Slashdot Mirror
Apple's iPhone Throttling Will Reinvigorate the Push for Right To Repair Laws (vice.com)
Jason Koebler, writing for Motherboard: The news that Apple throttles iPhones that have old batteries will reinvigorate the right to repair debate as the movement enters a crucial year. Third party repair shops say they've already seen an uptick in customers asking for battery replacements to speed up their slow phones, and right to repair activists who are pushing for state legislation that will make third party and self repair more accessible say Apple's secrecy about this behavior will give them a powerful rallying message. "If Apple were serious about battery life, they'd market battery replacements," Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org, told me in an email. "Apple clearly has a big financial benefit when people decide their phones are too slow and head to the Apple Store for a new phone." Repair.org is a right to repair advocacy group that is made up largely of small, third party repair shops, which is spearheading the effort to get states to consider legislation that will make it easier to repair electronic devices.
Most modern super-thin phones and other devices are glued together in such a way that it's difficult or impossible for even a fairly careful, experienced person with small nimble fingers to get them apart without destroying some expensive component, usually, the screen/digitizer/glass assembly.
This isn't just a problem for phones, but tablets and many modern computers (Surface, cough, cough), too.
Checkout the reviews on sites like teardown.com, and you can see that most (thin) modern electronic devices are held together with glues that are clearly selected with no concern for the device ever coming apart again.
There is no punishment too severe for Apple for deliberately degrading the performance of devices after they have been sold. (This is argualbly far worse than the hardware/software tying & lying that got IBM put under antitrust consent decree back in the 1960's!)
I've uncomfortably used Apple phones for the last several years, but I'm done with that - replaceable batteries and expandable storage are on the required list for my next phone!
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
"If Apple were serious about battery life, they'd market battery replacements," Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org, told me in an email. "Apple clearly has a big financial benefit when people decide their phones are too slow and head to the Apple Store for a new phone."
Apple offers battery replacement as part of their services. Cost is $79 which is not cheap but certainly much cheaper than a new phone.
The only reason I upgraded to iPhone 8 from 6s was the slowness. The 6s more than met my needs with both iOS 10 and 9. 11 killed it. Can I sue?
In other words, a corporate lobby group.
Just remember that the next time you see a lobby group you disagree with that happens to be funded by other corporations. Who funds the lobby group does not inherently change the value of the lobbying. Debate the issue on its merits.
In this case, as a right-winger, I agree with this lobby group, at least on the issue presented here in the way that it is presented. The right to purchase a good, and thereby own it, is a fundamental aspect of a fair, open and free market. If I cannot repair that which I own, then I don't really own it. Now, granted, as we shrink our circuits to the point of ICs, we may not be able to replace individual resistors or diodes or anything, but there does need to be some level of repair available, especially for parts that can wear out. Batteries, even rechargeables, definitely fall under that category. Screen glass probably as well, based on the number of cracked phone screens I've seen over the years.
Not a problem. Simply legislate that any device over say $250 be designed, actively designed to be repairable ie easy example, user replaceable batteries, no ifs not buts, don't give a crap, user replaceable batteries and screens at minimum. This asking and begging for stuff from greedy corporations are you nucking futs, no asking, no begging, grind on politicians until they legislate and fines, a fine per device that is not essentially consumer repairable. Want super thin (bullshit I know) glued together phones sell them for less than $250, suck it up. Every phone more expensive than that and the user themselves have to be able to repair the most likely to break elements of the phone, screen and battery and probably connectors. Think it is not a pretty, basically bugger off, how stupid do you think we really are.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Replacing the damned battery shouldn't be something considered a "repair". It's only the greed and asshole nature of phone manufacturers than make it that way.
"If Apple were serious about battery life, they'd market battery replacements," Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org, told me in an email.
They do.
Good luck finding your next phone. LG G5 user here, but my next phone?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Apple is also known for bricking phones with non-apple batteries. So right to repair should prohibit any means of restricting the right to do so.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Do a little reading. They are doing it for three year old phones because even though it may be charged to 100% the old battery can't deliver enough current and has been observed causing the phone to glitch.
This all seems to be a bit of a made up issue to me. All of the high-end, WATER RESISTANT smartphones have internal batteries. Apple offers free battery replacement to those under warranty or having AppleCare+. They offer battery replacement to everyone for $79 otherwise. No is being forced to buy a new phone because of the battery. If you can afford a $700 phone you probably won't blink at $80 for a battery replacement.
You're adding 100s of dollars in overall cost to manufacture a "repairable" machine while 99% of us don't really care. You're talking access hatches, extra electronics and larger/heavier plastic stuff, more screws just so 1 in 100 people can tinker with it, and half of those actually screw it up during "repairs" making the repair irrelevant or more expensive.
When I was young, I loved to repair stuff, nowadays, I just want it to work, I actually pay extra for on-site replacement on the server hardware. Sure, I can replace a hard drive, but for $180 Apple will do it free of charge and come on-site for the next 3 years. I don't have to worry about screwing up, spending an hour reading up on the various parts and disassembly procedures (if they're even available) and then waiting for days for replacement parts.
How many times have you actually repaired a washing machine? Ever even opened one? There isn't much to it these days, a circuit board and a motor. Replacing any of those costs more than the cost of a new machine in shipping alone, and that's if you get the motor off the pulley without damaging anything. Same goes for the iPhone, after 3-4 years when your battery actually is low enough to be bothersome, your iPhone is worth $50. You want to sink in $50-100 for a repair to extend the lifetime what, a year, maybe two which is exactly the amortized cost of the device.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
sounds like you own stock in LANDFILLS.
why do you hate the earth so much?
(repairing is GOOD FOR EVERYONE. its fucking evil that companies have convinced idiots like yourself that we should live in a throw-away world.)
designing things to be repairable is NOT hard. NOT HARD. but the reason they don't do is is JUST for the cash gab.
sorry, but that's just too selfish a reason; and it hurts everyone but the company. really sucky attitude and I find it very common with younger people. sucks!
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Ah, actually we were both wrong. We both fell victim to bad math; mine too simple and yours too complex. I realized my error half way through reading your post.
A battery that can deliver 1W for 2.28hr would, as you correctly stated, lat 137 minutes (136.8, but I digress). At 10x the power draw, the battery life would actually be 1/10th as long, or 13.7 minutes.
I shouldn't do math with a head cold... and I dare say you were closer to right the first time (3.7min under) than I was (9.1min over). In actual practice, the battery won't be allowed to run flat, so 10 minutes is probably spot on.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Apple pushes environmentalism for a bunch of reasons. The first is that smaller packaging decreases their logistics cost and gave them some free environmentalism creds. Then Greenpeace decided to target them for no obvious reason (they weren't noticeably worse than their competitors for anything that Greenpeace complained about), so they did a bunch more visible stuff. Finally, they realised that if they provide a free recycling service then a lot of people will use it rather than selling their stuff second hand and so they can reduce the size of the second-hand market (which competes with their new product market).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News