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

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

#261

Post by katbyte »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #148
newsclues wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I will pay more for a device that is designed to be repaired.

... 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…

We’ll car companies are making it harder and harder to buy manuals so of course it’s disappearing. Can’t speak to American brands but the Toyota 4Runner stopped making a manual trim 20 years ago and the Tacoma while it has one, only 5% of them produced are manual on limited trims making it really hard for people who want one to actually get it without a lot of effort. How much is it people don’t want it/never learned/car companies reducing trim numbers and cost pushing automatics?

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

#262

Post by seanmcdirmid »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #260
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was referring to

> This is a made up target-conflict that is easily resolved by any trained industrial designer and engineer.

It seems like your first comment was claiming that Apple could easily solve these issues without trade off.

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

#263

Post by VLM »

The bigger the company the more the friction in simple business operations.

Its the nature of the beast, not a specific problem in this situation.

Many a time I've ordered, perhaps, one socket, from digikey overnight to repair something, and it arrives in a giant box with multiple layers of anti-static packaging and styro peanuts, all a huge ecological waste but someone at corporate got 100% on his "anti-static key performance goal" and nobody from shipping got in trouble for delivering bent pins.

On the other hand you order from an individual in China using Ali-Express and he chucks a microwave synthesizer board in an envelope, no packing material, no anti-static, just a tyvek bag and a prayer, and five weeks later it arrives looking like the dragged it behind the boat the whole way, but amazingly it works fine.

Usually small businesses selling on Amazon are a happy medium of doing stuff reasonably and reliably.

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

#264

Post by asoneth »

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.

This assumption (that there are minimal tradeoffs when optimizing for repairability) has not been my experience in industrial design. Every single product has tradeoffs between size, weight, cost, ruggedness, ease of repair, etc.

I believe Apple didn't set out to make it difficult to repair, it was just a side effect of not caring one way or the other and optimizing for the other aspects.

Personally I buy products that are more repairable even when they're slightly less waterproof or sleek than what Apple offers. But I recognize that the vast majority of consumers do not share my preferences and Apple's products seem to do a fine job of catering to that market segment.

(That's not to say that there aren't valid reasons we might want to force companies to make products repairable just like we already force them to make products safe, just that if we do there will be design tradeoffs involved.)

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

#265

Post by phpisthebest »

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…

>>Apple can’t win here

They could by providing open access to parts and tools to independent shops

The "Self Repair" seems to be designed to still be purposely hostile to repair while still "allowing" repair so they can claim they are satisfying the "letter of the law" when it comes to Right to Repair legalization that is going to be passed in many jurisdictions, they are getting out ahead of this right now.

Instead of just allowing a Repair shop to order up 10 Screens, and 10 batteries, owners have to register their repair, then "activate" the repair with Apple, all while using these expensive and time consuming tools that most people will simply not want to do.

IMO this is not Apple changing their tune on repairability, this is Apple being passive aggressive in the face of Right to Repair

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

#266

Post by carlob »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #214
smugma wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a largely a U.S. specific thing. In Europe, manual transmission is still commonly available. If you want a high-end-ish car with a manual in the US, there’s the Golf R.

That's somewhat a quirk of your displacement taxes resulting in tiny engines. When the choice is between a CVT or automatic that has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the upper RPM ranges (because how else are you gonna get acceptable performance out of a tiny engine) and a clutch pedal many people choose the clutch pedal.

You might just as well argue the opposite: American gas and car prices don't factor in the huge externalities of a badly engineered gas guzzler (and I don't think they are priced in in the EU either). So you get around in things that are far too heavy and need huge engines. Granted, the real solution would be to get rid of most personal vehicles with engines, but you can just look at the displacement of F1 cars to know you are arguing in bad faith.

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

#267

Post by asveikau »

dylan604 wrote: post #122
blagie wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

But in this case the user is charged $69 to repair it themselves.

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

#268

Post by katbyte »

nkrisc wrote: post #229
mostertoaster wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would definitely buy a manual if I could. Just more fun to drive. I think Honda civic’s lowest model might still have one. Not sure of anything else.

If “fun” is the primary advantage (I know there are others) then it’s no wonder there’s fewer manuals in the US, at least. I think for many people, myself included, a car is a tool. I don’t need it to be fun. I need it to be reliable, easy to use, and as efficient as possible. For some cars are a hobby, but for many people they’re most another tool in our lives.

Manuals have an advantage in some situations (off roading, transmission doesn’t overheat, better performance with skill, repairability) and autos have theirs (easy, better fuel economy)

If I commuted to an office every day I’d get an auto (actually these days an EV), but working in the bush/backroads? Manual

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

#269

Post by starky »

jt2190 wrote: post #213
honkdaddy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran an iOS sales and repairs service for years, eventually stopping around the iPhone X era. I had decent third-party tools, but despite being careful, I'd still break peoples' devices on rare occasion and have to eat the cost. The adhesive they use to bind the screen to the body has gotten consistently tougher over the years, to the point where there really isn't a reliable way for someone to do it correctly on th…

> The adhesive they use to bind the screen to the body has gotten consistently tougher over the years... Unless they ditch the adhesive... We talk about this adhesive as if it's easily replaced with some screws, but I wonder if that's really true anymore. I can imagine that as devices and their tolerances get smaller that simply screwing something together might actually make the device a lot more delicate. Do you kn…

The reality is that with the way devices are designed to be IP rated and as compact as possible, your only option is these fancy PSA adhesives.

There is a direct disagreement between what a consumer wants in their device and making it easy to repair, especially since most people don't expect to repair the device they are buying.

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

#270

Post by [deleted] »

Nextgrid wrote: post #250
fartcannon wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who's actually being converted by that? No one with any sense, and the rest were already fanboys.

Politicians? The shock value of seeing all that lab-grade equipment contributes to their narrative of “repair is unsafe”.

[deleted]
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