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Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

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Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#21

Post by ChickeNES »

abalone wrote: post #16

> Now, I’m not sure that Apple has thus far triggered that kill switch. But they can do so at any time. This is just scaremongering. Apple has not, in fact, triggered a "kill switch" or "locked" anyone out of using a 3rd party battery. All it does is display a message that it's not a genuine Apple part. Deep in the battery settings. That's it. Remember that old iPhones are frequently resold. You're going to want to k…

> Remember that old iPhones are frequently resold. You're going to want to know if it has OEM parts.

I think this is lost on the HN audience. There's a lot of people out there being scammed by counterfeit parts, recycled parts, shoddy repair jobs, and straight up cobbled together FrankenPhones. Not to mention the danger in using lithium batteries from unknown provenance.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#22

Post by ChickeNES »

temporaryvector wrote: post #9
judge2020 wrote: post #3

So Apple's take is probably: A bunch of people get mad when their iPhones stop working, start running slow, etc; research data shows that when they need a battery replaced, they're more likely to go to the local third party (non-authorized) repair shop and get it replaced. We have no idea how skilled or unskilled these repair shops are, even if they use genuine Apple batteries. Our best bet for maintaining the reputa…

We already went through all of this with cars and car mechanics. The only difference with electronics is that people have been convinced that their smartphone, laptop and electronics in general are somehow arcane magic. Nowadays, car manufacturers also seem keen to jump on this bandwagon, since it would also benefit their bottom line to keep third party mechanics from touching their cars. Fact is, if Apple can fix th…

You're assuming that Apple themselves does all of these as repairs. I'd wager that many times they would just replace it and then send the returned one off for refurbishment (which is exactly what they've done when I've had issues with my phone under AppleCare).

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#23

Post by sjwright »

temporaryvector wrote: post #14
sjwright wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is feeling bad for Apple, but I do think it's ridiculous how we talk about what Apple does as if the majority of their competitors aren't doing exactly the same things. Looked inside a Microsoft Surface product recently? It's just like with the criticisms of working conditions at the Chinese/Foxconn iPhone factories. The same factories make Xboxes, Playstations and thousands of other devices that we all buy wi…

I agree that Apple is not the only culprit and their competitors should be equally derided, and in fact they often are. The Surface Laptop is the only laptop on ifixit with a repairability score of 0, after all. But it's still pretty clear that Apple should get a lot of flak because they are frequently the first one to market with anti-repair features, they're pioneers in pushing design features that make repair hard…

How was Apple's push to USB-C flawed?

Isn't the drop in repairability of electronics being pushed more by the shrinking of components than by the assumption of corporate greed?

Why are competitors removing their headphone jacks?

Why are competitors copying Apple's "anti-features" as you'd describe them? Are you sure it's because they actually hate repairability? Are you sure their competitors covet the relative unrepairability of Apple devices?

There are far more variables at play here than we're ever likely to be able to canvas in short online comments.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#24

Post by puranjay »

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 practically useless.

My wife's Macbook Air developed an issue last week after installing the latest OS update. The computer would just freeze randomly making it impossible to use. Apple Support said that it was a known issue with the update. A known issue that was still released?!

I moved to Apple because I was frustrated with Windows. But even the $400 Windows I've owned in the past gave me at least 2 years with their keyboards. 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.

If you're going to charge me a massive premium for a product, at least make sure that it works.

Sorry for ranting here, but these two issues happened within a week of each other and I've just been angry and disappointed

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#25

Post by sjwright »

viraptor wrote: post #19
sjwright wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is feeling bad for Apple, but I do think it's ridiculous how we talk about what Apple does as if the majority of their competitors aren't doing exactly the same things. Looked inside a Microsoft Surface product recently? It's just like with the criticisms of working conditions at the Chinese/Foxconn iPhone factories. The same factories make Xboxes, Playstations and thousands of other devices that we all buy wi…

They do price themselves higher and praise their design though. I'm all for exposing every device/company doing anti-repair stuff. But I'm also happy to start with those having most expensive devices. (if a $1200 professional laptop is not repairable, we have a problem)

Apple devices are rarely more than 10-20% more expensive than its like-for-like competitors.

And it's not like they're entirely the same cheap OEM plastic crap with a different logo silkscreened on the front. Apple's investments in mobile CPU design. Apple's laptop chassis engineering. These aren't products that are ever going to compete in the budget space.

Meanwhile if you think Samsung and Microsoft and Google and Xiaomi don't praise their own designs with exactly the same level of fervour, you haven't been paying attention. The only difference is that people tend to take Apple seriously when they speak about it.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#26

Post by ChickeNES »

bubblethink wrote: post #17
abalone wrote: post #16

> Now, I’m not sure that Apple has thus far triggered that kill switch. But they can do so at any time. This is just scaremongering. Apple has not, in fact, triggered a "kill switch" or "locked" anyone out of using a 3rd party battery. All it does is display a message that it's not a genuine Apple part. Deep in the battery settings. That's it. Remember that old iPhones are frequently resold. You're going to want to k…

>You're going to want to know if it has OEM parts. But the message is triggered even if you insert an Apple part. So you would want to know if the phone was blessed by an apple genius when you buy/sell ? It's surprising the lengths people go through to defend these asinine decisions. I don't even care about Apple, but the problem is that everyone will follow suit since the rest of the industry lacks any sort of visio…

That's to prevent people from taking old batteries and modifying them to appear new.

>So you would want to know if the phone was blessed by an apple genius when you buy/sell ?

Very much so, I don't want my phone catching fire in my pocket or while charging, or people with little technical knowledge being scammed.

Would you want to know if the home you were buying was wired by a licensed electrician, designed by a licensed engineer, etc?

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#27

Post by thedevilslawyer »

kemayo wrote: post #11

> By activating a dormant software lock on their newest iPhones, Apple is effectively announcing a drastic new policy: only Apple batteries can go in iPhones, and only they can install them. I really dislike the phrasing attached to this story. It's not a lock: a third party installed battery still works , the phone isn't refusing to start up until you go to an Apple Store and have an authentic Apple(tm) battery inst…

Except where the error is still displayed even when you transfer in an apple original battery from another phone.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#28

Post by anilgulecha »

abalone wrote: post #16

> Now, I’m not sure that Apple has thus far triggered that kill switch. But they can do so at any time. This is just scaremongering. Apple has not, in fact, triggered a "kill switch" or "locked" anyone out of using a 3rd party battery. All it does is display a message that it's not a genuine Apple part. Deep in the battery settings. That's it. Remember that old iPhones are frequently resold. You're going to want to k…

> All it does is display a message that it's not a genuine Apple part

The error is displayed even if you put in a genuine apple battery.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#29

Post by bubblethink »

ChickeNES wrote: post #26
bubblethink wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're going to want to know if it has OEM parts. But the message is triggered even if you insert an Apple part. So you would want to know if the phone was blessed by an apple genius when you buy/sell ? It's surprising the lengths people go through to defend these asinine decisions. I don't even care about Apple, but the problem is that everyone will follow suit since the rest of the industry lacks any sort of visio…

That's to prevent people from taking old batteries and modifying them to appear new. >So you would want to know if the phone was blessed by an apple genius when you buy/sell ? Very much so, I don't want my phone catching fire in my pocket or while charging, or people with little technical knowledge being scammed. Would you want to know if the home you were buying was wired by a licensed electrician, designed by a lic…

>That's to prevent people from taking old batteries and modifying them to appear new.

But the phone is old. That is known. You are buying/selling an old phone which has old parts. Whether the old part was genius blessed or not is of little concern as long as it is a genuine part. It is common knowledge that batteries age and that is implied when you buy an old device. If you are unhappy with that, ask for user replaceable batteries, not more DRM in batteries. I don't get this warped logic at all. Some amount of risk is assumed whenever you buy anything used. That's just life.

Re: Rotten Apple: Right to Repair Roundup

#30

Post by GeekyBear »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #27
kemayo wrote: post #11

> By activating a dormant software lock on their newest iPhones, Apple is effectively announcing a drastic new policy: only Apple batteries can go in iPhones, and only they can install them. I really dislike the phrasing attached to this story. It's not a lock: a third party installed battery still works , the phone isn't refusing to start up until you go to an Apple Store and have an authentic Apple(tm) battery inst…

Except where the error is still displayed even when you transfer in an apple original battery from another phone.

Legitimate parts that fail quality control testing in China have a way of "falling off the truck" onto the loading dock of the fulfillment center used by unscrupulous third party vendors instead of being destroyed.
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