We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score • Hacker News Board

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#261

Post by gandalfian » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 8:51 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #6

There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an hour. When people are afraid to use your products…

Or they could just sell official replacement screens for $50. The price of an entire budget smartphone. Thefts of iPhones would plummet. The phones would be worth more to consumers. A small drop in sales perhaps due to more repairs.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#262

Post by lesuorac » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 8:52 PM UTC

riscy wrote: post #244

kmeisthax wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with SSR is that they give you the shit AASPs/Genius Bar gets, which is finished assemblies designed to be swapped out by low-skill workers for minimum wage. This dramatically increases the price of the repair because you're now swapping out a large number of components instead of just one. Louis Rossmann used to beat Apple on the price of repair specifically by desoldering individual chips and swapping t…

> they give you the shit AASPs/Genius Bar gets, which is finished assemblies designed to be swapped out by low-skill workers for minimum wage > all just so happen to result in a really shitty repair experience You're saying getting genuine parts and instructions directly from Apple that are simple for a low-skill person to install is a shitty repair experience? All this uproar is about is needing to contact Apple for…

> You're saying getting genuine parts and instructions directly from Apple that are simple for a low-skill person to install is a shitty repair experience?

He's saying when the screen doesn't work because a 1/5 penny transistor broke he'd rather pay $15 in labor for the tech to replace it than >$15 for a new screen assembly.

And related, people are saying they'd rather be able to pay the $15 in labor when Apple End-of-Lifes the device and no longer produces that assembly.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#263

Post by withinboredom » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

LorenPechtel wrote: post #169

ejstronge wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (If anyone at Apple is reading this: ffs, allow the legitimate owner of a device to "unpair" all components in their phone in iCloud so that legitimate second-hand shops can strip a broken device at least for its parts) I was robbed at gunpoint (but not in a 'problematic' part of town) and the thief outlined all the steps he needed me to take to remove my phone from Find My and from iCloud. I think a lot of these m…

Apple should have a duress system. You have say 48 hours to contact Apple and tell them the change was made under duress--and you do so with the *old* credentials, not the new ones. All changes to your account revert and the phone locks itself to your account once it sees the network.

People would instantly use this for insurance fraud.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#264

Post by _silicon » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 8:55 PM UTC

drcode wrote: post #179

Most comments in this thread: I don't want to have ownership of devices I pay money for, because if I don't own anything, nobody can steal it from me.

This is on the nose. I have no clue what the limit is for what you can convince people to surrender, but I don’t think we are even close.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#265

Post by dTal » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 8:55 PM UTC

notanormalnerd wrote: post #27

mschuster91 wrote: post #6

There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an hour. When people are afraid to use your products…

I don't know why iFixit doesn't even touch on that point. I live in Barcelona and phones are being pickpocketed every day here. Not being able to wipe or unlock or else is a mayor deterrent for the pickpockets, because noone will take the phone off of them, so it's not worth it. Phones are still being stolen but imagine if they could sell to a global market of repair shops. You couldn't go to any tourist location wit…

>I live in Barcelona and phones are being pickpocketed every day here. Not being able to wipe or unlock or else is a mayor deterrent for the pickpockets

Doesn't sound like it.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#266

Post by paulmd » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #259

One thing I dislike about this decision is, that it conflates the limitations for third parties repairing an iPhone with the ability to repair a device at all. Yes, in an ideal world it would be easy and cheap to repair a device. Good points have been raised in the discussion, why this might be limited by necessity. Like theft-protection and just technical questions of calibration of part. But from an environmental p…

yup, I think the right-to-repair movement has unthinkingly adopted a lot of attitudes from a couple key proponents with business interests in component-level repair.

board-level repair is fine, and is probably necessary to get some of the economies of scale in assembly and distribution. but you'd think it doesn't count for some reason.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#267

Post by tzs » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

natymad wrote: post #166

I completely fail to understand the anti-theft argument, help me out here. So the theory is that, once thieves will see you're carrying an Iphone, they won't bother taking it. But why? You're already being mugged, everything that's even remotely valuable will be taken. Why would they let their victims go, just because their valuables are more difficult to flip? "Give me all your valuables - oh wait, that's an iphone,…

It sounds like you are visualizing the typical robbery as a thief stops you in some location secluded enough that they have time to get you to remove all your valuables and hand them over.

It actually is typically a grab and run in a crowd.

We know making smartphones harder to flip deters this because in 2015 when it become mandatory for smartphones to require a remote kill switch the owner could use to kill a stolen phone the theft rate for such phones dropped significantly.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#268

Post by paulmd » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

s3p wrote: post #7

Reminds me of a Louis Rossman video [0] where he shares his frustration with Apple's independent repair shop program. He says that to get access to genuine Apple parts (and the ability to pair them to devices), Apple requires that his shop not be able to do certain things like fix a broken angle detection sensor. It's utter BS, and the lip service companies are paying to right-to-repair bills in state legislatures ho…

> He says that to get access to genuine Apple parts (and the ability to pair them to devices), Apple requires that his shop not be able to do certain things like fix a broken angle detection sensor.

is this a loaded framing for the proposition that "you can't perform component-level repairs if you're presenting yourself as an apple authorized service center"? because the point of apple authorized service centers is you get the apple authorized service, not someone drilling and reflowing your board to replace components.

it's great that rossman can do this, but he's N=1, and apple can't make their entire network out of rossmans. I think it's pretty obvious why they have to enforce minimum standards and standardized repair protocols in an authorized service program.

this is the "rossman doesn't like any repair solution in which rossman doesn't get paid" thing in action. component-level repair isn't the only kind of repair, it's just the one that results in rossman getting paid the most.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#269

Post by mcphage » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 9:01 PM UTC

mortureb wrote: post #32

mcphage wrote: post #4

> Forget harvesting parts—which is a huge part of most independent repair and recycling businesses. Isn't that also why most stolen phones end up in SE Asia where they're disassembled for parts?

The parts talk to each other so not really for the last generation or two.

Isn't that what this is all about, though? The parts talk to each other, so they can't be disassembled and sold off—but since they talk to each other, it makes it harder to get them working after a repair?

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#270

Post by doctorpangloss » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 9:01 PM UTC

jchw wrote: post #15

mschuster91 wrote: post #6

There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an hour. When people are afraid to use your products…

I do not accept this as a reasonable answer. I've lived in not even very good areas, with very lax physical security (often not locking my car) and have never had this issue, ever. Nobody has ever stolen my phone. Not in downtown Detroit, not in not-downtown-Detroit, not in SF, not in Chicago. If crime really is this bad, it's not an Apple or Samsung problem. It's a societal problem that extremely badly needs to be a…

> not in SF

Someone tip toed carefully into my house while I was sleeping in it, in the Mission near Valencia St., and cat-burgled* my wife's phone off her nightstand, at around 3am. We have some pictures of his legs (?) that he took in some bathroom later that evening. Finally it winds up pinging its location at a Mission phone repair shop, which of course the guy there is saying he has no idea what we're talking about and maybe the phone is "upstairs."

We didn't report, because last time I reported someone breaking into my garage, the two SFPD officers were talking about people interested in my "printer." Nothing was stolen, because it woke me up and I yelled at them from above.

I don't really know what the economy is around stolen phones. It surely exists. I don't know why you would want to die on this hill of ignorance. It's a quintessentially social media thing to do! You have no dog in this race.

*Our cat helpfully ran out the door for fun.