Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 558 posts

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

#251

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #181
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 m…

Completely made up and false conundrum. You can design devices that are easy to repair and still waterproof and sleek. This is a made up target-conflict that is easily resolved by any trained industrial designer and engineer.

>You can design devices that are easy to repair and still waterproof and sleek.

[citation needed]

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

#252

Post by epistasis »

lr1970 wrote: post #205
ornornor wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? Because a non-replaceable battery is a great marketing tool. Dying battery (every three years or sooner) is a powerful force making a customer consider their options including buying a new phone. This alone makes companies design their products delib…

This is a rather narrow view.

Nobody markets the difficulty of repair, they market waterproof phones, that survive being dropped in the sink or toilet or pool, or whatever.

When it comes time to buy a new battery, and the option is a $70 replacement service or 10x that for a new phone, will a $45 manual repair with a screwdriver really drive more people to replace the battery instead of buy a new phone?

The idea that these processes are all driven to make people buy new phones instead of replacing batteries doesn't make much sense to me. The numbers don't really show that.

And when we consider the value of being able to drop a phone in water and not have to replace it, that's pretty damn high and probably saves a ton of phones early compared to the people that were willing to do a $45 battery replacement but not a $70 replacement and instead opt for a new phone entirely.

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

#253

Post by turbinerneiter »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #247
turbinerneiter wrote: post #219

Reading this article and the comments here makes me quite sad. 1. The repair kit described here is not mandatory for anyone to rent to be able to buy the parts. You can just buy the parts alone and use whatever tools you want. If you attempt your own repair, you should use the simple ifixit style tools, and understand the higher risk of damage you are taking. 2. The kit described in the article seems very decent for…

> The repair kit described here is not mandatory for anyone to rent to be able to buy the parts. Is this the case? Is Apple allowing people to just buy the parts separately, or do they make you get the whole kit?

https://selfservicerepair.com/order

I can't go through the whole order process because I don't have an iPhone IMEI, but to me it looks like you can just buy the parts you need.

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

#254

Post by Stevvo »

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…

Did you even read the article? The author doesn't complaint about the tools other than the $1200 you will loose if you don't return them within 7 days. Your comment comes across as more disingenuous.

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

#255

Post by turbinerneiter »

btbuildem wrote: post #249
turbinerneiter wrote: post #219

Reading this article and the comments here makes me quite sad. 1. The repair kit described here is not mandatory for anyone to rent to be able to buy the parts. You can just buy the parts alone and use whatever tools you want. If you attempt your own repair, you should use the simple ifixit style tools, and understand the higher risk of damage you are taking. 2. The kit described in the article seems very decent for…

Agreed. The one part of this repair that Apple seems to have made purposely difficult is that you have to call them and "register" or whatever your new battery to your device. They hold the keys and refuse to activate the new part for any reason.

On this topic I'm leaning towards that this is ok for them to do, although I think it is unnecessary and a reason I would rather buy a competitors procust, that doesn't have this requirement.

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

#256

Post by seanmcdirmid »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #235
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if the market already produces that kind of phone (and I assume has good aspects in variables you didn’t mention like reliability, battery life, performance, production costs, etc…) why do we need to force Apple to produce the same? Can’t consumers just buy the phone on the market that already suits their wants?

We don't need to force them. Where did I say I want to force them? I pointed out that the conundrum of repairability vs. quality is made up, or at least dramatically overstated. There is currently only one company that I know of that focused on repairability in their phones (Fairphone) and they have a hard time competing on other factors due to the fact that they are tiny. Now your are going to say that them being ti…

Screw choices are really important when it comes to reliability and production costs. Yes, they could make a couple of screws that the user could remove, but those screws also tend to come loose on their own…

I don’t really buy that apple’s engineers are incompetent, rather they are making a bunch of design decisions and trade offs that make their phones more appealing for consumers to want to buy. Yes, they could make other trade offs.

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

#257

Post by kalleboo »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #135
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Presumably to minimize e-waste, as it's more likely people will hang onto their old phones (or hand them down or resell them) if they can revitalize them with a cheap battery/display swap.

Things like recycling marks, appliance energy efficiency etc are all already regulated.

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

#258

Post by seanmcdirmid »

yellow_postit wrote: post #243
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if the market already produces that kind of phone (and I assume has good aspects in variables you didn’t mention like reliability, battery life, performance, production costs, etc…) why do we need to force Apple to produce the same? Can’t consumers just buy the phone on the market that already suits their wants?

This is a general argument against all most forms of environmental or safety regulations. If you believe calls to conscience and market forces alone are insufficient for issues like eWaste then regulation like right to repair is a tool to consider as a society.

That wasn’t the point of parent comment. It was that you could have this all without making trade offs.

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

#259

Post by cgearhart »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #161
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and when there's enough of you for this to represent an actual, realistic target market you will then find someone who will sell you one. Personally, my perspective on this is that it's a lot like the kind of complaining that gets a lot of play in the motoring press about the disappearance of the manual transmission (like Car and Driver's "Save the Manuals" thing). Lots of people will claim they would like the ch…

Yeah, but my understanding is that the manual issue is compounded by the fuel efficiency gains in newer automatic transmissions using these 8-speed designs, with minimum efficiency rules meaning it's impossible to match in a manual. I've noticed that in the handful of models still offering manual, often the manual is not offered with the top performance engine. This seems to be happening in Europe as well where histo…

The other issue (at least in the US) is that automatic cars can be programmed to “game” the fuel economy tests by having shorter gears and shifting early, etc. The automatic winds up being faster and reporting better fuel economy, but the manual would perform the same if it had more similar gearing. (I heard recently that first gear is like 60% shorter in the automatic version of one of the BMW M series cars than the manual version.) Combined with engine auto stopping in automatics, etc., and it’s not really an equivalent comparison anymore.

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

#260

Post by turbinerneiter »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #256
turbinerneiter wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to force them. Where did I say I want to force them? I pointed out that the conundrum of repairability vs. quality is made up, or at least dramatically overstated. There is currently only one company that I know of that focused on repairability in their phones (Fairphone) and they have a hard time competing on other factors due to the fact that they are tiny. Now your are going to say that them being ti…

Screw choices are really important when it comes to reliability and production costs. Yes, they could make a couple of screws that the user could remove, but those screws also tend to come loose on their own… I don’t really buy that apple’s engineers are incompetent, rather they are making a bunch of design decisions and trade offs that make their phones more appealing for consumers to want to buy. Yes, they could ma…

I never said they are incompetent.

These trade offs are far sampler than what they want people to believe. Apple has the budget and the talent to do it. They don't because they don't want to. //edit: also screws are not the only option, see Pixel 6 which doesn't have screws but still makes it easier to open up the phone.

That's fine and that's their right, but we should call it what it is, and not act like a screw is something impossible to design.

Post reply on HN