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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

#541

Post by dang »

bogwog wrote: post #92
me_me_me wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a character assassination post? It really feels like it. Rossmann opensourced his repair manuals and has detailed videos of how to repair equipment, you can literally start your own repair business of that. If that is not being for right to repair I don't know what is. Reading your post again it is a character assassination post. Shifting goalpost and attacking personal characteristics instead of the point.

Strange how it's still the top comment in this thread, even though it's a personal attack that has nothing to do with the actual topic, or make any attempt to discuss his arguments. Seems like the type of tactic you'd see from those lobbyist groups that pay money to release commercials claiming right to repair will lead to rape: https://youtu.be/EozPi1qmH44?t=59

Your comment broke the site guidelines. Please don't do that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If a comment is sitting at the top of the thread that you feel is off-topic in an unhelpful way, the one thing you can do that will make the most difference is let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for more explanation.

Posting insinuations about "lobbyist groups" is singularly unhelpful; as I've written about ad nauseum in recent years, the overwhelming majority of such perceptions are based on zero evidence. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

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

#542

Post by worik »

Siira wrote: post #494
worik wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in this case mate. I paid them. I am the creative cutting edge!

Paying doesn’t magically make them not want to extract all of your value. Apple could sell iPhones at a loss just because of the AppStore theft, and still survive.

Paying them encourages them!!

Silly, silly, me

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

#543

Post by BoorishBears »

chevill wrote: post #478
BoorishBears wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>The geographical location of the repairer does not matter because shipping is a thing. I wasn't suggesting it did matter in regards to his mail-in business. Someone else mentioned that living in a large city makes it easier to maintain a high volume of work locally. >Apple will charge you $475 to replace a motherboard rather that has a blow 40 cent capacitor on a MBP. This is true. My point was that when a large com…

I mean these businesses already exist and make enough money to support people.

Most places I've lived had a shop or two where someone would repair things like logic boards for cheap, using grey market parts.

You don't need 1-2 million a year to keep the lights on, there's people doing this stuff in their garages.

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

#544

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

lmm wrote: post #452
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're intentional straining to disagree with me. You don't have to do that. You're probably partly right some of the time, and my perspective probably has some value perhaps maybe.

I'm straining to rationalise my own position tbh. I'm not going out of my way to disagree with you, this kind of practice feels viscerally counterfeit-like to me and I'm trying to work through why I think that.

That's a way more honest response than I expected.

I respect that a lot.

In the absence of a legal after market or licensed / genuine / third party parts ecosystem, this is, or should be, the expected natural response: off license / bootleg / counterfeit parts ecosystem.

In my opinion, then, the fault lies with Apple, and / or the absence of a regulated market for those parts and the necessary documentation.

People will find a way to source what they want. How you approach or deal with those problems is probably a political / ideological thing.

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

#545

Post by whoknowswhat11 »

horsawlarway wrote: post #526
whoknowswhat11 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 proce…

They're focused on making money and fuck all else. Apple is the literal definition of "insane dark patterns" if you happen to be a developer. Made a profitable app on the app store? Oh look! Apple used your market data to clone it, shoved their product to the top of the "marketplace" they happen to own, and now you have no business. Want to improve your user experience by shipping a compliant browser rendering engine…

They are definitely not optimizing for developers.

BUT when developers complain about apple "hoovering" up data I laugh. I mean, is this a joke? App developers are at the forefont of privacy protection? When I'm on my PC browsing the web and that game site wants to install that browser toolbar they are looking out for me?

The problem is - as I said, developers have almost no credibility anymore.

Seriously loot boxes, pay to win etc etc.

Apple has realized that doing something quasi right by their users means they can charge big premiums and a lot more. So they are going to rake in the cash on that basis - fantastic.

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

#546

Post by collinmanderson »

singlow wrote: post #458
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…

So all of the senses of theft that do apply, which have been in use for millenia, are not "meaningful" because they do not meet the cause of your morality. Of course when Prometheus "stole" the fire from Mount Olympus he did not deny Zeus anything, but it was called theft. The fire that he brought to athens was the intellectual property of the Gods.

And if Apple sends private data from my iPhone to government or 3rd party, it’s not technically not theft.

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

#547

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

nrp wrote: post #90
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 "…

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…

End user repair most certainly is a consideration. They considered it and wholeheartedly rejected it.

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

#548

Post by lmm »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #544
lmm wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm straining to rationalise my own position tbh. I'm not going out of my way to disagree with you, this kind of practice feels viscerally counterfeit-like to me and I'm trying to work through why I think that.

That's a way more honest response than I expected. I respect that a lot. In the absence of a legal after market or licensed / genuine / third party parts ecosystem, this is, or should be, the expected natural response : off license / bootleg / counterfeit parts ecosystem. In my opinion, then, the fault lies with Apple, and / or the absence of a regulated market for those parts and the necessary documentation. People…

That seems like an orthogonal question. Maybe Apple has set up their system in a way that (intentionally or not) encourages or necessitates counterfeiting. But those parts may still be counterfeit in the ways that matter to the end user (e.g. not necessarily as safe as they appear to be certified to be).

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

#549

Post by walrus01 »

syshum wrote: post #506
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…

>>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

Not at all - pointing out that very few people have the technical capability to do some of these repairs (PCB level work that is anything more complicated than replacing outright an entire module) is a fact.

I actually have a high degreee of distaste for apple phones, their app store walled garden ecosystem, et cetera. The last iphone I owned was an original iphone 2G I purchased new for some absurd price in 2007. I own a Macbook Air because it's a good thin, light terminal that I can use to remotely control my other stuff, and I was fully aware of the fact that the RAM and SSD are soldered onto the all-in-one motherboard when I bought it. The odds of having a laptop motherboard failure are low enough that I chose to roll the dice. Everything else of mine is x86-64 whitebox that I built myself.

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

#550

Post by Anktionaer »

I feel like a lot of the comments here are strawmanning a bit (or a lot). Apple and most big manufacturers (in all sectors and industries) who see what they can get away with are purposely abusing copyright law and making deliberate choices in their design and policy that do nothing except hinder the repair of their devices. The right-to-repair people like Luis Rossmann want legislation to stop these practices. Some people in the comments are extending that to mean that they want manufacturers to only create modular and bulky devices with yesterdays technology when it seems clear (at least to me) that what they actually want is the ability to legitimately purchase replacement parts from OEMs and legitimate access to the sort of manuals and schematics that are available to their internal refurbishers and technicians.

I don't think it's reasonable to require that manufacturers design their devices to be repairable at the cost of other considerations that are more important to the end user.

I do think it's reasonable to require manufacturers to stop these practices that don't benefit the end user or even harm their experience in order to keep a tight grip on the device that they supposedly purchased and should own completely.

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