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

391–400 of 558 posts

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

#391

Post by kllrnohj »

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.

You're ignoring ecosystem lock-in, which Apple is extremely effective at (eg, iMessage's "green bubble" bullying).

Regulation fills the gap when freedom of choice & ease of movement isn't actually viable for most people. See also search engine regulations, even though the barrier for using a competing product is much lower than it is for switching smartphone ecosystems

Also in this case you're ignoring the bigger picture of the entire industry is incentivized to be "anti-consumer" and hamper repairs. Right to repair isn't about Apple, it's about everyone. Nobody is going after Apple specifically, they are just the leading example. Samsung, Motorola, etc... are all offenders here as well.

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

#392

Post by saagarjha »

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

This is a bad take, because Apple has shown how they do this with the App Store and it their behavior there was far uglier than providing high-quality, albeit bulk and awkward, repair equipment.

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

#393

Post by snowwrestler »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #345
snowwrestler wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one inflates the new tires, the jack or the wrench?

The tire shop who mounted the tires on the wheels, or a simple bike pump.

Repairs can be pretty easy when you pay someone else in a shop to do the hard part for you.

In my case, replacing my iPhone battery required no tools at all after I paid the Apple shop to mount the new battery in the phone.

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

#394

Post by saagarjha »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #387
arcticbull wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> 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.

Sure, but it seems like this makes phones thinner and lighter and consumers want that. It "sucks" that Apple gave them that option and they went for it, but I don't consider this to be inherently malicious.

> 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.

…these are the tools that Apple uses to repair your phone?

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

#395

Post by kllrnohj »

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.

No it doesn't. Requiring Apple to sell or allow 3rd party replacement parts as well as providing repair documentation does not in any way prevent them from making the phone they currently are.

You're confusing (perhaps intentionally) right to repair with the EU's proposal to mandate easily swappable batteries. They are not the same thing.

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

#396

Post by justsomehnguy »

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…

> the overall quality and size of phones would be greatly compromised

Har, har, the phone would be 0.02mm thicker! Unacceptable!

Seriously? Take any smartphone from 2014 and compare with your current one. They didn't thinned that much.

Hell, I do it for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_13

    Dimensions 13: H: 146.7 mm (5.78 in)
    W: 71.5 mm (2.81 in)
    D: 7.65 mm (0.301 in)
    13 Mini:
    H: 131.5 mm (5.18 in)
    W: 64.2 mm (2.53 in)
    D: 7.65 mm (0.301 in)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_Razr

    Dimensions 130.7 mm (5.15 in) H
    68.9 mm (2.71 in) W
    7.1 mm (0.28 in) D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moto_G4

    Dimensions G4 Play: 144.4 mm (5.69 in) H
    72 mm (2.8 in) W
    9.9 mm (0.39 in) D G4, G4 Plus: 153 mm (6.0 in) H
    76.6 mm (3.02 in) W
    9.8 mm (0.39 in) D

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

#397

Post by jeffbee »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #389
jeffbee wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ne…

The facts aren't really on your side of the argument. The glued-together Apple phones are the ones least likely to be in the trash. They are still shipping the latest software on phones from 2015. By contrast, removable-battery phones are all garbage practically as soon as you open the box. The Samsung XCover is only 2 years old, might not even get Android 12, and definitely will never get anything after Android 12.

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

#398

Post by fuzzfactor »

brianwawok wrote: post #245
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…

Right. It’s the same here with hacker news people toting how proud they are of their website that only uses 2KB of JavaScript. A lot of us ignore these people and happy produce websites that use jQuery and have 10MB of JavaScript and have iPhones that are hard to self repair, and live very happy and fulfilling lives.

Some things are still smarter than others.

Before the appearance of the iPhone, regular cellphones had always been consumer-friendly enough so that no maker would ever consider not having an instantly user-replacable battery.

Any further migration toward the anti-reuse/anti-recycling approach so strongly embraced in digital tech by companies like Microsoft would have been immediately rejected.

A battery without user access would be recognized as disposable electronics by design.

People knew that something like that would be a stupid phone, certainly not a smart one.

What made a smart phone smart at the time was its PC-compatibiliy, with regular removable user storage like memory sticks which you can pull out of the phone and plug into your PC to read & write directly. So there was functionally no limit to the internal storage to begin with. And advanced free PC software to owners so they could interface to the phone through its often-unique USB cable or alternatively by Bluetooth, or even earlier IR.

The phone couldn't actually be used as a hotspot itself, but it would get one PC on the internet and the PC could do the rest.

And that was everywhere you could get a simple cell signal, before data plans existed and for years while less-smart phones dependent on data plans were still waiting for the data roll-out nationwide to reach their neck of the woods.

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

#399

Post by gambiting »

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 completely disagree with you. I think the author is right - requiring people to put a $1200 deposit down to rent some tools and sending them 40kg of stuff just to replace the battery is insane and clearly done to discourage repairs, the fact that you have to call their specialists to validate the battery at the end is just a cherry on top of this rotten cake - it's just done to stave off legislators ruling that apple must make their hardware more repairable. It's a token effort at best.

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

#400

Post by paulryanrogers »

jeffbee wrote: post #397
paulryanrogers wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ne…

The facts aren't really on your side of the argument. The glued-together Apple phones are the ones least likely to be in the trash. They are still shipping the latest software on phones from 2015. By contrast, removable-battery phones are all garbage practically as soon as you open the box. The Samsung XCover is only 2 years old, might not even get Android 12, and definitely will never get anything after Android 12.

Imagine a world in which iphones still had user swappable batteries. They would almost certainly retain their appeal and fewer would end up in landfills.

The fact that they've become a luxury brand is a compounding factor you cannot dismiss. You're comparing apples to oranges.

Post reply on HN