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Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#261

Post by anoncake »

listsfrin wrote: post #102
simion314 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does not allow the companies that make chips from their laptops to also sell those chips for people that want to repair this laptops. So this repair people need to "illegally" obtain the chips from someone at the factory. Apple also threatens you with lawyers if you host or share schematics for repairing products. The new repair partner program from Apple is also a joke and created to appear they are trying to…

Maybe it's a joke to you. For me it's fine. People pay real money in order to have Apple quality. If all you need is "a computer", go ahead, there's plenty around any corner. Any merchant of quality products would suffer greatly if everyone is allowed to sell stuff in its name.

> Any merchant of quality products would suffer greatly

So what? Apple's interests don't matter, unlike its customers'.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#262

Post by lowdose »

Being European I'm under the opinion Europe is filled with delusion. We have no technology to show for and the insanity Europe is trying to force on innovators is getting out of control.

No Silicon Valley would have meant no internet, no computers and no wearable magic toys. If Apple is forced to adjust the iPhone they should just flip the middle finger and refuse to sell in Europe and these shenanigans will end.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#263

Post by simion314 »

76543210 wrote: post #259
simion314 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consumer can compete with the billions or PR? I think you did not understand the point and responded from reflex. Let me simplify it down; Consumers try to explain that throwing away good devices because the battery is old is bad for the world is not effective enough because it is fighting billions spent in PR that shows you that you need the new device because is slimmer,smarter,cooler and the big companies is d…

I haven't considered that the lower class needs to buy Apple products as a status symbol. Is this really a problem? As an educated 10%er, seeing Apple products is an immediate red flag that the person falls for marketing.

I know of children demanding iPhones because with an Android is impossible to iMessage(or video chat) with their friends.

I also know cases where a child from a modest family spent the money he earned on Fortnite cash. There is a group pressure to own certain things otherwise you are excluded.

Anyway my main point is about some regular citizens fighting a giant PR(propaganda) campaign is not easy. I follow some of Louis Rossman videos where he shows how politicians debate the right to repair and it is so clear how Apple and big companies PR succeeded in having those politicians putting more importance on copyright over repair schematics(because trade secrete). preventing repairing consoles(because pirates) and preventing replacing bateries(because fires and explosions). How much money and effort is needed to make a contra PR move to show people that batteries don't just explode if the repair person does not a paper that he is Apple genius or that making repair components accessible and repiar schematics accessible will not make video games more easy to pirate. Then there is also the idea that if you have access to rep[air your tractor then you can do dangerous stuff , thing that is ridiculous considering you can repair your car and then use it on a public road (not like tractors that are mostly used on private property)

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#264

Post by frank2 »

lowdose wrote: post #262

Being European I'm under the opinion Europe is filled with delusion. We have no technology to show for and the insanity Europe is trying to force on innovators is getting out of control. No Silicon Valley would have meant no internet, no computers and no wearable magic toys. If Apple is forced to adjust the iPhone they should just flip the middle finger and refuse to sell in Europe and these shenanigans will end.

Many believe that one of the most important innovations of the last 10 years is the Rust programming language and in particular its borrow checker, which is the result of a long investigation by programming-languages designers into "linear" or "use-once" variables. The main inspiration for this long investigation was probably a paper published in 1987 by a French logic professor:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-linear/#Int

(I read many thousands of papers on programming-language design in the 10 years before 1987 and don't recall anyone investigating "use-once" variables or related ideas whereas soon after 1987 many designers were investigating that part of the "design space" and citing the French logic professor.)

Also it was Scandinavian professors who invented object-oriented programming (via the language Simula in the late 1960s). So Europe remains more innovative than most of the world (and remains wealthier than most of the world as a result).

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#265

Post by avianlyric »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #51
avianlyric wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On many modern devices, you don't have "a battery", you have battery cells fit into every available space and wired together. You're certainly welcome to try replacing those. I just don't want to see that reverted to a discrete battery design. Source for this. No device has unpackaged unprotected battery cells just floating around. They may have many discrete batteries to use up all of the available space, but each…

I didn't say "unpackaged" or "unprotected". But I've seen the internals of multiple devices that have simple plastic wrappers (not hard shells) around the various battery cells, with wires connecting those plastic wrappers, and they don't have duplicated battery electronics, just one set.

Those are pouch batteries, they never need a hard shell.

Each one will have a tiny PCB with protection circuitry on it. It’s the only way to prevent them from accidentally catching fire or exploding.

Batteries are far more complex than most people expect. Especially lithium batteries found in phones. The chemistry is super sensitive, and anything except careful monitoring of each battery pack risks catastrophic failure. Hence the tiny PCB on each battery pack.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#266

Post by justinclift »

Too wrote: post #255
justinclift wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok then. :) Perhaps the age of fixing cars in the driveway may return, if manufacturers aren't able to block the info needed. At present, more technically advanced people seem to piece together their own CANbus diagnostic tools. But off the shelf products that work for "every model" should be practical if this legislation works.

This already exists, OBD2 is a standard diagnostics interface mandated by law. I would guess most of the tools you are referring to are using this.

Yeah, but AKAIK the codes themselves seem to often be manufacturer internal info.

People into automotive (and boat, uav) CAN stuff have figured out ways to reverse engineer much of it though.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#267

Post by justinclift »

ska wrote: post #250
justinclift wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok then. :) Perhaps the age of fixing cars in the driveway may return, if manufacturers aren't able to block the info needed. At present, more technically advanced people seem to piece together their own CANbus diagnostic tools. But off the shelf products that work for "every model" should be practical if this legislation works.

Absolutely better regs around access to diagnostics (e.g. CAN bus as you mention) is part of the story. But for the bigger internal stuff, tolerances are a lot tighter than they were 20 years ago, which can make it hard to do a good job of in your driveway. Certainly some superficial repairs are made much harder than they should be, but a lot of that is more modular too so you aren't saving a ton doing it at home. At…

Interesting point about the tolerances, hadn't though of that. For making your own machined parts (eg crankshaft, engine block/heads), that makes sense.

Though, making your own engine block is pretty far from a "home garage thing" anyway.

People used to just buy those parts from a local supplier or wrecker, then fit them in their garage at home. That doesn't seem like it should have changed.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#268

Post by lm28469 »

TomMarius wrote: post #204
lm28469 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country is that ? You can easily check recycling import/export per country online so that should be trivial to fact check. Pro tip: it doesn't look good for US/EU.

It is not my fault what the state does with it after I correctly dispose it. I am not sure how that looks for my country and I mostly don't care - not my job to do, I (have to) pay taxes for that. https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/czechs-become-eu-leaders-in-plast... ;-)

Your source date from 2008. Newer sources describe exactly what I'm talking about : https://www.radio.cz/en/section/business/czech-republic-caug...

> I mostly don't care

Yeah, I figured out that part. The good thing is that there are less and less people like you in this world.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#269

Post by TomMarius »

lm28469 wrote: post #268
TomMarius wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not my fault what the state does with it after I correctly dispose it. I am not sure how that looks for my country and I mostly don't care - not my job to do, I (have to) pay taxes for that. https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/czechs-become-eu-leaders-in-plast... ;-)

Your source date from 2008. Newer sources describe exactly what I'm talking about : https://www.radio.cz/en/section/business/czech-republic-caug... > I mostly don't care Yeah, I figured out that part. The good thing is that there are less and less people like you in this world.

I can't change anything about that. I need to pick my battles. I am doing my part exactly as I should, now the politicians need to do theirs. These things are already unlawful - what can I do to fix it? The administration nor the justice is an elected body.
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