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

theverge.com

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

#131

Post by ynniv »

zenexer wrote: post #110
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…

At least some of these tools are name brand. For example, the torque screwdrivers are Wera Kraftform Micro ESD pre-set torque screwdrivers. Apple sells them cheaper than anyone else, as far as I can tell—which is quite curious. Surely if you ordered them in bulk you could beat Apple’s prices, but you can’t order a single set of the same screwdrivers for less than what Apple is charging. I’m also told this is the exac…

this program seems like a great deal for repair shops

Which AFAICT is what Right to Repair is about anyway.

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

#132

Post by ezconnect »

sokoloff wrote: post #94
ezconnect wrote: post #24

Battery has DRM now, wow.

Battery has an identifier which, if mismatched, causes the phone to work but present a warning that the battery may not be genuine and does not report battery health. Honestly, that sounds pretty fair/reasonable to me. (It would be outrageous if it had “DRM fail: phone shuts off”. “DRM detects possible non-genuine battery and works but reports battery as possibly non-genuine” is a lot more reasonable, possibly totall…

Acts like a DRM to me. Changing battery now needs internet connection? A remote system to control your phone just to tell it to function normally after changing battery? Next on the horizon is we need to plugin our peanut butter to an internet connection so we can open it to eat it.

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

#133

Post by iosjunkie »

earthbee wrote: post #121
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.

Or consumers could stop buying phones that can’t be easily disassembled or repaired.

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

#134

Post by PragmaticPulp »

ornornor wrote: post #123
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…

> 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

You know people were swapping batteries long before this was available, right? And that you don’t have to rent the official factory tools?

Apple did a great thing by providing this option at a loss to themselves. The fact that people are rushing to criticize the move suggests more that people like to find reasons to complain about everything.

It’s surreal to read HN threads where people are floating ideas about making laws to prevent companies from designing better hardware products just because they want to replace batteries with a screwdriver. I guarantee if you put a screwdriver-repairable phone and a modern iPhone in front of average consumers, 99% or more would choose the modern iPhone without a second question. The obsession with easy battery replacement seems limited to a very narrow set of people while the rest of the population has moved on to appreciate the benefits of modern sealed phones such as impressive resistance to water damage.

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

#135

Post by seanmcdirmid »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #129
Aeolun wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 waterpr…

What I don’t understand is why do people feel the need to force Apple to produce what they could have just gotten from another phone vendor? Is it about denying other people choice (so we are all forced to carry around bulkier phones), or do they believe that Apple would make the DIY repairable phone they wanted better than the other phone producers? It doesn’t make sense to me.

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

#136

Post by Nextgrid »

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…

The problem is that Apple intentionally insists that this is the only way to do a repair to scare people away from it - and the media seems to be lapping it up pretty well and spreading it - I wish the article called out their BS right away.

If I had a full-time repair operation going, I'd probably get those tools too. But for a single repair, I can open one with a hair dryer and 20 bucks of iFixit tools faster than it takes to unpack all that kit.

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

#137

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

zenexer wrote: post #110
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…

At least some of these tools are name brand. For example, the torque screwdrivers are Wera Kraftform Micro ESD pre-set torque screwdrivers. Apple sells them cheaper than anyone else, as far as I can tell—which is quite curious. Surely if you ordered them in bulk you could beat Apple’s prices, but you can’t order a single set of the same screwdrivers for less than what Apple is charging. I’m also told this is the exac…

>but does it really need to be for a one-off home repair?

Again: cue the "Apple provided me with second-class tools that are NOT the ones they used in store and I broke my iPhone" story.

Manufacturers can't possibly satisfy "right to repair" if every single person gets to decide how they want to do the repair, how much compromise they're prepared to take in terms of likely outcome and so on.

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

#138

Post by 0daystock »

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…

Of course they can win, by designing hardware with replaceable components. This is something my 20 year old Thinkpad has figured out, and many other user-friendly products before it.

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

#140

Post by innocenat »

iosjunkie wrote: post #133
earthbee wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Or consumers could stop buying phones that can’t be easily disassembled or repaired.

If only thing were that easy.
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