Live data from Hacker News

Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

youtube.com

161–170 of 175 posts

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#161
post #87

Looking at the responses against Mr Wozniak, if they are primarily from Americans, makes me raise an eyebrow. The impression of the country that I get from abroad is one of an insistence on "freedom" and "liberty". In this issue though, owning devices that limit your freedom and liberty in regards to repair is actually fought for. Is the issue being framed incorrectly by the "right to repair" movement? Or are "freedo…

I think many Americans are against more government intervention, which is what you would need for most "right to repair" efforts. To be able to repair different devices more easily, we would need legislation forcing these manufacturers to provide more support and follow more open standards. Which may be a good thing, but doesn't really fit with the goal of limited government and personal freedom and responsibility. S…

> I think many Americans are against more government intervention

The counter-argument to that is that mega corporations are government like power structures in their owns rights and have been deputized by the government officially and unofficially many times.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Apple does not say your phone is a brick and they don't destroy old devices. They disassemble them and re-use the working components to build remanufactured devices for warranty use. They literally have multi-million dollar machines that are built specifically to be able to take apart old iPhones component by component to allow them to be reused or reintegrated into the manufacturing process for war…

I still think you ought to be able to take your phone to 3rd party repair shop and get it fixed. And that Apple (or whoever) should be forced to facilitate this to some extent.

You can do that. Apple even offers a certification program for repair shops to get genuine parts so long as they do the repairs up to Apple's standards and via their procedures. They do facilitate this completely.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Apple does not say your phone is a brick and they don't destroy old devices. They disassemble them and re-use the working components to build remanufactured devices for warranty use. They literally have multi-million dollar machines that are built specifically to be able to take apart old iPhones component by component to allow them to be reused or reintegrated into the manufacturing process for war…

>Apple does not say your phone is a brick If a customer has a basic problem, and you tell them that a) You will not fix their phone b) You will not recover data from their phone. c) Your only option at Apple is to have them send your phone off to neverneverland, and get someone else's refurb for half the price of a new one Did you tell them that their phone was now a red colored rocklike substance that can be used to…

Again, you're being disingenuous and it's really off-putting considering that everyone here knows your story. It's great that you have the skills to do the 15-minute repair with a cheap flex cable and it's great that you're training an army of toddlers to do this very repair process for every phone with a broken jack. The fact of the matter is that 99% of customers don't care if it's "their" phone that they have when they leave the store so long as it's indistinguishable for them. It doesn't matter to them if they get a whole new phone so long as they have their info on it and, if they're doing what they get told to do repeatedly by both the phones themselves and the staff at Apple, then they'll have a backup of their data that can be easily restored in minutes or, at worst, an hour or two.

If right to repair isn't about forcing manufacturers to fix things, then why is it about forcing manufacturers to facilitate anything that could hurt them or their brand? Third parties are free to make their own parts and they're free to perform repairs with parts from other devices. Your misleading argument basically amounts to "I want Apple to do work and keep stock for me so that I can make money at their expense without having to follow their standards or guidelines". That's nonsense.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, I think you're being disingenuous here and I think you know it. No one is telling customers "your phone is now a brick" when their charge port breaks and "right to repair", as a whole" does not have a fine handle on what's being advocated for. If it did, there wouldn't be so many different variations of understanding for "right to repair" actually is. The number of variations for it in the various bills…

> I think you're being disingenuous here and I think you know it. Saying "and you know it" isn't an argument, it's what people fighting back and forth in drama TV say. > No one is telling customers "your phone is now a brick" when their charge port breaks I did not say they tell customers your phone is a brick when their charge port breaks. AASP did say, that when your headphone jack(attached to charge port) breaks,…

>No, what we’re saying is, regardless of what you use to charge your phone — you could use a banana to charge it — just give us access to be able to purchase that charge port so that if the charge port in the phone breaks, we can fix it for customers rather than tell them, “Your phone is now a brick.”

This you? I literally just pasted this from above. How is that not suggesting that people are telling customers that their phone is a brick when the charge port breaks?

Also, puhleeeeeeze... it's a good thing for society? There are any number of people for whom this won't be a good thing. I don't doubt that your business will go on just fine and that's why I think you're reticent to talk about it. The repair shops that "aren't run by c-list YouTube celebrities" can't do what you do. The majority of people running repair shops can't do the repairs you do. You may think it's easy but you completely ignore the number of the mall kiosk "repair shops" that do shoddy work and can't put a new screen on right and expect them to do work that requires soldering and component-level surgical operations.

You know how auto repair shops have a really, really poor reputation and how it's usually a joke about how taking your car in for an oil change results in all kinds of "upsells" for people who aren't savvy with their cars? This is exactly why. Also, before you make some kind of straw man up, I'm not suggesting that there's no middle ground or that the current situation is the perfect situation either. I'm only saying that you pretend like everyone else is going to get the same experience from every repair shop and all we have to do is pass these Right to Repair bills and the free market will take care of everything and that's just a bunch of bull.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple does not say your phone is a brick If a customer has a basic problem, and you tell them that a) You will not fix their phone b) You will not recover data from their phone. c) Your only option at Apple is to have them send your phone off to neverneverland, and get someone else's refurb for half the price of a new one Did you tell them that their phone was now a red colored rocklike substance that can be used to…

Again, you're being disingenuous and it's really off-putting considering that everyone here knows your story. It's great that you have the skills to do the 15-minute repair with a cheap flex cable and it's great that you're training an army of toddlers to do this very repair process for every phone with a broken jack. The fact of the matter is that 99% of customers don't care if it's "their" phone that they have when…

>"I want Apple to do work and keep stock for me so that I can make money at their expense without having to follow their standards or guidelines".

This is also incorrect. I don't understand why you find the need to continuously make things up throughout your posts in this thread.

The law is not asking Apple to stock the chip. It would be sufficient if they not restrict the manufacturer of the chip, from selling freely in the market.

Why do you repeatedly lie? It's really not cool.

>that 99% of customers don't care if it's "their" phone that they have when they leave the store so long as it's indistinguishable for them.

You are implying that most customers DO NOT CARE about paying $349 vs $50? They do not care about having to reload their data from scratch vs. leave in 10 minutes with everything as it was?

How can you imply I am being disingenuous and say this with a straight face?

>. It's great that you have the skills to do the 15-minute repair with a cheap flex cable and it's great that you're training an army of toddlers to do this very repair process for every phone with a broken jack

Yes, it is great - you can have as much salt as you want about an "army of toddlers", but yes, technicians doing repairs for $50 in 10 minutes without erasing data that the manufacturer wants $350, in 2 weeks, while erasing data is a GOOD thing. Feel free to make fun or handwave it away as much as you want, but in the real world people value their time & their money and don't wish to senselessly waste it.

>"I want Apple to do work and keep stock for me so that I can make money at their expense without having to follow their standards or guidelines". That's nonsense.

You are correct; this is nonsense, because you strawmanned & made it up, as you have most of what you've posted here. Nothing I have asked for would be an "expense" for the manufacturer.

Stop making things up. It's seriously not cool.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're being disingenuous here and I think you know it. Saying "and you know it" isn't an argument, it's what people fighting back and forth in drama TV say. > No one is telling customers "your phone is now a brick" when their charge port breaks I did not say they tell customers your phone is a brick when their charge port breaks. AASP did say, that when your headphone jack(attached to charge port) breaks,…

>No, what we’re saying is, regardless of what you use to charge your phone — you could use a banana to charge it — just give us access to be able to purchase that charge port so that if the charge port in the phone breaks, we can fix it for customers rather than tell them, “Your phone is now a brick.” This you? I literally just pasted this from above. How is that not suggesting that people are telling customers that…

>This you? I literally just pasted this from above. How is that not suggesting that people are telling customers that their phone is a brick when the charge port breaks?

I do not mean the phone is an actual red rectangular prism used to construct buildings, and anyone listening to that video knows that. I mean that to the customer, they have a device that is dead. You are using the literal interpretation of the word brick to be ridiculous.

>Also, puhleeeeeeze... it's a good thing for society? There are any number of people for whom this won't be a good thing.

Name one person that would be harmed by the availability of a charging chip.

>The majority of people running repair shops can't do the repairs you do. You may think it's easy but you completely ignore the number of the mall kiosk "repair shops" that do shoddy work and can't put a new screen on right and expect them to do work that requires soldering and component-level surgical operations.

I do not ignore the fact that there are bad repair shops. The existence of a bad repair shop, whether first party or third party, is not an argument to remove people's ability to repair their own property.

>I'm only saying that you pretend like everyone else is going to get the same experience from every repair shop

Again, we'd probably be able to speak and get along much better if you stopped making things up. I understand. You dislike me. You're salty about me - I get it. but there is no need to continuously make things up. I have not stated this. There are good repair shops, and horrible repair shops - and I feature BAD repair shops on my channel in repair videos. I castigate their practices & bad work. I have no problem doing that. There is bad in every industry.

My argument is that, the existence of one bad repair shop, is not on its own enough to justify restricting repair for everyone.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#167
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has made it illegal to obtain parts, people doing this have obtained the parts from other people who are breaking the law/contracts they signed. Apple also uses software to disable replacing parts.

Apple, nor any other tech company, doesn't have the power to make something illegal and they don't artificially disable parts. They disable portions of the device that rely on those parts for integrity or security reasons. Stop lying.

I recommend you open any internet browser, go to the search bar, and type "lobbying". Even better, search for "apple lobbying" and you might find extensive examples of apple influencing policymakers for their own benefit. You seem to have repeatedly missed the point in this thread.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think you ought to be able to take your phone to 3rd party repair shop and get it fixed. And that Apple (or whoever) should be forced to facilitate this to some extent.

You can do that. Apple even offers a certification program for repair shops to get genuine parts so long as they do the repairs up to Apple's standards and via their procedures. They do facilitate this completely.

That whole certification program was a PR stunt.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#169

We know what Wozniak would say, as he's a tinkerer from a time when computers were "human-sized" and able to be tinkered with. I think realistically the only thing we can demand is user-replaceable battery. Everything else is doomed to end up on a single chip integrated. And that chip either works, or doesn't. It's not about profit, it's about integration and miniaturization.

> I think realistically the only thing we can demand is user-replaceable battery. No. Have a look at these three modern smartphones: "IFixIt: Your Smartphone Doesn’t Have To Be Glued Shut!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCccpgposh4

Of course your smartphone doesn't have to be glued shut, but the video shows 3 phones that are larger, have lower quality materials, and are missing features like water resistance.

The fact of the matter is that customers won't buy those phones over the "premium" phones even if they are impossible to repair.

My potentially unpopular opinion (as someone that does mechanical design of electronic devices for a living) is that iFixit is actively hurting right to repair by focusing on the wrong things. They are focusing on an ideal that is never going to come to fruition because most customers won't buy a product that is worse than they have today just so they can repair it themselves. A vast majority of customers don't want to repair their own devices even if they were "easy" to repair. Rather, they should be following Louis Rossman's goal to make repair guides and parts are easily available to independent repair shops so that more people can easily have their devices fixed by 3rd party repair providers. A goal on top of that is that effectively "consumable" parts (e.g. the battery, ports), should have to be accessible without risk of damaging expensive components (i.e. you should be able to change them without removing the screens on the phone).

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No, what we’re saying is, regardless of what you use to charge your phone — you could use a banana to charge it — just give us access to be able to purchase that charge port so that if the charge port in the phone breaks, we can fix it for customers rather than tell them, “Your phone is now a brick.” This you? I literally just pasted this from above. How is that not suggesting that people are telling customers that…

>This you? I literally just pasted this from above. How is that not suggesting that people are telling customers that their phone is a brick when the charge port breaks? I do not mean the phone is an actual red rectangular prism used to construct buildings, and anyone listening to that video knows that. I mean that to the customer, they have a device that is dead. You are using the literal interpretation of the word…

>You are using the literal interpretation of the word brick to be ridiculous.

No, I'm not. I mean it in the sense you're referring to and, again, you know that. No one in their right mind would infer that I meant an actual brick. You're so insufferable and dishonest, Louis.

Post reply on HN