Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#121

Post by earthbee » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

wfhordie wrote: post #93

Apple can’t win here. If they had sent the sleek, easy to carry tools this author asked for, the author would complain about the pathetic tools they are providing. Really disappointed in The Verge on this article. Could have been a cool piece about the specific tech that Apple provides, but instead it’s framed so disingenuously that I come away not feeling particularly good about right to repair in general. It no lon…

Or they and other phone manufacturers could just stop building phones that are purposefully difficult to disassemble or repair.

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#122

Post by dylan604 » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

blagie wrote: post #100

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #91

Does Apple require you to rent all of these specialty tools to replace the battery? Or is this author just getting all of the specialty tools to make a point? Obviously, people have been replacing iPhone batteries without 79 pounds of special tools for a long time. The fact that Apple provides the option to buy their special tools is great, but this author is digging deep for a reason to spin that as a bad thing whic…

You misread the article. Apple is renting out the tools for $49 and a $1200 deposit. Apple is doing this at a loss; the tools cost more than $49 to ship, let alone rent, and probably way more than $1200 to buy. That's weird. Apple is also charging $69 for a $5 battery -- their normal repair fee. That's unfair. Apple set up a bizarre, convoluted process, on which both Apple and the customer lose money.

The normal repair fee of $69 covers the $5 battery and the install fees. So the remaining $64 dollars does not seem exorbantly high on paying someone their wage of manually removing/installing all of those screws and doing so without damaging everything plus some fees for overhead of operating the business. Sure, with a different design for user replaceable batteries all of that would be moot, but with the current design and the PITA process of doing the replacement it's not prohibitively expensive for a once in every 3-4 years type of fee. Hell, most people replace the phone itself before needing a battery replacement.

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#123

Post by ornornor » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

wfhordie wrote: post #93

Apple can’t win here. If they had sent the sleek, easy to carry tools this author asked for, the author would complain about the pathetic tools they are providing. Really disappointed in The Verge on this article. Could have been a cool piece about the specific tech that Apple provides, but instead it’s framed so disingenuously that I come away not feeling particularly good about right to repair in general. It no lon…

You have to admit that requiring 79 lbs of equipment, a 1200$ deposit, and so much effort just to swap a friggin’ battery is a tad overkill and exactly what is wrong with the current state of self repairs. Never mind the DRM on the battery so that the phone won’t recognize even a genuine battery as genuine without involving the 3PL to marry the parts together…

It shouldn’t be so complicated. If it makes the phone one mm thicker but you can swap the battery easily without requiring all this equipment, why aren’t we there yet?

I can (with a bit of a stretch) understand why they would not accept just any OEM part, but making extra difficult to even use an Apple bruine battery with the rest of the Apple hardware, that’s also very unnecessarily self repair hostile.

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#124

Post by Moto7451 » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

dwighttk wrote: post #105

wfhordie wrote: post #93

Apple can’t win here. If they had sent the sleek, easy to carry tools this author asked for, the author would complain about the pathetic tools they are providing. Really disappointed in The Verge on this article. Could have been a cool piece about the specific tech that Apple provides, but instead it’s framed so disingenuously that I come away not feeling particularly good about right to repair in general. It no lon…

I especially liked the line mocking the instruction to have sand available if the battery catches on fire. That’s a good idea.

Yeah. Anyone who spends long enough at an RC car track will witness a battery fire. When I used to race it was ripe with people saving money by buying cheap chargers and batteries, charging things too fast, running motors that pulled too much current for the support hardware, and failing to balance cells. Thankfully sand will save you! The car is usually roasted though.

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#125

Post by Spivak » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

srvmshr wrote: post #13

If made to fulfill the word of the law without actually having to follow it in spirit, this would be my modus operandi too. By designing $1200 deposit, $49 rental & two Pelican suitcases of tools and manuals, while keeping the battery replacement price same at $69 (what you'd normally pay in total at Store), they have entirely disincentivized self-repair without actually breaking any law. Masterstroke /s

I don’t know what Apple could have done better here. For $50 they shipped, both ways, all the expensive equipment Apple themselves use to repair their devices.

For how adamant Apple has been about the price of genuine parts for so long I’m starting to think that they actually sell replacement batteries at cost and eat the labor. Because having used 3rd party batteries they’re about half the cost but they degrade is way fewer cycles.

The problem with “right to repair” is that people thought they could hitch what they really wanted — “right to use cheaper 3rd party parts” which is a tougher political sell than “right to cosplay as the underpaid Apple service tech.”

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#126

Post by Spivak » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

mcphage wrote: post #117

vlovich123 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably to make sure that their iPhone repair business (and that of their authorized partners) doesn’t just collapse by getting massively undercut by unauthorized resellers that can use the official repair kit.

If you’re going to run a business replacing batteries, eating the $1,200 deposit loss and keeping the equipment seems a no-brainer.

Which is otherwise known as “paying for the equipment.”

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#127

Post by 2Gkashmiri » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

srvmshr wrote: post #111

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is, if people like these can repair your phone in 1/50 the cost of a "genuine apple repair" or even a "trusted third party repair" guy, why do you care about "genuine" because the lines are blurry at that point. Sure you can spend $200 to repair your $1000 iphone screen from apple but you know if you take to the ghaffar market, they will charge you what, $30 if that. Sure there will be quality issues but wha…

Getting arm twisted to buy is a bad thing of course. The core concern is not the availability of talent to do this but the supply chain of genuine parts, and authentication of successful repair thereafter. iFixit already provides several kits and could theoretically provide iPhone kits too - but if you are eventually forced to pay Apple a premium to validate that repair, then the repair pipeline goes waste.

yeah. the "talent" part gets perfected in the market? right? i mean if you are a repair guy and your work isnt appreciated by your customers, you either have to get better or close shop. these small repair people that are everywhere in asia simply improve their skills with each device so there is that

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#128

Post by gjsman-1000 » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #120

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, according to Apple technicians, these are the actual tools they have always used every day in Apple stores, but the author is framing it as though Apple went out of their way to make difficult tools for consumers - by giving them exactly what they were asking for, the actual tools. The author complains that after renting the tools and buying the battery, it’s more expensive than having Apple do it. So? I…

> by giving them exactly what they were asking for, the actual tools. When it comes to Apple devices, the "tools" that DIY repairmen want are the schematics, software to provision new parts (ideally there wouldn't be a need for this to begin with) and proprietary parts that can't be bought elsewhere. When it comes to opening the phones, there's nothing particularly complex about this and third-parties have figured it…

Right, but that’s not what the author of the article is complaining about. Instead, the author is complaining about the (shockingly reasonable and probably a loss leader) tool rental cost, complains about the part cost (even though it is the same cost service providers pay, and the author does not mention the ~$25 recycling refund to deliberately make it look worse than it is).

Apple is totally going to use this in a future court case to argue Right to Repair people will never be satisfied unless the tools fit in a pocket, had free shipping and returns, the part is 50% off, and there are no credit card holds on the tools. (The authors comparison to how car rentals don’t require a full value hold is absurd because a thing called Car Rental Insurance exists.) The author wouldn’t be happy with anything else.

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#129

Post by PragmaticPulp » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #65

srvmshr wrote: post #13

If made to fulfill the word of the law without actually having to follow it in spirit, this would be my modus operandi too. By designing $1200 deposit, $49 rental & two Pelican suitcases of tools and manuals, while keeping the battery replacement price same at $69 (what you'd normally pay in total at Store), they have entirely disincentivized self-repair without actually breaking any law. Masterstroke /s

I think the EU is generally better at designing it’s regulations to avoid exactly this problem. Probably something to the extend of “tools to repair must be found in any general DIY store”.

> Probably something to the extend of “tools to repair must be found in any general DIY store”.

Does everyone realize how insanely bad this would be for phone progress? If we’re forcing manufacturers to avoid specialty adhesives and tooling, the overall quality and size of phones would be greatly compromised.

I understand a lot of HN commenters will say they don’t care if their phones are twice as big and not waterproof as long as they can replace the battery with a screwdriver from Home Depot, but that’s not even close to typical consumer behavior.

People want small, waterproof phones. Making laws to force companies to compromise everything so 1% of buyers can swap batteries at home instead of paying for official repair service is one of the more out of touch product suggestions I’ve read on HN.

Re: Apple Shipped Me a 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix a 1.1-Ounce Battery

#130

Post by mindslight » Sat, May 21, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

srvmshr wrote: post #13

If made to fulfill the word of the law without actually having to follow it in spirit, this would be my modus operandi too. By designing $1200 deposit, $49 rental & two Pelican suitcases of tools and manuals, while keeping the battery replacement price same at $69 (what you'd normally pay in total at Store), they have entirely disincentivized self-repair without actually breaking any law. Masterstroke /s

IMO the $1200 deposit is less ridiculous than the same-as-store $70 battery price. If the cost for the new battery were at wholesale prices, and one were able to purchase tools from the kit individually, I think that would be the best Apple could do (besides redesigning their devices to make repair easier).

Tools always cost money, a capital investment which ends up being vested in professionals that buy the tools once and then repair many people's gadgets. Right to repair is just as much about empowering independent repair shops as the individual DIYer.

Us DIYers have kind of gotten spoiled with the continually dropping prices of tools and parts combined with the always rising price of labor and overhead. For example, I was just shamelessly quoted $1300 for a rear brake job (wtf?). For that price I could buy all the tools to do the job, premium parts, and still come out favorably compared to engineering rates.