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Apple Is Lobbying Against Your Right To Repair iPhones, New York State Records Confirm (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Lobbying records in New York state show that Apple, Verizon, and the tech industry's largest trade organizations are opposing a bill that would make it easier for consumers and independent companies to repair your electronics. The bill, called the "Fair Repair Act," would require electronics companies to sell replacement parts and tools to the general public, would prohibit "software locks" that restrict repairs, and in many cases would require companies to make repair guides available to the public. Apple and other tech giants have been suspected of opposing the legislation in many of the 11 states where similar bills have been introduced, but New York's robust lobbying disclosure laws have made information about which companies are hiring lobbyists and what bills they're spending money on public record. According to New York State's Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Apple, Verizon, Toyota, the printer company Lexmark, heavy machinery company Caterpillar, phone insurance company Asurion, and medical device company Medtronic have spent money lobbying against the Fair Repair Act this year. The Consumer Technology Association, which represents thousands of electronics manufacturers, is also lobbying against the bill. The records show that companies and organizations lobbying against right to repair legislation spent $366,634 to retain lobbyists in the state between January and April of this year. Thus far, the Digital Right to Repair Coalition -- which is generally made up of independent repair shops with several employees -- is the only organization publicly lobbying for the legislation. It has spent $5,042 on the effort, according to the records.
I'm exercising my right to not buy iphones.
Unless you bribe (I mean lobby) the right people with enough money (I mean alternative facts) then of course you can expect to get nowhere.
Fact, figures and logic dont feed the re-election beast boy, she only eats greenbacks.
Time to get the grassroots campaigns going. Repair Cafe fixers and clients, every member of every hackerspace, repair shops of all kinds, independent repair contractors, a large number of Slashdotters, and just average citizens who are tired of getting the shaft - all of them together could probably kick in enough money for some serious bribes. (Because let's face it - lobbying is essentially bribery). It might succeed in thwarting this loathsome, sleazy corporate assault on decency and fairness; but even if it doesn't, it will at least cost the bastards still more money for still bigger bribes, and will result in more news coverage that may convince more people to get behind the next campaign to tell the corporate bastards to fuck off with their 'you no longer own things, you only rent them' bullshit.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It seems reasonable that any parts that the company stocks to perform routine repairs at a service center would be available to the public.
You a car manufacturer wouldn't replace the internal parts of a water pump at a service center, they just replace the whole unit. They also sell the water pump as a whole unit to the public.
Likewise something like the screen assembly or battery for your phone are obvious components to make available to the public these parts are simple to replace and done in-store in minutes. Resoldering components on the logic board is something that isn't even done on refurb units, it's just not worth the cost to do those kind of repairs vs. just replacing the whole board.
You don't have a right for other people to do favors for you. Writing you a repair guide is a favor.
And how many instances of folk wanting/needing cpu etc replaced have you heard of being taken into small local fix it shops ?
Where as I can show you evidence of millions of screens and batteries folk have had replaced at local fix its.
It's bloody easy to write legislation to allow folk to have have COMMON problem parts fixed.
If some maker wants to make a common fail part hard/impossible to replace,say,a power button,because they have decided to to encode data into a part,it's also easy to write legislation that requires said maker itself to replace/repair or supply a new device,if maker wants to make a device like that,then it's part of the price of doing so,if it fails,they carry the cost of repair..
Simple,it does not have to be an all or nothing situation..
If you follow any of the multitude of people working in the repair industry through their social media, you would know that your argument holds no water.
They already do all of the research, repair and diagnosis (quite effectively) while being handicapped by lack of first party software and tools or documentation (or sometimes they manage to find illegal versions on the webs) and then after they have managed to do all of this (sometimes apple cant even do these physical repairs) and they manage to do it at an affordable price to the consumer, they risk being sued for using the tools they had to obtain illegally.
There is zero reason for these company's not to make this material available other than greed.
When i buy something I own and can do whatever i want with it.
If that means fix it or pay to have it fixed in a country where it is illegal to deny you the right to service it or have it serviced, there is no reason for the OEM's to cut the legs out from under the local repair shops by denying them manuals and diagnostic software that already exists.
GREEDY A$$HATS!
Only people who are blind or don't care about Carrying around wrippled creaky junk.
This is the most disingenuous post I have read on /. for quite a while. And that's saying something.
Exactly what types of broken states of a phone are you requiring a company to publish guides to fix, and make parts available for? Do you even know how many different ways a modern phone can fail? And what level of fix are you requiring they make available, and for what level of user capability? It's going to be pretty much useless if grandpa can't manipulate the microtweezers to fix the parts of the rear-facing camera module, so what then?
The law would require the company to make the exact same guides that they give to their "authorized" repair centers available to the public. And no, grandpa is not going to repair anything himself, but he will have the option to take his malfunctioning gadget to an independent repair shop which will fix it for a fraction of the price, since that's what competition does.
But you already knew that, because it says so very clearly in the text of the proposed legislation, only two clicks away.
Microsoft drops support for their dwindling phone base... indifference from slashdot
Microsoft never impacts third party repairs of their phones... indifference from slashdot
Google drops support for thousands of phones.. that will theoretically decay (including my 900 dollar Galaxy Note 4).. some bubbling of something from slashdot
Google expects hardware vendors/wireless carriers to absorb some of the security update responsibility beyond the Nexus line... a few burps from slashdot
Apple keeps dropping the French-Revolution guillotine on whatever hardware platform they deem unworthy (i.e. you should pay ca$h for an upgrade)... some interest from the slashdot community.
Now Apple decides they want total control of every handset they've every sold.. direct or indirect. Wow.. This is so comparable to the Hewlett Packard efforts to control who can sell ink-jet cartridges to the consumer. It feels like they are trying to tether a constant lifeline of cash... or maybe I don't understand the difference between Steve Jobs/Steve Wozniak and the latest bobble head.. Tim Cook.
"Apple kicks dogs and steals from your grandmother!"
You're trying to be sarcastic, but in spirit if not in fact, your statement is pretty much true and accurate.
Exactly what types of broken states of a phone are you requiring a company to publish guides to fix...
Let's see... broken screens, busted speakers and microphones, (yes, it happens, and it's happened to me), failed backlights, broken cases, damaged earphone jacks, (for the 'pre-bravery era iPhones), cracked solder connections, cranky power and volume buttons, and probably a few others I haven't thought of.
...and make parts available for?
For all of the above problems - and in addition, chips as well. You seem to think the expertise to repair these things doesn't exist outside the hallowed halls of corporate repair centres. You're mistaken.
Electronic devices have come a lot farther than a car engine that you could demand be user-serviceable, and these laws are misguided attempts to make them so.
They don't need to be user serviceable, they just need to be serviceable by repair people who aren't members of the corporate empires that are trying so desperately to control their products even after they've been purchased. 'Cause, you know, you can have a monopoly in the service markets, just as you can have a monopoly in any other market, and monopolies are a BAD THING.
Don't make a company the villain for objecting to things that are nice in (ancient) principle, but unworkable in reality.
It's the companies who have made themselves the villains, in oh so many ways. Among them is objecting to things that are nice in (modern) principle, and entirely workable in reality.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
This is not just about phones. It's also about laptops.
Here's a link to a Dell Latitude manual that explains how to replace parts:
http://downloads.dell.com/manu...
Please provide a similar link for a Macbook repair guide. Let's just say I'm not holding my breath.
lucm, indeed.
that you shouldn't be able to fix something you found either or something that was given to you.
they don't care if you don't buy a new iphone. they care that YOU DO NOT FIX your friends iphone so he has to buy a new one.
btw want to know what apple is going to do with next iphone? just epoxy the whole fucking thing and call it thermal management.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Exactly what types of broken states of a phone are you requiring a company to publish guides to fix, and make parts available for?
This is horribly simple, such that any simpleton should be able to figure it out: any documentation they produce for in-house use should be provided to any customer, and all parts that they replace in-house should be available for sale to any parties at a reasonable price.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The schematic for the TV set was inside the box. You pulled tubes and took them to the store to be tested. The companies made money hand over fist, and independent repair shops did OK too.
The companies that made those old TV sets *did* eventually go into decline, and in some cases Chapter 11. That had nothing to do with independent repair shops. It had everything to do with other countries making things more cheaply under an open trade policy, and other companies being more innovative.
So. Go ahead Apple. Try to lock yourself into the top spot. Go ahead. We dare you. Oh, and Cupertino? Rochester, NY and Detroit, MI might have some lessons to teach you. Enjoy your spaceship. These are the good ol' days.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
So you're an AstroTurfing Apple fucking shill.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
look all they want is schematics and lists of test points.
if you had been paying attention apple has now been actively working with their products against that.
the only one with diagnostics sw as well for example for modern apples is apple themselves AND APPLE DOESN'T FIX BOARDS so they don't really do anything with them. funny ?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Ask yourself, how complex is the issue of making a manufacturer publish repair guides so that the public could repair an iPhone?
Approximately zero. They already have this info - they need it to be able to do repairs. So the sum total effort required is publishing their existing documentation on a website.
Once money changes hands, the hardware is yours to do as you please. Repair it yourself if you want. Pay someone else to do so. Swap out the SIM card and use it on any random cellular network. Leave it in the box in the hopes that it will one day be a collectors' item. Use it in a "will it blend" video. It's all the same. You already have the right to do any and all of these, and Apple can't do a damn thing to stop you.
What these laws are about has nothing to do with your personal rights. What's going on is that third-party corporate interests want to force Apple (and, to be perfectly fair, others) to help them, gratis, build their own businesses. They don't want to bother doing the work to establish relationships and supply chains with components manufacturers in Asia. They want to take a shortcut and glom onto the work Apple has already done. They don't want to learn how to do things themselves, or even to do a Chilton's style teardown. They want Apple to give them free access to their intellectual property.
There's no rights issue involved at all in these "right to repair" laws. People have rights. And you already have every right to do whatever you like with your hardware. This is about businesses wanting to take shortcuts. And screw Citizens United with a rusty sideways crowbar. Businesses aren't people. They're a convenient legal fiction sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere. They don't have rights.
Imagine all the people...
Lets hear a story about a client of mine from two weeks ago.
She was using her computer one day. Goes to turn it on - and the hard drive symbol is flashing on the screen.
So she books an appointment with a Genius. Takes her 2010? 2012? IMAC to the Apple store for a hard drive replacement.
Only to be told "I am sorry. They do not make parts for that model anymore". Disappointed and a little suspicious she contacts my company. I advice her that not only did they mislead her - but I am going to make her computer faster than when she bought it by throwing in an SSD. I am sure you know what the results were.
It was very evident then and it is evident now that the reason why they do not want people to repair their products is because they want the customer to have to shell out money for a new device.
If greed is going to be the sole motivator for the majority of these businesses. As consumers we are going to be left in a very awkward position in a few years when the big business has managed to squeeze out all other competitors.
20% market share and they think this will get them to 21%. LOL.
Until we lose the right to repair, sadly...
"Apple kicks dogs and steals from your grandmother!"
What a shallow and attention-seeking headline.
What a shallow and obvious Apple astroturfer. Enjoy that free iPhone they gave you, until it needs to be repaired.
You're being given another source of (potentially more lucrative) aftermarket repair product sales, such as controller chips, processors (many shops can reflow these on no problem) headphone jacks, charge ports, etc.
You can charge money for the access to the documentation.
There's so much money to be made that if I were a SMART manufacturer, I'd be sitting here opposing anyone that opposed this law, and going ahead and doing this anyways, and start eating straight into the sales of Apple, Verizon, etc.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
But if you take my right to lockdown my tractors, how am I going to force the farmers to pay me for every repair?! -- John Deere
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I agree with the previous poster. Nobody except Ford should be allowed to fix my Ford car or even change the oil. It's much better for me if competition doesn't exist at all. I don't want my unqualified "grandpa" from changing my air filter. I'd rather pay $600 in labor for it.
Jackass.
MacBook repair guide:
How to replace the CPU:
- See how to replace the motherboard.
How to replace the RAM:
- See how to replace the motherboard.
How to replace the SSD memory:
- See how to replace the motherboard.
How to replace the WiFi module:
- See how to replace the motherboard.
How to replace the Bluetooth module:
- See how to replace the motherboard.
How to replace the motherboard:
- The motherboard isn't a serviceable component and it's not available to the general public. See also: how to buy a new MacBook.
How to buy a new MacBook: http://apple.com/macbook
...give a shit about their rights to repair.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Lobbying is bribing, I don't understand how the whole country is content with this situation.
This system is a democracy of corporations, where votes are cast with money, and lots of it.
You know, a long time ago I used to feel like Apple actually cared about me as a user. They made some neat stuff that was genuinely easy to use, and whenever they came out with new stuff, it was generally worth upgrading to. If not, then you could be sure that your current hardware would continue to work as well as the day you got it until it broke. They didn't go out of their way to make it easy to service stuff, but they didn't make it hard either- anyone with half a brain, a copy of the service source manuals, and a few tools could pretty much fix 99% of the issues their hardware encountered after a reasonably long life of use.
I look at Apple today, and I just have to shake my head.
The iPhones are now being cryptographically paired on an internal component level. This is being done in the name of "security", which is bullshit, it's just great for their bottom line. You can't install any other software on them other than iOS, which again, is being done in the name of "security", but that too is bullshit- they just want to force upgrades down your throat to the point that your device becomes an inoperable mess (like the 4S and iPad 2 running iOS 9).
The iMacs have gone from a 100% modular, user serviceable layout (which was quite a remarkable feat of engineering) to a 100% user unserviceable built-as-cheaply-as-possible-in-China system, complete with all the major components soldered to the system board and non-reusable foam sealant all around the glass panel (which you have to break and replace to open up the system).
The Mac Mini has gone from a 100% user serviceable system that you could literally open up with two thumbs- to a system with half the power and soldered RAM on the main board. You can no longer open up the case without using special tools.
The laptops all have built-in permanent batteries adhered to the entire upper chassis. You need a new battery? You get a whole new upper chassis. The keyboards aren't even designed to be the least bit liquid resistant, and they're manufacturing them so thin now you're pretty much screwed if you ever drop the machine and warp the chassis (which you will, because it's made out of an extremely soft aluminum).
Then there's the Mac Pro, which went from a gorgeous silver tower that screamed "POWER" to... A tiny cylindrical machine that's prone to thermal throttling when loaded down to 100%, and the 2nd GPU is only accessible through an API that never quite worked right (OpenCL) and is now in the process of being depreciated and dropped.
Now I hear of stuff like this, and them insisting on recycling facilities shredding (yes, shredding) used Mac systems... What the fuck happened to this company? I've never seen a corporation so hell-bent on producing user hostile hardware before. I don't know why people continue to buy their stuff.
Why competition is bad? Why not let "grandpa" to compete with Apple on the market? Exactly, what market we are talking about? Apple doesn't repair your phone, they tell you to buy a new one.
If this is an honest reply, it suggests that your ignorance of the scope of the activities of capable people is quite astonishing, especially for someone who might be reasonably assumed to self-identify as a nerd.
If otherwise, and you're a private citizen with no financial ties to Apple, you might wish to consider the atavistic concept of tribalism and its influence on your views. Self-awareness is sometimes painful, but vital for a healthy relationship with society.
Watch this guy build his own iphone https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If Apple really cared about the environment, as they say they do, they would make it easy to reuse and repair.
Compact and powerful or easy to repair and reusable.
Guess what people is voting with their money.
Dell get a lot of shit but their repair guides are great, and go down to the "how to open without breaking". Latitudes are considered "professional", I don't know if it applies to all their models though.
The company has 100s of billions in back and are just sitting on it.
They could probably singlehandedly cure cancer... But they don't.
I couldn't tell if he was sarcastic or not.
I'm curious to know if he thinks Ford should be the only one to change to his spare tire or oil, considering many people do it themselves because it's easy to do...
Those, incidentally, would be lost if right to repair was struck down...
The manuals for Precision and PowerEdge are absolutely awesome, too. Build quality of PowerEdge is great these days.
The one law that would make a big difference there would be requiring vendors to unlock bootloaders and provide documentation for all hardware interfaces when they stop providing security updates. When an iDevice stops getting iOS security updates, it quickly becomes unsafe to use on a network and basically a brick. If you could install a third-party OS on it then that would make a big difference to waste (and, given the relatively small number of device types, it would be comparatively easy to support). Of course, this would mean that after a few years you'd probably see more iPhones running Android than iOS...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Fuck you red States!!
Enough whining about smartphones. What about fixing other devices?
http://modernfarmer.com/2016/0...
The "hard disks" are unrepairable due to they use locks for avoiding all kind of fixes.
Resoldering components is done all the time. It takes very little time if you know what you are doing.
Except for maybe screen repairs, is repairing any smartphone a good option? Personally I wouldn't pay anyone to repair a smartphone or most electronics for that matter. If your smartphone is under a warranty the manufacture doesn't try and fix your phone. They exchange it for another one and either recycle the old one or possible resend it through manufacturing as a refurbished.
Instead of dicking around with toy cell phones, hacker skill would be better spent on big, long lasting equipment, which locks out owners. I am talking about John Deere's difficult tractor software, and hacking cars. John Deere tractors are real machinery, and it will get the attention of the media, and legislatures in farm states. The farmers might not have hacking skill, but they do have money and political power.
Also, used car buyers will choose a car, which can be repaired at old age.
nt
But that's already the case. I can go to a few dozen shops in less than 10 miles that will repair ANY smartphone.
There is no law against fixing/breaking your stuff, not even the DMCA. And if you really need something you can tinker with, you don't buy a Samsung or Apple device.
The real problem is the language in some of these bills. It would for instance allow you to break your device open for a repair and then go back to the manufacturer and have them uphold a lifetime warranty. Or third party medical equipment repairs where liability continues to be with the manufacturer.
This won't impact big companies like Apple, they have the money to keep stocks of parts for 10 year old devices. But imagine being a small "manufacturer" of a computer and you have to keep stocks of various interfaces and sizes of hard drives (every permutation of IDE, SATA, SCSI, SAS, FC and 40GB, 80GB, ...) and every time something breaks you have to not just send out parts but keep them stocked for the "lifetime" of the device (25 years?).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
auto repairs has a long legal history that established your right to repair.
cellular phones or other electronics? not so much.
and auto makers are doing what they can to make cars unrepairable by mere mortals, as well.
and with the shift to electric, that will only get worse.
They sure is.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
A) any victory gives good momentum.
B) tractors requires a change in EPA regulations designed to fuck off-road toys.
Read parent again, slowly. He means not what he says.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Really highlights the Stockholm syndrome effect a corporation like Apple has on people, that they defend it to the hilt in its attempts to take away their rights. Pretty hilarious.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
It was killed by "dumping" of sets into the US market at or below cost by Japanese manufacturers beginning in the 1970s, and peaking in the 1980s.
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/12...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Try not to cite the corrupt when defending yourself.
It would for instance allow you to break your device open for a repair and then go back to the manufacturer and have them uphold a lifetime warranty.
WARRANTORS SHALL DEMONSTRATE THAT A DEFECT OR DAMAGE WAS CAUSED BY INDEPENDENT REPAIR TO AFFECT THE WARRANTY;
Or third party medical equipment repairs where liability continues to be with the manufacturer.
NOTHING IN THIS SECTION SHALL REQUIRE A MANUFACTURER OF A MEDICAL DEVICE AS DEFINED IN THIS SECTION TO IMPLEMENT ANY PROVISION OF THIS SECTION THAT IS NOT PERMITTED UNDER THE FEDERAL FOOD, DRUG AND COSMETIC ACT OR ANY OTHER FEDERAL LAW, RULE OR REGULATION THAT SUPERSEDES THIS SECTION.
But imagine being a small "manufacturer" of a computer and you have to keep stocks of various interfaces and sizes of hard drives (every permutation of IDE, SATA, SCSI, SAS, FC and 40GB, 80GB, ...) and every time something breaks you have to not just send out parts but keep them stocked for the "lifetime" of the device (25 years?).
NOTHING IN THIS SUBDIVISION SHALL REQUIRE THE OEM TO SELL PARTS IF THE PARTS ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE TO THE OEM OR THE AUTHORIZED REPAIR PROVIDER OF THE OEM.
Honestly, just read the text of the bill, it's not that long.
apple car will give you an error 53 if you use a non apple tire / non apple oil change / non apple charging station / non apple lights and so on.
If I were king, the following would happen where 'should' is expected behavior and 'must' is required by law.
For X in "Apple", "JohnDeere", and many, many others do:
As a technical matter, if X can train their repair network to fix something, then there are definitely folks external to X who can do it better.
That is because X has to train a wide variety of folks and they can't compete with cherry picked external folks.
Clearly, not all external folks are cherry, but the market is there to find the ones who are.
X doesn't have that luxury because they have to provide service over a wide service network.
Legally, X sold the product and the owner should be able to do with it what he wants.
Unnecessary software interlocks must not prevent this.
Warranty terms must not prevent this either.
An interesting question, is should X be required to provide parts to facilitate this?
I think the correct answer is X must provide the same parts they provide to their repair folks.
This must be at a similar price.
Another interesting question is should X be required to provide documentation to facilitate this?
I think the answer is they should freely provide what they provide their repair folks.
If this information is bundled inside a repair tool, then they should document what the tool does.
If they are not willing to do this, then they must not stop third parties from reverse engineering to figure it out.
Patents and copyright are to prevent others from selling a gadget, not to prevent folks from repairing the gadget they rightfully own.
A software license agreement on a consumer good must not be able to prevent this.
This will certainly make for interesting squalking, but it should get us back to where we were before all this consumer and environmentally hostile no repair stuff happened.
The expected consequence of this would be for companies to make things that even they can't repair.
I think the marketing of the product must clearly state what about the product is repairable.
Clever legal tricks like 99 year leases or every thing is a service must not be able to circumvent this.
If it should smell like a sale, it is a sale, even if legal perfume is covering the smell.
(This especially applies to license agreements that 'un-sell' the right to use a copy of s/w.)
Doing this to one company might not be fair.
It would put that one company at a competitive disadvantage.
Doing it to the whole consumer industry should provide a level playing field.
Both company to company and company to consumer.
It would be really interesting to hear what moral justification X is using to stop this other than because we made it and we want to.
The exclusivity of the 'we made it' right ended at sale.
The answer to 'we want to' is 'nice try'.
IP67/68 water resistance pretty much requires a sealed device, and sealing smartphones pretty much guarantees they are irreparable. Sealing with adhesives, thermal or other, denies the average consumer a means to disassemble the phone just to change the battery.
And we will accept water resistance because the phones are so expensive we don't want a brief moment of strawberry daiquiri exposure to cost us even the deductible.
And while battery life isn't on everyone's mind when they buy a new hot phone, it's a fairly common problem to see battery capacity diminish after 2 years. That is, for most of us, at least 800 charge cycles. Nothing is on the horizon that will do better. So we are mostly on a 2 year life cycle for most smartphones, especially the hot fast cool ones. 30 bucks a month in the US.
By design. For a long time to come. And more not less.
To be able to repair current design phones will require compromises, either design compromises or feature compromises. Water resistance the first.
When I laundered my M7 I was really, really peeved. Mostly because I could not disassemble it sufficiently to dewater it. Well, actually mostly because I even sent it through half a dry cycle... But I could, then, replace the display on my wife's iPhone 6s. The M7, impenetrable. And now my Android choices are limited, if I want to skip a generation of CPU and step up to the most current chipset. Which of the options I have are fixable? Oh, and support my carrier's better radio bands, WiFi hotspot, WiFi calling, oh that gets difficult.
We are being designed into losing the ability to fix stuff that could be fixed otherwise. I've been a two-way radio technician, calculator and tape recorder repairperson, typewriter repairperson, then PCs, but I can't see how to repair most smartphones for a living. The tools. The techniques. Impenetrable.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Why competition is bad? Why not let "grandpa" to compete with Apple on the market? Exactly, what market we are talking about? Apple doesn't repair your phone, they tell you to buy a new one.
I'm glad to see that you agree with me. Chris Katko agrees with me too - it seems that your sarcasm meter failed and is in need of repair. Fortunately, there's no need to contact Apple for repair or replacement - you can do it yourself!
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Consumer hostility certainly requires a degree of courage.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Wait, it'll give you a specific error message and not just a SadMac?
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
it's just not worth the cost to do those kind of repairs vs. just replacing the whole board.
Lets say a laptop motherboard of a laptop costs $600 and the swapping costs another $100.
Cost of a replacement part $20
Time to diagnose problem 1 hour
Time to do repair 1 hour
Cost per hour for technician $10,
Cost of equipment to diagnose and repair $15000 (over two years of full time work that is about $90 an hour).
Money saved: $300 the customer and repair shop split that.
Even using extreme numbers I come up with a significant amount of savings.
In a realistic scenario the savings are even more than $300, a technician can easily do many different component level motherboard repairs in 20 minutes total with equipment costing less than $5000, for a labor cost of under $60/h, with a part cost of $2, on a motherboard that would cost $1000 to replace. Money saved: over $950 to be split between the repair shop and customer.
You shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about.
My sig doesn't address Anons, sigs aren't visible to them.
You'd think by now we would have had enough common sense to be able to update phones with updatable parts. Throwing away a phone, case and all, is insane.
Maybe next they could work on standardized connection interfaces for power tool batteries.
I wish I understood why Apple opposes it. Is it simple they want you to buy new phone (aka more sales $$$)? or do they have another reason for their opposition?
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
Spot on. Dell is amazing in how they make their full repair guide relatively easy to find and accessible to the general public.
There do exist Mac repair guides, but they're only available to certified Apple repair techs and I'm pretty sure posting them publicly would not be smiled upon.
Sometimes the Dells are easier to repair (especially the Latitudes and Precisions, but never the Inspirons), for some things the MacBooks are admittedly easier to repair... although the parts cost 10X as much, and things that should be replaceable, aren't... for no legitimate reason other than to make Apple more money.
(I am an authorized Dell repair tech AND an authorized Apple tech, so I have a unique and interesting perspective. Happy to answer any questions as long as I can keep tabs on this since I'm posting anonymously).
IP67/68 water resistance pretty much requires a sealed device, and sealing smartphones pretty much guarantees they are irreparable. Sealing with adhesives, thermal or other, denies the average consumer a means to disassemble the phone just to change the battery.
/me looks at his IP67-rated Galaxy S5
The whole "we need to glue these things down to make them thing/waterproof/solid-feeling/etc" is just bullshit.
What Macbook is easier to repair? They glue in the batteries, the screens are glued in, they use pentalobe security screws, they use non standard connections for ssd's. They intentionally make your device harder to maintain.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
What Macbook is easier to repair? They glue in the batteries, the screens are glued in, they use pentalobe security screws, they use non standard connections for ssd's. They intentionally make your device harder to maintain.
In general, yes, but when you DO need to replace the entire motherboard, it's easier to access in a MacBook. In the Dells it's usually a few layers down. Or if you need to replace the entire display (always the case in a Mac, although usually not the case in a Dell) it's easier to get the entire display removed on a MacBook.
Don't get me wrong: I lambast Apple regularly about their hardware (and software) decisions and find them to be extremely anti-consumer. I advise everyone I know and my clients to NOT buy MacBooks. But on a couple items they are admittedly easier. On the vast majority, however, you are right: they are unnecessarily evil.
Now, on an iMac, I can't think of a single thing that is designed in a sensible, sane, pro-consumer, pro-repair method. That line can go to hell.
more important is your right to contract, right of association, and right to work outside of corporate employment.
Anyone can createvan architecture parallel and compatible to the iPhone. If this was an open market as was homebrew computing back in the 80's and 90's then there shouldve been compwtitors names Fapple HipPhone or Gapple HiPhone.
Instead we see less innovation everyday.
To be fair, IP67 is dust resistance. IP 68 is water resistance. I double dog dare you to change the battery on a S8 without gloves and a screwdriver, and make it something like it was originally... And new adhesives.
Yes, it can be done.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
No, the first number is the rating for solid intrusion and the second is for liquid intrusion. Notably, the two numbers are on totally different scales with 6 being the max for the first number but not the second. Both IP67 and IP68 are equally "dust proof", but the IP67 is a relatively poor water resistance rating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And even at that, all the techs I know (more than a handful) would be willing to pay for the information, so it's not even that they're asking for it for free. Right now, Apple makes nothing on an independent repair shop's work; they don't get a device sale, they don't get parts sales, they don't get repair fees, they get nada. If they sold schematics, tools, and parts -- all of which these techs are getting their hands on regardless -- they'd get money from that. It would be a net win all around.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
So then what is the point of the bill? Apple could just decide that the 'parts' for the 2016 iPhone are no longer available in 2017 and there goes your 'right to repair'.
In regards the Warrantors Shall Demonstrate - the section right prior says that the warranty is to be upheld even when the repair is done with 3rd party products. And try to demonstrate a defect/damage was caused by the repair/3rd party product! Again, nothing for an Apple-sized company.
This bill basically allows you to deconstruct an Apple iPhone, replace all it's parts with knock-offs and then go back and get a new authentic one from Apple and the NY bill you quote doesn't even apply to motor vehicles.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Exactly this. I'd also like to add that competition won't kill first-party repair, or even replacement sales. This is true because many people (in some markets, most people) won't trust a 3rd party repair and some, still, won't trust any repair and will buy a new device even when the old one can be fixed.
Any one who needs proof of this need only look at the auto industry and see that dealer service departments still exist. Try and schedule an appointment at a dealer service center and you'll quickly find that they're always busy. Always. Despite charging much more than 3rd party repair centers.
Anyone still not convinced can look at Apple's own service center, the Genius Bar. Good luck getting a same-day appointment; and that's despite the very strong 3rd party repair market for Apple devices. A market that already exists and hasn't killed Apple's own repair services isn't going to kill Apple's repair services if it exists... because... it already exists and hasn't killed them...
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The funny thing about item B is that, unless driven on public roads, those off-road toys are exempt from EPA regulations anyway. Because it's not exactly unheard of to completely destroy your off-road toys while using them off road, you should be hauling them to your favorite "playground" on a trailer, at which point the EPA can't say shit about you running it with no exhaust manifold at all, should you choose to; let alone any other modifications you might want to make.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The problem is that Latitudes are MEANT to be serviced, hence why you can access the service manual. There are service manuals for MacBooks as well, but they detail low-level procedures with diagnostic software that Apple does not want anyone to have outside of a Service Center. (New GSX accounts are not available unless you are a real Apple Store, and even then you still can't get the really good stuff)
Samsung, however, does a really excellent service by providing the schematics for their motherboards! I was pleasantly surprised, and went to diagnosing some laptop that wouldn't begin POST. I wasn't quite as good as I am now, so I called it corrupt firmware, but I was still able to probe around the board for a few hours. The only thing that's missing is a board view file so I know where a component on the schematic actually is.
Too bad Samsung can't figure out how to make a repairable phone
Model A1278. Seriously, if repairing a non-retina macbook is beyond you, then you really don't need to be fixing computers.
Resoldering components is done all the time.
But not by the manufacturer, usually. Therefore, no argument to make the SoC available separately for example.
Right now, Apple makes nothing on an independent repair shop's work; they don't get a device sale, they don't get parts sales, they don't get repair fees, they get nada.
But overall, they make more on new device sales than they'd make by making the parts available officially. Not everyone will take the phone to anywhere but Apple until the big name stores are getting into the repair business - which they won't if there's no official parts source - too much liability.
The last update an iDevice gets tends to slow it down so much that no one wants to use it anymore anyway. At least that was true with my iPod touch.
This bill basically allows you to deconstruct an Apple iPhone, replace all it's parts with knock-offs and then go back and get a new authentic one from Apple
If you replace all its parts, then it isn't the iPhone you bought anymore. This bill means that if your touch screen on your printer shorts out, they won't void the warranty for using third-party ink. There are lots of situations where it's tough to tell if the third-party part would cause a problem - and I'm sure the courts would side with Apple on some of those if it came to that. But having your digitizer replaced should not prevent you from getting a replacement for a faulty battery.
So then what is the point of the bill? Apple could just decide that the 'parts' for the 2016 iPhone are no longer available in 2017 and there goes your 'right to repair'.
But as long as Apple has the means to repair it (for their fee) everyone else does too--that's the idea of the law.
The big name stores are already authorized repair facilities, so your argument isn't holding a whole lot of water.
Yes, I only linked to Best Buy... which other big name store still does repair?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Either way - you can't do it unless you're approved by Apple. And with that, probably some requirements on pricing have to be agreed to. No one else can get the parts - and that impression alone carries to even the authorized service centers.
Except that yes, you can get the parts. And the tools. And the schematics. Plenty of 3rd party repair shops do these repairs in a daily basis. You have to be willfully ignorant of this fact in order to believe otherwise; please, don't be willfully ignorant.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
They're not really 3rd party. They're 100% locked to Apple's policies, NDA, pricing restrictions, etc. About the only difference is that they're not Apple employees.
No... they're not. That's just one example, in no way affiliated with Apple and in no way unique. Did you really think I was talking about authorized repair partners?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Oh, and before you try to claim that Rossmann Group is an Apple Authorized Repair Partner... No.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Ironically, you're making up figures all over the place, assuming that a $10/hour technician can be trusted to make board-level repairs reliably, and ignoring such things as warranties and part stocking. You also are making up part costs and the probability that a faulty motherboard can be reliably fixed with a $2 part.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
My iPhone is over three years old, so I wait when an OS upgrade is available and google things like "iPhone 5S iOS 10.3" before going ahead with it. I've saved myself some useful life that way.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Depends. Does the replaced digitizer demand more power, or at least different power? Did the installation nick or otherwise damage the battery?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I can "make up figures" because I am at least, unlike you, a little familiar with the third party repair industry.
A $10/hour tech can make the repairs but can only diagnose a limited amount of problems. If you are working exclusively with one brand of computer and only fixing the simple problems then sure. Anything more advanced than the 10 most common component failures is gonna require someone who knows how to actually diagnose a problem that may not have been encountered before or 4 hours of a $10/h techs time. It should be noted that I deliberately did not talk about wage, my numbers were total cost.
Take a look at a motherboard, most of the components are resistors, capacitors and diodes. Those are pennies each. Many of the chips are
So sure, go ahead and tell someone who knows more about something than you that they are wrong.
My sig doesn't address Anons, sigs aren't visible to them.
So then what is the point of the bill?
To ensure fair competition in the repair business.
Apple could just decide that the 'parts' for the 2016 iPhone are no longer available in 2017 and there goes your 'right to repair'.
They could, as long as it does not go against other laws and regulations.
You have to look deeper than the name of the bill. It does not aim to give you an unconditional right to repair. It aims to give you the same right to repair that the manufacturers and their "authorized" repair centers have. No more, no less.
In regards the Warrantors Shall Demonstrate - the section right prior says that the warranty is to be upheld even when the repair is done with 3rd party products. And try to demonstrate a defect/damage was caused by the repair/3rd party product! Again, nothing for an Apple-sized company.
This bill basically allows you to deconstruct an Apple iPhone, replace all it's parts with knock-offs and then go back and get a new authentic one from Apple
You have absolutely no idea how warranties work. To give a car analogy (this used to be popular on /.) : installing an aftermarket entertainment system should not affect powertrain recalls.
and the NY bill you quote doesn't even apply to motor vehicles.
Yes, I saw that and was very perplexed. The only explanation I can offer is that the automakers lobby has deeper pockets.
The human species is dooming itself to extinction by accepting the premise of throw-away products as a convenience and to raise sales. We will be buried by our overconsumption.
PlaynBass
If Apple doesn't want to repair PCBs, that's their prerogative. But if we don't require companies to meaningfully recycle their e-waste (which in e.g. California is paid for, if not actually done, via a tax levied at the time of purchase which entitles residents to dispose of any and all electronics for "free" at landfills and transfer stations) then nothing good lies down that road.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I still use a flip phone. I don't need to be connected to the freaking Internet 24/7. And I'm not on Facebook.
That's what diagnosis is for. You don't get to automatically void the warranty because of the chance of that. Same as changing the oil on your car. The car warranty is still valid for everything specifically unaffected by the service provider's negligence.
They're not buying parts from Apple. They are buying reproduction parts on eBay from China or from torn down phones. They can't buy parts from Apple and that was the point of this whole article if you weren't paying attention.
With the way current cars work, it's more than possible that an aftermarket system plugging into a CAN bus affects the powertrain. Try to prove one way or the other though, it's usually the smaller entity that loses, not the big companies that are the primary reason for these sorts of bills.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Not my misunderstanding, no, but my mistake in assuming you could follow a conversation.
After all, I did say:
If they sold schematics, tools, and parts -- all of which these techs are getting their hands on regardless -- they'd get money from that. It would be a net win all around.
If I thought Apple was selling them parts, why would I have suggest Apple could make more money by selling them parts?
Once again, my point is that they're getting tools, parts, and schematics regardless of Apple.
To recap our conversation thus far, since you apparently don't know how to click your way up the comment tree and read it yourself: Your argument to the above was that it would hurt Apple's repair side if the big box stores were allowed to do Apple repairs, which I replied to by showing you that those stores (the ones which do repair, at least) already do. You then (incorrectly) pointed out that you can't do these repairs unless you're approved by Apple, which I responded to by making mention of the large community of 3rd party repair facilities that do, in fact, exist. Your response was to imply that those 3rd party repair facilities must be Apple approved; my response was to prove that false.
And here we are, back to you completely forgetting the point, Chad... Creative. I see you converse like you maintain websites -- poorly. Your wide experience really does show in everything you do; it just doesn't show you in the best light.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
it's usually the smaller entity that loses, not the big companies that are the primary reason for these sorts of bills.
That is because the big companies pour vast amounts of money into "lobbying" (read: legalized bribery) efforts to ensure that those bills are modified to benefit them before (and sometimes after) they get tabled. Take money out of politics and the problem will be solved.
Of course, the chances of this happening without a violent revolution are slim, since the people who can otherwise effect such a change are the beneficiaries of those bribes.