431–440 of 590 posts
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This is kind of a weird take. If everyone is driven by profit, but some get it by evil means and others get it by doing things that benefit their customers, can’t we simply say that the people who do evil stuff are evil, and the ones who don’t aren’t?
I guess I should have stressed the "look" part a bit more.
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AppleCare has always been a loss for Apple. The entire repair division is a loss for them. They don't make a profit from repairs. This update is partially marketing spin but, for a lot of users, it was worth buying before and is now even more of a value. If you look at the things that Apple prioritizes, they want to disincentivize self-repair because any quality variations reflect on them whether they did the repair…
Do you have a source for this? AppleCare+ for a MacBook Air is $250. You can get a 4 year 3rd party extended warranty for a similarly priced laptop off Amazon for $170. Presumably they make money off this but don't have advantages that Apple does like at cost repair parts. Are Apple products such garbage or so hard to repair that shorter more expensive warranties lose money? Seriously?
I’ve been a Mac service technician at an Apple Store for almost a decade. I’ve had an extremely competitive wage for the entire time vs other jobs of this level, I get RSUs, and a very comprehensive benefits package even though I’m currently part-time. me and my team are expensive for what we are (essentially, just retail workers).
The majority of appointments I take on the Genius Bar in a day have no charge; software/iCloud issues, data migrations, or just how-to questions are free and unlimited. Most, though certainly not all, repairs are done in warranty.
Yes, repairs are often expensive, but when I think about the daily operating costs and salaries of my entire team vs how much revenue we bring in per paid repair transaction, I can’t see how repair costs & AC sales cover even half of it. That’s to say nothing of the extremely busy call centres that Apple waived the per-call fees for over five years ago.
Take that for what it’s worth, but when you see how much traffic flows to and from the Genius Bar every day with no money ever changing hands, it would take a lot to convince me that AC is a profit centre, and not a huge loss leader.
Now just put a usb-c port on the phone and allow me to use any web browser.
Feels like the real reason to not allow alt browsers would be because it results in Chrome being the only browser anyone uses. Firefox is already effectively dead and Safari can't be ignored because having a website broken on safari means ios users can't use it, rather than being able to tell them to install chrome for the "best experience"
...well, except for Edge which is a third monopoly in this equation forcing itself onto unsuspecting consumers. Even if it's still Chrome under the hood, that probably looks like "healthy competition" from the clueless people at the FTC.
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Apple’s Activation Lock lead to a substantial drop in smartphone theft worldwide. That’s something worthy of consideration. Apple must not re-incentivize phone theft to harvest parts. https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/apples-activation-lock-lea...
I got mugged a couple years ago, or attempted to: The thief asked for my phone, saw it was an iPhone and just gave it back. That to me is worth the whole phone bricking thing. And it's also not like I've gone through a bunch of them, I got a 6S on release and a 12 pro when I felt it couldn't play video games anymore.
...and if I'm too lazy to do that, I can still sell it for parts online since less lazy people who know how to do that will buy it for the same reason.
On our product (air quality monitor[1]) we made the concious decision to design it for long life and repairability by e.g.: - using no glue or snaps - all components on one PCB, no thin cables that can break - standard philips/torx screws - four screws to open the enclosure, four screws to take out the pcb - expensive sensor modules on pin sockets for easy reaplacement - only using components that are certified for l…
On our product (air quality monitor[1]) we made the concious decision to design it for long life and repairability by e.g.: - using no glue or snaps - all components on one PCB, no thin cables that can break - standard philips/torx screws - four screws to open the enclosure, four screws to take out the pcb - expensive sensor modules on pin sockets for easy reaplacement - only using components that are certified for l…
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Apple started offering home repair kits for iPhone this year, but they’re super difficult to use: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/technology/personaltech/a ... There’s speculation that offering the kits is an attempt to head off right-to-repair legislation. This comment, and those like it, are proof to me that there’s a large contingent of folks who don’t actually care about the repairability of iPhones, they just…
FWIW, Apple didn't actually address any of the problems their real critics (eg. third-party repair shops) espoused. The redesign in the linked article will only benefit Apple until they walk-back their asinine hardware-DRM (and ostensibly, their grip on OEM components).
Are there instances of DRM’d hardware being totally unsupported, or just not available at all? If so, what parts?
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It would matter if it was highlighted. People care about repairability of expensive items. Admittedly, it is a secondary concern, but I would say it is probably the top secondary concern
Is it? Most people that might be concerned just pay for Apple Care, and then let Apple repair it. Only the 1% of people that are techy/nerdy enough to even try this are even bothered by this.
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You chose to buy it knowing that's how it works. As a user I find this an extremely compelling feature that my phone is close to worthless to anyone who would try to steal it.
I'm certain that at least 90% of iPhone buyers have no idea Apple does this. I suspect a lot of them would be pissed if they learned.
I’m not sure I care much about repairability. For me, makers should have the freedom to design products as they wish. I don’t think that phones and laptops would be as light and portable as iPhones and Macs are if Apple was inhibited by the Right to Repair movement from arranging internal components in such a jampacked way. I also think that makers should have the freedom to design computers whose software tightly in…