Apple Will Fight 'Right To Repair' Legislation (vice.com) 310
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Apple is planning to fight proposed electronics "Right to Repair" legislation being considered by the Nebraska state legislature, according to a source within the legislature who is familiar with the bill's path through the statehouse. The legislation would require Apple and other electronics manufacturers to sell repair parts to consumers and independent repair shops, and would require manufacturers to make diagnostic and service manuals available to the public. Nebraska is one of eight states that are considering right to repair bills; last month, Nebraska, Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, Kansas, and Wyoming introduced legislation. Last week, lawmakers in Illinois and Tennessee officially introduced similar bills. According to the source, an Apple representative, staffer, or lobbyist will testify against the bill at a hearing in Lincoln on March 9. ATT will also argue against the bill, the source said. The source told me that at least one of the companies plans to say that consumers who repair their own phones could cause lithium batteries to catch fire. So far, Nebraska is the only state to schedule a hearing for its legislation.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually pretty easy. They just have to not glue the battery to the case....
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That would require the use of screws, which would increase the thickness by a tenth of a milimeter. Marketing dept says that is not acceptable.
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That would require the use of screws, which would increase the thickness by a tenth of a milimeter. Marketing dept says that is not acceptable.
That part always confused me.
Cell phone company busts its ass to shave 2mm off the thickness of the phone.
I immediately put it in a case that's three times the size of the phone, because I don't want to risk breaking the thing that cost several hundred dollars.
Like I'm gonna notice the millimeters you shaved off?
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Apple intends to make the entire phone out of synthetic diamond
Introducing the Apple Diamond iPhone..... 100% encased in synthetic diamond. Charges up wirelessly with no physical jacks or ports (To make sure you cannot open it up to make repairs).
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Samsung Bomb anyone?
Re: the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:2)
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So how did Nokia candy bar phones with their black and white screens, ugly (by todays "standards") cases, and thick dimentions sell so well in 2002?
Because there wasn't anything else. Obviously. When the 8210 was released they couldn't sell them fast enough, and the USP of that model was... you guessed it, size. Same thing with the Motorola v66.
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Because there wasn't anything else.
In the US.
In Japan, they had smart phones in the 1990s. I remember playing with them in 1997 (we used to buy competitors products from all over the world and tear them apart) and asking "when will we get that here in the US?" And the marketers at my company were saying "US consumers don't want all that frippery on a phone!"
So one thing I thank Steve Jobs for is not listening to people like that.
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1973 - Motorola phone used for first handheld mobile phone call.
1983 - DynaTAC 8000X, the 'brickphone', launched.
1989 - Motorola MicroTAC launched, flip phones come.
The MicroTAC changed the game by being pocketable.
1996 - Motorola StarTAC launched, smaller phones.Nokia 9000 Communicator launched, smartphones coming. ;launched, first 'smartpho
1990 - Motorola 'Bag Phone' launched, I used an Okidata bag phone then that used, incredibly, the same removable rechargeable batter as my portable VCR.
1993 - IBM Simon
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Millimeters? You're off by a factor of 10.
And then many of us sheath our newest technological fragility in a bulk case. Oh, wait, Apple's silicone cases are elegant.
Gawd, I'm getting closer and closer to going over to the Dark Side and buying an iPhone. Gahhh!
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Seriously, I don't care who thinks what of my phone. I didn't buy it to make everyone around me happy. Its purpose is to improve MY LIFE. Make ME more productive. Instant access to information. Entertainment. Etc.
Apple used to be a great company back in the day. (
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Here's tip: Just don't GLUE it.
Just the space required for glue makes it thicker.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
If the battery is not glued, it must be fastened by some other means. Typically, this is a plastic mounting bay within the device.
My old Samsung Google phone has a removable battery.
A user-removable battery is even more of a challenge. There must be clearance for the battery to move freely (perhaps only a millimeter or two, but still a bit of space).
There must be a removable hatch to provide access---with either clips and/or a hinge to fasten it. These mechanisms invariably take up more space than glue.
As the body is now weaker due to the
Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:5, Funny)
That's pretty much what I understood from the summary. Apple products are so insecure that they cannot be repaired without presenting a hazard, maybe we should remove them from circulation.
Ban iPhone from planes (Score:3)
Apple has clearly announced that their product is dangerous, so the TSA should ban them.
I hope a legislator at one of these state legislators makes this point if an Apple employee is stupid enough to raise this.
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Apple has clearly announced that their product is dangerous, so the TSA should ban them.
I hope a legislator at one of these state legislators makes this point if an Apple employee is stupid enough to raise this.
Apparently they are perfectly safe unless they get into the hands of a moron who thinks he can make a repair that he can't make safely. So I'd say let them on board, but arrest anyone who tries to get on board with a self-repaired phone.
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That's pretty much what I understood from the summary. Apple products are so insecure that they cannot be repaired without presenting a hazard, maybe we should remove them from circulation.
What I understood was that there are morons that couldn't repair an iPhone without creating a hazard, and Apple wants to remove those morons from circulations.
There was one case where an iPhone went up in flames on an airplane, and it turned out that same idiot had tried to make a repair and put two screws in that damaged the battery.
For battery replacements, your chances that you get an original Apple battery (or one made in the same factory and undergoing the same quality checks) are zero, even if y
Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:5, Insightful)
its a lie.
it has nothing to do with hazzards, other than the 'hazzard' of the company losing BIG PROFITS from captive repair bills.
apple is really looking bad, here. there is nothing credible they could state to defend this 'you shall not be allowed to repair things you actually own' bullshit.
Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple are a cult purchase for the masses. The truth is that they have been making excess profits for rather a long time and are no better and in some respects worse than other companies. They do not allow battery replacement because their designs sacrifice repair-ability in order to enhance the appearance of their devices. It also means that they make a fat profit on repairs. I hope they lose this court case as it will benefit the consumers they are gouging.
Repairs? (Score:3)
I agree, except with the 'make big bucks on repairs' thing.
I get the impression they aren't interested in repairs at all. Not by them and sure as hell not (gasp) by yourself!
Just buy the latest new iPhone already. And yes if Apple tells you you need to buy a new headset for that, you do that too!
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It's not just the profits. It is also they don't want a third party to "mess something up" and then Apple gets blamed when something doesn't work as expected; "Oh, I took my iPhone to Joe's iPhone repair and a week later it doesn't work. Apple screwed up". In the same way that Apple get's blamed when a jail broken iPhone loads a virus. I don't agree with Apple, but I think that blaming their response only on "profit of Apple on repairs or a new phone" is wrong; they care about their reputation and that reputation can be unfairly damaged by third parties.
That's why there are these things called warranties. Open it up before that and it's on you. If it breaks in that time send it in for free.
Damage their reputation like that time they bricked every phone that had been third party repaired?
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Open it up before that and it's on you. If it breaks in that time send it in for free.
It doesn't always work that way with Apple products. Sometimes it breaks before the end of the warranty, and you will have to pay something anyways, because the customer is blamed for breaking it (e.g. accidental damage).
After the warranty, Apple wants only authorized shops to be able to repair, and the repair consists mostly of replacing entire boards, oh, and yeah, data on the device is not retained in the Apple-bl
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After the warranty, Apple wants only authorized shops to be able to repair, and the repair consists mostly of replacing entire boards, oh, and yeah, data on the device is not retained in the Apple-blessed process.
You are posting on Slashdot. If you don't have a backup quit posting here. I replaced Apple devices several times (sometimes out-of-warranty repair, sometimes because someone wanted a better phone), and the process was turn on - enter your Apple ID - wait a few minutes until your data is restored, and a few more minutes until all your apps are downloaded again.
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Apple doesn't want to design a phone that isn't a hazard to repair.
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If you set aside cynicism for moment, they do have a valid concern in that area. Any competent person can repair a phone safely - but how many repairs would be carried out by people who have never held a soldering iron before, and are following a tutorial video on youtube? It's quite possible for an inexperienced person to botch the procedure and leave the battery in an unsafe condition.
It's still just an excuse Apple are using, but it's at least a plausible excuse. My problem with it is that it boils down
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I thought Apple was a pretty capable company, but they can't design a phone that isn't a hazard to repair?
Why are you assuming this isn't by design.
Apple could make an easy to repair phone like other companies, but where's the profit in that? How will they sell the next version if old phones keep working for years on end and there aren't any significant improvements.
Apple deliberately makes them hard to repair to generate repeat sales. That's why they're fighting against your right to repair.
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Apple could make an easy to repair phone like other companies, but where's the profit in that? How will they sell the next version if old phones keep working for years on end and there aren't any significant improvements.
Please tell me about other companies that make phones that are easy to repair. And fact is, old iPhones _do_ keep working for years on end. I have an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4 that are working just fine, including the battery, after I don't know how many years.
And Apple iPhones are very easy to repair - you take them to the nearest Apple Store, and they repair them. Not always cheap, but a lot cheaper than a new phone.
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They can design such devices. It is because they deeply understand maintainability that they can turn its opposite, unmaintainability, into the shiny artform they flog from their Apple Stores. My next macOS machine is likely to be a hackintosh.
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Battery compartments are really difficult case design for mobile devices.
Somehow pretty much every other mobile manufacturer has done it well at one point or another...
Re: the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:5, Informative)
A battery compartment is for removable batteries, and maybe if the Note 7 actually had a removable battery it wouldn't have been such a disaster for them.
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Or maybe the added size of the supporting structure to make the batteries removable would have put more pressure on designing a cramped battery which would catch fire at a higher rate.
Or maybe the issue wasn't with the recall since that didn't cost much, but ultimately botching up the second attempt (which would have happened anyway) caused them to drop the product line and write down the loss (which would have happened anyway).
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And then you both create a market for replacement batteries and decouple the life cycle/sales cycle from battery life. Which for me is too close to 2 years. And so the leases/purchase deals are 2 years.
There are good reasons to upgrade your phone on a 2 year cycle, but cost is not one of them.
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I still have one of those, and a T39 (a much better phone). The drawback of making it so thin was that most of the working parts ended up crammed up at the top. It may be because of this, or for another design decision, that there was no room for an internal antenna so the T28 had a huge (even by the standards of the time) antenna sticking out of the top.
Still it was a really solid phone. Battery life wasn't great, unsurprisingly given the tiny battery, and the software was slow but they were quite clever i
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Battery compartments are really difficult case design for mobile devices.
Bullshit. Ask me how I know.
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Battery compartments are really difficult case design for mobile devices.
Bullshit. Ask me how I know.
Alright. How do you know?
I am going to asking not because I disbelieve you and more because I hope the answer is "I design battery compartments for mobile devices" and you'll give us some interesting insights into the process. Honestly, it is one of those areas of engineering I realize I have taken for granted and I'd like to learn more about some of the challenges there.
Re: the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:4, Informative)
Bullshit. Ask me how I know.
Alright. How do you know?
Because for 50+ years I've used thousands of devices that had battery compartments (including mobile devices) and 99.9% of them consisted of a simple plastic enclosure that worked fine and didn't require a Masters degree to design.
In fact, for decades the default design was a battery compartment with removable batteries- it's only recently that manufacturers have started fucking shit up by sealing batteries in the device and making it non-replaceable.
If anyone thinks that advances in technology have somehow made it harder to build battery compartments then they're simply mistaken.
It's the result of trying to save money in parts and the breathless pursuit of a thinner case.
FACT: Most people don't give a shit if their phone is 1mm thicker or thinner, and many would happily trade a millimeter or two of thickness for a larger battery. But somehow the Powers That Be have decided that what people want isn't as important as saving a dollar in production costs.
Seriously, please don't give me this stuff about "battery compartments are really difficult". They're not.
We've walked on the Moon, and we routinely replace hearts, livers, and hip joints. Thousands of people go in to have their eyes lasered into 20-20 vision every day. We've landed a fucking research probe on a comet. We can put 1.7billion transistors on a chip and sell it for $30.
In light of all that, somehow the "battery compartments are really difficult" argument just doesn't wash.
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Apple from the days of the 128k Mac has discouraged consumer tampering. They want to control the repair eco system. That's not incompetence it is policy.
Bullshit.
if they want to rent then landload needs to repair (Score:4, Interesting)
if they want to rent then landlord needs to repair it for free!
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Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:5, Informative)
The point is that once a company has enough control of the market to restrict supply chains and/or information about how the device works, they can effectively limit compatibility, prevent repairs and other long-term maintenance, and ultimately constrain the continued use of the device, even if such use would otherwise be viable.
That leads directly to problems like built-in obsolescence, excessive repair charges for devices that fail earlier than might reasonably have been expected, wastage of limited natural resources used in manufacture, and devices that are hard to recycle or otherwise dispose of in safe and environmentally friendly ways.
Hardware producers in the tech industry have become very, very bad at these kinds of things, and they've made a lot of money as a result, and so now it looks like legal/regulatory action is needed. This is hardly a new concern and they've had years to get their own houses in order and have failed to do so, so I have no sympathy for them at all.
Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing stops you from cracking it open, removing the ROM components and replacing the software.
Part of the problem is that it's hard to know how true that is any more.
The right-to-repair debate obviously covers much broader interests than just Apple products, and elsewhere we've seen things like farmers' ability to maintain their tractors being impaired by intellectual property laws. I'm not sure what promoting invention, discovery and new creative works has to do with preventing tractor repair, but somehow I doubt that's how the original proponents of those laws or the public intended them to be used.
Whether Apple could or would employ any similar tactics to undermine efforts to repair Apple products is a different question, but looking at the way they've treated iFixit as an example, the way they manage their supply chains and their choices of components, or indeed their opposition to the proposals we're talking about here, the signs aren't exactly good.
But how about instead supporting manufacturers that do what you want?
Some of us do. But when you reach a point where most or all of the major suppliers in a particular market are employing similar tactics, you often reach a point where the general public just gives up and accepts the tactics as inevitable. This is exactly why we have regulatory oversight and consumer protection rules backed by the force of law.
Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Good luck completly replacing the ROM contents on any current Apple device.
Every device Apple currently sells (including the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch and all Mac models) have firmware that will only run if its digitally signed by keys hardcoded into the CPU (not sure if the Macs require signatures for the entire firmware or just for the Intel Management Engine, that would probably depend on exactly which CPU is in a given product but either way you cant just replace the ROM chips and have a working system)
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That would be more convincing if the average working lifetime of smartphones had more to do with the phone itself and less to do with the commercial lock-in plans of the phone networks that hide the true price of the device and/or the operating system updates pushed by the likes of Apple that encourage users of old devices to upgrade but then cripple the performance so those devices become unusable in practice.
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Yes.
Modern electronics is not like electronics used to be. You can't always just poke the multimeter around, identify the burned-out component and replace it any more, especially in ultra-compact designs like mobile phones. There are more specialised chips, often bespoke parts. Often an entire PCB must be replaced, because even if the faulty part is a commodity one it's impossible to resolder something like a BGA package, or because it's a faulty processor that incorporates proprietary firmware. Diagnostics
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Rarely is the issue a BGA package, usually it's a capacitor or soic package which can be replaced by hand even if it's not the easiest component to replace. A multimeter is still the most useful diagnostic tool especially when the most common component, a VRM or capacitor in the power supply has gone, knowing what the potential difference should be across various points of the board helps in identifying such issues. Memory test failure and similar software errors could literally be that the memory didn't ge
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The difference being, of course, that the oiling system is built to support changing the oil. The answer to Apple's objection is that they're perfectly free to make phones with replaceable batteries, instead of designing planned obsolescence into them.
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Sounds like a crutch for one trick ponies who are all out of them.
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Tell me, grab a person off the street and ask them to say, replace the motherboard on your laptop.
That's it', you'll walk them though it, but you will not be allowed to comment on what they're
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"Tell me, grab a person off the street and ask them to say, replace the motherboard on your laptop.
That's it', you'll walk them though it, but you will not be allowed to comment on what they're doing. You'll demonstrate, they'll mimic. They are allowed to use anything they have.
Would you do it? Would you risk your computer? You can show them how to take it apart and provide all the replacement parts, they can watch you take it apart."
Guess how most of your current big-industry repair shops work? Flextronics
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consumers who repair their own phones could cause lithium batteries to catch fire.
yep, and changing the oil on my motorcycle could cause scalding hot oil to burn me, but well documented processes from the vendor generally limit this risk. Repairing the power regulator for my refrigerator could have caused a shock, however repair manuals clearly instructed me to unplug and de-energize the appliance. the reason these bills are being fought incessantly is because modern consumer capitalism is predicated on brand consumption, not product consumption, and includes concessions to allow for the hedonic treadmill to spin freely. Sure, Apple may be forced to support older architectures that do not support the latest whizbang features but the real argument is that they would have to support the idea that the user owns the device instead of rents it until the next model comes out. being able to repair a cellphone or tablet, or even a macbook for that matter erodes the concept of the brand as an experience and slowly drags apple back to the earthly realm of hardware manufacturer and not a lifestyle. Owning a product, and not a brand in the 21st century is a slow death for any company.
Perhaps what ultimately needs to die is the unadulterated greed that is driving this whole "lifestyle" business model.
To every greedy vendor out there; Sell me a fucking product. One that I own, and buy outright. Fuck you and your corrupt business model that demands I rent your "brand" and pay in perpetuity. You no longer want to maintain customers. You want slaves. We're already killing off the concept of competition, as mega-corps become more and more powerful, consuming and controlling the global ma
Ma Bell argued we'd bring down the phone system (Score:2)
Re:the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe for the watch, but not for the phone. There's nothing glued in the iPhone other than the battery. The case has snap tabs and screws holding it together, and all the complex parts are fastened in place using screws. There's absolutely no good reason for the battery to be glued in there, either. They could just as easily:
It's the height of laziness to say, "We can't make it this small without holding everything together with glue." It isn't that they can't make them easy to repair, nor is it that it would make them much more expensive or bigger or anything else. The reality is that Apple doesn't want their products to be easy to repair.
I'll illustrate why this is the case with a story. My parents recently took their iPhone 5s to Apple for repairs because its battery life had turned to crap. Apple looked at the device and said that they couldn't repair it because the battery was bulged, and it would be dangerous to remove it (because it is glued in). They wanted... either two or three hundred dollars to replace what was approximately a $30 battery.
Why would Apple want to make it easy to replace that $30 battery when they can glue the battery in place and use that as an excuse to cheat their customers out of hundreds of dollars, then take the defective hardware, ship it somewhere, rip the battery out in spite of the safety concerns, glue a new one in, and make even more money selling that refurbished phone to some other poor sucker whose battery dared to swell up? No, the irreparability of these devices means big money for Apple and they know it. IMO, these laws can't come soon enough and don't go far enough.
It should be illegal to glue a battery into any device, period, full stop.
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As someone who quit happily removed a screen assembly from a Galaxy S5, then carefully separated the micrometer thin OLED panel from the glass supporting structure, then carefully UV glued it back together, and then successfully reassembled the phone, ... the use of glue in the device doesn't phase me.
Not being able to get a replacement part would have phased me. How well did it turn out for people who had their fingerprint scanners repaired on the iPhone 5 when Apple decided they will brick them all with a
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Plenty? To the best of my knowledge, there's only one: LG. Unfortunately, the other LG hardware I've dealt with has been a train wreck of poorly tested firmware updates that I've had to expend considerable effort rolling back because of serious bugs, and I almost bought their refrigerator until I started reading the reviews and ran away screaming. And that's the same company that seriously resisted helping their smart TV users fix d
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I bought a LG G3 precisely because it had a removable battery. It's a nice phone. Already a couple of years old, and still working nicely. The battery life is starting to get shorter, though, guess I'll have to spend 20€ to get a new one.
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Plenty? To the best of my knowledge, there's only one: LG. Unfortunately, the other LG hardware I've dealt with has been a train wreck of poorly tested firmware updates that I've had to expend considerable effort rolling back because of serious bugs, and I almost bought their refrigerator until I started reading the reviews and ran away screaming. And that's the same company that seriously resisted helping their smart TV users fix devices bricked by ransomware.
At least the worst problems I've had with an iPhone can be fixed by a screwdriver, a spudger, a putty knife, and a bit of excessive force.
More than LG don't. I have a lumia 950 (I know but that's not the point) with a removable battery that sits very nicely in its space, doesn't rattle, doesn't fall out, is easy to get to and replace and not a drop of glue or screw in sight.
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The lack of repairability is not some kind of conspiracy.
Right, just like there is no ulterior motive when tech firms change connectors for each new generation of products even if the new ones do essentially the same things as the old ones, use unusual components where standard ones could have done the same job, or even remove most standard connectors altogether and maybe provide custom adapters or wireless devices with questionable reliability at much higher prices instead.
It's true that there is some merit in the argument that using custom components or things
Re: the real reason theyre arguing it. (Score:2)
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You're full of it. It has nothing to do with brand consumption. The truth is that the tradeoff for cheap, reliable, waterproof and sort of shock resistant is to make things with glue and not with screws.
You're the one full of it. Your saying the iPhone is cheap, which it isn't by any measure, it's no more reliable than any other big name phone (touch disease says hi), waterproof, ok you need a seal but there are plenty other ways than glue, and sort of shock resistant? Yeah, not is a sort of I guess, again no more shock resistant than its peers. They glue it and make it harder to repair so they can charge you over the odds for it. End of story.
as you spent 28 hours replacing a 27 cent component.
You'd prefer to buy a new phone for the sake of a 27 cent compo
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And with the screen on, the stupid phones have negative battery life, and by that I mean that when the phone is plugged in, it still needs to draw from the battery to fulfill its power needs.
Are you saying the battery supplies more power than a wall socket? I think there's something wrong with your phone, when mine's plugged in, I can use it AND it charges.
Fighting it is evil (Score:5, Insightful)
If you SELL me something, it's mine. You don't have to sell me documentation, you don't have to make replacement parts available, but there's only one reason to stop me from repairing it myself and that's so you can squeeze more money out of me.
Try renting instead of selling, then you can do whatever the hell you want, otherwise all you get to do is void any remaining warranty and refuse responsibility for damage caused by end-user repair.
It's about time consumers started lynching CEOs over shit like this.
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I would be against that provision of this legislation, yes.
I'm against companies doing things like using the DMCA to prevent you from doing your own repairs, or suing people who manufacture replacement parts or provide repair services (including repair manuals reverse engineered from teardowns), etc.
I'd be fine with, "Manufacturers can prohibit personal and 3rd-party repair of devices sold for the advertised lifetime of the device, if and only if they provide free repair parts and services for that same pe
Re:Fighting it is evil (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be fine with, "Manufacturers can prohibit personal and 3rd-party repair of devices sold for the advertised lifetime of the device, if and only if they provide free repair parts and services for that same period".
We used to call that a warranty.
Those used to be worth something.
And they used to last for a reasonable working lifetime for a device, not provide the bare minimum standard of protection required by law to private customers, and provide even less to business customers as an incentive to sign-up for overpriced maintenance contracts on top of the original purchase price.
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What??? Pretty much everything I own I expect to last more then 2 years. Most of the things I own are 10+ years old (heck even my desktop is 7).
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Lynch 'em and STOP buying their products!... FUCK APPLE!!!
Re:Fighting it is evil (Score:5, Insightful)
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Then you replace the motherboard.
IF the only (internal) repair procedure for a device is total replacement and disposal of the original - then the manufacturer provides all the tools and documentation relevant, that is none. Nobody's going to force Kingston to provide repair tools for fixing fried MicroSD cards.
If the procedure they do requires a cleanroom and a special custom reflow oven, they must put these on sale, although if they cost ten million a piece to build, ten million is it.
But if broken screen
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That's simply not true. Manufacturers have to be able to ship batteries to their repair centers anyway. More significantly, if those batteries were such delicate little flowers that they couldn't be shipped, then phones wou
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You don't make design changes.
If the internal procedure requires special shipping procedures, the customer must follow them, or pay for them. If the procedure requires a whole factory floor, you provide such a factory floor for sale, for its full price. If there is no internal repair procedure for given part, you don't provide one, period.
The whole idea is that if the manufacturer can fix it, anyone can, using the same tools and the same procedures. If the tools and procedures are extremely complex and expe
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Cell phone repair is tricky, but not even approaching impossible. As a former electronics tech (about 35 years ago), I was able to disassemble, repair, and re-assemble my Galaxy S4. It really was not difficult and, with a service manual, would have been trivial. Soldering and de-soldering surface-mount devices and tools to do so are required, but those are hardly impossible to obtain.
More importantly, the law is more about letting independent servicers, who are likely more skilled than I, to have the info
you have to Fight for your Right (Score:2)
car to be dealership only service (Score:2)
car to be dealership only service only even for lights / oil changes / tires.
Re: car to be dealership only service (Score:2, Insightful)
This is it exactly, only, if I recall correctly, in Nebraska for farm equipment that operates on the same repair scheme as apple. In other words, the farmer is not allowed to fix their own tractor.
Whaaaaat? (Score:5, Funny)
An innovative technology company like Apple wants to increase the amount of technology garbage instead of going green and supporting the tinkering and repairing community?
That's so un-hipster! My beard is bristling enough to make my turtleneck feel tight!
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Apple is to hipster as Trump is to the common man.
Fighting what they once were (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple, once founded by tinkerers, is now fighting the tinkerers
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Apple, once founded by tinkerers, is now fighting the tinkerers
Jobs didn't want the Mac to have any expandability. He wanted a sealed case that couldn't be improved in any way so that people had to buy a new machine if they wanted any upgrades. The first Macintosh didn't even have an expansion slot, and people had to resort to slotting something into the CPU socket and piggybacking the CPU in order to expand it. It was less expandable than an Apple 2 or a Lisa!
What can I say... (Score:4, Interesting)
... except fuck Apple. Their whole business model seems to be planned obsolescence and non-repairability. Hey, just buy a new one!
My TRS-80 rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple can suck a petrified mammoth dick over this move.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately now the typical computer buyer is totally different from the one of the '70, actually the typical computer buyer prefers a smartphone and doesn't try to make specia
Apple fought it in 2015 too (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Heaven forbid! (Score:2)
We can't have the peasants who buy our stuff fixing it themselves or taking it to someone that might fix it for less than we'll charge!
This won't solve anything. (Score:3, Insightful)
If it actually goes through, Apple will just jack up the price of their replacement parts to the point that it'd be cheaper to buy a new computer.
They already charge obscene prices for components, it's just that the repair centres don't pay anything as long as they ship back the defective component. For example, when I bought my 2010 Mac Pro, it came with a defective LG burner. That part cost around $20 to buy, apart from the Apple firmware customizations, which made it a $750 drive. The repair centre didn't actually pay $750 for a replacement part- it didn't cost them anything, because they shipped the defective part back to Apple.
So Apple could quite easily double or quadruple the "price" of their replacement parts, and it wouldn't change anything service centre wise. It'd just fuck over the public, which is exactly what they'll do if they're forced to do anything.
PS: What is there to replace in a modern day Mac? Everything is soldered to the main board. I guess the iMacs have a separate PSU module and a small DC fan, but that's about it, and you still need to cut that horrible foam striping around the LCD panel just to pull out the monitor so you can replace stuff, and then you need a replacement foam kit just to seal it back up again (remember that time the LCD glass panel was held on by magnets and removable by suction cups?). It's like people want to repair computers that are purposefully built to be as unrepairable as possible, which doesn't make much sense...
Re: (Score:2)
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"Apple will just jack up the price of their replacement parts to the point that it'd be cheaper to buy a new computer."
As if the price of a new PC wasn't already cheaper than that of a similarly-configured Apple product?
Was only a matter of time (Score:2)
Take a page from Google (Score:3)
Just "software upgrade" the device into uselessness, like Google did with my Nexus 7. No hardware repair necessary.
The usual bollocks (Score:2)
repair their own phones could cause lithium batteries to catch fire
I shouldn't need to "repair" battery. I should be able to flip the back cover, remove the old battery and insert a new one. How is it that Apple, self professed masters of design cannot enable this simple task?
The answer is they could and easily but they seal the battery into the device as a cynical ploy to build obsolescence into their devices. Other manufactures seal the battery in too (following Apple's lead). It should not be acceptable and frankly I wonder why more eco conscious jurisdictions (e.g. t
Yay Nebraska, but... (Score:2)
...this should be nationwide, not just one state. But with Trump in office, good luck on that, businesses have free rein...
Still here. (Score:2)
If there is a chief reason to NOT by from Apple... (Score:2)
Apple is far from the worst (Score:2)
I fix laptops and phones a lot (component level), and I have to say, at least with Apple most of their gear is still at least able to be serviced once you get a hold of the "not permitted" schematics and boardview files ( and watching a lot of Louis Rossmann helps too ).
PC laptops and worse, desktop motherboards, are like hens teeth at the best of times for locating usable schematics / boardviews. Now the market is starting to spit out "Repair guides" which are 75dpi screen shots squashed to a new aspect
It's all about artificial scarcity (Score:2)
Any company whose continued growth, (or possibly even its continued existence), depends on artificial scarcity, is going to fight like hell to maintain the scarcity. Those who are being pillaged by the artificial scarcity, should do their best to tear it down.
To decide which of these two sides you should support, ask yourself which you care about more - a sustainable Earth with sufficient natural resources and a hospitable-enough climate to foster future generations, or the profits of a short-term-gain-for-
Re:The point? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not just about Apple. This legislation has merit.
That is the situation now, always has been. (Score:2)
But that doesn't absolve the manufacturer of their responsibility to fix manufacturing and design flaws not related to the repair, for the working life of the product.