On iFixit and the Right To Repair (vice.com) 250
Jason Koebler writes: Motherboard sent a reporter to the Electronics Reuse Convention in New Orleans to investigate the important but threatened world of smartphone and electronics repair. As manufacturers start using proprietary screws, offer phone lease programs and use copyright law to threaten repair professionals, the right-to-repair is under more threat than ever. "That Apple and other electronics manufacturers don't sell repair parts to consumers or write service manuals for them isn't just annoying, it's an environmental disaster, [iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens] says. Recent shifts to proprietary screws, the ever-present threat of legal action under a trainwreck of a copyright law, and an antagonistic relationship with third-party repair shops shows that the anti-repair culture at major manufacturers isn't based on negligence or naiveté, it's malicious."
Let them lease, but not screw with sales (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you own something, you have all legal rights to not just repair but to modify as well. The most the manufacturers should be able to do is cancel the warranty on modification.
Re:Let them lease, but not screw with sales (Score:5, Insightful)
> The most the manufacturers should be able to do is cancel the warranty on modification.
Wrong. Only failures as a direct result of any modification should be denied. See: Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Installation of a third-party part should not void the warranty. If Apple could get their way they would probably void the warranty if you use third-party headphones/earbuds with the iPhone.
Some PC manufacturers tried to pull this crap when users added RAM or peripheral cards with a sticker on the chassis sealing it shut, reading "warranty void if removed." Um yeah... people always chose PCs with 8 slots to not expand them.
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Warranty on what exactly.
If you purchase a pre-assembled computer, you have a right to warranty on the way these parts are assembled in on top of the warranty of each single part. You can actually go and claim damages if, e.g. the cooling isn't sufficient and the CPU gets damaged because the fan was improperly installed. This is of course out the window if you open the case because it's no longer possible to determine whether you have tampered with it and hence whose fault it is that the heat sink wasn't pr
Re:Let them lease, but not screw with sales (Score:5, Insightful)
If you purchase a pre-assembled computer, you have a right to warranty on the way these parts are assembled in on top of the warranty of each single part. You can actually go and claim damages if, e.g. the cooling isn't sufficient and the CPU gets damaged because the fan was improperly installed. This is of course out the window if you open the case because it's no longer possible to determine whether you have tampered with it and hence whose fault it is that the heat sink wasn't properly installed on the CPU.
NOPE. At least, that's not how it works in the US of A, and if that's how it works in your country, you are getting a hard sandpaper fucking. The PC is a modular product made to be upgraded. If they don't want you tampering with stuff inside of it, they need to put a tamper seal on each thing they don't want you touching. And if I need or want to replace it, so long as the replacement item meets specifications, then I can do that without voiding my warranty. Then the issue of what claims were actually made comes into play. The system is sold for example as having PCI slots and a certain CPU socket, so if you install cards which comply with the PCI spec then they can not void your warranty for that.
Cars work the same way, everyone likes an automotive example. As long as I use fluids and parts which meet OE spec, I can interchange them freely without voiding my warranty. If I should replace an engine part (say, the intake manifold) with a part which is outside specifications (like a supercharger) then I'll void the warranty only on parts which are affected by the change, in this case the engine and maybe other powertrain components. But if a switch in the cockpit fails, that's still covered.
TL;DR: No sane warranty system voids warranties on modular products just for opening the case.
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because it's no longer possible to determine whether you have tampered with it
Sorry, NO. It is not legal to deny your customer warranty, because you can't determine they did not tamper with it.
If they claim they didn't touch it, then you actually have to be able to prove that specific device was abused by the consumer to deny warranty.
They can still claim damages against the CPU, even if they broke a sticker and opened the case.
The consumer has a legitimate right to inspect the unit, and the sy
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Wrong. Only failures as a direct result of any modification should be denied. See: Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.
Yes, unfortunately Magnuson-Moss is not strong enough.
What we really need is a law that says if the manufacturer creates an electronic device that is not readily- accessible to repair shops for economically available fully-functional replacement of every physical component and electronic component or module, then the manufacturer is required to warrant the device against defects in the devic
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If we apply those rules to, say, phone manufacturers, we'd end up with massive, phones (as modularity takes lots of space - screws, sockets, etc.) which will be obsolete 40% of the way in to their mandated warranty period. The suppliers will have to keep massive stocks of parts, driving up the cost of each phone.
You've not really thought this one through, have you?
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I've torn down my S4 completely to replace a shattered screen. For an early large-screen smartphone it is remarkably slim. The new glued-together-to-render-unrepairable model hasn't really saved any space; it is only contributing to the e-waste problem. I hate that we have become such an irresponsible society where everything is becoming disposable.
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Playing the devil's advocate... Where exactly is our "right to repair" granted? Is it in the constitution? Is it a bill signed into law?
Judging by the lobbying efforts that are taking place now, we actually don't have a right to repair. We would like one though.
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If I buy something I OWN it. That means I get to do with it what I want, barring government restrictions. The shcmuck that sold it to me does not have the right to say "HEY! You can't DO THAT!"
They gave up that right when they sold it to me.
When I sell you a house, I can't then complain and say "Now wait a second, I may have sold you that house, but it's still mine and I don't like that new garage you are building!"
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Correct. The real reason we see this is twofold - fir
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No, you missed the third -- and most important -- reason: if the corporate oligarchy can abolish the concept of property rights (only for "consumers," of course), they can turn us all into serfs and force to rent everything from them in perpetuity.
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So the legal system needs fixing so we can fix our appliances. Gotcha.
Re:Let them lease, but not screw with sales (Score:5, Insightful)
When companies can claim copyright on screws, and use the DMCA to claim you can't refill your ink cartridges ... you're damned right the legal system needs fixing.
Companies want to undermine the right of first sale, the right to do as you please with your property, the right to repair your property ... all in the name of 'copyright' and protecting their revenue stream by saying you must buy certain things from them.
Honestly, have you not been paying attention? Because companies have been misusing the legal system to tell us what we can do with things we own for years.
They largely do this by telling us we don't actually own them. Which is odd, because they sure as hell expect us to pay full price for them.
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2) But they might arrest you for improper disposal of human remains. There is a difference between the government telling what you can and can not do, and a company telling you.
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It can house pathogens perfectly suited for screwing up people, as it's people meat.
exaggerate much (Score:2, Informative)
The Apple Recycling Program offers free and environmentally friendly disposal of your iPod and any manufacturer's mobile phone.
http://www.apple.com/recycling/ipod-cell-phone/ [apple.com]
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If it's worth fixing, Apple will fix it and sell it as refurbished. Only applies to Apple hardware, obviously.
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What they won't do is necessarily repair shit for me when it is broken.
I haven't had a problem with any of their phones, but I had an ipod with a loose headphone connector. They simply told me they couldn't repair it. Not "it's not under the warranty so it will cost X", but just "nope, can't be arsed to pop open the proprietary screws we used and solder it down". They offered me like a 20 dollar credit on an entirely new one- which at the time was a couple hundred bucks for a model that was not particula
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Except that now you have to go buy a brand new device for several times the cost of repairing it might be (especially if you can do it yourself).
It is a lock-in technique, obviously.
At some point down the road, when there are no more cheap labor pools, resources become more scarce and landfills are overloaded, we will see a return to re-usable stuff... but I guess for the next few hundred years at least, stuff is going to get more disposable due to the short sightedness of greedy corporations.
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Or you could keep that hardware out of African smelter and running perfectly with a few cents' worth of copper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVAmnV65_zw
Re:exaggerate much (Score:5, Insightful)
thats veeery generous of them.
oh wait, 99% of countries they offer it in already have consumer laws that dictate that the shops that sell the stuff have to accept used electronics and dispose of them properly(and as apple is doing direct sales, this puts them on the hook). who wants the hassle of going to the place to dispose of them though... not surprised of apple branding legal requirements as 'bonus' though!
the problem is more along the lines of apple not providing parts for fixing(3rd party pretty much) and their move to non-fixable at all on purpose devices. now this wouldn't suck so much if for example your ipod classic 160gb broke it's headphone jack(like all of them do, eventually).. since uh, what are you going to replace it with? a 16gb ipod touch?
thats the real problem, you find a device you like and you can't keep it running and you can't buy a replacement.
Re:exaggerate much (Score:4, Funny)
No. It's a million times worse than this article could ever possibly suggest. Unrepairable products are worse than Hitler and they will cause a plague of giant, unkillable kitten-eating spiders to build hidden nests in your home and workplace to covertly drain your blood little-by-little when you're distracted -- possibly by the crippling fear that your gadgets might break and you might have to buy the new improved one for yourself. The only thing worse than unrepairable products is people who exaggerate.
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Let's hope you did it to yourself, as you missed the blinding sarcasm and satire that were probably visible from space..
anti-repair ain't all that (Score:2)
Re:anti-repair ain't all that (Score:5, Insightful)
You buy a phone, and like it. You use it. A lot. Over the course of using it, the usb charging port starts to become intermittent. It's a part whose value is $.50 or less, but if it can't be repaired, you have to throw the whole phone away. What a waste of money!
Another one:
The battery in your phone is no longer holding a useful amount of energy to power the phone all day. You could replace the battery and bring the whole phone back to "like-new" condition, but the manufacturer has glued the case together. This is the malicious intent: The manufacturer *KNEW* that the battery would not last forever, and still welded the case shut. You would not stand for this if it were your car.
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The battery in your phone is no longer holding a useful amount of energy to power the phone all day. You could replace the battery and bring the whole phone back to "like-new" condition, but the manufacturer has glued the case together. This is the malicious intent: The manufacturer *KNEW* that the battery would not last forever, and still welded the case shut. You would not stand for this if it were your car.
I really don't like defending cell phone companies, but I have to play devil's advocate on this one. Gluing all the components together may be the only, or most cost effective, way of giving the phone enough structural integrity to not bend when put in your pocket. These things are /always/ malicious, sometimes it is a really engineering problem that needs to be solved in a way that balances the different things the consumer wants.
Re:anti-repair ain't all that (Score:4, Insightful)
The battery in your phone is no longer holding a useful amount of energy to power the phone all day. You could replace the battery and bring the whole phone back to "like-new" condition, but the manufacturer has glued the case together. This is the malicious intent: The manufacturer *KNEW* that the battery would not last forever, and still welded the case shut. You would not stand for this if it were your car.
I really don't like defending cell phone companies, but I have to play devil's advocate on this one. Gluing all the components together may be the only, or most cost effective, way of giving the phone enough structural integrity to not bend when put in your pocket. These things are /always/ malicious, sometimes it is a really engineering problem that needs to be solved in a way that balances the different things the consumer wants.
Did you intend to write "these things are NOT /always/ malicious"?
Anyways, with the wide variety of fasteners, case designs and manufacturing techniques, all of which are a small fraction of the total cost of a smartphone, to suggest that this really is the one and only viable and cost-effective way to make a study phone requires a burden of proof.
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I would buy that, except early smartphones had much the same components and did not have that restriction, as some newer models do not. This would indicate an industry trend rather than an engineering problem.
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Bullshit. The Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 were huge sellers, are very durable (waterproof even for the S5), and they're easily disassembled.
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In that case, kick out your designers and engineers and hire better ones.
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The manufacturer *KNEW* that the battery would not last forever, and still welded the case shut. You would not stand for this if it were your car.
In my car, the battery was on the trunk, under the spare tire, connected to a sensor that would trigger a light on the dashboard that only a service center with the computer specific to the car could reset (and no, you will not pass the SMOG test to get registration with that light turned on). Hence, Autozone declined to sell the the battery of the car, and I had to pay 150 extra dollars to an authorized mechanic to do a job I could have done myself otherwise. Thank you BMW.
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It's a BMW, the Apple of car manufacturers. What exactly did you expect?
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It's a BMW, the Apple of car manufacturers. What exactly did you expect?
No, Bentley is the Apple of car manufacturers. Big cost premium, small improvement in luxury, vague about specifications. Stupid product names.
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iFixit is NOT unbiased (Score:2, Troll)
The declarations of someone who is complaining that others are making it harder for him to make a buck need to be taken with a large grain of salt. iFixit for all their merits sells spare parts & repair kits. It is thus clearly in their own interest for everyone else to make it profitable for them to sell their products. iFixit would be very profitable if all phone manufacturers did everything they could to make it easier for them to sell their repair kits & repair/upgrade instead of replacing.
Their
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Actually, demanding more easily repairable devices wouldn't be in their best interest if they sell repair kits. If the phones are easier to fix, nobody needs the repair kits anymore.
Re:iFixit is NOT unbiased (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. iFixit would be out of business if all phones and laptops were easy to take apart to repair. I don't have to visit iFixit to repair most Windows laptops because their disassembly is (reasonably) straightforward. I do have to visit iFixit to repair most Macbooks because Apple tries to make it as difficult as possible. Most of the spare parts and repair kit tools iFixit sells are only necessary because of the proprietary and weird things Apple has done to make their products difficult to open up and take apart.
So iFixit is actually advocating something which would effectively put them out of business. A true sign of people who value the craft more than the money they earn from it.
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Their contention that do-it yourself repairmen are better for the environment it is completely unsupported. iFixit does not recover the broken parts that their clients are replacing and old parts are typically tossed in the trash. Manufacturer repair shops like Apple's have recycling policies that do recycle broken parts as well as old devices that people turn in when upgrading.
You are missing the point. When faced with a broken device and a very high Apple repair bill (have you see how much they charge for things like new keyboards, screens and batteries?) many people will just throw the device away and buy a new one. In fact that was Apple's original policy on iPod batteries that died after 18 months [youtu.be]. Buy a new iPod.
Repairing is almost always better for the environment than making a new one.
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Their contention that do-it yourself repairmen are better for the environment it is completely unsupported. iFixit does not recover the broken parts that their clients are replacing and old parts are typically tossed in the trash. Manufacturer repair shops like Apple's have recycling policies that do recycle broken parts as well as old devices that people turn in when upgrading.
You believe this? No, seriously, you think this crap actually gets recycled, and disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way?
Bull. Shit. It gets shipped overseas to "recycling partners" at which point Apple and Co can wipe their hands clean and say they did their part. But where does it actually go? To Africa, where children burn cables and other electronics in fires to try and smelt off the metal. Or it just goes to China, where it's buried in a landfill. Apple and others
You really think that broken IC
Apple would say (Score:2)
Re: Apple would say (Score:2)
If by "reverse course" you mean "sold the same phone (the GSM iPhone 4) for four years without any modifications to the antenna design", I agree with you completely.
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you fanboi
What part of "Apple would say" didn't you understand, Abrutitus Coward?
Very good channel on the topic (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
There's really no reason for Apple not to give more information on their hardware, other than forcing you to forgo a $50 repair in lieu of a $700 motherboard from Apple. So many of this guy's fixes are very simple. Just fixing some contacts with a few pennies' worth of solder.
But because Apple doesn't want anyone to track down these little issues, the whole thing gets shipped to some country with no environmental and labor laws, where noxious gases are released into the environment. This is how Apple became so wealthy, I guess. Good for them.
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There's really no reason for Apple not to give more information on their hardware, other than forcing you to forgo a $50 repair
Not a fanboi, just trying to find relevant arguments (plus the obvious ones you gave) that help Apple to stay at the top of the standards...
(NB slashdot please fix your css)
Same with cars (Score:3)
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As someone who works on cars and motorcycles as a hobby, I'd say yes and no.
1. Plugging into your car to find out where the faults are is fantastic. Emission laws have resulted in cars being much more complex. With all of the sensors all over the vehicle (MAF, MAP, O2, CPS, ABS, etc.) it's great having a computer tell you which one is sending voltage outside parameters. If there was no computer telling you where the problem was you'd spend quite a bit of time with a multimeter.
2. When someone says that s
I've hated Apple WAY before (Score:4, Informative)
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Watch out everyone. We've got a badass in our midst.
Not just phones... (Score:3)
I supported Dell corporate systems for the last 10 or years of my working career, and recall that you could go out to the Dell website and download service manuals for all of the Dell models we had, namely Optiplexes and Latitudes, I've been out of that world since about 2010, and when I bought my current laptop, a Dell Precision M4400 in 2012, I, naturally went to download the service manual for it, and found there was no such thing anymore.. All there is now is a quick-reference guide for each model... Pretty fucking sorry, Dell... And now I see they're pulling the same shit as Lenovo with the MITM certs... Now all I can say is FUCK YOU TOO, DELL... No more new Dells for me and mine.. Used only..
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Dell Precision M4400 in 2012, I, naturally went to download the service manual for it, and found there was no such thing anymore..
You mean this?
http://downloads.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_precision_mobile/precision-m4400_Service%20Manual_en-us.pdf [dell.com]
Sure it looks like it was badly converted from a web page, but it is usable.
As far as I can tell, the newest models have service manuals too (sometimes called "Owner's Manual").
Apple, Makers of Disposable Consumer Electonics (Score:5, Informative)
Soldered on this, glued in that. Now, we can make hardware that won't go obsolete after a few years, but now also, people want to make everything so it can't be repaired.
Like they say, we are just borrowing this planet from our children.
California's Lemon Law to the rescue (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like Apple and other arrogant manufacturers are playing the odds of running afoul of California's so-called Lemon Law. It's about much more than just automobiles. It's very much about "right to repair".
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say more...
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I wish I could, but too many details have fled since I researched it for my own encounter with such abuse. I had an awesome Nokia monitor - back when Nokia still made such awesome things - but the time came when it failed. In trying to get it repaired, I discovered that Nokia had sold off that business to Viewsonic, which had promptly cancelled the manufacture of spare parts for that model. I learned of the Lemon Law and how it requires manufacturers to keep repairable all products sold for more than $10
angst over old tech . . . (Score:2)
Apple is among the worst for this situation. I believe that almost every Apple device today is sealed and unserviceable. The disk drive in my old iMac died years ago but it is such a pain to get inside I just use an external drive. I'm a hardware/software hacker and I like things that I can mod and upgrade. Sorry, that's so last century. Unfortunately the time I spend hacking is not as productive as the time I spend using my devices as a tool to get real work done.
On the upside, every time I bring my stuff
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It's expensive to enjoy cutting edge tech
Why does this fact belong in a discussion about Apple? Apple has only once had anything like cutting-edge technology. We called it Altivec, and now every processor has one or more vector units. Their advantage lasted about five seconds. Remember, Apple's original "make it big" products are the Apple II, which was little better than kit computers of the day (and for good reason) and the Macintosh, a fully-graphical computer system with no hardware graphics acceleration. The Amiga made it look like a squashed
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I'm sorry, I cannot buy into the statement
"If we keep our 10 year old tech and expect it to serve our current requirements we are not optimizing our experience."
I know I'm a grumpy old man and a full time cynic but...
Over 25 years ago, I used a 286 based PC with under 1MB RAM and a word-processor loaded from floppy. I could start the wp in a few seconds and create documents.
Fast forward to today. My employers have dropped the latest MS Office on us. With a 4 core processor and 8 GB RAM it takes Word over
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"My employers have dropped the latest MS Office on us. With a 4 core processor and 8 GB RAM ...."
About 1.7 seconds from launch to new empty document on my quad-core i7 MBP. 'Course, it has a really fast SSD, which is from where most of the speed benefits are derived.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Except that the manufacturers have transitioned from screws to glue to screw with us.
Re:How to beat any weird screw (Score:5, Insightful)
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Weird screws are nasty, but not impossible to circumvent with this one weird scientific trick that you will never believe actually works...!
I won't believe it because I've taken things apart and I know that they use thread locker. I've destroyed the tips of REAL screwdrivers trying to take screws out of hardware.
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If the cheap plastic they make BIC pens out of was adequate for making screwdrivers don't you think they would use it? Why go to the expense of a metal screwdriver when plastic will do just fine?
Actually, they do make plastic screwdrivers for turning things like potentiometers. They are used for calibrating things since using a metal one would affect the system being adjusted. If you try to use them on normal metal screws though, you will strip them and need to buy a new one.
enterprise user needs the right to remove storage (Score:2)
enterprise user needs the right to remove storage / have the right destroy it and get it fixed. Dell and others are good with this. Apple not so much soldered in storage in a laptop is going to far.
Run out of options (Score:2)
I always wanted electronic products that I can fix (or have it fixed) if something went wrong, or change a component. I can vote with my money, sure, but we are running out of options. That's why I'm still using my HTC Desire Z phone, but I also can't find new battery now.
When we had the Project Ara for discussion some times ago, there were so much negativity in this forum. If a forum full of geeks is so negative towards this project, how would you expect the general populace to do?
Design for recycling and repair (Score:2)
fairtrade phone? (Score:2)
So why not mention of the fairtrade 2?
https://www.fairphone.com/2015/11/18/guest-blog-ifixit-on-fairphone-2-the-first-truly-smart-smartphone/ [fairphone.com]
Parallels to IBM (Score:2, Informative)
Perhaps it is time for a class-action lawsuit against these anti-repair offenders.
In the 1970s, IBM was playing a similar game, attempting to prevent third-parties from building accessory hardware for their mainframes (i.e hard-drive consoles). A legal dispute followed and a court ordered IBM, when then dominated the computer market, to open up their products.
Re:Fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
If my Samsung falls out of my pocket and breaks and it cannot be fixed, the one thing I'm not going to do is buy another Samsung. Market forces will solve this problem if we let them.
Dumbass Americans only care about eating more food, getting more fat, going to doctors for their fatass lifestyle diseases, complaining about the cost of food, driving their SUVs while never driving off-road or hauling cargo or carrying lots of passengers and complaining about the price of gas, voting for one party that wants to fuck up the nation or the other party that wants to fuck up the nation when they could write-in sane candidates, drowing themselves in shallow moronic soul-less meaningless popular culture and pretending like it's deep and profound, buying shit they don't need with borrowed money they don't have (America has a NEGATIVE average savings index, not that most Americans know what a savings index is), and believing every lying word of propaganda and manipulation that comes from their bought-and-paid-for government and their bought-and-paid-for mass media and following stupid moronic trends while operating general-purpose machines they don't even try to understand or secure so they can post trivial minutia about their pathetic little lives to be read by fellow jackass Americans who don't care.
... these are not rational actors.
The "market forces" only work when you have rational actors acting in their own best interests. Maybe *you* wouldn't buy another (example) Samsung in that case, but I assure you, the 350-pound assholes driving their big-ass SUVs they bought with five or six year car loans so they owe more than it's worth so they can tailgate in the slow lane, so they can work a job they hate, and vote for lying sociopathic sacks of shit while complaining that nothing ever changes, while being careful never to know anything about other people in other nations or other cultures because they're provincial douchebags, let alone ever thinking of other people ever as their lard asses congregate around narrow doorways and other shares public spaces because no one else matters, well
They can't even manage their own waistline. You think they can understand a market? No way in hell. They've been fattened up and dumbed down and somehow they're proud of it. That's the amazing part.
Re:Fail. (Score:5, Informative)
If my Samsung falls out of my pocket and breaks and it cannot be fixed, the one thing I'm not going to do is buy another Samsung. Market forces will solve this problem if we let them.
Dumbass Americans only care about eating more food, getting more fat, going to doctors for their fatass lifestyle diseases, complaining about the cost of food, driving their SUVs while never driving off-road or hauling cargo or carrying lots of passengers and complaining about the price of gas, voting for one party that wants to fuck up the nation or the other party that wants to fuck up the nation when they could write-in sane candidates, drowing themselves in shallow moronic soul-less meaningless popular culture and pretending like it's deep and profound, buying shit they don't need with borrowed money they don't have (America has a NEGATIVE average savings index, not that most Americans know what a savings index is), and believing every lying word of propaganda and manipulation that comes from their bought-and-paid-for government and their bought-and-paid-for mass media and following stupid moronic trends while operating general-purpose machines they don't even try to understand or secure so they can post trivial minutia about their pathetic little lives to be read by fellow jackass Americans who don't care. The "market forces" only work when you have rational actors acting in their own best interests. Maybe *you* wouldn't buy another (example) Samsung in that case, but I assure you, the 350-pound assholes driving their big-ass SUVs they bought with five or six year car loans so they owe more than it's worth so they can tailgate in the slow lane, so they can work a job they hate, and vote for lying sociopathic sacks of shit while complaining that nothing ever changes, while being careful never to know anything about other people in other nations or other cultures because they're provincial douchebags, let alone ever thinking of other people ever as their lard asses congregate around narrow doorways and other shares public spaces because no one else matters, well ... these are not rational actors.
They can't even manage their own waistline. You think they can understand a market? No way in hell. They've been fattened up and dumbed down and somehow they're proud of it. That's the amazing part.
Vitriolic hyperbole which does little but generalize and marginalize serious issues while painting with an amazingly broad and ignorant brush. /golfclap
Re: Fail. (Score:2)
Generalise? It captures what's going on frequently enough that it's causing problems for everyone. Nothing wrong with generalising when observing trends.
...AND THAT IS WHY YOU ARE ALL WRONG! (Score:2)
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driving their SUVs while never driving off-road or hauling cargo or carrying lots of passengers and complaining about the price of gas
What Americans lack is foresight, or even fucking hindsight. That's why they buy the SUVs, and do everything else too. When gas prices are low, we buy SUVs. Then when they go up, we complain about gas prices, and forget that it's our fault. It's also why we never seem to learn from our lessons.
Re:Fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
We're not unique in this regard. Most people are dumb like this. The only cure is a good education, something we don't have in this country. What makes us unique is that, unlike nations like Zimbabwe and Somalia, we have lots of money.
Basically, we're like a backwards, third-world country that won the lottery. Think about things through that lens and the actions of Americans make a lot more sense.
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That's an argument against representative government too, you know. Which alternative do you prefer?
No one can. The problem is the sudden abundance of food in the Western World — our bodies have evolved in a completely different environment. These days we can afford to eat everyday, what would've qualified as a feast only a few generations ago.
One does not need to understand the market to be
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He doesn't have to suggest an alternative - he was just making an observation. You are right, though - democracy is screwed, but it's the best option we currently have. Yes, the western world has a problem with obesity, but the #1 leader is the US.
If one doesn't understand the market they might assume all phones are built to the same standards and therefore switching manufacturers would cause them hassle.
The case is far from closed.
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Jealous? It's their money and they can spend it anyway they see fit.
You don't like it? Tough. Spend your own money how you see fit.
Do I think the world is full of assholes? Yea. Just don't become one yourself.
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Absolute truth.
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The U.S.A. used to be run by people like Red Forman. These days, however, it is run by people like Bob Pinciotti.
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Red Forman was angry because he was surrounded by idiots like Bob Pinciotti. And I don't know which version of the show you watched, but I can only recall one episode where Red was drunk. He had just lost his job or something.
And FIY, Bob was so stupid that the Bond girl left him.
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Expected obsolescence, first-party vendors, privatized repair, they were born of boon, they were born of bounty. The system deepens the black - why else would it conceive, grow, and circulate, Mr/Mrs Rational Economist? I'm not just being cute; market forces caused it. You're a dumbfuck or a shill for some agenda you won't understand anyway.
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Well TFS seemed to talk a lot about Apple devices.
I have a Samsung phone (Galaxy S4) I bought used and there's a couple of small things I'd like to fix, so I did a little searching and viewing of YouTube videos and it seems these phones are ridiculously easy to disassemble and repair, and you can get repair parts for dirt-cheap prices on Amazon and Ebay. I need a new camera lens (mine's scratched) and probably a new USB jack, and both of these are easily replaceable (if you have a little patience and a sma
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And it's the same with every manufacturer these days with the possible exception for some odd specialized phones for seniors that lacks all the functionality we expect of them today.
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I don't see the problem here. If you're looking for a phone where you can easily replace the CPU, that doesn't exist and never has, and it's just plain idiotic to ask for that. What's important is if you can replace the screen (since they get cracked sometimes), the USB port, the battery, the camera lens, etc.: the things that actually do get broken or wear out and need to be replaced.
Re:They protest too much... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite as self-serving as a company that makes a product that's prone to breakage and cannot be repaired.
Re:They protest too much... (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't it seem to be a bit self-serving for a repair company to complain that things need to be more repairable?
I care first and foremost about: are they telling the truth and do they have a point? As a distant second I might think about their motivation.
Usually, any concerns about a cynical motivation are used to explain a falsehood. It's not as common as it should be, but sometimes, people actually do build a profitable (and thus, self-serving) business around a good idea that really fulfills a legitimate need.
Please consider: if this company can repair your phone, there is also at least a slim chance that you can repair your phone yourself. This is a case where your interests could (should?) align with theirs. I mean really, proprietary screws? That's just plain asinine. There is no legitimate reason to do that. It deserves to be called out publically.
Re:They protest too much... (Score:5, Insightful)
By self serving I presume you mean looking to make a living. This selfishness will benefit the world by keeping hardware from being smelted in Africa by 7 year old kids on open fires fueled by old CRT casings.
I'm fine with a craftsman eking out a living fixing things that are broken that the manufacturer has no interest in repairing.
Similar legislature was enacted in the auto repair industry. Would you prefer to be forced to go to the dealer for any sort of repair? Or would you prefer to save yourself a good amount of money.
Re:They protest too much... (Score:5, Insightful)
So you are saying that repair companies do not like difficult to repair products because they make more money repairing them. Difficult to repair just means consumers can not readily repair it themselves and must take it to a repair company and pay them in order to carry out the repair.
So it just happens that iFixit https://www.ifixit.com/ [ifixit.com] is "iFixit is a wiki-based site that teaches people how to fix almost anything. Anyone can create a repair manual for a device, and anyone can also edit the existing set of manuals to improve them. Our site empowers individuals to share their technical knowledge with the rest of the world.", you claim in that light is really quite nasty and smells of corporate propaganda.
To make it clear, yes it is self serving to complain bitterly about being ripped off with unrepairable products which result in shitty resale values. What, I am meant to live my life to serve corporate profits instead, seriously WTF?
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Except that modern phones don't even have screws, they are glued together.
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Lead is poisonous if you ingest it, but working with it on a daily basis when repairing stuff isn't that bad if you don't lick your fingers.
CFC isn't comparable, it's causing atmospheric damage instead.
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Lead is poisonous if you ingest it, but working with it on a daily basis when repairing stuff isn't that bad if you don't lick your fingers.
CFC isn't comparable, it's causing atmospheric damage instead.
The problem is that most of the electronics "recycling" is happening in third world countries without adequate pollution controls. Insulation is frequently burned off of wires as a prelude to recycling their copper. Nobody is using fume collectors when they desolder. A lot of the waste is disposed of improperly and then the lead has a chance to enter the water table.
Re:where has the author been (Score:5, Insightful)
But now we're not just talking about oddly shaped screws where it's hard to get a screwdriver for. We're talking about patented screws where it's pretty much impossible to get a screwdriver for, at least legally.
THAT is the difference in those screws.
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A lot of security bits start off that way, here's one from 1979
http://www.google.com/patents/... [google.com]
here's its impossible to find illegal spanner
https://www.google.com/webhp?s... [google.com]
welcome to 36 years ago
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Care to mention something we can replace those products with? Tell me about an easy to fix cell phone, I'd really wish to have one.
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> YOU REPAIRED COWS!!!
The cow troll is actually getting kinda funny.
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I still don't really even understand what the cow thing is all about.
Obviously a method of trolling, but what is the reference?
Is the troll trying to say that we are all easily lead by the nose? That we eat grass? That we are docile cute animals?