It seems many people like Apple products so much that they're willing to put up with this kind of abuse. Apple probably takes this into account and chooses to do unpopular things to increase profit.
The display swap takes a competent technician 10 minutes to perform.
You're full of shit. And I have repaired MANY devices. From "put it on the bench" to "wipe your fingerprints off it and give it back" takes a minimum of 30-45 minutes. And that's if you've done that particular model several times before.
And of course, ESTIMATED BOM costs have little to do with retail price.
Wanna run that same estimate on a top-of-the-line Samsung phablet? You'll find a similar story. And how much will Sammy charge to non-warranty replace that display on an S7? Oh, wait: They simply WON'T.
And a car analogy..... that would be like Ford bricking your car for using a non-OEM water pump or non-Ford spark plugs. Don't support this kind of stupidity.
What? That proprietary, purpose-built parts have to be replaced with like, the same proprietary, purpose-built parts?
Apple didn't "Brick" iPhones out of a want to prevent aftermarket repair, you ninny! It was an Anti-Theft-Circumvention feature. Seriously. So someone couldn't steal/sieze your phone and then UNLOCK it by simply replacing the Fingerprint Sensor (which retains the Fingerprint data INSIDE OF ITSELF) with another one "Trained" to the THIEF'S Fingerprint.
Actually, pretty cool that they thought it through that far, and yet everyone thinks all they are trying to do is thwart third-party repair.
But, as long as you don't have a damaged Home Button, as shown at Step 19 and forward in this iFixit Repair Tutorial, you can fairly easily move it from anold display to a new one, keeping the "pairing" of the SoC and the Fingerprint Sensor intact.
Since Display and Battery replacements are hands-down the most "popular" of mobile-device repairs (pretty much everything else is WAY beyond most user's repair skills in ANY mobile device), I'd say that Apple products are in-line with other manufacturers, as far as "repairability" goes.
Typing this on a Samsung where I replaced the digitizer and screen myself with the aid of youtube video. It was easy. Apple, not so much. They literally booby trap their phones. Samsung screws were all the same length, apple's could have been, but they didn't, so if you lost Track of which screw went where, the screw would push through the screen, breaking it.
So yeah, Samsung easier than apple.
Any technician that has taken apart more than 10 things knows to keep track of which screws go where. Bad on you that you don't know that. Perhaps you really SHOULDN'T be taking things apart, eh?
Take apart a TEAC tape deck sometime. You'll be AMAZED at how many different fastener sizes one device can take!!!
"For instance, the company charges $599 for replacing the display on the iPad Pro tablet. Which sounds insane when you realize that you can almost certainly purchase a new iPad Pro under $700."
Well, on a iPad, the display is everything. So, it is something to expect replacing the display will nearly top the price of the device itself. You pick the most expensive part to compare the brand new one price to the repair. That's not a fair comparison. Almost the rest of the iPad components worth nothing.
Exactly. That's why NOBODY (pretty much) ever replaces the Compressor in a Refrigerator/Air Conditioner, the Display/CRT in a monitor/TV, or the Power Transformer in all but the most expensive of audio equipment. It Just. Isn't. Worth. It.
And guess what? That has been the case for MUCH longer than Apple has even existed. But a story about how much it costs to replace the display in your Dell monitor doesn't get CLICKS...
This has been their policy all along. From weird fasteners that require a special "Apple tool" to almost-impossible to obtain spare parts, there's never been any doubt about their intent - maximize AAPL profit at all cost! (To consumers, that is....)
Apple uses NO "weird" fasteners. Just ones that work better with automated assembly, like Torx and Pentalobe. Every $5 bit-kit from Harbor Freight (or anyone) comes with any size of Torx you need for Apple, and Amazon and others sell Pentalobe screwdrivers.
This ISN'T like "To remove the cylinder 8 spark plug, use GM special Tool #2948820 (made-up SKU). Only $69.95, with a 2-week lead time from your GM Dealer."
And as far as "almost impossible to obtain spare parts", thanks to the internet, that's simply a non-issue. From trackpads to Display panels, Keyboards to Fans, I have never had to search more than a few minutes to find both genuine Apple and Third-Party sources for any Apple part I have needed.
That was all Woz -- Jobs wanted everything closed up & sealed with no user-serviceable parts or expansion.
Except there is another story, about the Apple ][. When Woz was trying to decide on the number of slots to put in (4 or 8), Jobs supposedly said "Make it eight. It'll give 'em something to do."
Actually, the PC was thoroughly officially documented inside and out. OTOH, the Mac required special tools just to open the case. That's not to claim IBM was happy with clones.
If you call an Allen wrench a "Special Tool", I guess...
I was able to read the pictures from the card, but to my surpise, it was not possible to write the pictures back on the backup.
First off: "Expensive"? $30? You must be on a pretty tight budget. How much did your hotel room cost? Howabout dinner?
Second: I would bet you actually can read and write with the Apple card reader; but I haven't found an answer for that for sure.
However, here is a product that is a compatible Third-Party Lightning (not Thunderbolt as you claimed) card-reader, that definitely CAN read and WRITE, so it probably isn't a restriction in Apple's driver.
Oh, and try out "GoodReader" next time. SO much easier for transferring ANY type of data to/from an iOS Device. Best $5 you'll ever spend!
Heck, even if you want to get an equivalent of MS Paint
OMFG!!! You're holding-out MS Paint as an example of "Software not available on the Mac"????
Seriously?!? I've used MS Paint for years, and believe you, me, I wouldn't hold it up as a shining example of ANYTHING...
Besides, this Search seems to show SEVERAL highly-rated Freeware examples of Paintbox software for OS X. In fact, the first one I looked-at from that MacUpdate search, "Paintbrush" is not only Open Source and Free, but is pretty-much an equivalent to MS Paint. So, What's YOUR problem that you can't seem to find anything suitable?
And BTW, NEWSFLASH: NOT EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE HAS TO COST ZERO DOLLARS TO BE WORTHWHILE!!!
If someone feels like they deserve $5, $10, or $20, AND YOU LIKE THE SOFTWARE, FFS, PUT A CROWBAR IN YOUR WALLET!!! Most of those companies have a Free Trial period, anyway (something I admit that really do wish that ANY of the "App Stores" (regardless of platform) would start allowing, though)
But, Damn! Even Pixelmator, which is a DAMN sight more full-featured than MS Paint (and in fact, is closer to The Gimp or Photoshop), is only $30, and it has a Free Trial.
It all just works, assuming that you only want to use it for whatever apple decides to allow you to do...
Let me guess: You've never even TOUCHED a Mac, have you?
Pop open Terminal and see what you think about Macs being "locked-down". Then fire up XCode (FREE, BTW), and tell me that Apple> decides what you can do with your computer.
I used to think that. I was a diehard Linux user. I'd waste hours of my time building my own PCs. Then I tried a MacBook Pro at work, and I found out just how much I had been missing. It just plain worked.
Watch it! They'll call you an "Apple Shill" just like I get called EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. on Slashdot.
Their business model is built around Joe Consumer replacing failing/out-dated products every 24-36 months. That's why they're the most successful corporation on the planet ever.
You can THINK that all you want; but in the case of EVERY Apple-owner I know (and that is more than a few), ALL of them KEEP their Apple products until the proverbial "wheels fall off". Which for an Apple product, is a LONG-ASS-TIME.
In fact, out of the people I know that are Apple owners, I have the newest computer (a 2013 non-Retina MacBook Pro), and the newest phone (iPhone 6 Plus). But, other than an iPad mini that another friend got for a gift last Christmas, NONE of my Apple-owning friends has made an Apple purchase since about 2010.
But also, out of that group, there have only been 2 hardware failures. Both, were batteries. One on a 2009 MacBook Pro, and the other on a 2010 MacBook Pro, both started to bulge and had to be replaced (which is a 5 minute User-Accessible repair, BTW). I also Upgraded an HD in a friend's 2009 iMac. Took about an hour. I hear the newest ones are a bit more challenging, though.
I take that back; I know of 3 hardware failures. Another friend had a power supply failure in his water-cooled Quad-CPU G5 tower a number of years ago. He replaced it himself. He eventually gave that G5 to me, and it sits quietly being an iTunes, Home Security (and other) Server. Not very power-efficient; but way too great an example of industrial engineering to just throw-out, until it finally gives up (if it ever does!).
Or even simpler learn to use tools. The car manufacturers are trying to prevent me from fixing my own car by using , nuts, bolts, screws and adhesives. Forcing me to buy the correct tools and then making me have to figure out what i'm doing.
Fuck them for buying into Apple's bullshit. They deserve whatever pile of shit they get from Apple.
Do you really think it is any easier to replace the Display and Digitizer on ANY modern mobile device?
They are ALL essentially Unserviceable Units (BTW, that's the reason that "Ux" is the designator for ICs on many schematics. It stands for "Unservicable Unit". In other words, there is nothing inside that an average person can fix/replace.
Face it, the days of replacing the Tubes in your TV set are GONE. Hell, with this complex of a device, the days of Component-Level replacement by even most Service Techs are GONE.
Ain't just Apple.
And the reason that Apple opposes this kind of legislation is that it will be TOTALLY unworkable in a practical sense. Even when laptops were 3 inches thick, replacing anything that wasn't on the bottom-layer (top when turned upside-down) was COMPLETELY outside of 99.99998% of average owners, and even outside of the comfort-zone of many experienced Service Techs.
Now that EVERYBODY makes their laptops as thin as possible, the construction techniques to make those designs possible are simply not amenable to repair.
"Where is the rugged 16GB RAM / 1TB Storage / 20-hour battery tablet?"
My answer would be "That's easy: They're hidden under their battery-packs!".
Seriously. Not every stinkin' thing that has a CPU/MCU/SoC in it is EQUIVALENT!
No matter how the industry tries, they just can't get a computing device with an integrated display, 16GB RAM, 1 TB SSD and under TEN hours of battery life into a package weighing less than about TWO pounds.
And then you want it to be "Rugged", whatever that means...
Fine. But people whine about "too heavy" when a Tablet is barely over HALF of that these days.
WTF, over? I thought people who read Slashdot generally UNDERSTOOD what the current state of technology (especially BATTERY technology) is. br.
Guess not.
At this point, people employed by a Government Agency claiming "Lost Data" that cannot be restored from a Backup should be CRIMINALLY culpable for Obstruction of Justice and Breach of the Public Trust. Period.
It's 2016, FFS, there is ABSOLUTELY no excuse for not having Backups. Especially not with the Goddamn AIR FORCE'S Budget!!!
Slashdot Mirror
The sad part is, very few people agree with me
That's not sad; it's a fucking CLUE.
It seems many people like Apple products so much that they're willing to put up with this kind of abuse. Apple probably takes this into account and chooses to do unpopular things to increase profit.
Do you really, honestly, believe that?
The internet is an equal opportunity rant fest
The internet may be (is); but Slashdot is most assuredly NOT.
You can get some Chinese corner store to replace the screen for you for $30.
Sure, with a knockoff display with 100 bad pixels and a digitizer that has a wonky left-bottom-corner.
The display swap takes a competent technician 10 minutes to perform.
You're full of shit. And I have repaired MANY devices. From "put it on the bench" to "wipe your fingerprints off it and give it back" takes a minimum of 30-45 minutes. And that's if you've done that particular model several times before.
And of course, ESTIMATED BOM costs have little to do with retail price.
Wanna run that same estimate on a top-of-the-line Samsung phablet? You'll find a similar story. And how much will Sammy charge to non-warranty replace that display on an S7? Oh, wait: They simply WON'T.
Now what?
Paintbrush was the one I tried, it wouldn't draw anything on the screen and then it crashed.
Then why didn't you try one of the other DOZENS of Applications listed on the MacUpdate search I provided?
if the software is worth the money then people shouldn't have to be forced to purchase it.
WTF are you smokin', Jackson? And can I have some?
That wasn't even a SANE thought.
And a car analogy..... that would be like Ford bricking your car for using a non-OEM water pump or non-Ford spark plugs. Don't support this kind of stupidity.
What? That proprietary, purpose-built parts have to be replaced with like, the same proprietary, purpose-built parts?
Apple didn't "Brick" iPhones out of a want to prevent aftermarket repair, you ninny! It was an Anti-Theft-Circumvention feature. Seriously. So someone couldn't steal/sieze your phone and then UNLOCK it by simply replacing the Fingerprint Sensor (which retains the Fingerprint data INSIDE OF ITSELF) with another one "Trained" to the THIEF'S Fingerprint.
Actually, pretty cool that they thought it through that far, and yet everyone thinks all they are trying to do is thwart third-party repair.
But, as long as you don't have a damaged Home Button, as shown at Step 19 and forward in this iFixit Repair Tutorial, you can fairly easily move it from anold display to a new one, keeping the "pairing" of the SoC and the Fingerprint Sensor intact.
Since Display and Battery replacements are hands-down the most "popular" of mobile-device repairs (pretty much everything else is WAY beyond most user's repair skills in ANY mobile device), I'd say that Apple products are in-line with other manufacturers, as far as "repairability" goes.
Typing this on a Samsung where I replaced the digitizer and screen myself with the aid of youtube video. It was easy. Apple, not so much. They literally booby trap their phones. Samsung screws were all the same length, apple's could have been, but they didn't, so if you lost Track of which screw went where, the screw would push through the screen, breaking it.
So yeah, Samsung easier than apple.
Any technician that has taken apart more than 10 things knows to keep track of which screws go where. Bad on you that you don't know that. Perhaps you really SHOULDN'T be taking things apart, eh?
Take apart a TEAC tape deck sometime. You'll be AMAZED at how many different fastener sizes one device can take!!!
BTW, there are also YouTube videos and the most-excellent iFixIt tutorials on replacing your iPhone Display/Digitizer. And the iFixit ones are always careful to point out which screw-sizes go where.
So now what?
"For instance, the company charges $599 for replacing the display on the iPad Pro tablet. Which sounds insane when you realize that you can almost certainly purchase a new iPad Pro under $700."
Well, on a iPad, the display is everything. So, it is something to expect replacing the display will nearly top the price of the device itself. You pick the most expensive part to compare the brand new one price to the repair. That's not a fair comparison. Almost the rest of the iPad components worth nothing.
Exactly. That's why NOBODY (pretty much) ever replaces the Compressor in a Refrigerator/Air Conditioner, the Display/CRT in a monitor/TV, or the Power Transformer in all but the most expensive of audio equipment. It Just. Isn't. Worth. It.
And guess what? That has been the case for MUCH longer than Apple has even existed. But a story about how much it costs to replace the display in your Dell monitor doesn't get CLICKS...
This has been their policy all along. From weird fasteners that require a special "Apple tool" to almost-impossible to obtain spare parts, there's never been any doubt about their intent - maximize AAPL profit at all cost! (To consumers, that is....)
Apple uses NO "weird" fasteners. Just ones that work better with automated assembly, like Torx and Pentalobe. Every $5 bit-kit from Harbor Freight (or anyone) comes with any size of Torx you need for Apple, and Amazon and others sell Pentalobe screwdrivers.
This ISN'T like "To remove the cylinder 8 spark plug, use GM special Tool #2948820 (made-up SKU). Only $69.95, with a 2-week lead time from your GM Dealer."
And as far as "almost impossible to obtain spare parts", thanks to the internet, that's simply a non-issue. From trackpads to Display panels, Keyboards to Fans, I have never had to search more than a few minutes to find both genuine Apple and Third-Party sources for any Apple part I have needed.
That was all Woz -- Jobs wanted everything closed up & sealed with no user-serviceable parts or expansion.
Except there is another story, about the Apple ][. When Woz was trying to decide on the number of slots to put in (4 or 8), Jobs supposedly said "Make it eight. It'll give 'em something to do."
Actually, the PC was thoroughly officially documented inside and out. OTOH, the Mac required special tools just to open the case. That's not to claim IBM was happy with clones.
If you call an Allen wrench a "Special Tool", I guess...
I was able to read the pictures from the card, but to my surpise, it was not possible to write the pictures back on the backup.
First off: "Expensive"? $30? You must be on a pretty tight budget. How much did your hotel room cost? Howabout dinner?
Second: I would bet you actually can read and write with the Apple card reader; but I haven't found an answer for that for sure.
However, here is a product that is a compatible Third-Party Lightning (not Thunderbolt as you claimed) card-reader, that definitely CAN read and WRITE, so it probably isn't a restriction in Apple's driver.
Oh, and try out "GoodReader" next time. SO much easier for transferring ANY type of data to/from an iOS Device. Best $5 you'll ever spend!
Heck, even if you want to get an equivalent of MS Paint
OMFG!!! You're holding-out MS Paint as an example of "Software not available on the Mac"????
Seriously?!? I've used MS Paint for years, and believe you, me, I wouldn't hold it up as a shining example of ANYTHING...
Besides, this Search seems to show SEVERAL highly-rated Freeware examples of Paintbox software for OS X. In fact, the first one I looked-at from that MacUpdate search, "Paintbrush" is not only Open Source and Free, but is pretty-much an equivalent to MS Paint. So, What's YOUR problem that you can't seem to find anything suitable?
And BTW, NEWSFLASH: NOT EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE HAS TO COST ZERO DOLLARS TO BE WORTHWHILE!!!
If someone feels like they deserve $5, $10, or $20, AND YOU LIKE THE SOFTWARE, FFS, PUT A CROWBAR IN YOUR WALLET!!! Most of those companies have a Free Trial period, anyway (something I admit that really do wish that ANY of the "App Stores" (regardless of platform) would start allowing, though)
But, Damn! Even Pixelmator, which is a DAMN sight more full-featured than MS Paint (and in fact, is closer to The Gimp or Photoshop), is only $30, and it has a Free Trial.
It all just works, assuming that you only want to use it for whatever apple decides to allow you to do...
Let me guess: You've never even TOUCHED a Mac, have you?
Pop open Terminal and see what you think about Macs being "locked-down". Then fire up XCode (FREE, BTW), and tell me that Apple> decides what you can do with your computer.
I used to think that. I was a diehard Linux user. I'd waste hours of my time building my own PCs. Then I tried a MacBook Pro at work, and I found out just how much I had been missing. It just plain worked.
Watch it! They'll call you an "Apple Shill" just like I get called EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. on Slashdot.
Their business model is built around Joe Consumer replacing failing/out-dated products every 24-36 months. That's why they're the most successful corporation on the planet ever.
You can THINK that all you want; but in the case of EVERY Apple-owner I know (and that is more than a few), ALL of them KEEP their Apple products until the proverbial "wheels fall off". Which for an Apple product, is a LONG-ASS-TIME.
In fact, out of the people I know that are Apple owners, I have the newest computer (a 2013 non-Retina MacBook Pro), and the newest phone (iPhone 6 Plus). But, other than an iPad mini that another friend got for a gift last Christmas, NONE of my Apple-owning friends has made an Apple purchase since about 2010.
But also, out of that group, there have only been 2 hardware failures. Both, were batteries. One on a 2009 MacBook Pro, and the other on a 2010 MacBook Pro, both started to bulge and had to be replaced (which is a 5 minute User-Accessible repair, BTW). I also Upgraded an HD in a friend's 2009 iMac. Took about an hour. I hear the newest ones are a bit more challenging, though.
I take that back; I know of 3 hardware failures. Another friend had a power supply failure in his water-cooled Quad-CPU G5 tower a number of years ago. He replaced it himself. He eventually gave that G5 to me, and it sits quietly being an iTunes, Home Security (and other) Server. Not very power-efficient; but way too great an example of industrial engineering to just throw-out, until it finally gives up (if it ever does!).
Or even simpler learn to use tools. The car manufacturers are trying to prevent me from fixing my own car by using , nuts, bolts, screws and adhesives. Forcing me to buy the correct tools and then making me have to figure out what i'm doing.
I assume there was a Sarcasm tag?
The upside of buying Apple is that they appear to provide software updates more frequently and for a longer time after the initial release.
And that's important; because their stuff tends to last longer than most other brands, too.
Which, BTW, GREATLY reduces the amount of WASTE in the first-place, and GREATLY reduces the number of Customers IMPACTED by limited serviceability.
Fuck them for buying into Apple's bullshit. They deserve whatever pile of shit they get from Apple.
Do you really think it is any easier to replace the Display and Digitizer on ANY modern mobile device?
They are ALL essentially Unserviceable Units (BTW, that's the reason that "Ux" is the designator for ICs on many schematics. It stands for "Unservicable Unit". In other words, there is nothing inside that an average person can fix/replace.
Face it, the days of replacing the Tubes in your TV set are GONE. Hell, with this complex of a device, the days of Component-Level replacement by even most Service Techs are GONE.
Ain't just Apple.
And the reason that Apple opposes this kind of legislation is that it will be TOTALLY unworkable in a practical sense. Even when laptops were 3 inches thick, replacing anything that wasn't on the bottom-layer (top when turned upside-down) was COMPLETELY outside of 99.99998% of average owners, and even outside of the comfort-zone of many experienced Service Techs.
Now that EVERYBODY makes their laptops as thin as possible, the construction techniques to make those designs possible are simply not amenable to repair.
Not that simple. You can't just suddenly wish a bunch of people smarter. That won't stop the pileup of toxic waste.
At least Apple is trying to DO something about the waste.
Is Asus? Howabout Samsung? Etc...
The solution is simple: do not be stupid enough to buy anything from Apple in the first place.
And just HOW many Asus, HP, Dell, eMachines, LG, Samsung, etc. mountains of trash do you think are disposed-of in landfills every year?
"Where is the rugged 16GB RAM / 1TB Storage / 20-hour battery tablet?"
My answer would be "That's easy: They're hidden under their battery-packs!".
Seriously. Not every stinkin' thing that has a CPU/MCU/SoC in it is EQUIVALENT!
No matter how the industry tries, they just can't get a computing device with an integrated display, 16GB RAM, 1 TB SSD and under TEN hours of battery life into a package weighing less than about TWO pounds.
And then you want it to be "Rugged", whatever that means...
Fine. But people whine about "too heavy" when a Tablet is barely over HALF of that these days.
WTF, over? I thought people who read Slashdot generally UNDERSTOOD what the current state of technology (especially BATTERY technology) is.
br. Guess not.
You... do... have a backup, ... right?
E
Exactly what I came here to say.
At this point, people employed by a Government Agency claiming "Lost Data" that cannot be restored from a Backup should be CRIMINALLY culpable for Obstruction of Justice and Breach of the Public Trust. Period.
It's 2016, FFS, there is ABSOLUTELY no excuse for not having Backups. Especially not with the Goddamn AIR FORCE'S Budget!!!
In fact, that's what drove MS to make Windows 10 "Free".
Causality fail. Major major causality fail.
Wanna Bet?
Or do you think it was because Linux has been Free for, um, FOREVER?
So, if not from pressure because OS X became free, then you tell me why?