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Apple Must Explain Why It Doesn't Want You To Fix Your Own iPhone, California Lawmaker Says (vice.com)
A California state lawmaker says she hopes to make Apple explain specifically why it has opposed and lobbied against legislation that would make it easier for you to repair your iPhone and other electronics. Motherboard reports: Last week, California assemblymember Susan Talamantes-Eggman announced that she plans to introduce right to repair legislation in the state, which would require companies like Apple, Microsoft, John Deere, and Samsung to sell replacement parts and repair tools, make repair guides available to the public, and would require companies to make diagnostic software available to independent shops. Public records show that Apple has lobbied against right to repair legislation in New York, and my previous reporting has shown that Apple has privately asked lawmakers to kill legislation in places like Nebraska. To this point, the company has largely used its membership in trade organizations such as CompTIA and the Consumer Technology Association to publicly oppose the bill. But with the right to repair debate coming to Apple's home state, Talamantes-Eggman says she expects the company to show up to hearings about the bill.
"Apple is a very important company in the state of California, and one I have a huge amount of respect for. But the onus is on them to explain why we can't repair our own things and what damage or danger it causes them," Talamantes-Eggman told me in a phone interview. Talamantes-Eggman told me that the bill she plans to introduce will apply to both consumer electronics as well as agricultural equipment such as tractors. Broadly speaking, the electronics industry has decided to go with an "authorized repair" model in which companies pay the original device manufacturer to become authorized to fix devices.
"Apple is a very important company in the state of California, and one I have a huge amount of respect for. But the onus is on them to explain why we can't repair our own things and what damage or danger it causes them," Talamantes-Eggman told me in a phone interview. Talamantes-Eggman told me that the bill she plans to introduce will apply to both consumer electronics as well as agricultural equipment such as tractors. Broadly speaking, the electronics industry has decided to go with an "authorized repair" model in which companies pay the original device manufacturer to become authorized to fix devices.
If you buy a phone and fix it for 10 years, Apple doesn't make any money off of you for 10 years.
God is real, unless declared integer.
Everyone already knows both answers.
The public "official" answer will have to do with brand quality and not tainting their image by allowing inferior unauthorized work to be done, thereby artificially making the units statistically less reliable.
The real reason which they won't say publicly, is because obviously they want to sell you a newer phone.
I had an iPhone5 with an expanded battery that pushed the display out of its case. For $50, I bought a display, battery and "repair kit" from eBay. After watching an internet video 3 times, I was able to repair it, breaking the camera in the process. For another $5, I got a camera from eBay & replaced the broken camera. I was able to use it for a number of years before the charging connector failed. I'm still thinking about repairing it.
As a degreed EE, though, who has worked for some of the high-tech firms (not Apple), I can kind of understand Apple's position. Suppose the battery I bought from eBay had shorted & burned up the phone. Suppose I left a metal fragment in there which shorted one of the I/O pins when I needed to call 911. A repair shop which has nothing to do for a few days might figure out a software mod which causes problems later, etc. Years ago, computers became too complex for component repair and companies went to board repair. With cellphones today, even board repair is difficult -- the best route for a company like Apple is to offer a pretty good trade-in value for a new phone.
Can I get an iphone that's more durable and has a removable battery?
I'm willing to accept it being double the weight and thickness; I bet with the extra structure they can also improve its durability and let me keep my damned headphone jack.
The chances of such legislation passing the California, or any other state legislature, depends on how many legislators Apple has bought. I'm sure Apple's out shopping now.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
That's a consequence of toxic marketing driving intentionally poor design: too-thin phones, too-fragile connectors, non-replaceable batteries, screens without a reasonable bezel around them, etc.
There's no good reason at all a phone can't be designed to be easy to maintain, repair, use and carry.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It doesn't apply to most consumer devices, but certain business/industrial uses require a guarantee the product's repair history is accurate and that the device has never been opened except for authorized, documented repairs.
It's not just the things like medical devices that are highly regulated already, but also things like phones used by police departments where their logs may be entered into evidence.
A good "compromise" would be a tamper-evident, serial-numbered seal that could only be re-applied by an authorized repair center. The authorized repair center would document the serial number of the seal that was on the phone and would document on paper and by video-recording all changes made to the device then re-seal it with a new seal. In most cases, a summary of the repair along with both serial numbers would be filed with the manufacturer or, for special cases where the manufacturer needed to be kept in the dark about it (think: government-owned devices where the fact that the device is even in government hands may be a state secret), with a trusted third party (perhaps a separate branch of the government, with a "digital digest/hash" published to prevent altering the records later).
Manufacturers would have to provide the information and tools necessary to make repairs to the general public at reasonable prices, as is the case under most "right to repair" proposals.
End users who do not need a "legal provenance" on their device's repairs would be free to use 3rd parties for repair. Damages unrelated to the repair done by the 3rd party would continue to be covered by the factory warranty.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
john deere does not want to send a dear john to dealers that need to make bank on dealer only repairs.
Everyone is aware of the planned obsolescence angle, but nobody seems to have noticed that particular irony of California (i.e. the state containing Hollywood) being the one asking for a right to repair. Lots of hardware makers are either in bed with content companies, or are one. As long as DRM is still legal, this results in an unavoidable conflict of interest.
DRM is always what these companies are really talking about, whenever they use the word "security." They mean they want to keep the machine's master's interests secure against the great adversary: the machine's owner.
DRM and right-to-repair are fundamentally incompatible. You can't implement DRM and also be owner-maintainable, because from an owner's point of view, DRM implementations are bugs (or malware, depending on how strict you want to be about the implementor's intent), and bugs need to be fixed.
I think California will cave in on this, and their legislators will eventually realize that it's necessary that people have adversarial relationship with their computers. The only way this can be avoided, is if DRM ceases to be a thing. And the only way that's going to happen, is if it's outlawed.
Expect this bill to die, for much more inflexible reasons than wanting to protect planned obsolescence. They simply can't allow people to be in charge of their own computers. It's not happening.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"If we control everything about the phone, the user gets coordinated synergy between parts."
Table-ized A.I.
Actually, California elected someone who knows exactly how companies make money, and isn't having any of it.
You cannot possibly underestimate how much the California legislature hates business in all forms. My employer has state inspectors dig through their trash cans looking for burnt out light bulbs.
I had to think about this for a while, but it all points back to Apple wanting to sell phones. After I've had my phone for say 3 years why can't I try and fix it? It's not a warranty problem, that's expired. Important point is the phone is mine, not the selling company. I throw the BS flag on the idea it's to keep the integrity of their product. I know, it would be better for me to walk around with a cracked screen on my phone, cause that's great advertisement. Buy this phone, it breaks. And lastly as a couple of people have commented, there is usually multiple detailed youtube videos available on exactly how to do it.
Personally I'm sick of people telling me what do to with my stuff. I'm curious by nature and I've fixed a lot of broken stuff. It's what drive a number of us nerd types. Can I fix this, or better yet, how can I make this better.
This just seems to be all about the money.
Sorry, not all of us want a thick phone.
Bullshit.
Everyone knows iTHICC is the best.
I'm a CIS male.
It implies we don't have the right to do what we want with the products we own, unless the state gives us that right. Nobody that right to us - it is ours by virtue of the fact that we own the device.
What this really is is a law to prohibit companies from using manufacturing process and designs which deliberately impede the owner's ability to tinker with a product. And Apple products are not the most egregious violator. It's printers with chipped ink cartridges which refuse to operate unless you buy a new cartridge from that specific manufacturer. (Software is worse, but it gets a pass because you typically buy a software license, not the software itself.)
They make plenty of money if they keep you as a customer. When your phone breaks you can get a new one, and it might not be an Apple branded phone.
Twinstiq, game news
The walrus ate it.
Coo Coo Ca Choo.
At first that tune just sounded weird to me. But after several listens it started clicking and I now consider it one of the greatest pop-tunes ever written.
Table-ized A.I.
This only comes into the conversation when it's RMS levels of repair. If it were only down to the secure enclave, baseband, and other similar SoC items, this wouldn't really be a problem.
I'd wager that the top five hardware items to repair on the iPhone are as follows:
1. Cracked screen.
2. EoL battery.
3. Lightning connector.
4. Home button.
5. silent switch / volume buttons / power button.
Each of these are reasonably-modular things that a reasonably skilled individual could perform; Youtube tutorials abound for virtually all of these, and none of them interfere with the need for DRM. If these five repairs were possible to do with DIY kits or authorized repair facilities, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Let's start by getting it out in the open, I AM NOT AND APPLE FANBOY, ok, I'll take a deep breath and continue.
I have a lot of gripes against Apple and not being able to easily change the battery in my phone is one of them. On the other hand, is legislature the right way to approach this? Look what happened with the EU and cookies. I don't give a flying monkey's about cookies but now I have to look at a banner on websites that explains in "Web for Dummies" style all about cookies. We all know that most politicians do not understand technology, despite being pissed about how hard it is to fix a phone I don't want one that is thick, heavy and looks like crap. I'm willing to pay Apple's, or Samsung's or anyone else's premium for something that looks like a 21st century phone. If that means it is hard to fix then OK AS LONG AS THERE IS COMPETITION. If I don't like it I vote with my feet and go somewhere else. If there was a monopoly then it would be right to legislate, a monopoly should be forced to offer something that people can both afford and maintain.
More than 10c worth but there you go.
Because, like home computers, smartphones are at the end of their adoption phase; every adult who is likely to eventually have one, now has one. And now they are also nearing the end of their feature phase - a smartphone from three years ago can do most of the useful things a 2018 smartphone can.
Companies like Apple and Samsung know this, and are scrambling to maintain their quarterly sales by cramming in useless features as selling points.
They're scared shitless that once people figure out they don't actually need 32,768 free emoji's or dodgy face recognition then they will stop upgrading. Then they'll replace their phones only when they break.
Enter planned obsolescence, and goodbye right-to-repair.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Replacing the fingerprint sensor triggered a security check that said "hey somebody is fucking with this critical piece of the authentication chain".
It turns out that a lot of people were getting their home button fixed in unauthorized repair shops and this lead to the brickage. Apple's response was to release a software path to unbrick their phone and update the OS to instead just disable the TouchID when it detected an unauthorized sensor replacement.
.... Apple makes all its money selling hardware, so they don't want things repaired or upgraded, they want the sheep to buy the "new" one, which is usually pretty much the same as the old one.
Thefact that they ate allowed to explain things is already bad. It should not matter. Being allowed to repair should be a given.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Most electronics are so tightly glued together that a repair is close to impossible. The right to repair is a necessity, but one that has to be followed by repairability rules. Manufacturers of consumer electronics like Apple should get in front of this debate if they want to keep control. There are plenty other offenders, like Amazon and their Kindle devices. They cannot be rooted and once Amazon decides that updates are no longer needed the devices degrade in usability rather quickly.
The bits for these screws can be bought for cheap online. They are not as tamper resistant as you might think. That said, Black & Decker is since eons of craptastic quality. I suggest your grandmother brings it back to the store and gets a better brand.
While Apple is the big name attention getter in all this the real drivers for this are the farmers. They NEED the Right to Repair since they're locked into support contracts for their equipment. They can't replace any part without a service tech showing up and telling the thing that it's OK to keep working.
Full time farmers tend to be skilled enough to do most repairs to their own equipment and having their combine stand inactive for a day or three until the tech can/will show up is a real problem. Especially since that tech doesn't have to do anything besides that software blip.
If dragging Apple into court so they can show how little sense it makes to have vendor lockout on purchased equipment makes the law go forward I'm all for it. Heck I'm all for it because they're being jerks. But keep your eye on the ball - the farmers who actually produce something necessary to live.
Apple patches slow down old phones?
Apple fans will say that this is to protect the phone and make it last longer. Android fans will say this is to prompt Apple users to buy a new Apple phone.
Apple says you can't repair your phone yourself?
Apple fans will say that this is to ensure customer safety and prevent tampering with security. Android fans will say this is to force you to give Apple a cut of the action.
Looking at Apple's cash reserves, reluctance to contribute to society by paying tax, and rather bad history with working conditions in China I'd say that Apple's track record suggests that it is not in the interests of the consumer that it wants to block this legislation.
You've clearly never run a business in California. (And almost certainly would fail if you tried, here or anywhere.)
When the Big A was created in 20th century, the creators got their start by taking apart stuff and putting them back together sometimes with mods (sometimes creating smoke with results). Though company and its philosophy has changed a lot, many products are basically tinker-proof.
mfwright@batnet.com
How does "right to repair" more imply giving the right than it implies protecting the right?
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