91–100 of 156 posts
Why is Microsoft against this? They don’t really make much that needs repairing. Is Xbox that big of a market for them?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My iPhone XS Max screen cracked a few weeks ago and I've been debating sending it in for repair. Apple charges $300 friggin dollars to "fix" the display (I think they just send you a new phone). Looking online, displays only cost around $50-$90. So I've considered doing that instead, but if I go down that route, my phone will no longer support the "True Tone" feature. This is because Apple burned the serial number of…
Note that Those cheaper displays are probably worse in visual quality than what apple uses. They are probably the rejects.
They probably are inferior to the official Apple ones though (not that I'd care enough to pay 3-6x the price)
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…
"Computer and device makers must be forced to make parts and schematics available to any independent repair shop, just like car makers have to do." I believe it's only Massachusetts that forces Car makers to share repair information to independant shops? (We need a broad federal Right to Repair law.) I'm an Independent Watchmaker and 99.99% of watch companies stopped selling parts to us a few years ago. Rolex was qui…
Gee. That'll buy some nice CNC gear, maybe even the sort you could use to fabricate watch parts.
(Obviously an exaggeration given the exacting tolerances and other requirements, but if a few dozen of you got together and pooled your resources...)
The upstream vendor may discontinue a part so nobody could repair it if they didn't already buy enough inventory. Products sometimes have to get redesigned just to keep manufacturing them.
To really make this work, they'd have to keep enough parts inventory for the expected lifetime of a product (beyond warranty repairs), and also resell them to whoever asks.
I'd guess OEMs are reluctant to sell replacement parts so they don't get cleaned out and can't do their own repairs?
A systematic fix for this might require more standardization and less churn in the industry.
Cars get recycled by junkyards so that's another source for parts for older cars. There's probably a lot less money in that for electronics.
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…
The problem is not the thinness of devices, but the fact that manufacturers go out of their way to make these devices harder to repair. They include things like special screw, limiting sales of parts, and serializing parts so you can't use replacement parts to repair another. The fact that certain devices or parts requiring specialist tool is a non-issue.
Why is Microsoft against this? They don’t really make much that needs repairing. Is Xbox that big of a market for them?
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…
"Computer and device makers must be forced to make parts and schematics available to any independent repair shop, just like car makers have to do." I believe it's only Massachusetts that forces Car makers to share repair information to independant shops? (We need a broad federal Right to Repair law.) I'm an Independent Watchmaker and 99.99% of watch companies stopped selling parts to us a few years ago. Rolex was qui…
This. I will be happy even if Apple ( and specifically Apple ) will do this themselves instead of charging parts that earn their exact same margin as if you were buying a new computer. Everything is wrong with the logic board, which cost you $400+. Apple speakers are ( comparatively speaking ) easily blown. FlexGate, StainGate... the list goes on and on. What could have been an easy fix which turns out to cost few hundred bucks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that Those cheaper displays are probably worse in visual quality than what apple uses. They are probably the rejects.
There are two variants I've seen: LCD and OLED. I don't think they're rejects, but are instead some Chinese reverse engineering since, AFAIK, Apple doesn't sell this iPhone model with LCD displays. Plus, Apple has an iron grip on their supply chain. They probably are inferior to the official Apple ones though (not that I'd care enough to pay 3-6x the price)
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…
> must be forced to make parts and schematics available to any independent repair shop, just like car makers have to do The only reason this has been possible for car makers until now is because the technology to stop it didn’t exist. But it does now, and car makers are definitely moving in the direction of “lock down”. You already can’t replace wireless key fobs, and entertainment head units are locked down. Repair…
?
https://www.citrusford.com/parts/parts-tips/how-to-program-f...
https://northcoastkeyless.com/2020-gmc-sierra-keyless-entry-...
I took an 8yo MacBook Pro to an Apple Store to have the battery replaced. They did the service, but when I got the device back, the MagSafe charging port would overheat substantially while recharging.
I brought it back to an Apple Store and asked them to take a look at the DC-in board under warranty because something obviously got messed up during the replacement battery installation. They gave it back to me several days later without having so much as cycled the battery to recreate the problem.
I ferried the laptop to another Apple Store and they replaced the thermal paste and gave it back to me with the screws in the wrong place. They claimed the overheating issue was a pre-existing problem because the SMC had thrown an error due to my third-party SSD during the pre-repair diagnostic. At the time of dropoff, they also demanded that I wipe down the LCD with an isopropyl pad despite the Apple website saying to use a dry cloth or water.
I returned to the second Apple Store and they finally ordered the DC-in board (part cost less than $3). The guy there tried to convince me that the SMC is not a chip, but just a theoretical concept that Apple uses to diagnose problems. They replaced it, but they told me over the phone that they had reversed the repair because it didn't work. When I went to pick up the laptop (they didn't offer to FedEx it out to me as the other store had), I saw that they had indeed replaced the DC-in board and that this solved the problem, but they tried to pass off the problem as a software issue for some reason. Also, they had forgotten to remove the plastic film from the part before installing so I had to open the laptop up and reinstall the DC-in board anyway.
It turns out the DC-in board should be installed with the (unplugged) charging cable magnetically attached, so that it orients correctly and makes good contact when you tighten it down.
I live two hours from the nearest Apple Store so this was a total pain in the butt. Apple could have simply sold me a DC-in board -- or at less than $3, they could have given it to me for free under warranty -- and I would have been happy. I had to do this song and dance to get a genuine replacement part, and in retrospect I could have paid ten times as much to get the part from iFixit instead of paying for gas and taking the time to drive out to the Apple Store.
Apple's stranglehold on the parts supply only worsens the ownership experience for their devices. Almost every person I dealt with seemed unqualified to work on computer repair, yet I wasn't able to buy genuine parts to do the repair myself. If you're not going to let me buy the parts, then your staff should know to remove plastic film from parts before installing them. They should know what screws to place where. They should know what the SMC is. They should know that under Magnuson-Moss, a third-party SSD doesn't invalidate the warranty on a battery replacement. They should refrain from saying "it's an eight-year-old old laptop so we may not be able to repair it." But they don't. Either Apple has to train these people or they have to let us buy parts and circumvent their ignorance.