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Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

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Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#141

Post by Despegar »

dymk wrote: post #68
Despegar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Rather, it's a warning in the "battery health" section basically saying "we don't know if your battery is any good, you might need to get it replaced". That's not what the message is. It's really weird that everyone keeps getting this wrong given there's a screenshot of it in the iFixit post. https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2019/08/07170827/iphon...

I don’t know who’s taking crazy pills, but the GP paraphrasing seems perfectly reasonable given your screenshot

The people taking crazy pills are the one's suggesting it just says "Service" rather than not knowing if the battery is genuine.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#142

Post by jpttsn »

rtkwe wrote: post #136
dymk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know who’s taking crazy pills, but the GP paraphrasing seems perfectly reasonable given your screenshot

The damning part is that even if the repair place uses an actual Apple battery with all the circuitry exactly the same the phone treats it as a complete unknown because it hasn't been approved by Apple and authenticated. If I open up two identical iPhones and swap the batteries I shouldn't have diminished functionality, the phone should still fully report everything it knows about the battery health.

What if you let the battery get wet/warm when replacing? Should the software trust that you replaced it correctly?

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#143

Post by puranjay »

gruez wrote: post #125
puranjay wrote: post #24

I'm done with Apple. How can a computer company knowingly ship a product with a keyboard that breaks within a few months for three whole generations? Mine lasted just 4 months and I was advised to invest in a silicone cover for it. Which is absurd for a $1500 laptop. And they made it sound like it was just a minor issue - "oh everything works great except the keyboard". As if a laptop without a keyboard isn't practic…

>And Windows has been painfully slow and error prone, but no update has ever crippled my laptop as the last macOS update did my wife's Macbook Air. You obviously haven't heard of botched Windows updates.

Maybe, but it hasn't happened to me. Two of my other laptops are Window and while they've glitched and hung, nothing has been as bad as the freezing issue.

But that's besides the point: Apple's hardware and software are closed. Apple knows exactly what hardware the software had to deal with.

Plus, Apple charges a massive premium over Windows (especially in my local market).

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#144

Post by jpttsn »

magashna wrote: post #129
ChickeNES wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss my point. The average person just wants their phone fixed, not to be able to fix it themselves. And they want to have confidence it was done right. Also, a fun fact: an iPhone XR replacement battery is $80USD from iFixit (the only vendor I'd trust) vs $69 for out-of-warranty replacement from Apple themselves, labor included.

Being able to fix a battery used to be as simple as popping it open and putting in a new battery, rather than having an Apple "Genius" hold my hand and whisper sweet nothings while they charge me an exorbitant amount for the most basic of fixes.

The bigger issue is when Ford put the motor inside the car. Now I need a mechanic to replace the motor. Horrible. Use to be anyone could just switch it out.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#145

Post by Dylan16807 »

deergomoo wrote: post #90
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #33

Lots of Apple apologists in this thread. (1) They deliberately design new proprietary adapters, eschewing already popular and capable standards, in new devices - to sell you more shit (2) They remove support for existing standards (e.g. headphone jacks) - to sell you more shit (3) They file lawsuits against third-party repair providers who do a demonstrably better job than first-party repairs - to sell you more shit…

> They deliberately design new proprietary adapters, eschewing already popular and capable standards, in new devices They have one proprietary connector across all of their products that they sell, and that’s Lightning. Lightning is seven years old, was launched at a time when the alternative would be the god-awful microUSB connector, and all rumours point towards it being phased out completely for USB-C in the next…

Apple was on the design group for USB-C. They didn't need to launch lightning and stick with it for this long, with pointlessly incompatible cables between product lines.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#146

Post by kemayo »

dymk wrote: post #68
Despegar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Rather, it's a warning in the "battery health" section basically saying "we don't know if your battery is any good, you might need to get it replaced". That's not what the message is. It's really weird that everyone keeps getting this wrong given there's a screenshot of it in the iFixit post. https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2019/08/07170827/iphon...

I don’t know who’s taking crazy pills, but the GP paraphrasing seems perfectly reasonable given your screenshot

Yeah, it's actually a bit less forceful than I was remembering it when I wrote that paraphrase. :D

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#147

Post by kuzehanka »

esmi wrote: post #91
kuzehanka wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phone knows that the battery is a genuine Apple component, because the battery cryptographically identifies as one. What it's detecting is that a genuine Apple battery was installed in the phone, but not by Apple. It displays the warning to scare the user and make them mistrust the 3rd party repairer. The only way to make that warning go away is to use a secret-sauce Apple programming tool that they withhold from…

> The phone knows that the battery is a genuine Apple component, because the battery cryptographically identifies as one. But that’s not the error. The error is the health is unknown. To be a devil’s advocate: How do you know the health of this first party battery is good? For example, maybe it wasn’t stored properly.

> maybe it wasn’t stored properly.

Then it has a smaller capacity than a brand new battery should, but still larger than a heavily used battery. It's something the phone can report on, and android phones do. Apple can't guarantee your replacement battery was 'stored properly' either. All they can do is run their little programming tool to remove the warning regardless.

This scenario is completely outside the realm of 'new genuine Apple battery detected + no Apple warning reset = permanently harass the user with false warning'.

Let's be really clear here. The warning is 'unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery'. Which is complete bullshit. The phone is perfectly aware that the battery is genuine because it carries a crypto signed identifier.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#148

Post by briandear »

liability wrote: post #123
lloeki wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun local fact: unless you order your battery at iFixit and DIY, it’s cheaper to go to the Apple Store to change an iPhone battery than any of the repair shops nearby.

Fun reality check: for many people, going to an Apple store means driving several hours, or even purchasing a plane ticket. Any reasonable accounting of that would massively inflate the cost of 1st party repair.

.. not if you go to an authorized Apple repair center. Unless you live in some wilderness area, there is almost certainly an authorized repair center near you — and those repairs are backed by Apple. Going to some sketchy shop that cannibalizes new phones to sell a replacement battery? That is bizarre. I am starting to understand why Apple has apparent hostility towards unauthorized third party repair. Someone is likely going to go buy one of those “new” phones and think Apple is crap. Meanwhile, the repair shop made money selling you the battery from a new iPhone, then money selling a fake-new iPhone with a garbage battery to someone else.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#149

Post by algaeontoast »

emsy wrote: post #18
algaeontoast wrote: post #15

Apple Care isn’t that expensive - I’ve rarely had an apple product break that hasn’t been free or under $100 to have fixed at the Apple store. Louis Rossmann is the best, but I’ve never really encountered a reason to care about Right to Repair...

This argument sounds like "I don't care about cancer research because I don't get sick". It should matter to you for many reasons that have nothing to do with whether you're affected or not. I don't want to see the hostility towards customers you see e.g. from tractor companies creep into my computing devices.

I use Hacker News mostly to avoid vapid responses like yours.

However, I should say that the right to repair a device like a tractor is something I very much support. But that's a $100k+ piece of equipment that someone's livelihood depends on and should last in excess of 10yrs.

Apple devices and phone toys... please...

The issue with apple devices is that they're intended to be discarded and replaced, not that they're "unable to be repaired". Have you seen how poorly most people treat their phones and computers? There's a reason Apple doesn't engineer products to last that long - because a majority of their customers will manage to break them anyway and inevitably will buy a new one because they want to be "cool" like all their other friends (an societal and consumerist trend I honestly take more of an issue with).

I understand your point, but I hope this has helped you understand my point of view a bit better :)

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#150

Post by liability »

briandear wrote: post #148
liability wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun reality check: for many people, going to an Apple store means driving several hours, or even purchasing a plane ticket. Any reasonable accounting of that would massively inflate the cost of 1st party repair.

.. not if you go to an authorized Apple repair center. Unless you live in some wilderness area, there is almost certainly an authorized repair center near you — and those repairs are backed by Apple. Going to some sketchy shop that cannibalizes new phones to sell a replacement battery? That is bizarre. I am starting to understand why Apple has apparent hostility towards unauthorized third party repair. Someone is lik…

You're seriously living in an urban bubble if you think either an Apple store or a certified repair center will be readily available and convienent for everybody. Let me remind you, the alternative is Apple sends me a new battery in the mail and I insert it into my phone myself. Zero downtime or travel.

The last time I got a battery replacement for an Apple product was a few months ago, when I was living in Seattle a mere 30 minutes away from the University Village Apple store. From the time of my first phonecall to schedule the appointment to me walking out of the store with a new battery, three and a half weeks elapsed. I had to go to the store three times, the first time they merely "confirmed" what I had already told them on the phone and said they'd need to order the battery and it would take a week. What a fucking disaster, why didn't they order it when I called? Why did they give me an appointment when they knew they couldn't help me that day? Imagine if I was living an hour or two out of town, that would have been three afternoons of my short live wasted. Unacceptable.

It's shit. Unmitigated shit. With my old thinkpad I had new batteries mailed to me and it took mere seconds for me to swap them. I am never buying another computer from these shitheads. People who continue to support Apple have either gotten lucky, or they're nuts.

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