[HN Gopher] Apple's Self Service Repair now available
___________________________________________________________________
Apple's Self Service Repair now available
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 529 points
Date : 2022-04-27 12:07 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Absolutely incredible. Being able to order a legitimate new OEM
| iPhone display is an absolute gamechanger for self repair. I've
| replaced countless screens for myself over the years, and it is
| literally impossible to get a genuine OEM digitizer without
| cannibalizing another phone.
| amelius wrote:
| Can I also repair the software?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Interestingly, the website blocks VPNs or CloudFlare WARP, so if
| you see an error visiting https://www.selfservicerepair.com/ that
| may be the problem.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I wonder if it blocks iCloud Relay as well,since those are
| Akamai / Cloudflare IPs :)
| ecf wrote:
| What a bunch of absolute complainers posting here.
| Hippocrates wrote:
| This is a hilarious retort to the armchair RTR crew that has been
| whining of repairability sabotage and price gouging conspiracies
| for profit. You want the proper tools to do it right? Here's all
| 70Lb of them shipped to you. Have fun.
|
| I hope it seems a little less predatory and "worth it" to people
| now to just pay for an OEM part, installed by a professional,
| with proper tools on hand. I don't think many people will use
| this, but I admire the engineering and initiative behind this
| program.
| TheKnack wrote:
| Something interesting is that it seems that you are paying a
| "deposit" on replacement batteries, which is refunded when you
| return your old battery. After this return credit, the cost of
| replacement batteries is about the same as iFixit and scam Amazon
| sellers.
|
| Edit: Other parts also have a return credit... camera, display,
| etc.
| dunham wrote:
| This is how it worked with Sun Microsystems parts back in the
| day. You'd put in an order, they'd send the replacement with a
| return label for the original. I presumed they did testing and
| maybe refurbished the parts, but no idea what actually happened
| with them.
|
| For phone and computer batteries, it would be kinda nice. After
| going through ifixit, I've now got a pile of old lithium
| batteries that I have to figure out how to get rid of.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| My local Best Buy has a bin in the foyer where they accept
| E-waste.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > I've now got a pile of old lithium batteries that I have to
| figure out how to get rid of.
|
| Home Depot has bins just inside their stores and accept
| lithium and usually even nicad batteries. Other recycling
| locators located on the EPA information page:
| https://www.epa.gov/recycle/used-lithium-ion-batteries
| dunham wrote:
| Thanks. I've taken CFLs there in the distant past, but
| didn't know they took lithium batteries.
| NickRandom wrote:
| In the EU there is the WEEE directive (Waste Electrical and
| Electronic Equipment Directive for those snickering in the
| back of the class!) which states this -
|
| _Distributor obligations - All distributors must: Offer free
| take back on WEEE; Accept WEEE for free from customers
| supplied with like-for-like products, regardless of whether
| this is done in store, online or by mail order_
|
| (You're Seattle based so not applicable in your
| circumstances)
|
| [Source https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulations-waste-
| electrical-and...]
| fy20 wrote:
| My supermarket has a recycling box where you can dump old
| electronics and batteries.
| brewdad wrote:
| My local Home Depot takes lithium batteries now. There
| was a limit on the number they would take at a time
| though.
| sschueller wrote:
| Yep, Switzerland has this too. There is a small tax an
| every electronic item you buy and you can return it to any
| other electronics retailer for free. We used to dump old
| server hardware at the Apple store because it was closest.
| :)
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Something interesting is that it seems that you are paying a
| "deposit" on replacement batteries, which is refunded when you
| return your old battery.
|
| And your problem with this is what, exactly ?
|
| If you are genuinely repairing something then we're only
| talking a small window when you will be out of pocket (the time
| between receiving the part, replacing old one, sending old one
| back).
|
| Apple do the same thing with iPhone exchanges under Apple Care.
| They'll send you out a brand new iPhone in advance (to allow
| you to transfer data etc. as required), but they'll take a
| deposit. If you don't send your broken iPhone back, they'll
| keep the deposit. Seems perfectly fair to me.
|
| AFAIK in one way or another, the practice is widespread in the
| IT industry. For example, I recently replaced a Dell monitor on
| warranty. They didn't take payment up-front, but they certainly
| made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that I would be
| charged if I failed to return the monitor.
|
| In terms of Apple specifically, its basically the way they work
| with their Authorised Service Providers. If the AASP fails to
| return parts, then the cost is billed to their company's
| account with Apple.
|
| The reality is that in the world we live in, these sorts of
| parts/repair services are subject to fraud and other malicious
| use. So manufacturers (whether Apple or otherwise) are
| perfectly entitled to protect themselves.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The potential problem is that unlike your monitor or a
| replacement iPhone where the original still has some value, a
| used up battery has near-zero value and probably less than it
| costs to ship it back in an individual box (as opposed to
| dropping it off at a recycling box at your nearest
| supermarket). This is clearly a bad-faith effort to make
| stocking up on parts impossible and make the entire process
| more inconvenient than it needs to be.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > a used up battery has near-zero value and probably less
| than it costs to ship it back in an individual box
|
| That's if you look at it on an individual quantity. In
| volume quantity there may be other considerations at play.
|
| > This is clearly a bad-faith effort to make stocking up on
| parts impossible and make the entire process more
| inconvenient than it needs to be.
|
| Give me a break !
|
| For a start, this isn't a "parts stocking" programme, it is
| a self-repair programe. You obtain relevant parts on a
| Just-In-Time basis. Jeez !
|
| If you want to stock parts, go become an Apple Authorised
| Service Provider. You even get a credit account so you
| don't have to pony up the cash up-front.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > this isn't a "parts stocking" programme, it is a self-
| repair programe
|
| Why can't it be both? Most existing "self-repair"
| programmes (before such things had to have a specific
| name instead of just "buying parts") such as the ones for
| cars work just fine on the model of "show up at the
| dealership, give them a part number & payment card and
| walk out with your new part". They don't care if you're
| buying these parts to repair your car _now_ or keep it
| for later and managed to stay in business for decades
| just fine.
|
| > You obtain relevant parts on a Just-In-Time basis.
|
| One major advantage of a self-repair programme (as
| opposed to just doing the repair at Apple or an AASP
| directly) is that you can work around some of the
| logistics and make the operation quicker/more efficient.
|
| If you are particularly careless and smash your phone
| frequently (or your friends do, like in my case) you can
| keep spares of commonly-broken parts in advance so that
| the actual repair process is really quick and only
| involves a couple hours or downtime.
|
| Having to order parts in advance _and_ having to return
| the old part in a specific timeframe means you need to
| schedule the entire thing and plan around the logistics
| of it and it can no longer be a "I have a couple hours
| to kill tonight, let's make my phone new again" thing, at
| which point you get back most of the inconveniences of
| doing an official repair such as scheduling it, waiting
| for shipping, etc. I suspect this might be the point of
| these restrictions.
|
| > If you want to stock parts, go become an Apple
| Authorised Service Provider.
|
| Can I become an AASP if I do one repair a month? If so
| sign me up!
| stetrain wrote:
| I don't see where it says they have a problem with it, they
| just called it out as interesting.
| dmonitor wrote:
| That's pretty good for the battery. Guaranteed to not explode
| in my phone, and the old battery gets recycled (presumabley)
| lazyier wrote:
| More conventionally this is called a "Core Deposit".
|
| The idea is that you are buying new or refurbished products to
| replace broken parts. So you pay a core fee so you return the
| broken parts so that they can rebuild them and resell them.
|
| This is common for automparts stores because as long as the
| cast metal parts are not damaged and within spec then there is
| no reason they can't be rebuilt. Alternators, water pumps, etc.
|
| You are not obligated to return the parts. You can keep them
| yourself and if that is the case then they just keep the
| deposit.
| alimov wrote:
| I believe they do a fair bit of recycling to recover various
| metals. I don't think its all fixed up and resold (if any of
| it is fixed and resold at all)
| gambiting wrote:
| I recently had my Omega watch serviced, and it worked the same
| way - parts are X if you send them the old part in exchange, or
| Y if you want to keep the old part. I'm assuming they
| refurbrish the old parts and re-use them, seeing as 50-year old
| watches don't exactly have plenty of parts stock available.
| donthellbanme wrote:
| The Swatch Group is doing everything they can to get the
| consumer to send the watch back to the factory when it needs
| a Service, or repair. They claim it's for quality assurance,
| but it just a money grab. They want that after sale
| guaranteed income. They don't want parts on the secondary
| market so guys like myself (Watchmaker) can procure, and
| charge customers a fair price.
|
| The Reichmont nonprofit does the same thing. (I love throwing
| in nonprofit status. I don't know how they get away with that
| business entity.)
|
| (NCWAA has been fighting for access to parts since the 70's
| with zero progress.)
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Great. iPhones are now cars.
| bmj wrote:
| "Core" charges make a lot of sense for automotive parts that
| be reconditioned/refurbished. I'd much rather have to make
| another trip to the parts store to return my bad brake
| caliper than toss it in the trash. The same goes for
| something like phone batteries. Apple is dangling a carrot to
| get people to return batteries (and other parts) for
| recycling/proper disposal.
| oriki wrote:
| You say that like it's a bad thing in this context. Cars are
| (immensely) far from perfect, but hey, parts interoperability
| is non-zero and for plenty of cars (even newer ones) you can
| still reasonably get them fixed.
|
| It'd be awesome if I could head on down to a phone parts
| store and pick up a couple of components so my phone can live
| perpetually in repair, but we're not quite that far along
| yet.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I think the reason for the return credit is to prevent another
| phone or device manufacturer building a device around an apple
| component.
|
| Apple displays and cameras are certainly not something you can
| buy in bulk on the open market as a device manufacturer.
| gambiting wrote:
| If someone was trying to build a business around buying
| iPhone parts through their repair website, I'd question their
| sanity. Even if that return credit didn't exist, how many
| replacement cameras or whatever could you _really_ order
| before Apple would shut you down? 10? 50? 100? What kind of
| product could you possibly build with that?
| cyral wrote:
| This is probably why it requires your serial number, so
| they can track the number of repairs made for each device.
| ge96 wrote:
| > scam Amazon sellers
|
| Man I hate that. Only reason used devices are a turn off.
| Battery has 100% capacity, cycle it, nope 60% actually "brand
| new, OEM".
|
| Write a comment about this, removed, great
| onphonenow wrote:
| No kidding. There was a reason apple started doing their
| genuine battery warnings (despite the complaints of folks
| like Louise Rossman).
|
| This was a bad scam too because a lot of pretty naive folks
| got suckered in (battery says 100% but phone is dying, must
| be something wrong with phone)
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > No kidding. There was a reason apple started doing their
| genuine battery warnings
|
| Maybe, but that's still a problem they created for
| themselves. Knockoff sellers would never have marketshare
| (and thus less economies of scale, reducing their cost
| advantage) if you can buy the genuine thing for a
| reasonable price as conveniently as you can buy the
| knockoff.
|
| A lot of third-party/aftermarket parts are used not even
| because of cost but availability. Amazon offers same or
| next-day shipping for a lot of these knockoff batteries.
|
| This reminds me of an incident when I needed to replace a
| lost AirPod - I was ready to pay and yet couldn't just walk
| into an Apple Store and buy the part. I had to instead set
| up a "repair" and wait for shipping and then UPS screwed it
| up twice. It took weeks and hours of annoyance over
| email/phone for something that should've taken 15 minutes
| to buy at the Apple Store on my way to the office.
| tiernano wrote:
| interesting... but when I try to click the link in the article,
| https://www.selfservicerepair.com, I got a 403 forbidden error...
| Is it cause I is in Europe (in my best Ali-G voice
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_G]) or did someone borke the
| site already? [Update] If I use Cloudflare WARP, I can get in, so
| either my IP is blocked, or they don't like me coming from
| Europe...
| kuroguro wrote:
| Works from Latvia.
| soco wrote:
| Switzerland access works too - but the site says "United
| States" so not much benefit anyway.
| Aaron2222 wrote:
| Link works from New Zealand.
| mccorrinall wrote:
| Can't visit the site either. German IP.
| nebukadnet wrote:
| Works for me. Also German IP
| NickRandom wrote:
| UK - also got a Forbidden Error so seems like a weirdly random
| blocklist
| dlivingston wrote:
| I find it... curious that the Self Service [0] website of
| famously brand-conscious Apple is dog-ugly, generic, and has no
| Apple branding whatsoever.
|
| [0]: https://www.selfservicerepair.com/home
| LouisSayers wrote:
| I thought the same when I ordered a new macbook. Some of the
| delivery emails looked like an update you'd expect from a car
| mechanic.
| [deleted]
| swlkr wrote:
| It's crazy that it doesn't have sign in with apple support too
| xyst wrote:
| "dog-ugly"
|
| looks okay to me.
|
| I'm buying parts, not partying with friends or looking at it
| for long periods of time. As long as the part buying experience
| is gucci, then I am okay.
| quasarj wrote:
| Yeah, I would look at that and say it's a scam..
| mttjj wrote:
| As stated on Apple's Self-Service support page
| (https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair): "The online
| store is operated by a third-party provider authorized by Apple
| to sell genuine Apple parts and tools."
|
| Seems similar to Apple's trade-in program. The trade-in website
| is operated by a third-party and (in my experience) notoriously
| 'un-Apple'.
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| Clearly a lazy contract job. The "contact us" page is
| hilarious, who thinks these giant stock images are a good thing
| on any website? https://www.selfservicerepair.com/support
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| It looks like malicious compliance.
| hawthornio wrote:
| Can't even see what the image is because it's so zoomed in on
| mobile
| samhw wrote:
| That stock image makes me feel like I'm on the Joe Rogan
| podcast..
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| If this wasn't linked to from apple.com I would be convinced
| that it was a phishing site. The gratuitous use of stock
| photography really doesn't help.
| shrew wrote:
| I thought it was a bit sketchy too and spoke to their support
| agent about it. It seems this site is run by a partner, SPOT or
| Service Parts or Tools. Their privacy policy lists
| servicepartsortools.com as a domain but visiting the domain
| shows a standard parked domain page. The domain is owned by
| CTDI[0] which does seem more legitimate. The response I got
| from the support agent after pressing the issue was:
|
| "Apple has partnered with CTDI for the SSR store and the
| fulfillment of related parts and tools. CTDI will utilize its
| SPOT subsidiary, including SPOT customer service agents, in
| support of SSR store customers."
|
| It makes sense that Apple would offload this to someone else,
| but I agree it's a rather jarring experience.
|
| [0] https://www.ctdi.com
| MikePlacid wrote:
| Kinda strange that Apple has not used the time-and-customers-
| tested (and with a nice website) ifixit.com for the task. I
| only hope that iFixit will not die as a result - it's always
| nice to have an alternative.
| edrxty wrote:
| ifixit is a somewhat political organization, they're
| pushing right to repair and grade products on
| repairability. I'd rather they stay independent from Apple.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I agree. At first I thought they would be uniquely
| positioned for this role, but it really does seem like
| they need to stay independent to stay objective. As a
| customer As a customer I appreciate that ifixit serves
| the customer's needs rather than Apple's agenda or
| overall bottom line, which might not have remained the
| case if they had some kind of partnership.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| "If you keep rating our phones as very difficult for user
| repair, then why are we allowing you to distribute
| parts?"
| webmobdev wrote:
| Why can't they stay independent and objective if they
| partner with Apple (or any other manufacturer) to sell
| their parts?
| drewzero1 wrote:
| If ifixit were to partner with a manufacturer (and
| especially one as large and influential as Apple), there
| might be a perception among consumers (whether true or
| not) that they were beholden to the manufacturer not to
| do anything that might hurt that manufacturer's revenue
| streams, like (for example) providing parts and
| information to extend the use of obsolete products or
| criticizing any of the manufacturer's design practices
| that might be hostile to repair.
|
| On the flip side, it might be possible for a partnership
| to provide better first-party parts support and more
| complete sharing of information, but I'm just too jaded
| to believe it could happen that way.
| Retric wrote:
| Independent is often used as a weasel word ie:
| independent franchises. So sure the could be an
| independent distributor or whatever but that's not
| actually independent as they would have a financial
| connection.
|
| Remaining objective is of course possible even with
| financial ties, but the suspicion is going to taint
| people's perception.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Both companies are political. Many larger companies pay
| for lobbying via organizations like CTIA -
| https://www.ctia.org/about-ctia/our-members
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Doing your job with Honesty and Integrity is political
| now? We live in stange times. Decline of the West
| explained in one sentence.
| kube-system wrote:
| iFixit launched a lobbying organization. Political
| lobbying is political.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/News/7863/the-repair-association
| riffic wrote:
| this is the good kind of political, though.
| Spivak wrote:
| No, trying to influence governments to create a legal
| right to repair is literally politics. Take a step back
| and look at all the negative connotations you've
| apparently attached to the word "political." The FSF and
| EFF are also political organizations.
|
| Partnering with Apple who is against right to repair
| creates a situation where they might have to choose the
| money from Apple or their right to repair aspirations.
| markdown wrote:
| If a company lobbying for change that would benefit them
| is political, almost all companies are political.
| ben1040 wrote:
| On that front, Google and iFixit are partnering, with
| iFixit selling OEM Pixel repair parts.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/News/58542/working-with-google
| OxO4 wrote:
| It seems that iFixit will officially be selling replacement
| parts for Google's Pixel phones [0] and Valve's Steam Deck
| [1], so hopefully, they are not going anywhere.
|
| [0] https://www.blog.google/outreach-
| initiatives/sustainability/...
|
| [1] https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675180/view/43
| 47665...
| overtonwhy wrote:
| They make excellent tool kits for working on electronics!
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I agree that would be cool, and probably a better user
| experience but I'd suspect apple has large amounts of
| loathing for a company that criticizes their products.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I find iFixit's repairability reviews incredibly
| objective, often more generously short on outright
| criticism than I'd expect given both their opinion and
| business incentive.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> iFixit's repairability reviews incredibly objective
|
| Which is while Apple doesn't like them. If you care about
| sales, glowing reviews are always better than honest
| reviews. There are plenty of people willing to praise
| Apple and so there is no need to cater to objective
| reviewers.
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple is one of, if not the, most reviewed company in the
| world.
|
| For every new product there are thousands of reviews for
| which iFixit is just one. And almost all of those reviews
| are overwhelmingly objective and honest as you can see
| for the lacklustre reviews of the Studio Display.
|
| If I were Apple I wouldn't waste any time on iFixit
| either since they have limited traffic and limited social
| reach.
| status200 wrote:
| Unless Apple expands the options tremendously, iFixit will
| be around for a while, since the only parts available
| currently are for a limited range of the newer iPhones.
| danShumway wrote:
| > "Apple has partnered with CTDI for the SSR store and the
| fulfillment of related parts and tools. CTDI will utilize its
| SPOT subsidiary, including SPOT customer service agents, in
| support of SSR store customers."
|
| It is certainly still a decision to do that. I would guess
| that for a launch they actually cared about, especially a
| consumer-facing one, they either would demand to build the
| website themselves or demand that CTDI follow some design
| guides. I can't imagine Apple launching their credit card and
| saying, "okay, Goldman Sachs, you handle everything about
| branding. The product page for this credit card doesn't need
| to have Apple in the URL, and doesn't need to follow Apple
| branding rules" -- because Apple actually cares about getting
| the word out about the existence of their card, and they
| actually care about encouraging people to use it.
|
| I don't necessarily think it's some kind of conspiracy to
| trick people (see TurboTax's shenanigans), but it does speak
| a lot to their priorities that they do not care about this
| site looking good or even official, and that they don't think
| it's important for it to be a recognizable URL or for it to
| be obvious that it's an official Apple service. None of those
| things were apparently important enough to get
| marketing/branding departments involved in the launch.
| b3morales wrote:
| I poked around to see whether Apple was mentioned at all.
| Interestingly, clicking quickly through the legal links at
| the bottom, Apple does at least put themselves forward as the
| provider of the warranty.
| treeman79 wrote:
| In the past I've done third-party web work for Apple.
|
| They were beyond demanding that everything had to be pixel
| perfect at all resolutions. Far more then any other client
| I've had.
|
| Was good in that it upped my game, and attention to detail.
| So I'm grateful for that. But wow was it annoying at the
| time.
|
| Surprised they let others get away with low quality.
| mattl wrote:
| Did your work end up on apple.com?
| addcn wrote:
| > I find it... curious that the Self Service [0] website of
| famously brand-conscious Apple is dog-ugly, generic, and has no
| Apple branding whatsoever.
|
| That's exactly why it is the way it is.
|
| You do not want a brand associated with the highest quality and
| seamless integration to be associated with self-repair kits.
| Even under the best of circumstances, with the best of
| expertise, one must expect self-repair kits sold to the mass
| market to fail 5%? 10%? of the time?
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| It seems like Apple has tasked building and managing this
| website to a 3rd party as I could not find Apple naming or its
| logo anywhere on this site.
| TedShiller wrote:
| It's run by a partner
| chrisseaton wrote:
| It's a third party.
| mansilladev wrote:
| IMO, they should make it clear that you should not try to
| login with your email-based Apple credentials.
| TillE wrote:
| Using a generic template like that just screams spam/scam to me
| these days. Definitely a weird site.
| camillomiller wrote:
| In my experience this is on purpose by third party Apple
| sellers, to avoid any confusion about them being Apple. It's
| also definitely not a marketing-driven website, but rather a
| website that aims to be easy to navigate, lightweight and
| effective.
| paxys wrote:
| Yeah, it is so bad that you can't even use the simple "it is
| made by a third party" excuse, especially considering how much
| control Apple usually exerts over things like this. In this
| case I'm pretty sure the directive from Apple was specifically
| to make the site as bland and un-Apple as possible.
| [deleted]
| david-cako wrote:
| this will be excellent for repairing privacy conscious silicon-
| secure environments
| peterkelly wrote:
| Looks like it's iPhone-related products only for now. I wonder if
| they'll eventually make it possible to buy the tool that lets you
| change the power cable on their $1599 studio display:
| https://9to5mac.com/2022/03/21/apple-studio-displays-power-c...
| gbraad wrote:
| Also getting a "403 Forbidden"?
| ragona wrote:
| Yup, seems busted.
| TobyTheDog123 wrote:
| What is with the site design and the separate domain for the self
| service repair store?
|
| https://www.selfservicerepair.com/home
| riffic wrote:
| cynical take, but they're only doing this because they're being
| forced to do this by the threat of right-to-repair regulations.
|
| keep it up, ownership advocates!
| [deleted]
| quartz wrote:
| Nuts it looks like the camera parts list doesn't include the
| external lens glass or bezels. I recently cracked mine and had to
| resort to ifixit... was hoping Apple would provide an official
| solution.
| bogwog wrote:
| What a joke. They're only offering parts for iPhone 12/13/SE and
| the prices are the same as Apple's own repair service.
|
| So I can pay Apple $329 to fix my broken screen, or I can pay
| ~$311 + shipping to do the repair myself (actually I can't
| because they're not selling parts for my broken XS Max on this
| site).
|
| Maybe the only good thing about this is that they're selling
| equipment that might be valuable for third-party repair shops,
| like the "heated display removal fixture". Although I'm pretty
| sure better alternatives exist.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| You've forgotten the ~$30 reimbursement for returning the
| broken part.
|
| Honestly though... what did you expect? Apple said the parts
| were sold at the exact same prices as their AASPs and their own
| stores. When you already have the tools, that makes a ~$49
| margin for the Store or AASP for a display replacement, a
| healthy reimbursement of labor and time. Did you expect to save
| hundreds?
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| > ... ~$49 margin for the Store or AASP for a display
| replacement, a healthy reimbursement of labor and time.
|
| How long does it take to replace a display?
| water8 wrote:
| ... A good while
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| https://youtu.be/n2Zw7-oPDrc
|
| This video shows it being done in 10 minutes with
| explanation and without any cuts. (This is an XR which is
| pretty old school but I don't have any positive reason to
| believe it takes longer with newer displays.)
| water8 wrote:
| Is this really a fair comparison to someone that has
| never done it before, doesn't have everything perfectly
| laid out. Doesn't have the confidence to proceed at pace
| without bricking their $1000+ phone and priceless
| memories. Doesn't have to deal with the screen that's
| probably shattered to shit and they can't backup their
| phone because they can't enter the password. Has places
| to put all the little screws so that they don't lose them
| and the time needed to remember how to put them right
| back?
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| > Is this really a fair comparison to someone that has
| never done it before . . .
|
| That's not what we're comparing it to. We're discussing
| the labor cost _to Apple_ of replacing the screen, and
| asking whether $50 is a healthy margin for labor and
| other overheads. The answer is yes, since replacing a
| screen does not take all that much labor. As much as I
| hate Apple, the fact a screen can be replaced so quickly
| supports their claim that the parts themselves are most
| of the cost of the repair, and justifies their charging
| as much as they do for the self-service program.
|
| (I mean it could be that they're lying through their
| teeth and they're making a huge profit but that would be
| bold. Highly visible companies normally either tell half
| truths or stay silent, they tend not to make direct,
| clear lies over an item that has a lot of public
| scrutiny.)
| rblatz wrote:
| I think you posted the wrong video. I'm seeing a video
| about building a monolithic telescope.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Oh shoot. I don't know how that happened. Thanks for the
| tip, I'll find the video and fix the link. (Now done.)
| ezekg wrote:
| > Apple will offer tool rental kits for $49, so that customers
| who do not want to purchase tools for a single repair still
| have access to these professional repair tools. The weeklong
| rental kits will ship to customers for free.
|
| Seems you missed this part.
| bogwog wrote:
| You're right, the total price is $360+shipping (EDIT: or
| $327.35 after the return credit) with the additional tool
| rental. The $311 price is just the display bundle, which
| includes the display+adhesive+screws. Although to be fair,
| the tools in that rental kit aren't _required_ to do the
| repair as far as I can tell.
|
| Also, I just noticed that the display items have this
| disclaimer:
|
| > This part requires the System Configuration software tool.
| After performing the repair, contact us by chat or phone to
| initiate System Configuration.
|
| So they're _not_ getting rid of that bullshit display serial
| number system, meaning that even if you buy a genuine display
| from Apple and perform the repair following Apple 's own
| instructions, your phone will still be in a broken state
| until you call Apple and ask them to remove the software
| lock.
|
| You also can't even place an order for a display unless you
| provide a valid serial number/IMEI.
| runnerup wrote:
| Let's assume that all iPhones that are "repaired" by an Apple
| Store are actually replaced by the Apple Store. This matches my
| experience - go in with broken phone, walk out with brand new
| identical phone.
|
| Then assume all the old phones are shipped to India/Vietnam/Sri
| Lanka/China where apple pays the smallest achievable wages for
| laborers to either:
|
| 1) swap out the broken displays, mainboards, etc. to produce a
| working "Refurbished" unit. Who does Apple sell these to? I
| don't see refurbished phones for sale on their website. Maybe
| to T-Mobile/etc who do sell some refurbished iPhones.
|
| or
|
| 2) Disassemble the unit, throwing out everything except 100%
| known-good components, which get used for...what? Maybe new
| iPhones? Would apple ever include refurbished
| components...probably not. What do they do with all these known
| good but used components?
|
| Either way, you can imagine that Apple might only be paying $10
| or so to ship all these phones in a giant container to Asia and
| $20 or so for the labor of repair/disassembly. So maybe the
| "Self Service Part" really is being offered at the same
| materials price, minus Apple's straight internal labor cost.
|
| I somewhat doubt this, but it's at least plausible.
| 0xRusty wrote:
| Commercial sales and large businesses buying 1000+ iPhones at
| a time would probably appreciate the discount refurbished
| phones might offer
| DRW_ wrote:
| > Let's assume that all iPhones that are "repaired" by an
| Apple Store are actually replaced by the Apple Store. This
| matches my experience - go in with broken phone, walk out
| with brand new identical phone.
|
| That used to be very common if not the default (this was my
| experience too, would always just get a replacement), but
| these days I believe they actually do a lot of common repairs
| in stores in a relatively short period of time (screen / back
| / button / battery replacements), etc.
| eigen wrote:
| > 1) swap out the broken displays, mainboards, etc. to
| produce a working "Refurbished" unit. Who does Apple sell
| these to? I don't see refurbished phones for sale on their
| website. Maybe to T-Mobile/etc who do sell some refurbished
| iPhones.
|
| available through Apple at
| https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/iphone. I think
| availability changes frequently, only see iPhone 11 Pro
| currently but have seen others in the past.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I think your onto the right track here with the way Apple
| probably treats repairs but I can't imagine that the parts
| actually cost this much. Maybe for some specific things it
| would be decently high (processor, display) but $311 to self
| repair a screen seems a bit ridiculous when tons of other
| phones can have a very nice OLED screen put in for much, much
| less.
| melenaboija wrote:
| > Later this year the program will also include manuals, parts,
| and tools to perform repairs on Mac computers with Apple
| silicon
|
| I don't know about pricing as the store site is not working for
| me (maybe thousands of anxious people trying to buy parts) but
| it seems later this year it will be possible to repair
| computers. The guides are already out there.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| VPNs and CloudFlare WARP are blocked, that's probably your
| issue.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Look into _why_ they're doing it. Right to repair laws are
| being passed in countries, especially the EU. Cynically, Apple
| could want to get ahead now for the PR win, that they didn't
| need to, while all these years they have dragged their feet.
| Aaron2222 wrote:
| Doesn't look like Apple's going to release AST 2 or an
| equivalent, instead requiring users to contact Apple Support to
| get the pairing done.
|
| > A System Configuration step may be required at the end of your
| repair. System Configuration is a postrepair software tool that
| completes the repair for genuine Apple parts. The repair manual
| will indicate if System Configuration is required. You will need
| to contact the Self Service Repair Store support team by chat or
| phone to initiate System Configuration.
|
| (From https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair)
| zuhsetaqi wrote:
| Do you know if the System Configuration does cost anything and
| if how much?
| londons_explore wrote:
| I would guess it'll be free, but you'll have to give your
| identity and you'll only be able to do a few per year.
|
| That way they lock out third party repair shops.
| samcat116 wrote:
| Thats really interesting to have their support team run an AST2
| run for you remotely. I guess its probably easier if you are
| doing a one off repair so you don't have to run AST locally.
| ATsch wrote:
| As everything in this measure, the point is to make the whole
| procedure as useless for independent repair shops as
| possible. Independent repair shops desperately want these
| tools and that's exactly why Apple isn't giving them to you.
| [deleted]
| easton wrote:
| It's probably cheaper than porting it to Windows, because in
| that case the tech press would eviscerate them for not
| letting Windows users repair their devices.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| They can open-source the specifications and protocols these
| tools use and let someone else build Windows versions if
| they wanted to.
| [deleted]
| supernova87a wrote:
| I was surprised that big, heavy repair equipment like the
| "display press" and "Heated Display Removal Fixture" sell for
| only ~$250. You would think these are $1000+ items.
| macinjosh wrote:
| This is pretty shameful. It is clearly a cynical move to save
| face in the right-to-repair debate. If Apple was committed to the
| environment and repair there would be a "Repair" or "Support &
| Repair" link in the top header of apple.com that gets you to a
| store with every major component for recent Apple products. When
| a product becomes "vintage" they should release all schematics
| and CAD designs so 3rd party part makers can sell aftermarket
| replacement parts.
|
| In a year or two Apple will end this minimally visible and
| confusing website saying not enough people used it (some BS like
| "less than 0.001% of all iPhone users ever placed an order") and
| so it is not worth the time and effort. "See? No one cares about
| repairing their devices. People don't want to own and care for
| their things anymore!"
| lizardactivist wrote:
| One of these days Apple will find a way to charge you a premium,
| not for your phone, the parts, or the tools needed to repair it,
| but for the actual time you spend doing it.
| ezfe wrote:
| The parts are cheaper than Apple charges to repair it
| isaacimagine wrote:
| Honest question: could right to repair legislation apply to
| software too? In a universe where it did, what would that look
| like?
| kmeisthax wrote:
| No, because software carries copyright, and any law that
| touches that would be struck down by federal preemption and
| international treaties. While most of that preemption is
| specifically America's idea, the US is also chock full of
| people holding all sorts of base assumptions that copyright and
| patents are fundamentally good.
|
| This is the country full of people who get angry when China
| "steals our IP", rather than getting angry that companies were
| hoarding knowledge from everyone else for profit, or getting
| angry that China isn't sharing their pirate's booty. Yes,
| technically, only the agenda of the rich gets passed in the US;
| but that's mostly because the US has done such a great job of
| aligning the interests of an enfranchised middle class and rich
| people that people aren't willing to question copyright at a
| low enough level to make "software R2R" legislatively viable.
| We're the country of people who pirate movies and then blame
| pirates for tanking the sales of those movies.
|
| Anyway, if you want to know what a minimal software R2R bill
| would look like, it would probably be a copyright exception
| that allowed distributing unauthorized modifications to
| software under specific circumstances, probably with the added
| stipulation that the modifications need to be distributed in a
| form that cannot be used without a licensed copy of the
| original software.
|
| That sounds simple enough but you immediately bring on all
| sorts of related questions if you add such a large gaping hole
| to the copyright system. Do people who make these fixes get
| copyright protection, too? In the US, _licensed_ derivative
| works get a separate copyright that the original author is at
| risk of infringing upon. Unlicensed derivatives are
| uncopyrightable; this is why it 's legal to pirate fanart[0],
| because the alternative would be fanworks boxing out the
| original artist of their own work. If someone fixes software
| under software R2R, should the original software vendor be
| allowed to incorporate that fix back into their own work?
| Should other vendors be able to use that fix and modify it
| further? Those questions are very critical to answer, and I
| don't have good answers for them.
|
| FWIW software R2R would also thoroughly break the GPL copyleft,
| because it relies upon everything I just said about derivative
| works. The thing is, GPL is also the most friendly software to
| right-to-repair, specifically because it requires source code
| disclosure. A badly written software repair exception would not
| only destroy this, but also give us a repair ecosystem of
| people with binary-only software patches suing each other for
| stealing their own work and just recursing back into the same
| copyright maximalism problem we already have.
|
| [0] Strictly speaking, if you pirate, say, One Piece[1] fanart
| and sold it on a t-shirt, Shueisha can still sue you. The
| artist who made the fanart can't - not even if it was Shueisha
| themselves pirating pirate fanart on t-shirts and selling it.
|
| [1] STOP! Hai Zei Ban
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Good documentation around how proprietary software behaves so
| it can be troubleshot (in the automotive field this already
| exists, they don't give you raw source code but they give you
| the exact sequence of operations under which a trouble code is
| set - for example, "this DTC is set if the battery voltage goes
| below 11V for 2 seconds") and a ban on bullshit restrictions in
| the name of "security" such as the binding of Touch ID buttons
| to the mainboard.
| pmontra wrote:
| Open source?
|
| From [1] "[with the GPL the FSF is] reshaping how programs are
| made in order to give everyone the right to understand, repair,
| improve, and redistribute the best-quality software on earth"
|
| [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html
| dotancohen wrote:
| Open source is an alternative to legislated proprietary
| software. There is no feasible path towards legislating that
| all software companies must provide the source code for their
| products today. Though that may have been an alternative
| future had our timeline forked somewhere in the early 1970s.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Heavy NDAs so only large companies could "repair" the software.
| Thus making repair expensive beyond feasibility.
|
| Better legislation would require timely support for commercial
| software that is sold for a purpose, with a stated minimum
| timeframe not unlike a warranty.
| frabjoused wrote:
| The self repair store screams Bootstrap.
| simonlc wrote:
| Before I even clicked I knew it was going to have some US only
| thing.
| Jemm wrote:
| Seems to work fine for me here in Canuckastan.
| danmur wrote:
| "Genuine Apple parts and tools can now be purchased by US
| customers" it's great us non-US people know though, kudos to
| them :)
| londons_explore wrote:
| They'll be people selling those on eBay worldwide...
| dcdc123 wrote:
| They only sell parts for phones that are probably still under
| warranty or Apple Care+ coverage. They don't sell parts for any
| models that actually need reliable sources for parts.
| bluescrn wrote:
| 'Oldest' model supported is the iPhone 12. Very limited set of
| parts. Requires a device serial number.
|
| Clearly being done very reluctantly. May be beneficial to those
| with a habit of dropping phones and smashing their screen, but
| the real problem is the slightly older phones becoming e-waste
| due to a degraded battery or parts like buttons wearing out.
|
| (But we've got bigger worries with degraded batteries leading
| to e-waste, with Chevrolet discontinuing support for a 5yr-old
| EV (Chevy Spark) setting an example that others seem likely to
| follow. No battery replacements for your EV! Buy a new one!
| We're heading for a world where so-called 'green' EVs are
| barely repairable and thrown on the scrapheap as soon as the
| battery degrades)
| bradfa wrote:
| Automotive has a very strong track record of 3rd party parts
| being available shortly after genuine parts become hard to
| obtain or not-affordable. As long as there's enough of a
| given vehicle on the road to justify the cost, surely a 3rd
| party will create battery replacements for many EVs.
|
| There's plenty of Leaf battery replacement services and parts
| as far as I can tell. The original Leaf is quite old now in
| EV-years.
| bluescrn wrote:
| With the move to EVs (and perhaps even before, to some
| extent), cars seem to be changing, in the same way that
| 'computers' evolved/regressed from fairly open,
| upgradeable, repairable PCs to smartphones and tables with
| locked-down OSs, no upgrade options, and minimal
| repairability.
|
| We've accepted a world of throwaway phones/tablets (with a
| life of maybe 2-5 years). We can't afford to accept that
| with EVs.
| bradfa wrote:
| You can still very easily buy a PC which has an "open"
| architecture in the sense that you can plug various CPUs,
| PCIe cards, memory, disks, etc into it. It's in a very
| similar form factor to the old "open" PCs, it sits
| on/under your desk in a sheet metal box. That hasn't gone
| away, we just now also have these new things which are
| tiny very portable computers which are locked down and
| very closed.
|
| I expect EVs which sell well will have robust 3rd party
| parts available for the kinds of parts that >95% of
| owners will ever need to replace, just like today. The EV
| industry is still extremely young, there will be much
| money to be made with 3rd party parts and repairs on EVs
| even if the automakers don't want it to be. I firmly
| believe that the market will find a way for the popular
| models.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > we just now also have these new things which are tiny
| very portable computers which are locked down and very
| closed
|
| ...and that need replacing every couple years not because
| they don't work but because we have been disallowed from
| replacing parts, thus generating e-waste made up of rare
| earths and toxic metals and at great cost to people.
| ToniCipriani wrote:
| > Automotive has a very strong track record of 3rd party
| parts being available shortly after genuine parts become
| hard to obtain or not-affordable
|
| With the exception that the car doesn't throw error codes
| and disable the power windows if I use a third-party brake
| pad.
| _joel wrote:
| Does that inclue John Deere tractors?
| webmobdev wrote:
| Strong consumers laws have a lot to do with it. In India,
| an entrepreneur started an all-brand service center, and
| some of the auto-mobile manufacturers ganged up against him
| and refused to supply him parts. He took them to court and
| won.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| >But we've got bigger worries with degraded batteries leading
| to e-waste, with Chevrolet discontinuing support for a 5yr-
| old EV (Chevy Spark) setting an example that others seem
| likely to follow.
|
| The Spark is one EV from one manufacturer, introduced ten
| years ago, and it sold a few thousand units over a couple
| years. Chevy sells more Bolts in _two months_ than the entire
| several year long Spark production.
|
| The reason they're no longer selling battery packs is because
| there was insufficient demand for them. The car sold like
| shit. It is not "an example others seem likely to follow"
| like you claim.
|
| Chevy included, given they're warrantying failed Bolt EV
| batteries and giving them 8 year warranties. Five year old
| bolts are getting eight-year-warrantied batteries. Weird you
| didn't cite that.
|
| People have been bleating about "battery-pocalypse" -
| batteries clogging landfills, failing batteries "totaling"
| cars, blah blah - since the Prius came out twenty years ago.
| Still hasn't happened. If you have a Prius and the battery
| pack throws an error code, there are plenty of businesses
| offering rebuild services, looks like it's about $1k. They
| recycle whatever cells are still good, and bad cells are sent
| out to be recycled for their raw materials.
|
| You either intentionally zeroed in on extreme outside case to
| push your anti-EV agenda, or you don't know much about
| hybrids/PHEVs/EVs and you're outside your lane while pushing
| an anti-EV agenda.
|
| Which is it?
| bluescrn wrote:
| Nah, If I was wealthier I'd probably be driving a Tesla.
| I've probably been watching too much Louis Rossmann, but I
| do have concerns about right-to-repair and battery
| replaceability, and (possibly overblown) concerns of
| battery degradation - based mostly on experiences with
| phone and laptop batteries being essentially dead after a
| few years.
|
| EVs do have real issues limiting mass adoption, though.
| Even if I could afford a nice one, I couldn't charge it at
| home (living in an apartment, can't really dangle a power
| cable down 3 floors).
|
| And as I'm a very-low-mileage driver at the moment, able to
| WFH, keeping my boring Ford Focus running for a few more
| years is probably much better for the environment than
| replacing the entire car.
| ellen364 wrote:
| > The Spark is one EV from one manufacturer, introduced ten
| years ago, and it sold a few thousand units over a couple
| years.
|
| Did you mean a few hundred thousand units? Wiki says there
| were 24,459 Chevrolet Sparks sold in the USA last year,
| plus a similar number of international sales. Total US
| sales were roughly 285,000 units[0], so that would fit with
| "a few hundred thousand".
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Spark#Sales
| opencl wrote:
| That's the gasoline version of the Spark. The EV version
| was considerably less popular.
|
| This article from when it was discontinued says the
| entire production run was 7400 units.
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/article/7269/chevrolet-ends-
| spark-e...
| Beta-7 wrote:
| >Clearly being done very reluctantly.
|
| This solution is perfect for the PR and avoiding future right
| to repair lawsuits.
|
| Doing barely enough is what I assume they're going for.
| volkl48 wrote:
| That'll probably expand over time.
|
| I would imagine they don't know what demand for this will be
| like, and parts for older devices are probably not in
| production at this point - so they probably don't have
| inventory to support a lot more than what they expected to
| service through their traditional processes.
|
| ------------
|
| While _not_ self-service, I 'll note they've expanded service
| lifespans on the Mac side for repair in recent years. They'd
| previously guaranteed service would be available for 5 years
| (from end of new production of the model - which could be a
| while later than you purchased yours. The mid-2012 13" MBP is
| still less than 5 years from end of production.), but it was a
| hard cutoff after that. 5 years and 1 month? Nothing.
|
| Now it's up to 7 years if the parts are available (10 years for
| batteries on some models), and anecdotally we've had a few
| repaired in that age range without issue.
|
| That direction suggests to me that in the long run you're
| likely to see similar things on their "self-service repair"
| side.
| Someone wrote:
| Chances are they don't have parts for older models. That's what
| "Just in time" manufacturing is about, and Apple is fairly good
| at that.
|
| Also, if they had them, chances are you would find the parts
| too expensive. They would either have to keep a production line
| running for low quantities of products, build a new one
| specialized for small production runs, or stock parts for
| years.
|
| Both have significant costs.
|
| For example, let's suppose they decide to stock parts, and plan
| perfectly, so that all parts can be sold over a period of 10
| years. On average, that's five years between spending money on
| producing the part and getting money back on selling it. That
| likely warrants at least a 25% price increase.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't think there's a business for offering
| electronic parts in the long-term (old timer cars are a
| different case, as many parts can be made almost by hand, and
| customers are willing to pay good money for them)
| darknavi wrote:
| > Unfortunately, I don't think there's a business for
| offering electronic parts in the long-term
|
| I think that's OK, but I think it's immoral to lock down a
| device to the point where it prevents third parties from
| producing these parts if they need to.
| bradfa wrote:
| They have to start somewhere. This is somewhere. Sure, they
| could do better, but if this turns into just a thing that they
| do for all new phones they release then it'll be great.
| Hopefully they will keep having availability of parts and tools
| even after software and security updates end for given devices.
| dogleash wrote:
| >They have to start somewhere. This is somewhere.
|
| Did you unironically re-phrase the politician's syllogism as
| a positive?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
| Nextgrid wrote:
| This is a bad-faith attempt to try and prevent right-to-
| repair legislation that's slowly making its way through
| various legislatures, just like their BS "independent repair
| provider programme".
| bradfa wrote:
| I don't understand how Apple starting to do exactly what
| the "right to repair" people appear to be asking for is in
| bad faith or in any way trying to prevent it. Can you
| clarify?
|
| I understood right to repair to be that people want access
| to parts, tools, and information on how to repair their
| things. This seems to be the beginning of exactly that. I'm
| clearly misunderstanding some side of this.
| baisq wrote:
| Because many people who say they support the right to
| repair just hate big corporations and want to see them
| forced to do things that hurt them.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| If Apple sells any parts for any phone for any reason
| without unjustifiable markups to anyone without requiring
| registration of phone serial number (mentioned here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180032 ) or any
| other random unnecessary requirements whose only purpose
| is to get in the way of there being a market for parts,
| well then and only then will I believe that Apple
| actually is trying to support right to repair. If they're
| not doing that, then I'm only lead to believe that they
| are putting this up to deflect criticism and continue
| their hold on the parts market.
| s17n wrote:
| Apple takes a >50% margin on everything else they sell,
| why should parts be any different?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I understand a large margin on the device itself because
| that includes various software licenses and IP. Auxiliary
| parts that can't be used to rebuild a full device (as the
| mainboard is missing) shouldn't carry that markup as
| you've already paid for those licenses when you
| originally bought the device.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Well my problem is that knowing Apple's (and the tech
| industry in general) bad faith regarding repair (and any
| kind of "ownership" users might gain on their devices), I
| don't think this is a "beginning".
|
| I think this is just a PR piece designed to slow down
| right to repair legislation efforts that will be left to
| rot as soon as that objective is achieved, or the
| experience being so terrible that it's unusable to begin
| with. In fact, in my case it's already unusable - I keep
| spares for commonly broken parts for my phone (screen,
| case, battery & all the seals needed to reassemble) so
| that I can quickly repair it in a couple hours if I break
| it. This program would make it impossible as I'd need to
| ship the old parts back which means I can only order them
| when I actually need to do the repair and then wait for
| shipping - it turns a "I have a couple hours this
| evening, let me fix my phone so it doesn't look like
| shit" into a thing I have to explicitly schedule.
|
| As of now not only is the selection of parts laughable
| (where can I buy a genuine new housing or mainboard, or
| proprietary mainboard _components_ that Apple explicitly
| prohibits their vendors from selling to the public?) but
| there 's extra BS such as the "system configuration"
| which has to be done via Apple Support instead of
| releasing the software or the protocol (so open-source
| tools can be built) in the open or even making devices be
| able to perform the configuration directly (new part
| detected -> a new option appears in Settings to do the
| initial config).
| kxrm wrote:
| I used to live in a major Texas city that refused to
| implement a bus service. After several years of
| criticism, they decided to finally trial a bus service.
| They setup bus stops around the city to gather data and
| determine if this would be a service residents would use.
| Several bus stop started to appear about 2 miles from my
| home basically on a main parkway next to an open field.
| There were no bus stops next to the largest shopping mall
| in the community, nor in or around any of the growing
| suburbs that were forming during this time. Of course
| their trial failed because of lack of demand. They used
| this lack of demand to justify shutting down the service
| within a year of starting it.
|
| This is what Apple is doing. Setting a bus stop up next
| to an open field which will inevitably create data
| proving their narrative.
|
| A genuine attempt would certainly utilize their own
| branding. Creating a clear intent to bridge the trust
| their customers have gained for their brand to this
| service. Additionally, they would at least attempt to
| sell parts a lower cost since their own repair service is
| just a few dollars more.
|
| I think it is fairly clear what their intentions are with
| this service based on how they are incentivizing it's
| use.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| There is a little dance that Apple has done a dozen
| times. It starts with "Apple supports independent
| repair*!" and ends with terms of the asterisk that
| completely preclude independent repair. Not in a half-
| assed way, either, but in a carefully crafted airtight
| trap. Grandparent post might be jumping the gun, but
| Apple has shot this gun so many times and hit the RtR
| crowd so many times that I have a very hard time blaming
| them for jumping.
|
| It may turn out that this program is good, in which case
| the correct path forward is to codify it into law. Apple
| should have a seat at the table when deciding terms.
| However, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should they be allowed to
| _dictate_ terms, because they have abused that privilege
| time and time again. Otherwise, the moment the press
| looks away, they 'll bring back the killer asterisks.
| They've done it before and they'll do it again if we let
| them.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Don't care, I wouldn't take my device to a third party
| anyways. Secondly after owning an iPhone for over a decade
| not once have I needed a repair.
|
| I feel like the repair issue is manufactured outrage for a
| problem that doesn't actually exist. Seems like drama is
| all the rage these days...
| wrycoder wrote:
| You have a ten year old iPhone, and you never replaced
| the battery?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > I wouldn't take my device to a third party anyways
|
| Me neither, which is why I want the right to repair to be
| a thing, so _I_ can get parts just like the third-party I
| wouldn 't use and do the repair myself instead.
|
| > Secondly after owning an iPhone for over a decade not
| once have I needed a repair.
|
| Beyond actual _repair_ there are consumable parts such as
| batteries which need replacement after a year or so.
|
| > I feel like the repair issue is manufactured outrage
| for a problem that doesn't actually exist
|
| It may not exist for you, but does it hurt you or make
| your situation worse in any way if the repair issue were
| solved? If not, then why is it a bad thing if some other
| people (for whom repair is an actual problem) benefit
| from it?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I'll never do a repair on my phone, my time is too
| valuable to be futzing around with things I don't truly
| understand. You most certainly do not need a new battery
| after a year, my kids are playing with an iphone 4 as a
| toy. I'm also not the one upset that apple is providing
| parts, great. It just seems like nothing is ever good
| enough or everything is done in bad faith and I just
| don't see the world through that kind of myopic or
| dystopian lens.
| onphonenow wrote:
| robonerd wrote:
| Apple customer support sucks. I had a macbook air with a
| dead battery under warranty that I wanted to get
| replaced. It took a month of discussions with their
| customer support before the Apple Store (University
| Village) actually got the damn battery. And then to add
| insult to injury, the "genius" accused me of damaging the
| laptop with water and acted like he was doing me a favor
| by giving me the battery I was owed. I'm certain he was
| trying to scare me into buying a new computer.
|
| The whole thing made me think back to my old thinkpad,
| for which I could perform a battery swap myself in
| seconds (plus two days for the battery to arrive in the
| mail.)
|
| More recently, my Dell XPS 13 died while under warranty.
| After a three minute phonecall with Dell customer
| service, they had a perfectly polite repairman come to my
| home the next day to replace the motherboard.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Apple's repairs are extremely expensive for certain
| things like non-display cosmetic damage (it costs more to
| fix a broken back glass or housing scratches than an
| actual broken screen) and relies on an Apple Store (or
| AASP) being available and you being able to get to it and
| back or ship your phone off and wait for days.
|
| I have the skills & equipment to do my own repairs and
| would like the option to do so (in fact, I'm doing so
| anyway using knockoff or grey-market parts that do the
| job just fine, but would consider using official parts if
| the pricing & terms were acceptable).
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Six or seven years ago I was in Chile for a few weeks as
| a language-learning exercise. While I was there the power
| adapter to my MBP broke, making it unusable. At the time
| there was no Apple store in the entire country! I had to
| go to Brazil or Argentina to get "authorized" repairs.
|
| I needed my laptop and so I ended up fixing it in my
| friend's backyard with duct tape and superglue. (Works to
| this day, AFAIK -- but no more Macs in this household
| anymore!)
|
| I am taken aback by this attitude against "right to
| repair" people. Do you guys seriously believe that we
| must all nuzzle up to Apple to fix our stuff?
|
| > They make devices that last
|
| Seriously beg to differ here. My MBP fried its nvidia
| graphics chip from overheating and all of my iPhones have
| had battery issues after 2 years (despite battery health
| reporting 80-90%). In fact now that I think about it the
| neither the earpiece nor the bottom speaker are working
| right either.
| cyral wrote:
| I mean they even have tool kits that you can rent that come
| with everything to make the repair (since some tools are
| very custom like the battery or display press). That
| doesn't seem very bad-faith of them. Not sure why anyone
| expected them to release parts and repair guides for every
| device in the span of five months. They also have to get
| the logistics sorted out to enable people to order
| individual parts. These devices were released before the
| program was announced, so it is not surprising that they
| may be hard to repair or have limited self-repairable parts
| when they weren't designed with that in mind. Apple
| certainly does have an incentive to keep them difficult to
| repair, so I'm not saying that will change - but they
| haven't gotten a chance yet.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| At least for the repair _guides_ , it's something they
| must already have internally (in fact some have leaked in
| the past) so releasing them should be trivial.
| prvc wrote:
| That they are not producing old parts is not in itself an
| indication of bad faith. Manufacturing more after having
| stopped would be prohibitively expensive. We have to wait
| until they fail to create enough spares for the current
| models to support this program in order to draw this
| conclusion.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I don't believe they've stopped manufacturing the parts
| (or ran out of stock) since they're still able to
| "repair" those devices out of warranty at a huge premium.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| They provide repair services for products 5 years after
| they stop selling them, which will by law be extended to
| 7 years for products after 2020. They clearly have the
| parts. See https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201624
| prvc wrote:
| They have such a large volume of sales that they would be
| able to very accurately estimate the number of parts they
| need in order to fulfill their warranty obligations and
| paid repairs. Their inventory of old parts would
| presumably be earmarked for that purpose, without
| significant leftovers.
| TillE wrote:
| The situation is bad and wasteful even with recycling, but I
| suspect it would be very complex to continue manufacturing
| years-old parts.
| lampshades wrote:
| Wonder if this has anything to do with supply chain issues.
| guynamedloren wrote:
| Excellent. I just cracked the screen on my 2020 iPhone SE. After
| suffering through _many_ Amazon low quality replacement screens
| for my previous iPhone 6, I look forward to readily available,
| authentic Apple parts.
|
| I only hope that the 2022 SE display is compatible with the 2020
| SE (it appears it should be, at initial glance).
| stetrain wrote:
| For reference, this is what Apple said they would do last
| November:
|
| > Available first for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and
| soon to be followed by Mac computers featuring M1 chips, Self
| Service Repair will be available early next year in the US and
| expand to additional countries throughout 2022.
|
| > The initial phase of the program will focus on the most
| commonly serviced modules, such as the iPhone display, battery,
| and camera. The ability for additional repairs will be available
| later next year.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-...
| alvatech wrote:
| My iPhone 8 Plus battery capacity has dropped to 76%. Too bad
| they don't support older devices. Going to Apple care and
| waiting hours to get battery replaced is too much hassle. I
| guess I should give the iFixit battery kit a chance.
| arthurmorgan wrote:
| My local Apple Store replaced my battery in <1h for ~70EUR.
| Maybe that's fast enough for you.
| Pathogen-David wrote:
| It's honestly not that hard as long as you're patient and can
| follow instructions. I replaced both the battery and
| lightning port in my iPhone 6s with parts from iFixit and was
| more than happy with the results.
|
| That being said, I mainly did it myself because I like doing
| this sort of thing and there's no Apple Store near me. I'd
| also heard of them refusing partial repair when you have a
| damaged display and I had a crack on the corner.
| windowsrookie wrote:
| This just shows people will complain no matter what. Apple
| charges $49 to replace an iPhone 8 battery. You don't have to
| physically wait at the store for "hours", you can drop it off
| and pick it up later. Or you can mail it to Apple and they
| mail it back in 3-5 business days.
|
| https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/battery-
| powe...
|
| Name any other phone manufacturer that offers a better
| service.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > Name any other phone manufacturer that offers a better
| service.
|
| If the "best" company still activity tries to screw
| customers over (see: planned obsolescence and almost
| _everything_ apple has done until now, Louis Rossman 's
| YouTube channel etc), then I'm afraid the bar is part of
| the foundation, it's so underground.
|
| That's not something to be proud of at all.
| windowsrookie wrote:
| Apple released an IOS update for the iPhone 6s last
| month. That's 7 years of software updates. A 2015 MacBook
| can still run the newest OS. A Mac Pro from 2013 can
| still run the newest OS. You can still buy a replacement
| battery from Apple for a 7 year old device.
|
| Where is the planned obsolescence? Apple is supporting
| their devices longer than any other consumer tech
| company. How are they actively trying to "screw customers
| over"?
| simonh wrote:
| You can't argue with these people. Almost double the
| software support period and average device service life
| of the nearest competitors still counts as 'planned
| obsolescence', yet none of those competitors get dinged
| for their device lifetimes. They're immune to reality.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| The iPhone 8 was released in autumn 2017, 4.5 years ago.
| It still gets regular software updates for security and
| new features and the hardware performs well compared to
| newer smartphones (Apple chips have been loads better
| than other mobile chips for a long time so an Apple chip
| from a year or two ago is often bested only by the newer
| apple chips in metrics like single-threaded performance
| or power efficiency).
|
| I think it is mostly silly to accuse apple of planned
| obsolescence when their hardware functions well (and
| retains its value) for much longer than the hardware
| produced by their competitors. It feels to me that paying
| for one phone 4.5 years ago, and $50 for a battery
| replacement (all lithium ion batteries degrade over time)
| that will extend its useful life is a pretty efficient
| use of money.
| user_7832 wrote:
| The issue is that software is useless without proper
| hardware.
|
| While their software support is admirable, their hardware
| philosophy, design and real-life practice (eg pricing a
| screen repair almost similar to a new phone) is anything
| but.
| munk-a wrote:
| Just because everyone else is more terrible doesn't mean
| Apple still isn't terrible.
|
| It's a design decision to use proprietary batteries that
| are difficult to change by consumers and can't be easily
| manufactured by third parties. Batteries aren't expensive
| enough to warrant that kind of service charge.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| The point is that's not terrible, it's actually pretty
| good, considering all of the work they do to optimize
| every square millimeter in their phones.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Are the iPhone 12 and 13 so bad that Apple has decided to cater
| to only these device, rather than the older models that are
| more likely to need servicing and parts?
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| That seems like a bad take. It's more likely that they are
| the newest designs and it's easier to set up a supply chain
| for this with the current models than it is with previous
| models.
|
| Wait a few years and then you can see if your cynicism is
| appropriate if they stop supporting them when they are older.
| annica wrote:
| It's a nice gesture, but what is the point if most of the parts
| are soldered and can't be upgraded anyway.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Apple selling parts?! Um, has hell frozen over?
|
| This screams "court ordered" to me. The self-service site isn't
| Apple branded in any way.
| TheKnack wrote:
| They are trying to slow down the "right to repair" laws that
| are being drafted in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. They
| would rather implement it and be able to set the parameters of
| it, rather than be forced to follow a government mandated and
| controlled version.
| ericmay wrote:
| Isn't that a win? Public pressure forced Apple to do the
| right thing here and we don't need additional regulation.
|
| Regulation is not exactly equivalent to "positive". It has
| risky elements, and is almost impossible to undo even if it's
| very bad.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Isn't that a win? Public pressure forced Apple to do the
| right thing here and we don't need additional regulation.
|
| It may be a win on short term but do you see any parts for
| Mac machines there? Such a "minimal offer" has the danger
| of public officials being ignorant enough to fall for
| Apple's propaganda of "we're offering that here, isn't it
| enough?". Also, it does not seem to offer the special tools
| that Apple uses for calibration or pairing of components.
|
| We need comprehensive regulation covering _all_ kinds of
| technology self-repair, from phones over laptops and
| computers to cars and trucks. Anyone should be able to
| perform the same quality and level of repair service that
| official Apple stores can.
| ericmay wrote:
| > It may be a win on short term but do you see any parts
| for Mac machines there?
|
| Not yet. But I'm pretty sure they are heading down that
| path as well. They sell a lot more iPhones so it probably
| makes sense to go that route first. I disagree with your
| starting point of really awful cynicism, especially given
| that Apple has a demonstrated track record (albeit
| sometimes slow and despite their initial intentions) of
| doing environmentally friendly things. They don't _have_
| to power their operations via renewable energy, or build
| products made of recycled metals. "Fall for Apple's
| propaganda"? Sorry I'm not buying the negative case.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| It took Apple _well over fifteen years_ and the threat of
| lawsuits and regulation to come up with this portal.
| Their products still _consistently_ score shit on
| repairability comparisons.
|
| Yes Apple does do decent things in operations, but
| anything involving the consumer facing side has been
| "only Apple knows best" for decades. Operating systems
| being locked down? That shit started with Apple,
| Microsoft and Android only followed suit. Hardware using
| special screws, no 3.5mm socket, or glue? Peripheral
| sockets needing MFi chips? Again, Apple pioneered that
| consumer hostility, and look how they're fighting tooth
| and nail to keep Lightning instead of switching over to
| USB-C and offering an USB-C to Lightning adapter
| utilizing a custom Alt mode to offer backwards
| compatibility fot old accessories.
|
| The _only_ notable progress originating at Apple was the
| introduction of USB.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| As you say, it's much easier for Apple to roll back these
| voluntary measures once the pressure dies down. Proper
| legislation would help prevent that.
| tyingq wrote:
| Activist shareholders plus increasing support for right-to-
| repair: https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/17/22787336/apple-
| right-to-...
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Growth from smartphones gone so it kind of makes sense to finally
| do this
| easton wrote:
| Something humorous I found in the docs for iPhone repair is that
| your battery can't explode, but it can experience a "battery
| thermal event".
| jnsie wrote:
| "special battery operation"
| core-utility wrote:
| Rapid unplanned combustion
| user_7832 wrote:
| Rapid unscheduled disassembly along with lithospheric braking
| are 2 of my favorites euphemisms.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Is that a feature or a bug? The world may never know.
| hyperdimension wrote:
| I've heard Chernobyl being termed a 'thermal event' as well.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This thread is such a train wreck. Just admit you hate Apple and
| it doesn't matter what they do, you will find a way to make it a
| bad thing. Some of the complaints here are just hilarious.
|
| What kind of equivalent program does Google offer for Pixels?
| wafriedemann wrote:
| Is this supposed to be a joke? The only devices available are the
| latest iPhone models (12+13). No Macs, nothing.
| stetrain wrote:
| That's exactly what Apple said they would do.
|
| > Available first for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and
| soon to be followed by Mac computers featuring M1 chips, Self
| Service Repair will be available early next year in the US and
| expand to additional countries throughout 2022.
|
| > The initial phase of the program will focus on the most
| commonly serviced modules, such as the iPhone display, battery,
| and camera. The ability for additional repairs will be
| available later next year.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-...
| frx wrote:
| I'd also appreciate the support for older iPhone models. I'd
| try replacing the battery of my iPhone 5.
| freeAgent wrote:
| It makes me wonder if they'll drop support for repairs once
| devices hit 2 years old. That would largely defeat the entire
| point of offering repair parts and manuals in the first place.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I suppose that an enterprising shop could stock up on common
| parts expected to need repair, such as USB ports and screens.
| They could even speculate on other less-common parts but
| would need to mark them up 1000% if only 10% of that stock is
| expected to ever sell.
|
| Note that the core charge might be an attempt to prevent such
| stocking up.
| maccard wrote:
| That's exactly what those mobile phone repair shops do
| right now (I worked in one for a few years). We would offer
| to dispose of the device for you free of charge/recycle old
| devices, and break them down for parts.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| Shops could definitely do this, but as others have pointed
| out elsewhere Apple requires a serial number before they
| sell you the part as well as a deposit repaid when you
| return the replaced part.
| kevindong wrote:
| If they're no longer manufacturing older devices, they're
| probably not manufacturing parts for them anymore either.
|
| The only new iPhone that Apple is selling that's not on the
| repair parts website is the iPhone 11 which is a bit
| peculiar.
| smugma wrote:
| Most interesting thing to me is that the Midnight screws (Part
| 923-05081) cost 27% more than the other colored screws ($0.19 vs.
| $0.15).
|
| If they were Product(RED) screws, it would have made more sense.
| nojito wrote:
| From 14 days ago.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31014998
| adtac wrote:
| I'd like to pretend I forced Apple into doing this :) You're
| welcome, world.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Given Apple's culture and anti-"everything this pretends to fix"
| I wonder if this yet another one of those things to serve as a
| talking point for Senate hearings but in reality they'll sell you
| some parts at 80% of the price of a new iPhone... ( that old gag
| ).
| Melatonic wrote:
| Definitely this is what they came up with to try to steer the
| narrative away from requiring right to repair becoming actual
| law.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Absolutely. Same with the IRP program.
|
| Part of the problem with Apple's repair programs is that Apple
| themselves doesn't want people dinking around with individual
| electronic components, so they don't let their branded repair
| centers[0] buy or touch them. This dramatically increases the
| cost of repair as you have to dispose of a lot of known-good
| chips purely so that Apple does not have to provide a supply of
| their proprietary components and does not have to hire skilled
| labor to solder them onto boards.
|
| People who actually do bother with component level repair are
| able to frequently undercut Apple on repair cost[1], but have
| significantly harder time buying the components you need to do
| this because Apple won't sell chips. As for why, they won't
| really tell, or if pressed they'll waive their arms around and
| say "intellectual property" and "innovation". My guess is that
| they don't want other companies pulling a Strange Parts and
| building their own iPhones from replacement parts... to which I
| say, _who cares_? If you actually do it that way you aren 't
| saving a whole lot of money and all that money is going back to
| Apple anyway.
|
| Oh, and you can sed s/Apple/any other tech company/g the above
| paragraphs and still be 100% correct. The whole "what about the
| innovashun" argument is a cultural toxin that has infected
| basically every other company that has anything to do with
| electronics. It's why I don't believe Elon's intentions around
| Twitter's algorithm for a second[2]. Everyone in tech has been
| very consistently opposed to anyone other than them touching
| their stuff, purely because it's "theirs" and not because it
| actually has a cognizable harm to them.
|
| [0] AASP & IRP members inclusive
|
| [1] Even if we exclude particularly embarrassing cases like
| when the Genius Bar forgot to check if a backlight cable was
| installed correctly and recommended a full logic board swap
|
| [2] Tesla is the company that brought Apple-style repair
| hostility to cars. Elon does not care about "freedom" beyond
| hearing about it in a meme.
| bogwog wrote:
| IIRC, that's exactly what this is. This program is targeted at
| "self service" repair, i.e. you fixing your own phone. Apple
| wants to make it hard/impossible for third party/independent
| repair shops to offer that service. This does nothing for them:
| the prices mean that these shops will not be able to make a
| profit if they try to undercut Apple's own $329 out-of-warranty
| flat price for screen repair.
|
| So when right to repair criticism is lobbed at Apple, they can
| now point at this website.
| bradfa wrote:
| The prices seem very reasonable for genuine parts. Some parts
| have a "core charge" like automotive parts, to ensure you send
| back the bad ones so they can be remanufactured.
|
| The $49 rental of the tool kit gets you the use of some quite
| impressive tools and fixtures which are likely to greatly
| enhance the chance of success for various repairs.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Some parts have a "core charge" like automotive parts, to
| ensure you send back the bad ones so they can be
| remanufactured.
|
| This also prevents enterprising shops from buying stocks of
| parts for use in the future, when Apple stops selling parts
| for today's models.
| bradfa wrote:
| But this program is rather clearly not aimed at repair
| shops but seems much more for the retail DIY crowd. For
| other things which are DIY, like automotive repair, core
| charges are a normal everyday thing. I don't normally stock
| various parts for my own cars, I buy them when I need to.
| This feels very similar to me.
| ATsch wrote:
| > But this program is rather clearly not aimed at repair
| shops but seems much more for the retail DIY crowd.
|
| Yes, which is the point. They are offering a compromise
| for a tiny market (self-repair) in hopes of this
| distracting from and preventing laws that would benefit
| the market that actually matters (independent repair).
|
| It's like throwing your underpaid demoralized employees a
| pizza party so they don't quit, nothing but a damage
| control gesture that deliberarely doesn't actually help.
| vesrah wrote:
| How does it prevent it? Returning a core isn't required. If
| you want to stockpile you just need to pay a bit more.
| ATsch wrote:
| You need to know the serial number of the phone before
| ordering the components. That means repairs will for most
| people take two to three visits to the repair center over
| a week, whereas apple can do it in one visit.
|
| They know this makes independent repair uncompetitive,
| which is why they do it.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| That's exactly what it is. The selection of parts available to
| order is also absolutely laughable.
| jmull wrote:
| The list of products covered is very small -- just recent
| phones).
|
| But the parts available for the covered products looks good
| to me -- parts and all the tools needed to install them. And
| prices are good too.
|
| They've even got some really nice features, like tool kit
| rental and battery return credits.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Why don't they sell Mac Studio motherboards?
| lolwhat32 wrote:
| "You can now repair your iPhone yourself using the new Apple
| Driver(tm). For only $199 for the basic version ($399 for the Pro
| version), this screwdriver can be used on any compatible iPhone,
| iPad or Mac."
| billfor wrote:
| Looks like their instructions require an expensive heated display
| removal machine.
| https://www.ilounge.com/news/iphone/iphone-12-repair-require...
| ezfe wrote:
| They rent it for $45/wk including shipping, or you can use an
| iFixit guide that I think uses a hair dryer.
| thebeardisred wrote:
| Honestly, when I was first reading I scoffed: $49 for "tool
| rental"?!
|
| Then I dug further and saw that the tools include an entire set
| of color coded force specific torque drivers, all of the _proper_
| fixtures disassembly and re-assembly, etc all shipped in a
| Pelican style case.
|
| IMHO, this squarely puts this type of repair in the hands of the
| DIY enthusiast. Maybe not cost competitive for fixing a single
| device but great for doing your own and helping out friends,
| family, and neighbors for the week you have the kit.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Oh the other hand that kit feels absolutely overkill (and the
| cost of it must be insane) when ~50 bucks worth of iFixit tools
| and a hair dryer has done the job just fine for me.
| wiseleo wrote:
| I own microsoldering electronics repair tools and fixtures.
| The price is competitive, especially for factory-quality
| fixtures. Having the right tools drastically reduces the
| difficulty of repair. Interestingly, Apple offers the
| adhesive gasket for $1.80. When used with their display
| press, this makes restoring watertight factory fit of the
| replacement display much easier.
|
| Renting the tools is a nice option to have. Torque drivers
| appear to be priced at obscene level, but not really. Based
| on handle pattern, these appear to be customized Wera
| screwdrivers and they cost more to buy direct than through
| this program from Apple. That just feels like Snapon pricing
| for specialty tools. By the way, Snapon sells individual
| torque screwdrivers for $256. Really.
|
| This could be targeted at corporations that have staff to do
| in-house repairs of their hardware. They will have the option
| to avoid making a trip to the Apple store and losing custody
| of their hardware. One of the companies where I work has such
| a department. They order Lenovo parts and fix the laptops on-
| site instead of relying on on-site field service from Lenovo.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Yes, agreed, those fixtures would absolutely help with a
| large-scale repair operation. But if you're only doing it
| occasionally for your own device, the time taken to
| receive, unpack, pack and send back the fixtures would
| probably take more than just using lower-cost tooling that
| you _own_.
|
| A big reason why I do my own repairs is because it allows
| me to optimize the logistics of it by removing the time-
| sensitive component of shipping; I order common parts &
| tooling (multiples so I have spares if I fuck up) well in
| advance of any breakage so that the actual repair no longer
| depends on the shipping service or my ability to receive
| packages. Putting the shipping service back in the critical
| path would negate all those advantages for me, making it no
| better than just shipping the entire device to Apple/AASP
| to begin with.
|
| The only major advantage I see here is that the display
| press would likely guarantee the water-tightness of the
| repaired phone, though personally I've always just done
| without and accepted that my device is not watertight,
| especially considering I don't trust the factory one either
| after months of heavy use, thermal cycles and minor
| mechanical shocks & damage.
|
| > This could be targeted at corporations that have staff to
| do in-house repairs of their hardware.
|
| Hopefully in the future, yes. As it stands though this is
| unusable for large-scale in-house repair operations as you
| can't stock parts and have to order them as needed since
| you need to return the old part in a timely manner.
| wiseleo wrote:
| I will probably order 2-3 sets of parts just to have on-
| site using some random serial numbers of issued
| equipment. That should give me the flexibility you
| mention.
|
| This is still not enough, but for large companies with
| strict security policies it is a welcome development.
| Basically, having ability to achieve factory seal on a
| display assembly in-house for approximately $1000 in
| equipment is a huge win.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Considering there's still a "system configuration" step
| that relies on Apple Support, I wouldn't be surprised if
| they'll just deny it for you because they don't approve
| of you working around their restrictions.
|
| Similarly, for the tooling, is it actually available to
| purchase or is it a rental only? If it's a rental they
| might still retaliate (beyond just keeping your deposit)
| by banning your account and/or devices and/or denying
| future "system configuration" on any parts ordered on it
| to prevent people from "purchasing" the tooling that way.
| ejj28 wrote:
| Exactly. While Apple's special tools might be the best ones
| to use, It really seems like a way for Apple to frame stuff
| like iFixit tools in a bad light. Suddenly hair dryers and
| microwave beanbags are only for hackjob poor quality repairs
| now that Apple's fancy screen press or whatever is available
| to rent.
|
| Reading through the comments sections on MacRumors posts
| pertaining to the toolkit, plenty of people are seemingly
| very eager to jump to disparaging iFixit, their tools, and
| any repair store that doesn't have Apple's fancy expensive
| tools just because they're not doing it "the right way".
| politician wrote:
| PSA: Do not use Apple's special courier service to deliver
| devices purchased through their Apple Shop app.
|
| The courier is Uber. The drivers routinely cancel deliveries
| resulting in a mandatory 5-7 day wait for the cancellation to be
| processed and a refund issued. Apple will not ship a replacement
| device on the original purchase order; instead, customers must
| place a new order.
| ezfe wrote:
| Such an on-topic comment
| smm11 wrote:
| DHL fixed my iBook maybe 20 years ago. Anyone?
| amlozano wrote:
| Louis Rossmann, who has been outspoken about Apple's repair
| hostility and is a right-to-repair advocate, has released a video
| where he goes over his take on this site:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agG108sxkyo
|
| It's a pretty good take, and points out some key criticisms: lack
| of parts for common repairs, lack of support for older devices,
| and, of course, no schematics.
| [deleted]
| onphonenow wrote:
| soylentcola wrote:
| Meanwhile, the only working device (ie: not physically
| broken) of that sort I still have unused is my iPad2. It's
| been in a crate of unused electronics for the past several
| years because it's quite old and unable to be flashed with
| anything else other than a very old version of iOS. It barely
| functions, it's so slow. Meanwhile, I've got old HTC,
| Samsung, and Pixel devices still being used. They typically
| run some stripped down Android build without a SIM and LAN-
| only WiFi and make fine media players and "fancy" remotes for
| lights and such.
|
| Official support is definitely a huge deal and I enjoyed the
| iPad for several years. But these days, the best way I've
| found for me to avoid waste is to stick with devices that
| allow me to install something lightweight of my choice after
| they are EOL.
| natosaichek wrote:
| The problem isn't Louis, it's Apple's repair-hostile
| policies. Louis is just pointing out that he is physically
| capable of fixing a thing for $50 in an hour while the apple
| store would discard the whole motherboard and replace it,
| costing thousands and taking much more time. Repairing is
| fundamentally much more environmentally positive than
| discarding / replacing.
|
| The guy is amazing in his advocacy for systems that can be
| repaired, updated etc. If people were on Apple, then got
| turned off because their device broke and couldn't be
| repaired legally, so they switched to an android that they
| _can_ repair, that's not Louis' fault - it's Apple's.
| threeseed wrote:
| Yes Louis maybe able to fix something for $50 but is he
| willing to stand behind the work, guarantee that the
| motherboard will continue to work for years to come and
| offer warranty. Because that's what a new part will get you
| - a reliable, guaranteed experience.
|
| It's great that people can fix it themselves but you
| shouldn't compare that to what the Apple Store will do.
| Their priority will always and should always be the best
| customer experience.
| ejj28 wrote:
| This is frankly an astounding take - People like Louis are
| actively trying to increase the longevity of Apple products
| with stuff like right to repair.
|
| Louis points out issues with Apple products and somehow he's
| a bad guy for that? Informing consumers is somehow bad
| because you think that people should only buy iPhones? Give
| me a break.
| farzher wrote:
| threeseed wrote:
| Please don't accuse people of being bots. It's uncivil and
| not fair.
| fsflover wrote:
| You need >500 karma to downvote.
| circa wrote:
| Just a wild guess as I haven't looked into it, but it probably
| ends up cheaper to just get a new phone in the long run, right?
| gepardi wrote:
| No parts for anything older than an iPhone 12?
|
| This doesn't help anyone trying to get mileage from their phones.
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| Doesn't it? Sure seems like my 12 can get a lot more mileage
| now.
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