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HomePod Repairs Cost Almost as Much as a New HomePod (theverge.com)
This may not come as a huge surprise, but it's going to be pricey if you break Apple's fully sealed and densely packed new speaker. From a report: Repair pricing for the HomePod was posted to Apple's website this week, and the number is high enough that it's clear you should invest in a warranty if you're worried about breaking one: an out-of-warranty repair from Apple will cost $279 in the US, which is 80 percent of the price of a brand-new HomePod. So you're not so much repairing it as getting a small discount on a new one.
Why bother even repairing them? Apple will do just as well to throw them in the shredder and ship you another one.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
why there is a fixed price to the repair. Surely the cost of repair depends on what is wrong, so I can only suppose that the charge for repair has a lot of profit baked in.Yes: I understand that repair will include a charge for labour, but it was put together in the first place. All the more reason for 'right to repair' legislation that forces a vendor to provide spare parts.
Some credit cards do provide complimentary extended warranty. And EU has 2 year warranty law that Apple can't get around.
Makes no sense. Just spies on you anyway. Why would you want that? Don't even say 'convenience'. Too many of you give up too much for 'convenience'.
I know I'm supposed to give some sort of insightful comment but today I will be giving a loosely poetic, haiku-inspired rant instead.
To discourage the frivolous repair requests and pay for all the "hassle free" returns repair costs must be high.
You do not really care that the costs are high because a Home Pod belongs in the home. The proof is in the name.
You will own one, you will pay for it when you buy it, when you repair it and when Apple monetizies whatever clever data collection they have on you, anonymously or not.
It's quite a recent iThing and you already own many iThings and you know old iThings get "battery optimised" to slow down so you might as well buy.
Also, poor people cannot afford to pay a repair bill that is near the amount of the original item, assuming they can even pay for the original. You, you are not like a poor person, you can waste money so you won't even care.
In fact I just recently bought a HomePod, to put in my home where the Pod belongs and I ruined it just so I can prove I can afford the stupid repair costs and then asked Siri what to do and bought another! AND it connects to all my iThings. Flawless.
Thank you Apple for making iThings. They complete me.
(I admit to breaking with traditional haiku structure. I opted for 19-24-24-32-28-44-53-9 instead)
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
You mean creimer's imaginary 30 year old "girl" who lives in NYC and uses exactly the same weird crammar as creimer?
https://slashdot.org/comments....
... is an advertisement for why not to buy anything from Apple. I am so sick and goddamned tired of their bullshit. I hope as many people as possible will help Apple be a better company by PUNISHING rather than rewarding misbehavior of this kind, by refusing to buy their products. When people ask why you would not consider buying whatever the latest, ludicrously overpriced gadget Apple is trying to force-feed you, just say, “because Apple has become a monster and I refuse to aid or abet them in their crimes against the people.” That is why I won’t buy anything from Apple anymore.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
for any device that comes in bad. Modern electronics aren't very repairable. The whole thing is probably a giant block of solder with an occasional computer chip and a pair of speakers.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
But, lets compare it to Alexa and Google.
Alexa or Google don't come in Apple(tm) color schemes.
Alexa or Google don't have Apple(tm) cases
Alexa or Google don't run Apple(tm) software
Alexa or Google don't have Apple(tm) power adapters
Alex or Google don't have Apple(tm) prices
Alex or Google don't have Apple(tm) replacement costs.
See, neither Alexa or Google have any of these features, making them inferior units, sold at reduced prices, for reduced functionality and quality.
Face it, quality costs money. Want a toy? buy google or Alexa.
Want a quality product, pay for it.
Then again, the poor have to use the free services from google or amazon. You DO get what you do or do not pay for.
Apple's overarching policy is to discourage recycling at all costs. They even mandate recycling companies to destroy perfectly fine iPhones Macbooks.
I have to laugh at Apple fanbois (and sockpuppets) that claim Apple's ostensible green credentials. Truth is, there is no worse company in IT at the moment, than Apple. At least Microsoft doesn't explicitly order recycling companies to destroy their hardware - thought repairability of Surface and Surface laptops is abysmal and effectively nil. But at least they don't lay down the pretense as thickly as Apple does.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Maybe I like being spied on.
What are you doing with your Homepod that it needs repair? It just sits on a table in the corner. It should be out of the way so you don't spill water on it. You won't be moving it around every day, so there should be no physical wear and tear. Plug it into a surge suppressor to protect the electronics from transient electrical surges. Don't keep it under a bell jar... that could cause heat to build up, and would also impede the microphone and speaker.
If Apple did their job right, it shouldn't need repair. Of course if it contains any electrolytic capacitors, then they can age and dry out, but it should at least last 10 years. By that time, you would want the Homepod Pro Plus Mini anyway.
The economics of buying new rather than reparing applies already to many products. There are two strategies: buy good quality and repair if damaged or buy cheap and replace often. Unfortunately the second choice appears to be the better one even for producs which do not innovate that fast. For example: I bike everyday, summer and winter, the bikes start to deteriorate after about two years (which is for me about 6000 miles), pretty much universally so that I have to replace a lot, like breaks, gears, pedals, cables etc. (smaller things can be fixed nicely in bikes still fortunately). Bringing such a bike to a shop can cost close to get a new cheap one. Expensive bikes last longer as the quality of the ingredients is better the chance of having it snatched away. Also with electronics which are carried around, I started to buy frequently new cheaper products more frequently than expensive in larger intervals. Also there, the danger of losing it, or having damaged keyboard, charging plug or battery issues etc makes the first option the better one for me. It is a bit unfortunate that many products also are less and less self repairable.
You (collectively) wanted stylish, small, and cheap. The laws of manufacturing and hardware design don't allow you to just throw "easily repairable" into the equation without paying for it somewhere else.
It comes with a warranty. If you want you can pay $40 more for the extended warranty. Or if you are like many people your Visa card already doubles the free warrantee. And of third party sellers will sell you an extended warranty less than apple too.
It's an appliance. I don't see people whining that the repair cost of the dishwasher is close to the cost of a new one.
Nothing to see here but apple bashing.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How much does it cost to repair Soros speakers if they break? That's who Apple said they are competing with here, and those speakers are more expensive.
I used to be solidly on Apple's side but the Home Pod is so locked to Apple right now I just would never buy one. I get everyone is pushing hard for their own ecosystem but not everyone wants that sort of commitment. Back when the iPod came out you basically had iTunes and that was the best choice. Not today, when you have plenty of options and for me I would want that choice.
How exactly would you damage one?
It's a lump.
It sits there looking lump-like.
Occasionally, you talk to it.
If it talks back, it's no longer just a lump: instead, it's a talking lump.
Mostly it just sits there.
Who also talks about storing their software on cassette tapes when they were in middle school.
I'm just as grumpy as the next guy about finding out about yet another product you can't easily open up and do repairs on. But this thing is just a speaker with some wireless network connectivity, essentially.
I've got some pretty nice Bluetooth wireless speakers over here (a pair of Harmon Kardon Onyx mini's, and my wife has a pair of UE Boom 2's), and these even have rechargeable batteries inside them. Yet they don't look too repairable either. MAYBE the Onyx can be disassembled. I see some "how to" stuff on a Google search that refers to a larger model of the speaker, at least? But I'm pretty sure with most of these -- people just trash them when their batteries finally stop holding a charge.
Typically, speakers last for many years. You used to blow traditional speakers because they weren't mated up optimally to the amplifier they were attached to. If the amp couldn't put out enough wattage for the volume level you wanted to listen at, you got "clipping" -- damaging distortion that tore up the speakers. With these "all in one" units, that shouldn't really be much of a problem anymore. They should handle the maximum volume level they allow you to turn it up to.
I'm pretty confident if I purchased these HomePod speakers, they'd be trouble free for as long as I'd care to use them. Eventually, the built-in amps in these things tend to fail, but I'm talking 10 years or so. I have several nice 3 piece amplified sets of PC speakers that all lasted about that long before the amps failed. (Probably capacitors drying out and failing on the circuit boards -- but I never cared to even try to repair one before.)
They have a history of abandoning devices.
1. Airport Express. I have a bunch of perfectly good routers serving up music in various rooms. Have to use windows to configure it since apple obsoleted the config util on macOS.
2. Apple TVs.
3. The old white Bluetooth keyboards.
At this point even MacBooks look like a dead end purchase so I'm sticking with my old 2012 pro until it's dead. Then we'll see.
That's amazing for a 30 year old girl! So in 1998 she had a collection of software on cassette tapes?
I've been primarily a "Mac user" since around 2000-2001, when I got really tired of the Windows world and discovered the new Mac OS X operating system and all the new hardware Apple was suddenly creating under Steve Jobs' take-back of his company.
Apple really had a good run between 2000 and Jobs' death. Under Tim Cook? I feel like the company hasn't been nearly as pleasing to support and follow along with. The thing is though? Like a lot of Mac users I know, we're all pretty heavily invested in the ecosystem, and it doesn't make any sense to try to bail out on it wholesale. The Apple bashers/haters have been saying essentially the same things since as far back as I can remember. The thing is, I've been into computers and I.T. since the late 1980's and I *also* bashed Apple back in the days of "Classic" MacOS. That's when Apple was at their low point, selling crappy Performa towers that couldn't even multitask well enough to format a floppy disk at the same time you did anything else with the machine.
The re-invented Apple of the Jobs era is probably what kept me interested in computers, when I saw so many of my peers get burnt out on it and change careers and focus.
The "Mac haters" I run across today tend to fall into two camps; The ones who always refused to use a Mac and insist they're substandard, overpriced junk based on an idea nothing changed since 1990 in the business .... and the younger ones who just hate how successful the company is, and/or the fact they can't afford to buy them.
These days, I get paid to support a mix of both Windows PCs and Macs, and I've gone back and forth between using Android phones and iPhones. I typically own some products on both sides of that fence and believe in using the best tool for the job, no matter who manufactures it. All this Apple hate is the same baseless garbage it always was. But that doesn't change the fact that a lot of us who DO still buy Apple's products are feeling a decline in the quality and value for the dollar. There have been a lot of software bugs in OS X and iOS that feel like Apple is slipping on quality control. Product launches such as for the Apple Watch were botched, trying to position it like a piece of high end jewelry or a fashion statement, instead of a piece of tech complimenting an iPhone for the masses. (I think they got that pretty much corrected with "Series 3" of the watch and sales are better than ever on it now.) The HomeKit home automation support was another botched launch, really. Just now, you finally have companies like Belkin selling reasonably priced "gateways" so WeMo devices can work with HomeKit properly -- and until iOS 11, Apple didn't have the HomeKit UI in what I'd call a finished state, either.
My point is? I have a LOT to thank Apple for and have gotten a whole lot of use out of their products. I have enough invested in them that I'm not going to be quick to migrate away from them either. BUT, I'm not going to make apologies for Apple's mis-steps either. I just find the blanket "Apple hate" to be utterly nonproductive and uninformed. If you love products from Apple's competition, you should be thankful every day that Apple survived. Many things you use are better BECAUSE they were challenged by Apple.
As the subject says, I work at an Apple Authorized Service Center. We're a third-party mom-and-pop computer repair store that also handles in-and-out of warranty claims for Apple hardware.
>Cost of repair is 80% of new unit
Yes, and that's intentional. The reasoning is two-fold.
1.) If you decide to buy a new one, Apple wins and makes more money.
2.) If you decide to get it repaired, with these things it's a mail-in repair. Apple does not repair your original unit more than 75% of the time. They mail you a refurbished unit and, if your unit hasn't been run over, shot up, or flushed down a toilet they refurbish your unit and send it to the next person to do a mail-in repair.
It's crappy and I don't agree with it, but it's cost effective and Apple has their customers over a barrel here--of course they're going to take full advantage.
This is why you always, *always* get the extended Applecare or pay for the new insurance. It's worth the extra cost of either or both just so that when (probably not if) it breaks inside the extended three year warranty (but outside the one year warranty), Apple will be forced to fix it for free--assuming they can't say you broke it and call it "customer abuse."
...Apple bend over tax!
Every time I see "homepod" I think of a homo pod and do a double take!
You take two cocks up the ass? At once?