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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

#381

Post by jeffbee »

kllrnohj wrote: post #379
jeffbee wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's a great service, too. You pay $50 and wait a few minutes. You get a new, genuine OEM battery with a warranty that extends the life of your phone indefinitely. The right-to-repair people have just lost contact with reality. This is the way people want it to work. It is a great product experience.

Right-to-repair in no way prevents or hampers Apple's ability to offer that service. If people want the current state, they can continue to pay for it. Right to repair offers strictly more options and choice, it doesn't remove anything

It removes the ability of the manufacturer to make a phone that is the size and weight people prefer and has the features they want. Billions of people want a waterproof phone and I doubt you could even fill a bus with people who really give a damn whether or not the battery is replaceable in the field.

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

#382

Post by kllrnohj »

starky wrote: post #269
jt2190 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Like 50 years of wrist watches kinda calls BS on that. Mass produced, low cost, waterproof devices with easily removable batteries used to be the norm. We as a species certainly haven't forgotten how to do that, these adhesives are far from necessary.

They exist not for IP rating, but to make the device appear to not have any screws. Both for aesthetic reasons and to keep people out reasons.

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

#383

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

bob29 wrote: post #204
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…

So actually we live in the best world possible[1] with the best technology possible. If it were possible to make a better iPHone, someone would have made it, but the fact that it doesn't exist means its either not possible or not good to have a removable battery on an iphone. [1] according to this book i read in highschool, it was called Candide

It is possible and multiple such phones exist on the market today. But there's a lot more people who want to complain about the iPhone battery than people who want to buy a Nokia 1.3.

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

#384

Post by kllrnohj »

greenglass wrote: post #305
lisper wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The adhesive makes the phone waterproof. So would a rubber o-ring.

O-rings are known to fail.

Adhesives are also known to fail. They almost certainly have a higher failure rate even.

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

#385

Post by flomo »

sokoloff wrote: post #320
flomo wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I used to be a manual fanatic, but I realized it's only 'fun' when the engine is slightly underpowered. On a typical modern car sold in USA you'd practically have to take it to a racetrack.

I can testify that a manual transmission is still fun when the engine is adequately power or beyond.

I had a 6 cylinder VW and the feeling was more 'any gear is fine', so I lost interest. Also grew up driving manuals so never had a problem commuting, its advantageous sometimes to take it out of gear in stop-n-go traffic.

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

#387

Post by paulryanrogers »

arcticbull wrote: post #348
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view this differently. This article is documenting a process people are surely curious about. But the costly deposit and multiple heavy pelican cases of supplies show just how deep the hole Apple has dug for themselves really is. Apple is so anti-repair they have no provisions for a reasonable at home process. You must realize that a $1200 deposit alone means this process is out of reach of many people. Meanwhile I…

They don't force you into the tools, the deposit or anything else - they offer you parts at the same prices they offer to third-party service providers and Apple stores. They even offer you credit for returning the old parts. If have your own iFixit kit, the only thing you're on the hook for is parts cost. Access to the tools for what is likely at-cost shipping prices seems like an above-and-beyond thing to me that t…

Considering that batteries still only last about a day and Apple led this shift to non-user-swappable batteries they still deserve some blame for landfill culture. Most of their efforts around repair appear to be the minimum anyone motivated by new sales would do once faced with looming regulation.

Even if at cost the extreme sophistication and complexity of such tools reinforces the point that these devices aren't really built for repair. They're built for eye appeal first and foremost.

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

#388

Post by kllrnohj »

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…

> No artificial obstacles.

There are 2 such artificial obstacles in fact. The first is you can only buy parts if you provide a serial number for the device in question, preventing things like repair shops from having a stock of batteries on hand. For self repair, it also complicates the "help a friend out with a replacement" flow.

The second is the software lockout. Even though you provide the serial number at time of ordering, the battery still comes up as being unauthorized after it's first installed and things like face unlock refuse to work, despite the battery playing no role in security. You then need to call a number and go through a process to get that battery remotely authorized.

Both of those extremely artificial limitations are completely bullshit moves on Apple's part.

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

#389

Post by paulryanrogers »

jeffbee wrote: post #381
kllrnohj wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right-to-repair in no way prevents or hampers Apple's ability to offer that service. If people want the current state, they can continue to pay for it. Right to repair offers strictly more options and choice, it doesn't remove anything

It removes the ability of the manufacturer to make a phone that is the size and weight people prefer and has the features they want. Billions of people want a waterproof phone and I doubt you could even fill a bus with people who really give a damn whether or not the battery is replaceable in the field.

For buyers of new devices that may be true. Yet I've sold plenty of phones I had bought second hand (after years of my own use), and those with user swappable batteries are far more likely to be reused without great expense. More so if they also have an SDcard slot to minimize wear on the soldered storage.

As phone features plateau we should strive to make them last longer and avoid unnecessarily consuming tons of new material every year. (IIRC a single iphone consumes like 0.5 tons of materials to go from the ground to the pocket.)

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

#390

Post by Animats »

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…

By the way. The tools this guy used are common, dead-common in China. Go to any repair mall in Shenzhen and you’ll see hundreds of these.

This is an issue with hobbyist electronics projects in the US. The US hobbyist market is still using 1970s packaging technology - 0.10 inch pin spacing, solderless proto boards, and through-hole parts. I designed a hobbyist board that was all surface mount. Smallest parts were 0.5mm pitch. Although a few people built it, I got a lot of complaints. Surface mount is beyond most American hobbyists. Even though 0.10 inch through-hole is obsolete commercially, and modern parts come in surface mount only.

That said, Apple's aesthetic inherently makes things hard to open. Glass on both sides and minimal bezel is what Apple fans pay for. It forces a heat and suction disassembly process, which requires proper tooling to do right.

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