Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#41

Post by 908B64B197 » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

nrp wrote: post #34

least wrote: post #23

My main complaint against right-to-repair laws is mostly to the extent that some people push for. I am not against manufacturers being forced to provide things like schematics or parts to third party repair shops. I don't think that companies like Apple should be able to decide who is allowed to or not allowed to access parts to repair their devices. I also don't think that Apple should place DRM on its parts to chec…

The repairability index that France rolled out this year is great in that regard. Sellers of certain types of devices including smartphones and laptops are required to post a repairability score for the product prominently next to the price tag. This highlights to consumers which products are designed to be usable for longer through repair and upgrade and which aren’t, even if they otherwise look and function similar…

That's a good approach. What would be even more interesting is to evaluate how reliable parts are. Spinning hard drives were often the first thing to fail for instance, due to the mechanical stress. Same thing for ports.

Soldered-on RAM and flash, while almost impossible to upgrade, is way more reliable. No vibrations means way less mechanical stress.

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#42

Post by labster » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

ible wrote: post #31

hawski wrote: post #6

I really like Thom Holwerda's from OSnews take on the article. Especially the "glorified toaster makers" part. https://www.osnews.com/story/133436/microsoft-and-apple-wage... > What’s good enough for the car industry, is more than good enough for these glorified toaster makers. Cars are basically murder weapons we kind of screwed ourselves into being reliant on, but Apple and Microsoft make complicated toasters that…

Other issues aside, "A is just a complicated B, so apply the same rules to A as B" is not a formula for good decision making. It's a common way to make bad mistakes though.

A Rectangle is just a complicated Square, so let’s just subclass. That should work out okay.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle–ellipse_problem

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#43

Post by hervature » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

endemic wrote: post #35

least wrote: post #23

My main complaint against right-to-repair laws is mostly to the extent that some people push for. I am not against manufacturers being forced to provide things like schematics or parts to third party repair shops. I don't think that companies like Apple should be able to decide who is allowed to or not allowed to access parts to repair their devices. I also don't think that Apple should place DRM on its parts to chec…

How is this different than saying “if a company wants to make bad environmental decisions, that’s their prerogative”? Sometimes the government needs to get involved to prevent short-sighted behavior.

It's different because they are recognizing that the issue isn't binary. It' not "bad for the environment" vs "good for the environment". It's recognizing there is a gradient of solutions ranging from "slowly increasing car efficiencies over time to allow for change" and "outright banning fossil fuels starting tomorrow". It's recognizing that "repairability" isn't the only thing to be optimized for.

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#44

Post by ClumsyPilot » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

least wrote: post #23

My main complaint against right-to-repair laws is mostly to the extent that some people push for. I am not against manufacturers being forced to provide things like schematics or parts to third party repair shops. I don't think that companies like Apple should be able to decide who is allowed to or not allowed to access parts to repair their devices. I also don't think that Apple should place DRM on its parts to chec…

I have a proposal: if the company sells some urepairable, unrecycleable and toxic piece of shit, then the customer/landfill/the government will post the e-waste to their head office and they are responsible for storing it untill the end of time.

That will get incentives in the right place.

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#45

Post by com2kid » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #37

com2kid wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who used to work in consumer electronics, I don't think HN readers understand exactly how harsh tech reviewers come down on devices that aren't as thin as possible. Add an extra millimeter and all of a sudden "tech companies yet again don't understand female audiences as they make yet another monstrously huge device that only men can use." or "this new version is unbelievably thick, and is another failure…

> I don't think HN readers understand exactly how harsh tech reviewers come down on devices that aren't as thin as possible. I don't think it's reviewers being harsh in their judgements independently so much as most press of that kind has a symbiotic relationship with manufacturers. They need new products with new USPs, however trivial, to feature to justify their existence. More product updates mean more marketing,…

Having sat in on meetings where mechanical engineers reported the results of working massive overtime to shave each fraction of a millimeter off, I am confident in saying that the relationship tends to resemble an abusive one. (FWIW this was wearables, not phones)

To be fair, as a customer, thin and light weight is nice, and given the choice between a phone with a replaceable battery and one that is more mainstream, well, my One Plus doesn't have a replaceable battery.

Motorola tried making cashing in on pent up demand for Android phones with batteries that could be swapped out. It didn't work out too well for them.

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#46

Post by enaaem » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

LegitShady wrote: post #36

least wrote: post #23

My main complaint against right-to-repair laws is mostly to the extent that some people push for. I am not against manufacturers being forced to provide things like schematics or parts to third party repair shops. I don't think that companies like Apple should be able to decide who is allowed to or not allowed to access parts to repair their devices. I also don't think that Apple should place DRM on its parts to chec…

> am, however, against the idea of companies being forced to design products around being easily repairable. If a company wants to make a super thin device with basically no easy way to take it apart, that's their prerogative. If a company wants to solder on components to the device like RAM or the storage or the cpu or gpu, that's their prerogative. Totally agree. But they should be publicly labeled as extreme pollu…

You get a strange situation where a custom gaming pc will be labeled greener than a thin laptop with integrated components. Although the GPU alone uses more material and electricity than the whole laptops logic board.

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#47

Post by ClumsyPilot » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

ible wrote: post #31

hawski wrote: post #6

I really like Thom Holwerda's from OSnews take on the article. Especially the "glorified toaster makers" part. https://www.osnews.com/story/133436/microsoft-and-apple-wage... > What’s good enough for the car industry, is more than good enough for these glorified toaster makers. Cars are basically murder weapons we kind of screwed ourselves into being reliant on, but Apple and Microsoft make complicated toasters that…

Other issues aside, "A is just a complicated B, so apply the same rules to A as B" is not a formula for good decision making. It's a common way to make bad mistakes though.

The OP has a spesific and accurate statement about danger to life and limb. A generic sounbyte does not make a convincing counterpoint

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#48

Post by saurik » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:56 PM UTC

hervature wrote: post #43

endemic wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different than saying “if a company wants to make bad environmental decisions, that’s their prerogative”? Sometimes the government needs to get involved to prevent short-sighted behavior.

It's different because they are recognizing that the issue isn't binary. It' not "bad for the environment" vs "good for the environment". It's recognizing there is a gradient of solutions ranging from "slowly increasing car efficiencies over time to allow for change" and "outright banning fossil fuels starting tomorrow". It's recognizing that "repairability" isn't the only thing to be optimized for.

...but the other thing being optimized for is "thinness"? As a society, you are saying sometimes we should just accept that things will be bad for the environment, maybe even horribly so and at a massive scale... because, otherwise, they can't be thin enough?

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#49

Post by taotau » Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

least wrote: post #23

My main complaint against right-to-repair laws is mostly to the extent that some people push for. I am not against manufacturers being forced to provide things like schematics or parts to third party repair shops. I don't think that companies like Apple should be able to decide who is allowed to or not allowed to access parts to repair their devices. I also don't think that Apple should place DRM on its parts to chec…

Totally agree with your viewpoint. These sort of laws should focus on the realistic ability to repair an item, not the practical costs of doing it.

Many of us here would have been called in to upgrade a family members SATA hard drive, which was black magic to them, but trivial for us. Same applies to soldered on RAM. DRM issues aside, its a trivial job to upgrade for someone who knows what they are doing. As long as the software doesnt refuse to recognize it.

And it makes much more sense for governments to legislate around theoretical concepts like DRM, rather than trying to be a technical standards body detailing how you should structure electronics. They are bound to always be behind on technical matters.

Re: Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws

#50

Post by m101 » Fri, May 21, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

least wrote: post #23

My main complaint against right-to-repair laws is mostly to the extent that some people push for. I am not against manufacturers being forced to provide things like schematics or parts to third party repair shops. I don't think that companies like Apple should be able to decide who is allowed to or not allowed to access parts to repair their devices. I also don't think that Apple should place DRM on its parts to chec…

I almost agree with you, except in the instance where a modification might result in dangerous erroneous behaviour of the product - like self-driving cars for instance.