to add the equivocation

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

#507

Post by neop1x »

There are still people having 7+ years old Macbooks with easily replaceable HDD and sometimes RAM. And people buying new devices every release. Maybe attitude of society towards right to repair and Apple fanaticism will change over time as their pile of irreparable, damaged beyond economic repair, lost screws and parts over time garbage will start taking significant space in their homes.

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

#508

Post by syshum »

walrus01 wrote: post #369
Nextgrid wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

He has stated many times that the majority of his board repair business is Mail in, not local. In fact because of this he stated in a recent video to be considering leaving NYC because of the high costs but since he employee's have strong ties to the area is may not be an option

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

#509

Post by syshum »

BoorishBears wrote: post #456
chevill wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea but you also have to take into account that he's internet famous. Probably the most well known person in the computer repair industry says his shop with 16 people is taking in between 1 and 2 million a year. So that's somewhere between 62.5k and 125k per employee annually in revenue. He's doing well enough but its not exactly a money printing machine and you would assume a person at the top of his industry is doi…

I really don't get what your point is here. The geographical location of the repairer does not matter because shipping is a thing. And the fact that these repairers will charge per repair rather than a flat fee for partial replacements of entire boards like OEMs do means they can be cost effective while profitable. - Apple will charge you $475 to replace a motherboard rather that has a blow 40 cent capacitor on a MBP…

>>Apple will charge you $475 to replace a motherboard rather that has a blow 40 cent capacitor on a MBP.

That is not the only consideration either, data recovery is as well, since most of the time that $475 also means your device is wiped and all data lost, an independent shop could even charge someone that same $475 but retain the data and it would be worth it to the customer.

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

#510

Post by syshum »

pembrook wrote: post #428
swiley wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah no that's bullshit. (and a change of subject) We're not asking for modular connectors (although those are nice) or larger competents. we're asking Apple (and everyone imitating them) to stop artificially preventing people from replacing parts (either via deals with suppliers that prevent people from buying them or via software lockouts.) People do surface mount rework all the time (I think the guy TFA is talking…

> “People do surface mount rework all the time” What percentage of Apple customers are doing surface mount rework, or even hiring other people to do this, in your estimation? My guess is less than .01%. And how much could that really be increased if Apple were forced to make their parts accessible and available in the aftermarket? Vs the carbon footprint of the extra manufacturing effort and having to set up distribu…

>>What percentage of Apple customers are doing surface mount rework, or even hiring other people to do this, in your estimation? My guess is less than .01%.

This is a terrible argument. Apple has Teams of lawyers, and engineers doing to best to make sure board level repair is technically and legally unfeasible as possible, and in your circular logic their success is prohibiting repair is justification for continued or increased anti-repair actions

Wow...

The better question is "How man Apple Customers would like to have the option of repair vs replace"

I bet that number is far higher than 0.01%

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