[HN Gopher] It's your device, you should be able to repair it
___________________________________________________________________
It's your device, you should be able to repair it
Author : lsllc
Score : 578 points
Date : 2021-04-30 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| ilogik wrote:
| a good video about what the right to repair is and isn't:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVafMi0l68
| bogwog wrote:
| This is a really good video, it lays everything out clearly and
| explains it well. I even threw $50 at Louis's gofundme.
|
| It's always bizarre to me to see regular people arguing against
| right to repair in online discussions. Literally the only
| parties who benefit from planned obsolescence is device
| manufacturers, and it happens at the customer's expense 100% of
| the time. Either these people are dumb, or (most likely) they
| don't actually understand what "right to repair" means, or at
| the very least are confused about it.
| addicted wrote:
| What's also hard to understand is that right to repair is not
| a new concept.
|
| The auto industry has it.
|
| I don't think anyone can argue that the auto industry or its
| customers have suffered from the fact that we have an entire
| ecosystem built around 3rd party repair and services that
| often provide better, quicker, and more easily accessible
| support and services.
| gohbgl wrote:
| As far as there exist unjust laws that prevent people from
| repairing their devices, by all means, get rid of them (IP laws
| especially). But by all means, do not add more regulation.
| rasz wrote:
| "All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine,
| education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water
| system, and public health, what has regulation ever done for
| us?"
| toss1 wrote:
| On a site called Hacker News, I'm surprised to see so much
| criticism of a right to repair.
|
| What is hacking, if not the act of digging into the guts of a
| mechanism or device?
|
| What is open source, but providing the ability for anyone to
| read, modify, and rebuild their software?
|
| I'd expect nothing less than full-throated support for the right
| to dig into things.
|
| Sadly, it seems that many here are more supportive of the right
| to lock things. Perhaps because they are employed in the rent-
| seeking parts of the industry that want everything to be a
| subscription?
|
| "It is very difficult to get someone to understand something when
| their salary depends on not understanding it".
|
| [edit: to be sure, I understand that surface mount technology,
| adhesive bonding, direct-soldered-in batteries, etc., are
| genuinely useful advances, and make certain component-level
| repairs at least impractical. I would not propose to require that
| these be undone. But, we should be able to have whatever level of
| access is physically possible, without unnecessary locks the
| perform no useful user function, so we can try whatever we want.
| Anything less is surrendering ourselves to rent-seeking. ]
| foldr wrote:
| What about reliability? Battery aside, the components in a
| smartphone _could_ all be built to last 10 years. Regulations on
| component lifetimes might have a much more beneficial effect than
| repairability requirements. A well engineered smartphone or
| laptop shouldn't need repairs within the reasonable expected
| lifetime of the device. But at the moment, manufacturers aren't
| incentivized or required to target 10 year lifetimes.
|
| I see it as a bit like ETOPS. You can fly across the Atlantic on
| two engines as long as those engines are super reliable.
| Similarly, you should be allowed to build unrepairable devices if
| you can show, say, an expected lifetime of 10 years for 99% of
| units.
| metalforever wrote:
| Oh no don't give them ideas
| antattack wrote:
| Given opposition to 'right to repair' from corporations, some of
| it on valid grounds IMO, I would be fine with the following
| compromise:
|
| If company does not want to provide resources needed for consumer
| to repair a device- it ought to provide extended warranty to the
| consumer for free or a small fee.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > If company does not want to allow consumer to repair a
| device- it ought to provide extended warranty to the consumer
| for a small fee.
|
| I would modify that:
|
| If a company restricts a consumer from repairing a device
| (either explicitly in warranty policies, or implicitly by
| producing devices that are hard to repair, restricting part
| availability, or not having manuals available), then the
| company _must_ (not should) provide an extended warranty for
| all damage scenarios _at cost_.
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _devices that are hard to repair_
|
| Define easy? (Modern electronics, for instance, is highly
| integrated, full of miniature surface-mounted components
| etc., and so the "repair process" might as well be simply
| selling you a replacement for the whole thing.)
| fsflover wrote:
| > Define easy?
|
| See the definitions by iFixIt.
| rasz wrote:
| Apple already does this, they define _at cost_ as a cost of a
| new device.
| fsflover wrote:
| > hen the company must (not should) provide an extended
| warranty for all damage scenarios at cost.
|
| So would you agree on $1 million fee per customer? (which is
| what companies would probably ask if you made such law)
| rocqua wrote:
| It states "at cost" so only the extra costs made for the
| repair
| fsflover wrote:
| How do you independently evaluate those costs?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Extended warranty or updates. Past a certain date I should be
| able to buy future updates for a reasonable fee.
|
| Sounds fair, it takes work to keep software updated.
| scientismer wrote:
| How do you know how much it costs to provide an extended
| warranty? If it actually costs money, that kind of rule would
| make devices more expensive for everybody.
| whereis wrote:
| Counterpoint: We're all safer by using devices that can't be
| repaired/tampered with by end users.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I don't buy it. Cars are far more dangerous and they've been
| mandated to be repairable for decades now.
| johncessna wrote:
| Agreed, but the tide is shifting there, too. It's not a
| problem getting an off the shelf part for your vehicle. It's
| the software for that part that's the problem.
|
| We already see phone manufacturers locking 'easily'
| replaceable parts to the rest of the phone in a way that the
| phone rejects the replaced part. As our cars gets smarter,
| look for similar tactics to be applied there.
| CivBase wrote:
| Since when have the Googles and Apples of the world genuinely
| cared about "safety" beyond a means to advertise a product?
| bogwog wrote:
| Yeah, just look at all the people that die every year because
| they bought a used car that was repaired/tampered with by an
| end user /s
| 34679 wrote:
| That's not always true. Take the case of a company that
| determines the cost of fixing a flaw is worse for profits than
| letting the flaw continue into production. Remington famously
| allowed a flawed trigger in one of their rifles for decades,
| even after being made aware of it and its 5 cent fix by the
| designer of the rifle, before it went on sale.
|
| https://www.guns.com/news/2016/11/18/trove-of-internal-docum...
| ball_of_lint wrote:
| Safer how exactly?
| whereis wrote:
| Harder to hack with device in hand, e.g. by replacing with
| compromised components or accessing secure data
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Safer? I could cause a safety issue attempting my own car or
| bicycle repairs and both of those things are much more
| repairable than a modern smartphone.
|
| You know what's bad for human "safety"? Gratuitously burning
| through resources and causing pollution by making phones out of
| all sorts of rare materials and hucking them out.
| bun_at_work wrote:
| Pretty sure OP is not referring to physical safety here, but
| more cyber security.
|
| Apple's devices offer a lot of cyber security that more
| modular devices can't guarantee as effectively.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Pretty sure OP is not referring to physical safety here,
| but more cyber security._
|
| Arguably that's because device manufacturers aren't _made
| to care_ about cyber security. Were that to change, their
| devices would be a lot more _safer_.
| rasz wrote:
| Like owners of John Deere tractors? The ones who all got
| DOXXED?
| johncessna wrote:
| This was the argument used by the auto industry, it was wrong
| then and still is wrong.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| where is the unsafety of using a 10 year old ebook or 20 year
| old web client (for self-hosted sites)?
| endisneigh wrote:
| I wonder how the right to repair intersects with security. On one
| extreme, full right to repair is full access to all source code,
| schematics and documents related to the phone and all of its
| hardware and software. It would necessarily also give you the
| ability to arbitrarily flash firmware and install software
| without limitation. Clearly this can't be good for security.
|
| However the other extreme, no access to anything is tantamount to
| no access at all, which is clearly secure, but isn't useful nor
| practical.
|
| Is the government really capable of properly defining the line?
| rank0 wrote:
| > On one extreme, full right to repair is full access to all
| source code, schematics and documents related to the phone and
| all of its hardware and software. It would necessarily also
| give you the ability to arbitrarily flash firmware and install
| software without limitation. Clearly this can't be good for
| security.
|
| Open source code and device schematics shouldn't be a
| significant security threat. If device security is reliant on
| obscurity, you have improper security controls. Frankly, that
| should be on the device manufacturer, and not the consumer.
|
| As for the second point, I should be able to install whatever
| software I want on my device...as its mine.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > Open source code and device schematics shouldn't be a
| significant security threat.
|
| You don't see how a completely open device could be insecure?
|
| > As for the second point, I should be able to install
| whatever software I want on my device...as its mine.
|
| This is a valid opinion, but the whole point of contention is
| whether you can do _anything_ with a device simply because
| you 've purchased it, as opposed to what has been exposed for
| you to do.
| pwg wrote:
| > no access at all, which is clearly secure
|
| Not "clearly secure" -- rather it would be 'security by
| obscurity':
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_by_obscurity
|
| Quote: Security through obscurity (or security by obscurity) is
| the reliance in security engineering on design or
| implementation secrecy as the main method of providing security
| to a system or component. Security experts have rejected this
| view as far back as 1851, and advise that obscurity should
| never be the only security mechanism.
| endisneigh wrote:
| No, my point was that the most secure device is a device that
| cannot do anything - I'm familiar with security by obscurity.
| The point of the example was to give extremes, everything v.
| nothing.
| rasz wrote:
| I can arbitrarily flash firmware and install software on my
| laptop without access to source code.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Please don't forget how jailbreaking your iPhone was illegal only
| 9 years ago, and jailbreaking the iPad wasn't legal until 2015!
| thereddaikon wrote:
| And how it has to be renewed every few years because its only
| legal due to regulatory fiat instead of federal law.
| Epskampie wrote:
| I've recently started repairing more of my own stuff, and it's
| actually really fun. I've replaced the clickers and scroll sensor
| on my Razer mouse, resoldered bad connections on our failed
| washing machine, and removed a piece of dust that was behind a
| layer right in the center of my new monitor. You feel more proud
| of a product you've repaired yourself.
|
| In these repairs i noticed that information (manuals, but also
| being able to discuss on forums) and parts are crucial, so i'm
| glad to see that those are the things encoded in law. A further
| measure could be forbidding forced (hardware level) linking of
| parts.
| operator-name wrote:
| Depending on your product (more like manufacturer) I couldn't
| agree more. Plenty of failures are small, localised and with
| some learning easily fixable!
|
| Replacing the frayed cable on a good pair of headphones, usb
| cable on a functning mouse or even broken display as part of a
| laptop.
|
| I recently decided to take the more challenge task of repairing
| a swelling battery in a phone. I didn't have to worry about the
| back glass as it was already swollen such that the glass had
| cracked. It was surprisingly easy to take apart, remove the
| screws and little legos[0] get to the battery. Closing it up
| was extremely rewarding, as if I'd completed some hard surgery
| and was stitching just up the patient.
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/ZRDLw5ortyU
| leoedin wrote:
| PCs and even most laptops have been very repairable for decades.
| You can still run Windows or Linux on a 10+ (20+?) year old
| laptop without an issue. The idea that a 5 year old laptop would
| be unusable or not get the latest version of Windows is
| unacceptable.
|
| Yet phones cost similar amounts and have nowhere near the
| repairability. A decade ago you could argue that it wasn't that
| important - specs were changing so quickly that new phones became
| obsolete too quickly. But now it's a maturing technology, older
| devices are perfectly good and we still don't have an ecosystem
| which encourages longevity and re-use.
|
| This is eminently doable - phones are essentially integrated
| computers. The only reason phones are locked and PCs aren't is
| historical. If phone manufacturers aren't willing to do it
| themselves, we should legislate before even more e-waste is
| generated.
| 34679 wrote:
| 5 year old laptops are repairable, but fewer and fewer new ones
| are not. I've been in the market recently and it's extremely
| frustrating trying to find a laptop that doesn't have the RAM
| soldered in place. Sure, it can technically be desoldered, but
| that's not how it used to be.
| GordonS wrote:
| I'm hunting for a new laptop just now, and just about
| everything has at least one DIMM soldered, with many having
| both soldered. Driving me nuts!
|
| Is there a convincing technical reason _why_ everybody is
| doing this nowadays?
| operator-name wrote:
| Apart from costs and size there's could be good reasons to
| do this - power, inteferance, placement and cooling.
|
| Hardware specialisation (doesn't always but) can reduce
| energy by allowing for more efficient designs. Just think
| of the power circuitry required to support all the SODIMM
| variants.
|
| Since soldered ram is smaller it allows greater flexibility
| in board design - they can be placed to avoid inteferance
| or to benifit thermals.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| To make it thinner.
|
| And I 100% blame Apple for this. IMO, Apple is not a tech
| company, but a fashion company. Or more accurately, they
| produce technology that's optimized to be fashionable. Thin
| laptops are more sleek, but to make them thinner will
| require parts to be soldered to the motherboard, since an
| actual slot will add 3mm or whatever.
|
| Other companies feel like they have to match Apple, and so
| they follow suit.
|
| The thing is, AFAIK, nobody is asking for laptops to be
| only 0.63 inches (16.1 mm) thick, but that's what people
| are buying. Apple advertises how thin the MacBook Air is,
| and the masses go wild over it.
| GordonS wrote:
| I'm with you on this - the marketing spiel of thinness at
| the expense of all else drivers me nuts!
|
| I do want a thin laptop, and as someone who travelled a
| lot for work while living with a physically disabling
| medical condition, lightness is important to me too. But
| I don't care half a shit if it's 16mm thick instead of
| 16.1mm, if you've disabled the device to do it!
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| Force you to choose more RAM from the factory where they
| charge high margins.
| JoshTko wrote:
| The trend for lack of reparability in smartphones is because of
| consumer preferences. Consumers are consistently choosing
| devices that are smaller, lighter, higher durability,
| waterproof, cheaper etc. vs. devices that are more repairable
| that do not have those features.
| operator-name wrote:
| Smartphones are an interesting market. They've only been
| around 14 years and their rate of growth and improvements
| have been staggering. Just a few years ago every new
| generation brought a leap in performance, battery, features
| or design.
|
| Increasingly consumers are not buying phones every year but
| every two or even three years. As a result manufacturers have
| been designing planned obsolescence and fighting against the
| _right_ to repair.
|
| We can see from the results of direct ballot initiatives that
| consumers want _right_ to repair. They want the choice if
| they accidentally dropped and cracked the screen to buy a new
| one, get a repair from the manufacturer, an independent third
| party or even learn to do it themselves if they 're feeling
| up to it!
|
| So yes, consumers can want features over repairability but
| they can also be against barriers for their right to repair
| at the same time.
| operator-name wrote:
| For independent repair shops newer devices aren't inhenrantly
| more ddifcult to repair. It's just more difficult to source
| the parts or get around the "security features".
| amelius wrote:
| Even if the phone is glued shut, I should still be able to
| install a different OS on the thing after the vendor drops
| support for it.
| doikor wrote:
| Most of the the newest devices are perfectly repairable if
| the manufacturer would release the schematics and not block
| their suppliers from third parties buying the parts (and as
| newest trend lock the parts together on hardware level).
| Maybe not all problems but a lot of the most common ones for
| sure.
|
| Repair shops have managed to source new screens and cameras
| for the latest iPhones for example. Apple just firmware locks
| them to the device that stops them from working even though
| it is a identical part (except for the serial number burned
| into the chip).
|
| Basically it is not about making designs that just happen to
| be hard to repair but instead the manufacturers are making
| them intentionally hard or impossible to repair for third
| parties to protect their own repair line and/or force you to
| buy a new one especially now that phones have started to last
| 3+ years just fine as progress on cpu speeds have slowed
| done.
| fsh wrote:
| Where does this crazy idea come from that you have to glue
| shut a device to make it waterproof? A rubber gasket and a
| few screws work just as well without compromising
| repairability. Wristwatches have been constructed like this
| for centuries, while being a lot smaller and lighter than any
| smartphone. Maybe it would slightly increase the BOM and
| assembly cost, but considering that it fits in the budget of
| a 30EUR Casio, probably not by much. I guess the real problem
| is that manufacturers really don't want you to repair your
| phones and customer's don't care enough for it to make a
| difference in the market.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| > Where does this crazy idea come from that you have to
| glue shut a device to make it waterproof?
|
| Glue helps with heat dissipation, physical shocks,
| vibration knocking plugs loose, provides electrical
| insulation, chemical resistance, and makes the components
| less able to vibrate over time and knock things loose,
| makes sensor positioning more stable, and even makes things
| easier to assemble since less individual fasteners are
| needed.
| fsh wrote:
| None of this makes any sense. In modern smartphones, the
| PCBs (i.e. the parts that get hot and contain the sensors
| and other components) are usually screwed into the frame
| without any glue. Only the battery, display, and back
| covers are glued in. This makes repairs of the most
| commonly damaged parts much more difficult without
| providing any functional benetfits.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| You ignored a significant part of the list. The list is
| not mine - it's listed on manufacturing process feature
| availability when you source things.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Your response doesn't actually address the point you
| quoted.
|
| But yeah. You can either do thoughtful engineering and
| careful assembly... or you can achieve close to the same
| thing with glue.
| giantrobot wrote:
| The demand for smartphones is hundreds of millions per
| year. Manufacturing a hundred million of a complex thing
| is orders of magnitude more difficult than manufacturing
| ones of millions of a complex thing. A small complex
| thing with tight tolerances is harder yet.
|
| Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and
| setting a second part on top is much faster than the same
| process but fastening a couple screws to the appropriate
| tightness. It's also less error prone and creates a
| better bond between the parts.
|
| Apple and Samsung pump out tens of millions of phones a
| quarter. The more effort required for each stage of
| assembly ends up the difference of millions of phones
| manufactured in the same period of time.
| passivate wrote:
| Assuming you've already researched the time and material
| costs - Why does it matter if more effort is required?
|
| We should put the environment and our own interests as a
| society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely
| profitable companies.
|
| We don't allow industries to pollute the planet, we
| require expensive filters and waste-treatment for
| chemical plant effluents and catalytic converters for
| cars, and what not.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > We should put the environment and our own interests as
| a society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely
| profitable companies.
|
| It's not necessarily about overall profit. Apple profits
| on iPhones because they sell them for many times their
| cost. A marginal cost increase in manufacturing wouldn't
| impact them much.
|
| The problem for Apple (and other large manufacturers) is
| production volume. It is a massive (and expensive)
| undertaking to mass produce something like an iPhone in
| the volumes Apple does. There's a lot of orchestration
| between component suppliers, component transport,
| assembly, packaging, and channel distribution. Contracts
| covering all of those things are signed years in advance
| to reserve capacity.
|
| If final product assembly volume drops because a worker
| has to spend five seconds screwing parts rather than two
| seconds gluing that back pressure affects _everything_.
| Supply chains are such that there 's literally no
| warehouse space available to store backed up components
| or finished products.
|
| That doesn't affect profitability but just economic
| feasibility of whole lines of products. There's massive
| demand for smartphones and there's only so many ways to
| get the production volume to meet that demand.
|
| Consider PC shipments in terms of production. The global
| demand is tens of millions of units a _year_ vs hundreds
| of millions of phones per _quarter_. Like I said, there
| 's challenges to making a hundred million complex widgets
| that simply don't exist at smaller scales. Screws might
| be fine in laptops but they're a volume killer for
| phones.
| teachingassist wrote:
| > Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and
| setting a second part on top is much faster than the same
| process but fastening a couple screws to the appropriate
| tightness. It's also less error prone and creates a
| better bond between the parts.
|
| In my imagining of this, a robot is doing it. Which makes
| me think the opposite is true: the tightness can be
| controlled and errors can be managed better with a screw,
| than with glue.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Robots do not in fact do most assembly on smartphones.
| There's a reason Foxconn's factories are the size of
| towns. It's thousands of meat robots doing a majority of
| the work.
| passivate wrote:
| You're saying "glue helps" but you seem to mean "glue is
| required". Those are not identical concepts. Yes glue may
| help, just like using bolts screws and gaskets may help.
| The entire point is that glue is not _required_ to
| achieve those goals.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| What is glue is cheaper and works better at achieving all
| those disparate goals?
| passivate wrote:
| It doesn't though. It fails when it comes to
| repairability, re-use and reduction of e-waste. This is
| the topic of the primary article, and therefore the
| context for this thread.
|
| You can also weld an entire car together to make it
| cheaper, but this is not something we should celebrate or
| promote if it impacts the environment in terms of repair.
|
| But yes, I value your opinion so don't want to shut you
| out of the discussion, I'm just saying there are more
| important things than making sure an executive at Apple
| or Google pockets a few more $100 bills.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >It fails when it comes to repairability, re-use and
| reduction of e-waste
|
| Around 1.5 billion phones are sold a year. What percent
| of phones are thrown out due to breaking versus people
| want an upgrade? Then compare to the costs and waste of
| using inefficient assembly techniques.
|
| It's also not hard or terribly expensive to get most
| broken phones fixed at plenty of repair shops.
|
| I think you vastly overestimate the number of phones that
| become waste due to using glue on parts.
|
| > I'm just saying there are more important things than
| making sure an executive at Apple or Google pockets a few
| more $100 bills
|
| I think this type of simplistic framing makes the
| discussion end, not pointing out that there are good
| engineering merits for using glue.
|
| I've worked on enough hardware design that needs MIL-SPEC
| ratings that I know it is highly non-trivial to make
| things rugged. And that things like glue go a long way
| towards making it so.
|
| How much increased waste would there be if phones were
| significantly easier to break?
| JoshTko wrote:
| Look at this comparison. Fairphone has a smaller screen but
| is larger, heavier, lower quality screen, and is not
| dust/waterpoof, and costs double compared with the Galaxy
| S8. Fairphone only matches or loses on all other specs.
|
| https://versus.com/en/fairphone-3-vs-samsung-galaxy-s8
| operator-name wrote:
| But also look at the AirPods Pro vs Galaxy Buds+:
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Pro+Teardown/1275
| 51
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds++Tear
| dow...
|
| One has a zero whilst the other has a 7 by ifixit's
| rating.
| scientismer wrote:
| Can you present me a sleek smartphone design with a rubber
| gasket and screws? I'm genuinely curious what you have in
| mind.
| africanboy wrote:
| but that's not a dichotomy
|
| you can have both
|
| we had smaller, lighter, more durable, waterproof, cheap
| phones in the 90s and they were also highly repairable
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Repairable is not limited to just OS support, but fair and
| equal access to replacement components. For example, apple can
| ask Texas Instruments to not sell a particular chip that is
| used on their logic boards to anyone else but them, rendering
| odds of third party repair slimmer [1].
|
| Apple went as far as to prevent genuine, that is, salvaged
| parts, from legitimately bought phones, from being used to
| replace camera units [2,3,4], or lock phones with replaced
| batteries.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/w4eHZCuHob8?t=175 Louis talks about part
| availability
|
| [2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/30/21542242/apple-
| iphone-12...
|
| [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnG3h3Jewq4
|
| [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez3f1HgOa1o
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _or not get the latest version of Windows_
|
| Not sure about this one: the continued support for older
| versions - yes, but the latest? Nobody can give you such
| promise (unless they explicitly do, for one reason or another).
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I have a 10 year old desktop and a 12 year old laptop that
| both run the latest Windows 10 with no issues.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I can easily install the latest version of windows 10 on even
| a 10 year old computer. But more importantly, I can still
| install Windows 7 on a 10-year-old computer if I want to. And
| it will still work, and most programs will still run on it.
| Or I can install an alternate operating system like Linux.
|
| Whereas with my iPhone, I literally can't install an old
| version of the operating system or an alternate os, no matter
| how old or new the device. And if I do happen to have a
| device that still has an old operating system, most apps
| refuse to run because the API surface area changes
| constantly. And if you have old versions of apps, they mostly
| all phone home to check versions now and won't run until you
| update them. It's a never ending cycle and you have no
| control over it.
| libeclipse wrote:
| > The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) says extending the life
| of smartphones and other electronics by just one year would be
| the equivalent of taking two million cars off the road, in terms
| of CO2 emissions.
|
| Looking at you, Apple.
|
| https://uk.gofundme.com/f/lets-get-right-to-repair-passed
| djoldman wrote:
| I believe that this right to repair stuff is really a reflection
| of a superceding market breakdown: oligopolistic power.
|
| Consumers want to do what they like with the things they own and
| some want the information needed to repair those things. Some
| companies don't have to offer this information or can get away
| with locking down their devices because they are immune from
| competition. This immunity is generally acquired by having the
| best product but then maintained by an abuse of market share.
|
| The solution is to encourage competition somehow. If someone made
| a tractor that could compete with John Deere, John Deere might be
| forced to entice consumers with the feature of repairability.
| passivate wrote:
| >Some companies don't have to offer this information or can get
| away with locking down their devices because they are immune
| from competition.
|
| Oh it is much worse that this. These 'Some' companies actively
| block repair shops from purchasing spare parts so they can
| repair end-users' devices.
| djoldman wrote:
| Agreed it can be much worse.
|
| From the econ standpoint it's a rational move. Once you
| capture the users you do whatever you like.
|
| I'm a little surprised a quality (magical like how Google
| used to be) search engine hasn't popped up.
| dvdkon wrote:
| I agree, more competition would be the ideal solution, but I'm
| not sure we can achieve that goal without drastic changes. In
| my opinion, having competition on details like "does it have a
| headphone jack?" or "is it repairable?" requires competing
| manufacturers to be able to create near-identical products that
| only differ in those details, with the price delta reflecting
| only that one difference and not other complex market
| conditions. However, creating such "clones" is something our
| copyright and patent system is designed to prevent. There's
| some merit to it: preventing clones will force more global
| diversity. But in the common situation where the user has
| already decided on one area of the market ("I want iOS and a
| great camera"), these systems force the user into one choice,
| not letting them choose in important details.
|
| The way I see it, we either tear up all IP laws to allow for
| drastically lower costs of entry and hope that solves the
| problem (and other ones too), or we pass laws requiring some
| minimum standard of repairability. Or maybe a little bit of
| both (aggressive unbundling laws?).
| mjparrott wrote:
| Won't repairable phones be bulkier? I would think its hard to be
| able to have as compact / integrated / low-toleranced of a design
| if you make more exposed screws, clips and replaceable seals etc.
| operator-name wrote:
| Firstly repairability and the right to repair are distinct
| issues.
|
| Surface Pro X and Galaxy Buds are great examples that show just
| compactness and relative repairability can coexist.
| bogwog wrote:
| No.
|
| Also, "right to repair" doesn't mean manufacturers have to
| change their product designs in any way. iPhones today aren't
| hard to repair because they're thin, they're hard to repair
| because Apple ships DRM that checks the serial numbers of all
| the parts, so that it will refuse to work if you try to replace
| something.
|
| Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY7DtKMBxBw
| DaniloDias wrote:
| I'm 20 years into my career and my perspective on this topic has
| changed from being a supporter of RTR to being generally tepid.
|
| Most IoT is shit because they compete on very thin margins. This
| presents a problem for folks who consider both security and
| customer ownership rights- what is the more important priority?
| Right to repair, or Authenticity of software?
|
| 1.) I currently index on authenticity of software. It should not
| be easy for someone to augment your firmware with spying ability.
|
| 2) there is a plentiful ecosystem of inexpensive suppliers for
| homebrew types that want to build their own purpose built
| devices. This wasn't the case historically. In the past, I felt
| like you didn't have an economical alternative path. Now you do,
| so why is it so important to demand the ability to Jerry rig
| someone else's appliance?
|
| 3) I don't think RTR is compatible with secure boot,
| antirollback, etc.
|
| I do believe in RTR for laptops, John deer tractors and cars. But
| I find it a waste of time for inexpensive iot gear. Am I alone?
| Would appreciate others perspective.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| I think RTR is the wrong fight - things like controlling the
| actions of software running on your computer, and right to an API
| _into_ that software are as, if not more, important. And on the
| mobile front, moving towards "apps" is the epitome of this (f
| you reddit).
|
| Hardware is a harder problem, but meaningless if everything is
| locked down, or practically disadvantageous to modify, at a
| software level - corps can leverage software complexity by making
| those that go off-piste have to manage it all (e.g app-stores).
| joshgoldman wrote:
| Very unfortunate but predictable that people here mostly defend
| Apple on this
| temp667 wrote:
| The irony is despite all this right to repair stuff, apple makes
| some of the more long lasting devices in terms of usability.
| Their software updates keep coming, their phones are actually
| surprisingly waterproof (plenty of great rescue stories here). If
| you have parents who are older, you know how this works - they
| keep their devices much longer in my experience.
|
| Yes, they glue the crap out of everything, solder stuff down
| instead of hacking bigger sockets and plug in chips with pins etc
| so do everything they are not supposed to. But the end result is
| darn long lasting and useful.
|
| If someone thinks users will trade out for these right to repair
| devices go for it. Android has TONS of folks playing in that
| space. But I'd say let Apple try things there way - a phone that
| just maintains great resale value because it's a bit harder to
| get screwed buying one - it alerts you if the scammers swap out
| the battery for a crap one even which used to be one annoying
| issue buying used iphones that made me stop buying used.
| Proven wrote:
| Nonsense.
|
| Yes, you may repair it if you want, that's never been the issue.
| But then don't come back asking for free service or free
| replacement parts when you can't fix it or when it breaks next
| time.
|
| The manufacturer has no moral or other obligation to provide
| help, info or assistance beyond conditions under which I've sold
| the device or equipment. If you don't like a deal, find yourself
| a better one.
| soheil wrote:
| Should you have the right to repair the CPU inside your machine?
| Does that mean the manufacturer must design and manufacture the
| CPU in a way for you to be able to repair it? Where does one draw
| the line as things get more and more complex? Sadly, we don't
| live a horse and buggy world anymore where you could just get a
| new horse or fix a wheel if it stopped working.
| iotku wrote:
| > Should you have the right to repair the CPU inside your
| machine?
|
| Sure, if a component in a CPU failed there shouldn't be any
| deliberate effort by the manufacturer to restrict it's
| replacement/repair (especially by entirely artificial means).
|
| > Does that mean the manufacturer must design and manufacture
| the CPU in a way for you to be able to repair it?
|
| That's unenforceable, but it is preferable for environmental
| reasons that manufacturers consider the reapairability of their
| products where possible.
|
| What isn't acceptable is deliberately ensuring parts aren't
| available or are designed explicitly not to work with
| compatible or identical replacements.
|
| >Where does one draw the line as things get more and more
| complex?
|
| If something is _actually_ unrepairable it shouldn 't be too
| much of a burden on manufacturers because there would be no
| interest in purchasing replacement components for something
| that is actually irreparable.
|
| >Sadly, we don't live a horse and buggy world anymore where you
| could just get a new horse or fix a wheel if it stopped
| working.
|
| Bad faith argument.
|
| Even so, the main argument in right to repair isn't "Oh my gosh
| everything is so hard and modern nobody can do anything if only
| we were still repairing something easy like wagons".
|
| The argument is that we should have the right for repairs to
| occur without unreasonable impediments.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| A thought: some things have long been accepted to need experts or
| expensive tooling for their repair.
|
| So you never read something like "It's your ruptured spinal disk,
| you should be able to repair it.".
|
| I wonder if hardware vendors claim this is analogous.
| CivBase wrote:
| "Right to repair" also means you can take it to an expert of
| your choosing. I don't know how to fix many problems my Honda
| and I could certainly take it to a Honda dealer if/when I
| encounter such problems, but I'm also happy to take it to
| someone else who has the knowledge and tools to fix it for me.
| css wrote:
| This article moves the goalposts on what "right to repair" is
| several times. It generally means that manufacturers should not
| hide schematics from device users or disallow third party
| manufacturing of first party parts. However, the author states:
|
| > The law doesn't yet cover smartphones and tablets that she says
| are getting harder to fix. One problem is keeping older devices
| updated with new software.
|
| Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to be
| easier to repair but also includes legacy software support? Where
| do we draw this line? If your M1 dies, you can't fab one yourself
| or run older software on it indefinitely.
|
| Further down, the author writes:
|
| > But markets have now become flooded with products that are less
| repairable.
|
| > "It requires laws in place that prevent manufacturers from
| stopping [supporting] a product too early, or making it pretty
| much impossible to repair it by design."
|
| Now the author has shifted "right to repair" to mean mandatory
| first-party device support and design requirements around repair-
| ability.
|
| We must very carefully define our terms here, because requiring
| someone else to provide on one's behalf presumes a right to the
| product of their labor.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to
| be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support?
|
| This is really the same thing, i.e. comprehensive hardware
| documentation. If the hardware is well-documented then third
| parties can use the documentation to create hardware drivers
| and continue to support e.g. Android/Linux on that hardware
| even after the OEM stops providing supported software.
|
| This is true even of iPhones; there is no technical reason you
| shouldn't be able to port Android or any other OS to iPhone
| hardware given adequate hardware documentation. People are
| attempting to port Linux to M1 Macbooks even without adequate
| hardware documentation, though of course the lack of
| documentation is a severe impediment and the efforts
| consequently have yet to produce a usable port.
| passivate wrote:
| >Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to
| be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support?
| Where do we draw this line? If your M1 dies, you can't fab one
| yourself or run older software on it indefinitely.
|
| You're argument is with the author, and his interpretation, not
| with "right to repair". What "right to repair" is or isn't , is
| not decided by the author of this article. There are various
| organizations that are loosely related with a few shared
| ideals.
|
| >We must very carefully define our terms here, because
| requiring someone else to provide on one's behalf presumes a
| right to the product of their labor.
|
| Not really. Anyone can propose anything in an article, and they
| must be free to do so. Its upto us as a collective to think
| over ideas and proposals and then push for policy proposals
| that align.
|
| Ultimately the terms will be defined in legislation, not on
| bbc.com
| spamizbad wrote:
| You are conflating Right to Repair efforts in Europe with those
| in the US. Naturally, the US laws are more deferential to
| capital interests and is less consumer-friendly, and simply ask
| that companies don't ban the sale of components to independent
| repair shops, firmware lockouts of replacement parts that only
| the manufacturer can provide, etc.
| css wrote:
| What does the European definition of "right to repair"
| entail, then?
| spamizbad wrote:
| The article gives some examples, but I think more broadly
| the European Right to Repair efforts seem to align the
| repairability of consumer electronics with what we've come
| to expect from automobiles.
| anticristi wrote:
| That industry can also use some "right to repair". I
| can't type www.peugeot.fr and find schematics, propriety
| diagnostic codes and repair instructions.
|
| Granted, these are available from 3rd parties for a
| rather modest fee.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Not exactly the answer to your question but France recently
| adopted a repairability score that has to be shown, just
| like the energy efficency class or nutrition labels.
|
| The criteria are:
|
| 1- Documentation
|
| 2- Ease of disassembly, with a subsection on the necessary
| tools and a focus on the parts that are most likely to be
| serviced (for smartphones: battery, screen, ...)
|
| 3- Availability of spare parts
|
| 4- Price of spare parts relative to the finished product
| price
|
| 5- Extra criteria which depend on the type of item, for a
| smartphone, software updates are in this category
| rasz wrote:
| and Apple devices score 7 out of 10 and up. Its all self
| assessment. This law is a farce.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| iPhones are surprisingly repairable. But yes, some scores
| are... unexpected.
| jll29 wrote:
| The idea is good, the implementation needs improvement.
| Germany hasn't adopted the French approach, but awaits a
| Europe-wide initiative. Let's hope the lobbyists can't
| pull its teeth.
| mattmanser wrote:
| They've got a whole study about it, if you've got time to
| read it (I haven't :):
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648
| 7...
| corty wrote:
| The general aim of "right to repair" is to extend lifetime of
| devices. All the things the author mentioned are means to
| achieve this, and all are necessary: Schematics, repair
| manuals, deliverable parts for a sufficiently long period and
| software support ("repair" also includes software defects of
| course). Sometimes also software extensibility and
| replaceability, i.e. no signature lockdowns and other DRM
| measures.
|
| There are weak versions of the right to repair that are only
| suited to enable third-party repair shops, e.g. by making
| schematics and parts available to "licensed professionals". But
| that is not what is generally desirable.
|
| I agree that the article fails to make this clear.
| Guest42 wrote:
| Regarding software, I think that pushing updates that
| essentially kill devices should fall under right to repair. I
| generally delay my ios updates out of concern whether space
| and ram will get eaten up. There probably won't be an os
| update that enables a new app or feature I'm looking for. I'm
| not one to run unknown software and with the walled garden
| can't really download any executables anyways.
|
| Also had win 10 updates kill a laptop in this manner that was
| then extended another 7 years by switching to Ubuntu.
| corty wrote:
| Updates that kill devices are at best a defect that is the
| manufacturer's responsibility to fix or pay for. At worst
| computer sabotage, which is a crime.
|
| Unfortunately courts have yet to get "bitey" on this issue.
| I guess it needs to hit a few more judges until the hammer
| comes down hard.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| Are there cases now where an update bricks devices that
| are still supported and the manufacturer doesn't fix it?
| Genuinely asking as I don't know of any such cases.
| overgard wrote:
| I haven't had a device brick, but every time Windows 10
| runs an update on my old macbook I usually have to revert
| it. Well, Windows reverts it itself; but it involves
| multiple reboots and I have to handhold it by holding
| down "alt" all the time so it goes into the right OS.
| Very annoying. Especially when I just need the OS for a
| quick thing and Microsoft has decided that I need to wait
| 30 minutes to use an OS I touch every couple months or
| so.
|
| I know the argument here would be "well keep your os up
| to date", but the point is that the updates themselves no
| longer work on this laptop for whatever reason; yet
| microsoft insists on breaking my laptop every tuesday for
| these "critical" fixes that I never really need.
| tjoff wrote:
| Win10 was released 2015-07.
| corty wrote:
| The expected use time of a dishwasher is 10 years. Which
| is a machine with mechanical parts and a lot of wear and
| tear, corrosive chemicals, decaying seals, etc. A
| computer with fewer movable parts and a higher price
| should last longer. That software manufacturers don't
| support that notion is a problem that needs to be dealt
| with.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| If you read again, the claim is that after a failed
| Windows 10 update that device ran another 7 years on
| Ubuntu. As Windows 10 was launched less than 7 years ago,
| that is a lie.
| Guest42 wrote:
| I don't have an exact timeframe in my head and wrote
| things on the fly. The point is that Ubuntu is going
| perfectly fine and will continue to do so whereas windows
| bricked the system. I also think it's common practice
| with year estimation to round up to the next year.
| corty wrote:
| With a sufficiently generous interpretation it might have
| been a preview build. But then he wouldn't be entitled to
| complain, because of course a preview might break.
|
| More probably you are right.
| tjoff wrote:
| I agree, but I don't think windows falls into that
| category. For what it is worth, win10 is in my experience
| pretty great (in this regard). And windows by and large
| have also been that way.
|
| My 8 year old sony laptop had kludges to be supported by
| windows 8 (which it came with...). Sony quit the laptop
| game before win 10 and I figured it would be a nightmare
| to ever get off win8.
|
| Turns out Windows 10 was way easier to install than what
| was ever officially supported (especially if you wanted a
| clean install) and there are no issues keeping it up to
| date.
|
| And even that is dwarfed by desktops.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| with all due respects, this article is neither extremely rich
| or information nor exhaustively researched. Its more like the
| kind of stuff you hear on BBC radio. Just a few interviews with
| people whose experiences you might not hear from otherwise.
| qzw wrote:
| Isn't the underlying issue planned obsolescence as a business
| model? It's anti-consumer and anti-environment, and maybe we
| shouldn't incentivize it as a planet.
| rapht wrote:
| Planned obsolescence != suboptimal life expectancy
|
| On the left hand, you make design choices with the goal of
| limiting the life expectancy of the product, and on the right
| hand, you just don't prioritise life expectancy over other
| considerations when making said choices.
|
| Of course the line is thin and the complexity of design
| trade-offs in all directions makes it pretty hard to pinpoint
| where evil actually happened... which is why the "right to
| repair" is so complicated in terms of hardware.
|
| Software though is another matter: no-one can claim it's "too
| difficult" or "too costly" to provide users with the
| information that will allow them to use their device with the
| software they want.
| zepto wrote:
| The problem is that planned obsolescence _is not_ in fact
| everyone's business model.
|
| Apple's penetration into the US market is not because the
| iPhone matches Android in terms of sales, it's because
| iPhones last longer and get handed down or resold. Apple
| literally continues to sell years old devices.
|
| That isn't planned obsolescence.
|
| A really simple step in the right direction would be mandated
| labeling showing how many years of software updates the
| device will get and statistical expected lifetime.
| fsflover wrote:
| > That isn't planned obsolescence.
|
| Yes, it is. Even though Apple devices last longer, _after_
| the support is ended, I cannot do _anything_ with them. I
| cannot update, install anything. They effectively become
| bricks. If this is not planned obsolescence, then what is?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Except they don't become bricks. They still work just
| fine. In fact, on some more recent unsupported devices,
| you can still redownload apps (but only up to the latest
| version supporting your device). Did the Apple II become
| a brick when Apple stopped supporting them? The IBM PC?
| Why is an older iDevice a "brick", but not BlackBerrys or
| Nokias?
| fsflover wrote:
| Security issues are found in browsers every day. You get
| no updates anymore and you are not allowed to update
| yourself. If you care about (not) leaking any of your
| data, this is effectively a brick.
| zepto wrote:
| > They effectively become bricks.
|
| In other words this was complete bullshit.
|
| It's true that older devices are less capable than newer
| ones, and you might not want to browse on an old device.
|
| But they aren't bricks.
| [deleted]
| splix wrote:
| You can redownload supporting apps, but the problem is
| that the official App Store doesn't have them once a new
| version of OS comes out.
|
| I remember when in 2014 I decided to give away my unused
| iPad 1st gen, just as a e-reader. So I've erased it but
| no apps were supporting this device already. Even the
| official Apple Books app.
|
| Yes, techicaly it wasn't bricked, it worked, you still
| can turn it on and off. But without software it's
| useless.
| zepto wrote:
| Ok - but that's true of any old device that developers
| are no longer targeting. Classic Macs for example.
| joshspankit wrote:
| Here's another angle:
|
| An iPhone 4 with the "last supported OS" is significantly
| slower than when it had the OS it launched with.
|
| This is true across the board, which leads to this very
| convenient "they can buy used iPhones, but we don't want
| them to _use_ them, so we'll gently guide them to new
| devices by making it inconvenient and annoying"
|
| And before someone argues: Yes, much of the slowdown is
| because of new features, BUT Apple could simply allow
| users to disable most of them (such as ML-processing
| photos in the background, or deep-indexing file contents
| for spotlight. Those are _not_ required for the phone to
| function as a phone).
|
| If someone wanted to use the iPhone 3GS with the original
| iOS, not sync to the cloud, replace the battery every
| couple years, and install a firewall to prevent intrusion
| via known attack vectors, they could realistically have a
| perfectly snappy and solid experience in _any_ future
| decade. Doubly so if they kept a 2.4Ghz AP when the
| industry is on some unknown future frequency.
|
| However: Apple has taken many steps to prevent exactly
| that sort of thing, and they will continue to make as
| many as they can get away with.
| zepto wrote:
| > An iPhone 4 with the "last supported OS" is
| significantly slower than when it had the OS it launched
| with.
|
| This ignores the fact that later iPhones with the newest
| OS are significantly faster than what they launched with,
| which contradicts the conclusion that this is
| intentional.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The lawsuit they lost suggests that the court found it
| was intentional.
| andrepd wrote:
| Precisely, the iPhone does not work like an Apple ][ or
| an IBM PC. After "support" is ended you cannot install
| software on your device. How insane is it, I'll repeat:
| you _cannot install software_ on _"your own" device_.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| I personally don't care about installing my own stuff on
| my iPhone. I bought it knowing full well I couldn't do
| it. But you're right: when support ends, it is pretty
| crazy how the only way to install unapproved apps is
| through jailbreaks. If a manufacturer isn't going to
| support a mass produced device anymore, they shouldn't be
| able to just fold their arms and say, "we have a newer
| model!"
| zepto wrote:
| Which Apple device do you own that behaves like this?
|
| I have owned many and _not one_ has become useless in
| this way, not has any I have every heard of.
| ska wrote:
| It's only planned obsolescence if the lifetime of a
| product is _artificially_ shortened by design choices. It
| 's not clear this applies here.
| splix wrote:
| I cannot replace a battery on a perfectly working iPad
| otherwise, and Apple is charging almost a price of a new
| device to replace it for me, i.e. they are basially
| forcing me to buy a new one.
|
| Wondering, can that be called a planned obsolescence or
| not?
| Karunamon wrote:
| If we're talking about an unsupported devices, aren't the
| downsides of third party repairs basically moot? There
| are any number of above-board companies that you can ship
| your device to and will do a battery swap for you so long
| as batteries are available.
| splix wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I did. Found an unofficial repair and
| replaced the battery for less that $100. Anyway, I don't
| think it should be so hard to replace a battery. And I
| still remember times when I was able to replace battery
| manually at home.
| ska wrote:
| > And I still remember times when I was able to replace
| battery manually at home.
|
| This is definitely an issue, but it's not the same issue
| as planned obsolescence.
| fsflover wrote:
| Why is it not the same issue? By preventing the users to
| replace the battery, you force them to buy a new device
| after a couple of years.
| ska wrote:
| > Why is it not the same issue?
|
| Because the design choices are pretty easily argued to
| have been made for reasons other than reducing user
| access, but have the side effect of reducing user access.
| Both size/weight constraints and case integrity drive you
| to the same sort of thing.
|
| To be clear, I think it's fine to call out a company for
| planned obsolescence, and I think it's fine to call them
| out for emphasizing size, etc. over user serviceability.
| I just don't think it's useful to pretend they are the
| same thing.
| zepto wrote:
| They don't prevent users from replacing the battery. I've
| done it myself.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| For many devices the devices themselves are glued making
| the process of just opening the case interesting and then
| require near complete disassembly to remove the battery.
| ska wrote:
| > Wondering, can that be called a planned obsolescence or
| not?
|
| I don't think it can, for reasons elsewhere in thread.
| fsflover wrote:
| I would say it _is_ artificially shortened by design
| choices. It is a perfectly capable device, the harware is
| still fast and secure. However, I am just not allowed to
| fix the software, even if I have enough resources for
| that. This is exactly why we need free software.
| ska wrote:
| > I would say it is artificially shortened by design
| choices.
|
| The design choices have to be made to artificially
| shorten the life, not for any other purpose. For example,
| I can make a device cheaper and use cheaper materials
| that wear out faster - that's not planned obsolescence.
| However if I include a little plastic tab that I know
| will break before everything else for no good reason
| _other_ than making it break faster - that is.
|
| I suspect you'll have a hard time arguing compellingly
| that the purpose of apples closed update system was to
| shorten the useful life, rather than as a side effect of
| other product and design goals.
|
| Phones are sort of a bad example, because for a long time
| the replacement cycle was driven by actual technical
| obsolescence, arguably only relatively recently has this
| ceased to be the case.
| fsflover wrote:
| > the purpopse of apples closed update system was to
| shorten the useful life, rather than as a side effect of
| other product and design goals
|
| So what _is_ the reason to prevent updates of software
| after the support is over? This is a classical software
| anti-feature.
| google234123 wrote:
| IT's a ton of work to make and push updates.
| fsflover wrote:
| I am not speaking about making updates. I am speaking
| about _preventing_ users from making them.
| zepto wrote:
| You know the answer to that - it prevent large classes of
| social engineering attack and is part of the overall
| security model.
| ska wrote:
| I suspect the main driver was consistency of experience.
| Obviously they didn't always nail this.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| We know for a fact that Apple was artificially lowering
| their battery capacity, and that's most likely just the
| beginning. The PR speak about it being done to protect
| batteries is BS and we all know it. It incentivizes more
| purchasing. Much like how the GTA5 loading bug was never
| solved because it led to more advertisements for digital
| currency being forced upon one's eyes...
|
| Every update I get on my mac, or Iphone slows it down.
| Bloat and "protecting the users battery" are the root
| causes, and ultimately Apple is one of the best examples
| of a company "artificially shortening" things via design
| choices.
| zepto wrote:
| > We know for a fact that Apple was artificially lowering
| their battery capacity.
|
| This is completely false.
| shard wrote:
| I'm going a little bit on a tangent here, and this may
| not apply so much to recent Apple phones, but Apple
| phones had planned obsolescence in terms of the design of
| their physical appearance such that you can tell almost
| instantly which generation it is. This allows
| broadcasting of status, that this person can afford the
| latest while that person can only afford to use a 2-year-
| old phone, thus artificially driving the upgrade cycle.
| zepto wrote:
| That isn't planned obsolescence, because the people who
| upgrade for status reasons don't destroy their phones -
| they either pass them on or trade them in.
|
| Arguably it's the opposite of planned obsolescence - even
| used phones are not obsolete and are still in
| circulation.
|
| It's also worth pointing out that this is Apple's stated
| policy - they want phones to last longer so that more
| people have them and they can continue to sell services
| to them.
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| It is planned obsolescence, because at some point I am
| artificially prevented from installing and running software
| and/or security updates. This is done by Apple only
| providing updates up to a certain point, and then keeping
| the platform locked down, while no longer providing
| updates.
|
| Any closed platform that becomes unsupported and stays
| locked down is made artificially obsolete.
|
| I can buy an original IBM PC, write my own software and run
| it with no limitations, despite it being an unsupported
| platform for several decades. See the famous 8088 MPH demo
| for an example of how much can still be done on an ancient
| platform, way beyond what was considered possible in its
| heyday. I can even write my own OS and run that. Remember
| that Linux was originally written by Linus Torvalds because
| there was no freely available Unix-like on x86, so he
| decided to write his own.
|
| I can't do that with an original iPhone. You can jailbreak
| it, but that's not a risk-free process and it still doesn't
| let you install your own OS or give you direct access to
| the hardware.
|
| Once a device no longer receives updates or official
| support, it should be opened for hobbyists to experiment
| with.
| zepto wrote:
| I disagree with the argument that there is any planned
| obsolescence going on. Lack of support is not the same
| thing.
|
| However this:
|
| > Once a device no longer receives updates or official
| support, it should be opened for hobbyists to experiment
| with.
|
| I agree with and I'd support legislation to that effect.
| cbmuser wrote:
| That's usually because these people don't have the slightest
| clue how industrial mass-production for consumer goods work.
|
| They constantly think it's always about the customer, it isn't.
| The products are almost always optimized for costs, nothing
| else.
|
| If a manufacturer uses glue instead screws, they don't do that
| to make it harder to repair. They prefer glue because it's
| cheaper. The same applies for cheap components over high
| quality ones.
|
| Want to increase the possibility of getting a durable and
| repairable product? Well, prepare to spend ten times as much.
| rasz wrote:
| No, its not optimized for cost. Manufacturing is optimized
| for _profit_.
|
| >they don't do that to make it harder to repair
|
| you mean cryptographically linking lcd screen to motherboard
| is done for cost, not to stop third parties from being able
| to repair it?
| emkoemko wrote:
| not just electronics, John Deer tractors and farming
| machines... all the parts have encrypted links that only
| John Deer repair shops can sync new parts... soon your car
| won't let you change your tire without it not turning on,
| unless you buy their "tire"
| giantrobot wrote:
| It's done for security because the screens are primary
| input devices _and_ linked to the biometric sensors.
| Without protections for genuine components anyone could
| replace your screen with one that had a hardware key logger
| and compromised biometric sensors. The security of the
| system is as weak as the weakest component.
|
| Your phone has access to tons of personal data, for some
| people just about all of their personal data. It's in every
| user's best interest to have secure hardware since it's
| inherently mobile and easily lost or stolen, easier than a
| desktop locked in a house.
|
| But no I'm sure it's just some conspiracy to make iPhones
| disposable. That makes way more sense.
| swiley wrote:
| my interpretation is that there should be no artificial
| barriers.
|
| Don't hide schematics, don't lock bootloaders, don't use NDAs
| to prevent sharing driver code, don't prevent component
| manufacturers from selling to third parties.
| duped wrote:
| I think requiring schematic disclosure and non exclusivity
| for venders of custom parts is entirely unreasonable with
| catastrophic first and second order effects. Particularly the
| latter. We want more contract manufacturing, not less of it.
| If you take away the ability of companies to negotiate
| reasonable deals with their venders, they'll just buy them
| out and vertically integrate.
| joshspankit wrote:
| How about forcing disclosure only for products that are no
| longer supported by the manufacturer? Not ideal from a
| repair standpoint, but removes (imo) the argument about the
| first and second order effects.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" If you take away the ability of companies to negotiate
| reasonable deals with their venders, they'll just buy them
| out and vertically integrate."_
|
| Why was that argument irrelevant in the past when the
| 'right to repair' was was accepted as completely normal+
| and manufacturers actually encourage it? _(See my point to
| that effect above.)_
|
| _+ That is, to the extent that back then no one would have
| understood what the phrase meant. Had you mentioned it, it
| would have been considered either an oxymoron or a non
| sequitur and you would have received a blank and perplexing
| stare._
| duped wrote:
| Because JIT manufacturing didn't exist.
|
| It's not coincidence that we make more devices that are
| more complex, and do it faster today than we did in the
| olden days and they are simultaneously more difficult to
| repair with tougher to source components in low volumes.
| Everything from the design process to the assembly and
| repair is completely different today than it was 50 years
| ago.
|
| At the same time, consumers stopped caring about repairs.
| Why buy something you can repair if it will be obsolete
| in two years, and you can afford the replacement?
| foxhop wrote:
| There is no such thing as consumers in this argument.
| These are citizens!
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" Everything from the design process to the assembly and
| repair is completely different today than it was 50 years
| ago."_
|
| 1. Yes, and that needs to change--and very soon at that.
| A short while ago I counted over one hundred x86
| motherboards that were current and readily available from
| just _one_ single manufacturer. I spent many hours trying
| to differentiate the minor--almost insignificant--
| differences between many of these boards (in fact, most
| of the differences were essentially trivial).
|
| This nonsense is a deliberate marketing ploy and there
| ought to be definite penalties against it. It wastes
| considerable time and human effort that ought to put to
| better endeavors; confuses buyers as well as those who
| have to get the equipment working (let alone repair it);
| and it also screws up the development of software drivers
| --as no one is ever quite sure what all those minor
| changes are all about--and manufacturers haven't the
| time, wit or inclination to resolve such matters let
| alone spending time on providing upgrades for a PWA/board
| that has such a fleeting lifespan. No wonder the world is
| awash in e-junk! _[That 's just the beginning of that
| narrative but I'll spare you the rest.]_
|
| 2. Then there are the thousands upon thousands of bugs
| that slip through software development and that are never
| fixed due mainly to the fact that the compilation process
| obfuscates them all and that there is no law or
| obligation to compel the developer to provide the source
| code that would reveal the underlying spaghetti code
| (this is the modern equivalent of a doctor burying his
| mistakes). ...Now, how many hundreds of examples would
| you like me to cite?
|
| 3. _" At the same time, consumers stopped caring about
| repairs."_ That's true but fortunately they've now
| changed their minds--mostly because disingenuous
| manufactures have made either substandard equipment or
| equipment that has been deliberately designed to conform
| to the manufacturer's planned obsolescence strategy (I
| suggest you read my comments of several days ago on the
| Phoebus Light Bulb Cartel (BTW, it's still effectively
| alive and well)).
|
| The sooner goods that cannot be easily repaired--or that
| are found to be deliberately designed to aid a
| manufacturer's planned obsolescence strategy--are taxed
| the sooner they'd fall into line. The classic example of
| this caper is the notorious--diabolical--example of
| smartphone batteries that are deliberately designed not
| to be changed. No wonder the Right to Repair movement has
| gathered apace and that new laws to regulate such wayward
| behaviour are now pending. Smartphone design would change
| overnight if every smartphone whose battery was not
| removable was levied with a hefty e-waste disposal tax!
| The same goes for smartphones whose manufactures
| deliberately disable the FM radio circuitry (a tax or
| levy on this can easily be justified from an emergency
| stance: if cell towers go down in floods, bushfires,
| earthquakes etc. and the FM radio works then phones would
| have at least some basic connection to the outside
| world). Right, that one's a no-brainer that everyone
| ought to understand!
|
| 4. With respect to your comment about JIT, it was alive
| and well when I was working in a manufacturing plant in
| Japan around the time that I was referring to.
|
| Incidentally, I have worked in manufacturing and
| specifically in an electronics prototyping laboratory
| where much of my time was involved in liaising with
| production. I know the arguments you are putting very
| well, and whilst there is validity to some of them, many
| are just opportunistic and have been done more to benefit
| a manufacturer's coffers than to benefit users/consumers.
|
| Thank goodness that's about to change.
| google234123 wrote:
| > A short while ago I counted over one hundred x86
| motherboards that were current and readily available from
| just one single manufacturer.... This nonsense is a
| deliberate marketing ploy and there ought to be definite
| penalties against it...
|
| This is authoritarian nonsense.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| There is no reason they can't have 100 slightly different
| motherboards they just need to maintain and provide
| proper docs on the lot and follow other reasonable
| standards.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| When I was born all electric and electronic appliances came
| with a complete diagram in the box. I don't understand how
| disclosing the schematic has any negative impact of any
| sort. Also the vendor contracts in these cases are based on
| volume discounts which are not affected by non-restricted
| sale to other parties.
| duped wrote:
| Well two points on that:
|
| - Repair schematics and diagrams are not necessarily
| complete schematics and may be abridged or missing some
| details
|
| - Modern electronics are significantly more complex than
| when you were a child, unless you were born yesterday.
| Schematics for designs are barely useful for assembly
| today, let alone repair. They are primarily design
| documentation.
| swiley wrote:
| I've seen the macbook air schematic/vector art for the
| board (I had to replace that BGA backlight driver on my
| sister's laptop.) It's certainly big but at the end of
| the day it's networks of chips and L/R/C like any other
| circuit, you just walk through it like any other
| maze/graph and get to where you need to be.
| swiley wrote:
| I wouldn't call an exclusivity agreement reasonable.
| [deleted]
| danogentili wrote:
| These are all absolutely valid and sane points.
|
| Instead of arguing on the exact definition of right to repair,
| we should all fight for the right to truly _OWN_ our devices,
| where _OWN_ := we have the legal right to do anything we want
| with the hardware AND with the software (because you can 't
| really distinguish the two, now that all CPUs come with
| embedded TPMs running parallel closed OSes with ring -inf
| permissions).
| salawat wrote:
| And they should be required by law to come with the
| respective datasheets and specs required to do so.
|
| You don't de facto have one without the other.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| It is goalpost moving, but I also agree with the author. If a
| device is no longer supported by a company, or that company
| goes under, there should be some mechanism to make any software
| needed to modify software on the device available.
|
| Take the essential ph-1 as an example. Now that the company is
| gone, if a device bricks during an update, that's it. Having
| the firehose file would make it possible to unblock it, but
| without it, a bricked phone is just spare parts (less the main
| board).
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" a bricked phone is just spare parts (less the main
| board)."_
|
| The main board should be just as repairable as any other
| device. If that requires changes to copyright law, the DMCA
| and or even WIPO treaties then that will eventually happen.
|
| It's not that many years ago--certainly well within my
| lifetime--that 'deep' repairs of this kind were not only
| commonplace but actually encouraged by manufacturers. (If you
| want examples then I'll provide some).
|
| By such action, we would only be returning to the status quo
| as it was some 40 or more years ago.
|
| _(To detractors of this comment, I accept and understand
| that you never lived through that time to see it in action,
| if you had then very likely you 'd have a changed point of
| view.)_
| jpttsn wrote:
| I like the better performance of computers now. If lower
| repairability is a way to pay for that, that's great.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Man that would be amazing. I don't see that ever happening,
| but it would be great to not be stuck with hardware that is
| unusable or near unusable because the manufacturer abandoned
| it or went under. Though it would be important that all
| functionality be able to remain intact if they hand over the
| tools. In the most technical sense the hardware is still
| usable even if you have to write new firmware from scratch,
| but practically it's useless without having something to work
| from and enhance/bugfix.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It's clearly written by an author who isn't very technically or
| legally savvy, however it gets the point across to the general
| public about the importance. We can let the pros determine the
| goalposts but clearly what we're doing now and letting
| manufacturers get away with is insufficient.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Why are you surprised? This is the common pattern of tech
| activism: start with a kernel of a legitimate grievance, grow
| it into a whole crop of outrage, and harvest that outrage to
| make new rules that actually make everything a bit worse.
|
| Designing for repairability has costs both monetary and
| functional. Why should everyone have to pay these costs on the
| say-so of a few people whose main claim to legitimate authority
| is their social media follower count?
|
| I believe this push for repairability is bad and that it will
| lead to bad outcomes for consumers. The market ought to be what
| tells us what product features are really important.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| I tend to agree with this position. This all feels a bit like
| "I want everyone else to finance my niche desire to hack on
| my device." It seems like if this were really a thing that a
| lot of consumers wanted then someone would be filling that
| market demand. But I suspect that the overwhelming majority
| of consumers don't in fact want this. They want a secure
| device that just works and they upgrade regularly before
| their old device is EOL.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| You are right, but then let's make it mandatory for the end
| user to safely recycle all the components from their devices;
| they should not be allowed to sale or donate old devices, but
| have to recycle every piece of it. The purpose? Safe
| disposal. If you don't want to extend the life of the
| devices, keep it forever or safely dispose it.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Modern landfills are safe disposal sites. Recycling can be
| economically incentivized where it makes sense.
| andrepd wrote:
| Make -> consume -> put in landfill is not a sustainable
| process.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Yes it is. In the distant future, we can mine landfills
| for raw materials.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Do it now, don't leave the future pay for your current
| debt.
| google234123 wrote:
| You are against any deficit spending?
| harimau777 wrote:
| Re: Legacy software support
|
| How does this work with physical products such as cars? Is
| there a statute of limitations for automobile recalls?
| shoto_io wrote:
| I don't know why we shouldn't let the market handle this. If
| people want everything to be repairable then why isn't there a
| phone which solve that issue?
|
| Maybe people don't care that much after all.
| emkoemko wrote:
| i not sure what your talking about... people get their phones
| fixed all the time, its just the companies make it very
| difficult or not possible at all when you can't get access to
| parts, or you have companies like Apple who prevent you
| importing parts even if the parts are ripped out of broken
| devices.
|
| Then you have Apple who lie they say you can't recover your
| data or repair your device, yet you go to a repair shop and
| you get your data back and phone fixed...
| shoto_io wrote:
| But that's my point. Why do buy a phone from company like
| that? Just stop buying from them and buy from another
| manufacturer instead and the problem will be solved.
| emkoemko wrote:
| okay true, but you think its fine for Apple to prevent
| you from taking out say your broken camera and replace it
| with a working one? or a LCD... or any part? You think
| its fine for say John Deer to prevent you from repairing
| your own tractor? if any part is replaces with exactly
| the same part but your tractor won't turn on because the
| "encryption link" is not correct?
|
| would you be fine with your car preventing you from
| changing your tire? unless you get them to do it and only
| install their "tires"?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| You're not making a convincing argument when the person
| you're arguing with is coming from the "free market"
| angle.
|
| Someone arguing in favor of allowing market forces to
| solve the problem truly do think it's fine for Apple and
| John Deere to do those things. The solution for lack of
| repairability isn't to enact legislation to force them to
| make their products more repairable, it's to stop buying
| Apple and John Deere.
|
| To a point, they're right, but relying on market
| solutions assumes rational consumers, which we have
| anything but. I think back about 7 years when I bought a
| Motorola Droid Turbo. Back then, consumers were asking
| for phones with longer-lasting batteries and screens that
| wouldn't shatter because you sneezed. This phone was
| exactly what consumers were asking for, with it's
| monstrous 3950 mAh battery, and a screen that could
| survive a 100-foot drop onto pavement (Saw a video of
| it!), but most people had never even heard of it, and
| still bought their iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones
| which couldn't even survive a waist-high drop onto the
| sidewalk without cracking the screen.
|
| Consumers are not rational, and so the market will never
| be rational, and relying on market solutions does not
| always work.
| shoto_io wrote:
| Sorry, I'm not sure if I follow. Consumers are not
| rational, ok fair. But should we then listen to their
| demands to have things their way? Like devices, which can
| be repaired? Seems like a rational want? I don't get it
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Recognize that on HN, you're in an echo chamber.
|
| Yes, we on HN are far more likely to demand repairabiliy,
| but most consumers don't care about the ability to repair
| their devices. Or at the very least, don't care so much
| that they'll choose not to buy the latest phone because
| the battery is not easily replaced.
|
| And it boils down to what are consumers actually
| _buying_? If consumers are demanding something and the
| corporations are not providing it, but they buy the
| products anyways, the corporation has no incentive to
| provide it.
|
| There was a lot of uproar when Apple removed the
| headphone jack when they made the iPhone 7, but that
| didn't stop consumers from making it the best selling
| smartphone in the world at the time, with ~40 million
| units sold. And now guess what? Other phone manufacturers
| followed suit. I guess headphone jacks aren't that
| important after all.
|
| The market can demand whatever the hell it wants, but
| rarely follows through.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Asking the manufacturers to not pull dirty tricks with the
| bootloader (AKA Tivoization) does not sound to me like asking
| much of them and could cut quite a bit of ewaste as old devices
| are reused with new software.
|
| Of course many would try to block that as it cuts into their
| planned obsolescence roadmaps...
| kbenson wrote:
| > Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to
| be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support?
|
| Any right to repair law that doesn't also include provisions to
| ensure you can run your own code on the device is hobbled. How
| "repairable" is a device that is cloud based but they disabled
| the cloud service?
|
| I don't care that manufacturers support the software beyond
| what they've contractually signed up for, but I _do_ care that
| I 'm not left holding a brick afterwards _by design_. As long
| as the capability exists to put other firmware that exists on
| the device, or write my own, I 'm protected from that, at least
| in the general case. If nobody has provided that firmware and I
| can't do it myself, that's still a situation I think it many
| times better than the alternative.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'd argue that when a security vulnerability is made public,
| patching the operating system with an update is a form of
| repair. The device is as broken as my Gen-1 iPad that can no
| longer browse the web safely. If the manufacturer stops
| releasing such updates, AND actively prevents the user from
| developing and applying their own updates, then they are
| preventing repair.
| dnh44 wrote:
| To be fair that first gen iPad is too slow to browse the web
| at all unless it's a really lean site like HN.
| prosaic-hacker wrote:
| I have a First Gen iPad with a dozen or so contemporary
| applications the still work because they do not touch the
| net at all. I also have hundreds of books that were legally
| downloaded. (humble bundles and creative common). It is my
| Replacement for an alarm clock beside my bed. I do have a
| list of sites that are lean enough to be read on it. Text
| mostly. I serves its purpose.
|
| I really do not want this machine to fail because use it
| often. It would be lots of work recreate the convenience
| and familiarity of use if all the failed was a 50 cent
| button.
|
| (PS it is on the net on my IOT "don't trust the IP stack"
| "vlan" of my home network [3 dumb router style DD-wrt
| units] in case it does get hit by a site attacking 10 year
| old iPads. I have my TVs, DVD players with apps and Guest
| access on it. May I will get another dumb router for the
| guests)
| joshspankit wrote:
| But if we (users) _choose_ to only browse lean sites with
| our first-gen iPads, why should we (society) say "stop
| doing that"?
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| I don't think that it is correct to say that anyone is
| telling you anything. Apple has decided that they will
| drop support for devices after a certain period of time
| because the development effort of maintaining support is
| too costly given the number of users with the old
| hardware.
|
| If I could be emperor for a day I would just mandate that
| when they drop support an old device, they have to
| provide a way for users still owning that device to have
| unlimited ability to load and run any software on it.
| That way if you really want to keep using your first-gen
| iPad then you can support it yourself. But it doesn't
| seem right to mandate that someone else continue to spend
| effort supporting idiosyncratic choices of all users.
| joshspankit wrote:
| I _fully_ agree with the idea that ending support means
| you're agreeing to hand the keys to the community
| ryandrake wrote:
| While I agree with your "emperor for a day" solution, I'd
| like to point out that wanting to use a device I paid for
| longer than two years after I bought it is not an
| idiosyncratic choice. Apple's last OS update for the
| device (iOS 5.1.1) was a mere 2 years after the device's
| initial release. This is IMO totally unreasonable. I have
| a PC next to me that's 20 years old which still functions
| and runs a very recent Linux distribution.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| Did the device stop working or did they just stop
| updating it? If it actually stopped working then I agree
| it is really shitty of them and even if they stopped
| providing security updates it is kind of shitty of them.
| But I think the solution is to take your business
| elsewhere. It's not as if Apple has a monopoly on the
| smartphone market and you don't have other options.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It happens gradually. A vulnerability here, a service
| turned down there, an app no longer available on the app
| store. It adds up to a device that does not do what it
| was advertised to do when it was new.
|
| Everything else I buy for my home (except for things with
| obvious wear items that physically wear out), I expect to
| function forever exactly as the day I purchased it, or be
| repairable. I have hand tools that were made 100 years
| ago, inherited from my grandpa, which work exactly as
| they are supposed to. Yet, we're expected to accept that
| software "wears out" after a few years.
| joshspankit wrote:
| What I mean about we (society) is that it's public
| opinion that supports or limits legislation. If a small
| group of people decide to use devices after they are
| unsupported, they also need support from society in
| general to be able to _get the right_ to exercise that
| choice.
|
| If we (society) don't make the choice to actively support
| those rights, we are making the choice to let them die on
| the vine.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| Fair enough. I would just draw the line at mandating
| continued software support and updates. I was actually
| thinking earlier and would amend my "emperor for a day"
| plan. I think we should mandate an analog to Matt Levines
| Certificate for Dumb Investment (https://www.bloomberg.co
| m/opinion/articles/2018-09-24/earnin...). Vendors like
| Apple should be required to provide a mechanism to
| "jailbreak" any device they make so a user can run any
| firmware/software they choose, but to get access to that
| tool they need to go to apple.com and sign a form that
| says in big, bold red letters:
|
| "THIS IS A REALLY BAD IDEA AND DOING THIS VOIDS ANY
| WARRANTY OR GUARANTEE WE MAKE FOR THIS DEVICE. AND IF YOU
| INSIST ON DOING THIS YOU WILL PROBABLY EITHER GET HACKED
| OR LOSE ALL YOUR DATA. SO PLEASE DON'T DO THIS UNLESS YOU
| ARE 100% SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. AND IF YOU
| THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOU ARE PROBABLY
| WRONG."
|
| And if you sign that you can download a tool to jailbreak
| your iPhone.
| anticristi wrote:
| There is an EU law that mandates selling supplies (e.g.
| vaccum cleaner bags) a certain number of years after the
| device is released. I would argue that "security updates"
| should be treated like "supplies".
| alexvoda wrote:
| Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the
| documentation.
|
| As an example, this (1) is how the manual looks for a
| ~1970-1974 stereo record player I have. You have diagrams of
| the boards and lists of parts as in individual caps, etc.
|
| We should strive to move in that direction, not away from it.
| Permanently locked bootloaders, DRM for componets, etc. are a
| move in the oposite direction.
|
| To move the overton window even a little bit towards where it
| was before, the demands have to be disproportionate. I say
| those demands are still reasonable. We should demand that any
| device and any component in any device be second source-able
| (just like AMD was a second source for early x86 chips). And
| for that matter since I am from Europe, any component should be
| second source-able from Europe. If IP transfers worked for
| China, they should work elsewhere.
|
| (1)
| https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1012672/Pioneer-C-5600dfv....
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the
| documentation.
|
| Nearly every electronic device I bought in the 1970s did
| _not_ have included schematics. TI-55, Pong console, digital
| watches, Speak 'n'Spell, transistor radios, Mattell football
| and baseball handhelds, Simon... and on and on.
|
| Nearly everything then was also not easily repairable, and
| certainly not by an average consumer.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Open up that old transistor radio and you will usually find
| a tiny printed schematic diagram affixed to the inside of
| the removable cover.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| Nope :) As a kid taking everything apart, and as an adult
| collecting some old gadgets I had as kid, there is
| generally no such thing. I just listed quite a few
| gadgets that definitely do not have schematics glued
| inside.
| kaibee wrote:
| > Nearly everything then was also not easily repairable,
| and certainly not by an average consumer.
|
| Sure, but repair shops could exist that would specialize in
| doing all sorts of repairs.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| As they do now. I know a few people that repair most all
| modern phones and iPads and other gadgets for a living.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Nearly everything then was also not easily repairable,
| and certainly not by an average consumer._
|
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone's saying
| that "an average consumer" in the terms of "I can't tell
| the difference between a hammer and a soldering iron"
| should be able to repair their devices.
|
| But I think that if the consumer can demonstrate some
| minimum level of interest (education, certification, or at
| least _competence_ ) then they absolutely _should_ be able
| to repair devices they own.
|
| And, further, that _owning_ devices and software should be
| the default and normal thing. The trend today of renting
| /leasing things is clearly anti-consumer.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Be careful.
|
| My dad replaced a defective memory chip on his IBM PC XT..
| but the computer cost the equivalent of $12k.
|
| I'd rather throw away a dozen modern laptops than fix one
| that costs 10x.
| markdeloura wrote:
| I'd rather repair it myself, or be able to take it to
| someone local with particular expertise. What's important
| is that we have a choice!
| creaturemachine wrote:
| Your comparison does not work. Replaceable parts didn't
| make that IBM cost what it did.
| scientismer wrote:
| Yes it did. Computers became cheaper because more and
| more functionality can simply be combined on single
| chips. You can not replace parts of broken chips at home.
|
| Look into Apple's M1.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Average spend on a computer hasn't gone down recently. In
| the era when it actually did go down it was because
| volume and reliability went up, and cost of manufacturing
| went down as process improved.
|
| Phones have been system on a chip since the dawn of the
| era of the smartphone and few computers are. The
| difference between repairable and not is the difference
| between glue and screws and sockets vs solder. You have
| basically misunderstood everything.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I'm not talking about replacing a memory module. I'm
| talking about replacing a defective 4Kb memory chip on a
| $1000+, 384Kb ISA card.
|
| When I built PCs in the late 90s, the BOM included
| motherboard, cpu, graphics card, sound card, nic,
| sometimes a parallel port board, memory, hard disk, etc.
| At this point, it was only really feasible to repair
| modules that failed, few humans with the skill to replace
| a component would do so due to the economies of scale and
| cheap price.
|
| Now, it's motherboard, cpu, memory, disk. The cost is
| much less, but most repairs are replacements of the
| mainboard or disk.
|
| For most laptops, there's a tiny motherboard with most of
| the functionality integrated into a few modules. The only
| things that get repaired are memory and battery.
|
| For the M1 Macbook, you have one of the highest
| performance devices on the market selling for $899 at
| 40-50% margin. I just bought similar Dell and HP units in
| quantities over 50,000 last fall for $100-150 less
| (probably 6-8% margin to the OEM), with inferior battery
| life, disk and cpu.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| You seem to believe this specific example where you are
| literally making up the non public profit margin proves
| that for the entire class of consumer laptops making non
| serviceable parts greatly decreases the cost. First it
| was an hyperbolic 10x and now it decreases costs by half.
| All examples are not only fictional misuse of both real
| and hypothetical numbers they say nothing much about the
| entire class of things.
|
| The M1 is a fresh design on a new iteration of an arch by
| very smart people and its likely that there are far more
| factors at play than presence or absence of sockets in
| terms of determining profitability.
|
| What we are trying to do is determine all things being
| equal how much cheaper can the same machine be with and
| without replaceable parts. I don't have any numbers
| either but I strong doubt its 2-10x cheaper.
| opencl wrote:
| You can replace the memory and storage on just about every
| desktop computer today that isn't made by Apple, and a
| decent fraction of laptops.
|
| They do not cost 10x as much as devices with soldered RAM
| and SSDs.
| ABeeSea wrote:
| One electronic device from the 70s doesn't support the
| statement "Electronics used to come with full schematics as
| part of the documentation."
| CountSessine wrote:
| This was in a very different era, when manufacturing was
| difficult and expensive. Having the schematic didn't
| necessarily get you anywhere. That's no longer the case - now
| the design is expensive but the manufacturing is cheap.
| dthul wrote:
| Component level schematics should be freely available for
| all products. It's not like there are no schematics
| available for e.g. Macbooks. Third party repair shops use
| them all the time. It's just that they are not legally
| available.
|
| I might entertain the argument that you don't want to show
| all internal details of your 6 layer PCB but those are also
| not necessary for repair. Just hand out the component level
| schematics.
| asddubs wrote:
| a lot of consumer electronics are a bunch of strung
| together reference implementations. the schematic isn't
| really the secret sauce, especially since with a soldering
| iron, a multimeter (and maybe an lcr meter) and time, you
| could completely recreate it without difficulty. not
| practical for a repair shop's level of income/device, but
| if you wanted to steal a design, you could easily do this
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| Can you articulate what that has to do with repairability?
| CountSessine wrote:
| For one thing, I think it's an important point to make
| when someone else makes the, "look how repairability has
| regressed since the golden era of getting the Apple II
| schematics in the box with the computer!". At the time,
| design was cheap. Why not give it to your customers? It's
| not like they're going to go out and make one themselves.
|
| The fact that manufacturing is cheap now and schematics
| are not only the key to repairability but also
| counterfeit Chinese knock-offs is a problem worth
| understanding.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| I think Americans are still largely clueless about how
| extensively the PRC has infiltrated the governments and
| companies of the world, and how much IP they have stolen.
| If they want it; they have it. Heck, my company is doing
| everything they can to prevent users from messing with
| our firmware, but we have to give all the keys to China
| to sell our products there. All they had to do was ask.
| There's no need to make it hard for owners to get to.
| simion314 wrote:
| >The fact that manufacturing is cheap now and schematics
| are not only the key to repairability but also
| counterfeit Chinese knock-offs is a problem worth
| understanding.
|
| I think you have a BIG misunderstanding here. The
| schematics do not include any Apple secrets, it is the
| repair schematic that is only high level stuff AND this
| schematics are already on the internet so China has it
| already (so honestly stop bringing the China argument
| here).
|
| Is the same with diagnostic software, many companies only
| show you a error LED and you have to send the device to a
| repair person for that person to use the software and
| tell your the error message. Making the software(or the
| Google doc) available that translates and error code
| numbers into error messages will not make iPhones
| insecure or allow China to copy them (btw isn't iPhone
| already made in China> wtf is this About China FUD?,
| China's Apple factory must have much more info then only
| repair schematics )
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| I don't think this argument is related whether or not
| people should be able to source and repair the devices
| they own. R2R doesn't require redesign of products - only
| that parts and documentation should be made available so
| indie shops and DIYers can have the option.
|
| This is as opposed to the status quo, where manufacturers
| like Apple and Samsung currently cause their phones to
| malfunction when replacing parts without proprietary
| software switches - even when those parts are OEM. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.ifixit.com/News/45921/is-this-the-end-of-
| the-rep...
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I wonder how big the manual would have to be for a smartphone
| with the equivalent of those old stereo diagrams.
| tratax wrote:
| Maybe not that big, unfortunately a lot of the connections
| will end up going to that SoC that does most of the work
| and is probably obsolete by the time you want to repair it.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Look up board view files. Those are the kinds of schematics
| people are talking about. Louis Rossman uses them on his
| Youtube channel to do board level repairs of Macs and iOS
| devices.
|
| They are not all you need copy a device outright, contrary
| to what some people in the comments think. But they are
| sufficient for you to track down faulty components and de-
| solder them.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Can't you do that without imposing it on everyone else?
|
| I care about consumption (I'm on my 2nd laptop since ~2003),
| but I don't particularly want to pay $15,000 to replace this
| one with one that is worse.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The average computer is around 700 including ones that are
| relatively repairable and ones that are not. Pretending
| that repairable laptops cost 20 times as much is
| disingenuous.
| dang wrote:
| > disingenuous
|
| That implies intent to deceive, which crosses into
| personal attack. Can you please not do that on HN? If you
| feel that someone else is wrong, it's enough to provide
| correct information in a neutral way.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Would you prefer hyperbolic?
| maxerickson wrote:
| (In the comment) They want to be able to source a drop in
| cpu from 2 different supply chains.
|
| And they want that for every piece and part on the thing.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| That would pretty much require standardization of cpu
| socket between vendors to allow one to drop a compatible
| generation of intel or amd processor into a slot. This
| sounds onerous but I doubt it would require increasing
| the unit cost by 20 times.
| usaphp wrote:
| I see a good intention behind it, but it only works only if
| only honest people and companies exist. It's not the case in
| real world.
|
| What would prevent a competitor simply copying the whole
| product and offering a cheaper price because they didn't have
| to invest in R&D, and those engineers who spent many years
| working on a finished schematics will be out of job because
| the company won't be able to make a living selling more
| expensive products?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _What would prevent a competitor simply copying the whole
| product and offering a cheaper price_
|
| Whatever it was that kept this from happening from the
| advent of electronics up to the invention of the
| smartphone.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| This isn't a totally unreasonable position to take, but
| in some cases "whatever it was that kept this from
| happening before" really is nothing more than "nobody had
| thought of it yet".
| emkoemko wrote:
| there is a big big difference between a schematic that will
| aid people in repairs and ones that are used to manufacture
| the boards...and no one fighting for right to repair is
| asking for that anyways
|
| system76 talks about this in this interview
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGle6z9KfZQ
| snuxoll wrote:
| Nor is anybody asking for mask files for ICs, just that
| they be available for purchase at a reasonable price.
| Stuff like Apple getting proprietary charging ICs from
| Intersil that nobody else can buy to replace a defective
| one is unethical at best.
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| You're basically arguing for IP protection via
| obscurity/complexity, but I assure you that anyone who
| wants to clone tech products at industrial scale can
| already do so today. This just gives repair documentation
| and parts availability to independent repair shops and
| DIYers...
| [deleted]
| Retric wrote:
| Patents and reputation aka trade marks. Speakers for
| example are extremely well understood technology yet
| premium speakers are still a thing.
| operator-name wrote:
| Speakers and computer components are great examples of
| where companies provide less tangible benifits in quality
| control and customer support.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| > We should demand that any device and any component in any
| device be second source-able
|
| Devices aren't built around discrete components anymore. That
| ship has sailed, we waved goodbye, partied on the dock, and
| took an Uber home. Now we're nursing the hangover. But hey,
| our phones are now marginally thinner than last year's
| phones, so that might be worth something.
|
| I don't see how we get back, considering the market just
| isn't there: it'd rather treat devices as things that we
| lease for a low cost from a vertically-integrated company.
| echelon wrote:
| > it'd rather treat devices as things that we lease for a
| low cost from a vertically-integrated company.
|
| This is a nightmare.
|
| I built my PC, I repair my phone and laptops. I replace
| joysticks and mod old gaming consoles. I fix my own car.
|
| I don't want the industry following Apple into the depths
| of hell.
|
| We used to be allowed to record tv shows on VHS legally.
| Look how far we've slid down the path of non-ownership.
|
| We've given up our privacy, we license media on
| subscription, and even our employers rent premium and
| expensive time sharing on "cloud".
|
| Open source has been captured and turned into hidden away
| SaaS/PaaS.
|
| We're all being gaslighted.
| ghaff wrote:
| >We used to be allowed to record tv shows on VHS legally.
| Look how far we've slid down the path of non-ownership.
|
| What's changed that prevents you from doing that today?
| I'm guessing the answer is: "But that's a crappy
| alternative to what people watching Netflix or even
| renting DVDs are doing." And I would agree with that.
| (Though in the case of music, owning versus renting is
| still very much a legitimate choice at least for me.)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _What 's changed that prevents you from doing that
| today?_
|
| What's changed is that technologies involved in modern
| video streaming are designed up front to prevent end-
| users from recording the stream, and are backed by
| regulations making some of the workarounds illegal.
|
| MAFIAA may not be able to close the "analog hole"
| completely, but it doesn't stop them from achieving the
| next best thing - making it so hard to exploit that
| almost nobody bothers. This is a positive feedback loop,
| because the market in general doesn't like to serve small
| niches unless it has nothing more interesting to do.
| Thus: no VCRs for Netflix.
| gsich wrote:
| Doesn't have to. It's not that much to ask to release
| documentation or code.
| nousermane wrote:
| You can choose to forgo owning stuff personally, sure. But
| that is not everybody's preference. And please don't
| pretend that "devices aren't built around discrete
| components anymore".
|
| There are plenty of discrete components in a modern
| phone/laptop/roomba/whatever, that could be
| replaceable/upgradable by advanced user or entry-level
| technician, but are not:
|
| - battery
|
| - screen
|
| - storage
|
| - RAM
|
| - list goes on and on...
| olliej wrote:
| Ram isn't separate, storage is soldered on, screens have
| security sensitive components built in (the Touch ID in
| modern android devices), etc
| jolux wrote:
| I believe the GP was talking about discrete circuitry vs
| integrated circuits, not so much supporting peripherals.
| [deleted]
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| But their parent wasn't (in fact, they mentioned x86 and
| AMD, which are integrated circuits).
|
| Look at a random PC (or, until recently, a random
| laptop): it's made from a lot of individual components
| that can be swapped out or upgraded independently.
| Storage, RAM, CPU, GPU, cooling, motherboard, WiFi chip,
| Bluetooth chip, speakers, microphone, screen, all the
| peripherals - they're all designed to work together _as a
| category_ , and to be easily replaceable. I can source
| each one from a different vendor, and they'll still work.
| Hell, in many cases, you can even fix individual
| components, with a hot air station and a steady hand. And
| if I upgrade a component, my old one can often get a
| second life inside another computer, possibly someone
| else's.
|
| It's a good thing to have, and there's nothing stopping
| modern laptops, tablets and phones to have the same level
| of upgradeability and swapability. Nothing - except that
| the vendors _don 't want to_[0]. These things run on the
| same set of hardware standards as larger computers, and
| on literally the same software stacks. I[1] should be
| entirely able to open up my phone, desolder its battery
| and memory, swap them out for newer and better ones,
| apply sealant, close the case and have the whole thing
| work. There's no technical obstacle here - the only
| problem are the business strategies of the vendors.
|
| --
|
| [0] - I have another long rant for the usual "it's
| customers who chose integrated over repairable" argument,
| and I'll post it elsewhere in this thread. For now, I'll
| just say: it's not like anybody is _asking_ customers to
| choose. These options are not being made available in the
| first place.
|
| [1] - Or my friend who spent half his life tinkering with
| electronics. Or the repair shop down the street. A point
| commonly missed in discussions about Right to Repair (and
| Free Software) is that it isn't about expecting consumers
| to do hardware/software work themselves - it's about
| making it possible for _local markets_ for software and
| hardware maintenance and repair to exist.
| notJim wrote:
| I find this type of rant rather unhelpful in this debate.
| It is not the case that there is no reason for soldered
| parts. This decision was not made out of spite or
| laziness. It was done because there was a belief that the
| product would be better. In particular, it seems that
| leaving sockets off enables you to make a thinner laptop,
| and that some of the products use a type of RAM that is
| not sold to be put into a socket [0]. I would guess that
| market research also showed that very very few consumers
| were replacing the Bluetooth chips in their Macbooks. I
| have a great PC next to me, but it also weighs 20-30 lbs,
| occupies a huge amount of space, and took me several days
| of work to make sure all the components would actually
| optimally work together.
|
| I would find it a lot more compelling to talk about
| trade-offs than to just throw out uninformed ranting. We
| used to have laptops like what you're describing, and
| they no longer sell very well, or are no longer available
| because they are thicker and heavier than the models that
| replaced them.
|
| 0: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2dyuxa/can_any
| _engin...
| [deleted]
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >These options are not being made available in the first
| place.
|
| Could it be because it's not financially feasible? If you
| present the idea of a repairable alternative to an iPad,
| are any investors going to take you up on it?
|
| I think a big aspect of this whole debate is that
| manufacturing efficiencies have gone up so much, that
| it's simply not economically worth it to sacrifice the
| resiliency and cost effectiveness of making it completely
| integrated. The cost to launch a new product and
| manufacturing line is also very high, so that you have to
| be really sure a sufficient number of consumers will want
| it.
|
| On top of that, as a seller, you get to keep costs low
| when you have to spend less on dealing with people
| tinkering with it and then sending it in for warranty.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't think a "tinkerable" option can
| compete on price to value ratio such that sufficient
| people would buy it to make it a feasible investment.
|
| >it's about making it possible for local markets for
| software and hardware maintenance and repair to exist.
|
| Efficiency is frequently a trade off for a word that I
| can't think of, but maybe can be described as "security"
| or "local security". It's similar to not needing a
| butcher, produce market, shoe store once a Walmart
| Supercenter rolls into town. I struggle to come up with a
| legal requirement that would restrict efficiency such
| that it does not give others (globally) a competitive
| advantage, but still retains "local security".
| foxhop wrote:
| We don't need a tinkerers option we just need
| unobstructed access to the docs and access to purchase
| proprietary parts to replace failures and those parts
| should be available at a fair price.
|
| I vote yes for right to repair, both with my dollar and
| my desire to favor the rights of the citizens of this
| country.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Could it be because it 's not financially feasible? If
| you present the idea of a repairable alternative to an
| iPad, are any investors going to take you up on it? (...)
| it's simply not economically worth it to sacrifice the
| resiliency and cost effectiveness of making it completely
| integrated (...) The cost to launch a new product and
| manufacturing line is also very high (...)_
|
| I believe all of that is true.
|
| Which is why this needs to be corrected by regulation. If
| making a more user-respecting and environmentally-
| friendly products isn't economical enough for the market
| to do it on its own, the economical landscape needs to be
| altered so that it is.
|
| > _as a seller, you get to keep costs low when you have
| to spend less on dealing with people tinkering with it
| and then sending it in for warranty_
|
| This must be solvable, because somehow it isn't a problem
| on the PC market, or on the car market.
|
| > _Efficiency is frequently a trade off for a word that I
| can 't think of, but maybe can be described as "security"
| or "local security"._
|
| "Distribution" and "decentralization" are the words
| you're thinking of. Despite the common propaganda to the
| contrary, centralization is usually _increasing
| efficiency_. That 's why the market loves it so much (and
| why every country ends up with laws to limit it). The
| cost to that efficiency is usually resilience (failure of
| any single actor becomes a large-scale issue) and slower
| innovation (bigger actors take less risks, smaller actors
| tend to cover more of the possibility space, by virtue of
| numbers).
|
| > _It 's similar to not needing a butcher, produce
| market, shoe store once a Walmart Supercenter rolls into
| town._
|
| And it is a contentious issue. On the one hand, the food
| gets cheaper. On the other, the jobs get worse, the local
| community suffers, and money gets siphoned off the local
| economy. On an international scale, the same thing is
| called "globalization", which is both widely praised and
| criticized. In particular, the current pandemic has
| revealed the resilience problem of our globalized
| economy, which is why so many countries are now making
| moves towards reversing it a bit.
| kiba wrote:
| These devices can still be fixed, if only using
| specialized tools. However, it's another issue when
| manufacturers deliberately make these devices more
| difficult to fix such as using security screws.
|
| Many of the modern smartphones can still be fixed as are
| laptops.
|
| However, these repair shops only exist if they have the
| schematic and parts available.
|
| it's not an efficiency issue. It's planned obsolescence.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| A big reason that stuff isn't replaceable anymore is
| because consumers wants some of the benefits that come w/
| non-replaceable parts.
|
| For example, it's nice that I can drop my iPhone in water
| w/o worrying (too much) about destroying it. I spent
| ~$1500 on an iPhone 12 Pro in November & dropped it in a
| lake in December. Part of the reason it's (more)
| waterproof if because it's not covered w/
| ports/hatches/openings that would allow me swap out the
| battery/RAM/SSD/something. If I had to choose between
| having a fully customizable phone & one that doesn't die
| when it gets wet, I think I'd rather have one that
| resists water.
|
| Just one person's opinion.
| 8note wrote:
| I'm not sure consumers per se want it, but that companies
| think it's what consumers want, and only make things like
| that.
|
| It's a self fulfilling prophecy that customers will buy
| it. I dont have another choice
| 6510 wrote:
| Manufacturers want planned obsolesce more than anyone.
| The problem in my view is that we take limited resources
| and combine it with slave labor to create landfill. Those
| few years of usage are not even that relevant. Recycling
| should be the first goal then repair ability. I think we
| can do this without the manufacturers drawing the
| proverbial short straw. Maybe we should get a partial
| refund when returning expired devices. Maybe we should
| rent them rather than buy them.
| olliej wrote:
| Apple maintains devices for more than five years, the
| devices themselves keep on working for far longer than
| that.
|
| It's got nothing to do with planned obsolescence, new
| devices get new features because technology makes those
| features possible.
|
| You get non-serviceable devices because users want
| smaller, faster, better hardware. Any latches,
| connectors, or sockets are purely subtracting from
| battery life as that's the only part of a phone that can
| be resized, and even that is subject to constraints.
|
| Repairable/serviceable means by definition more expensive
| and worse feature set.
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| I understand this thread is about "repairability" of
| different product designs, and there are definitely
| arguments on both sides of that issue that are valid...
|
| I just want to make sure you're not confusing
| "repairability" with Right to Repair... R2R is not asking
| for changes to product design - only that replacement
| parts and documentation are made available in a
| compulsory way.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _The problem in my view is that we take limited
| resources and combine it with slave labor to create
| landfill. Those few years of usage are not even that
| relevant._
|
| That's an important insight.
|
| I only recently realized this too, and conceptualized it
| as a pipeline: RAW > PRODUCT >
| FINISHED > A BIT > WASTE MATERIALS > COMPONENTS >
| GOODS > OF USE > MATTER
|
| Now when we say that our economy grows exponentially, it
| means that the amount of matter traveling through this
| pipeline is growing exponentially too! The economy, as it
| is today, is essentially a rapidly growing system for
| turning usable resources into useless waste.
|
| Here's the bad part though: adding recycling to any stage
| of this pipeline doesn't alter the overall behavior. It
| only recirculates some of the matter - recycling is never
| perfect. But as we know, if you recycle less than 100%,
| and then re-recycle that, and then re-recycle again, it
| still converges to zero. With an exponentially growing
| pipeline, recycling is only delaying the crisis a little
| bit.
|
| Ultimately, we need to remove the exponent (or at least
| couple it to population growth, in the scenario where
| humanity expands into space). For now, we need to reduce
| it. And one of the best ways of doing that is... reducing
| use. Buying less. The less matter flows through the
| pipeline, the longer we have before it runs out.
| vkou wrote:
| > A big reason that stuff isn't replaceable anymore is
| because consumers wants some of the benefits that come w/
| non-replaceable parts.
|
| This may be true, but we shouldn't confuse 'a decision
| made by a product manager' with 'the customers want
| this'.
|
| Some design decisions succeed because of the other
| strengths of a product (and the competition cargo-cult
| copies them), not because they are good design decisions.
| Some design decisions are made because they are more
| convenient for the vendor, not better for the customer.
| Some design decisions are made because of inertia.
| Pointing to any particular design trade-off in a
| successful product, and saying that 'Well, this is
| obviously what the market wants' is not always a correct
| conclusion to draw.
|
| USB is unarguably the most successful mechanism for two
| hardware devices to communicate with each-other in
| history, and yet you need to flip the cable over three
| times before you can plug it in. Should we conclude that
| customers _want_ to play the cable fandango every time
| they plug one device into another?
| ghaff wrote:
| >yet you need to flip the cable over three times before
| you can plug it in
|
| I used to know one of the folks involved with the USB
| standard pretty well professionally. At one point, he
| told me that this aspect of USB is one thing he wished
| they could have dealt with differently.
|
| (That said, the fact that the mini and micro versions are
| more explicitly keyed doesn't make that much of a
| different and I assume that a USB-C or Lightning-type
| design just wasn't possible at the time without
| undesirable tradeoffs.)
| [deleted]
| simion314 wrote:
| If Apple would publish schematic, diagnostic software and
| allow refurbishing and selling of parts to third party -
| it will keep your iPhone water proof still.
|
| The reality is this, when your device gets old or your
| screen cracks , Apple will offer to fix it for 70% of a
| new device price, so you are pushed to buy a new device.
| I hope this is not controversial and has nothing to do
| with the water proof preference you have.
| notJim wrote:
| You can already buy some replacement parts, like screens
| and backs. It doesn't seem like you can replace the
| motherboard, so that would be a fair point. I wouldn't
| objecting to coding this into law, but I'm not sure why
| your comment is implying this is not currently possible.
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| Apple has explicitly made replacement parts non-user-
| servicable at this point. It's called "serialization" and
| prevents even OEM parts (like a screen from a different
| iPhone) from being recognized by the phone. [1] This is
| the type of consumer un-friendly behavior that R2R seeks
| to defend against.
|
| [1] https://www.ifixit.com/News/45921/is-this-the-end-of-
| the-rep...
| simion314 wrote:
| >some parts
|
| Maybe things changed a bit but you could not buy screens
| or use refurbished ones. But all parts should be
| available for phones and laptops, including
| screens,batteries, chips, ports. Also there should be a
| way where parts from broken phones could be reused (I
| know the argument about stolen phones but competent Apple
| people can find a way to make it possible so we can reuse
| components from borken devices and not send them some far
| away to be "recycled" instead of reuse.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| "Devices aren't built around discrete components anymore."
|
| Your right about most electrical products. That is not the
| point though. (I know you were just commenting on this
| article, but I feel strongly over right to repair laws.)
|
| I just want access to parts if they are available. I want
| access to repair information. I don't care how complicated
| a devise is--I want to see the factory repair diagrams.
| There is someone out there who can fab together a computer
| board if there's a demand for it.
|
| If the company doesn't want to sell parts to consumers so
| be it, but release the information. Yes--trade secrets make
| it more difficult, but not impossible.
|
| I would be content (now) with a huge sticker on every
| product that didn't want to give out information, or sell
| parts.
|
| Something like, "If you buy this product, the minute the
| warrany ends, you are on your own. We don't provide any
| repair information (because you're too stupid to repair, or
| we are greedy), and never supply parts to anyone. We will
| never release repair information. So the minute the
| warranty ends, you will 99.99% of the time gave to buy a
| New product from us!".
|
| I have a feeling after a few years, companies might put
| screws back in, and use a bit less epoxy? And poof--repair
| parts will be shipped overnight, and free?
|
| O.K. right to repair movement is covering more than just
| electronics.
|
| Like your watch you have on your wrist?
|
| Rolex, and The Swatch Company (own mist watch brands)have
| pulled all third party parts accounts. Watch companies
| realized they could use Vertical integration, and "Quality
| assurance" to bring that watches back to the factory for
| repair, at factory prices.
|
| I don't want to be in a perpetual lease when I buy a
| product.
| amelius wrote:
| Hardware is one thing. My sister has an iPhone 6 which will
| soon lose support from Apple and apps running on it. Why
| can't we install Linux on it and save us the e-waste as a
| bonus?
| operator-name wrote:
| This article is a great example of how the market niche
| exists and there are plenty of other markets (motor
| vehicles, industrial equipment, the maker scene) where
| right to repair is the norm. I'd argue the maker scene is
| bigger than it's even been and still growing, hence the
| increased increase in right to repair.
|
| Exact discrete components aren't important becuase your usb
| IC isn't any more special than another usb IC that follows
| the specification. Your laptop display isn't special versus
| the others that use the same internal displayport ribbon
| cable.
|
| Market aside this is effectively corporations attempting to
| take a right/freedom away from the people. The market can
| treat devices however it likes but if it crosses a
| threshold then applying rules and regulations that restrict
| it's freedom isn't a new magical concept.
| anoncake wrote:
| > it'd rather treat devices as things that we lease for a
| low cost from a vertically-integrated company.
|
| It's weird how you defend Corporations' private property
| while apparently disliking the idea of personal property.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| It's weird how you read me describing the decisions of
| the market and attribute them to my opinion/preferences.
| unilynx wrote:
| He probably missed the first t
| anoncake wrote:
| This.
| anoncake wrote:
| Sorry.
|
| But if you had designed the English language better, not
| making "It" and "I" so similar, this wouldn't have
| happened.
| kzzzznot wrote:
| I'm not sure he did design the English language.
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| Your approach will always be a valid choice, for those who
| want it, and companies will be happy to provide that
| device-as-a-service model.
|
| R2R is just seeking to preserve the practical access to
| repairability for those who want to service their own
| devices.
| alwaysdoit wrote:
| No it's not, it's looking to enshrine that standard by
| law for everyone. Nothing is stopping consumers from
| demanding phones that are self-serviceable, they just
| simply aren't willing to accept the tradeoffs involved
| (larger size, worse thermals, higher price, etc). If you
| disagree, there's an unserved market segment wide open
| for you!
| munk-a wrote:
| > No it's not, it's looking to enshrine that standard by
| law for everyone.
|
| That's what's necessary IMO - since if it isn't required
| for all consumers than there is no motivation to make it
| available for any customers, we'll continue to be dragged
| down by the LCD as devices get less and less serviceable.
| Manufacturers don't like options - options cost money and
| each additional model you offer drives up how much you
| spend in storage and production line configuration, so
| they'll target the majority which probably _does_ want to
| be able to repair devices but either doesn 't realize
| it's still an option or doesn't have the financial
| freedom to invest in a higher quality device that has a
| higher upfront price tag but a lifespan that outlives
| that difference by leaps and bounds.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Nothing is stopping consumers from demanding phones
| that are self-serviceable_
|
| It's not like anyone _asked_ the consumers. Nor were the
| options put on the market, for the buyers to vote on them
| with their wallets. The conclusions are _assumed_ in
| advance by the companies. Meanwhile, consumers choose
| from what 's actually available on the market - not from
| the space of all possible products.
|
| > _they just simply aren 't willing to accept the
| tradeoffs involved (larger size, worse thermals, higher
| price, etc)._
|
| No customer can truly evaluate the tradeoffs involved.
| For starters, necessary information isn't publicly
| available. Companies don't publish reports from their
| product teams that describe the trade-off space they're
| working on. Would a user-replaceable battery make the
| phone thicker? How much? Does the glue actually helps
| with thermals? What's the price difference? _Nobody
| knows_ , outside the people involved in these decisions.
|
| Secondly, marketers run interference. Maybe a Joe would
| pay $100 extra for a fully repairable phone, so that Jane
| could fix it for him when he unavoidably breaks it in six
| months. Maybe an environmentally conscious Carol would go
| for one with user-replaceable battery, because she can
| only afford a cheaper, mostly integrated device. But they
| won't, because those issues aren't even on a typical
| person's radar. Instead, the marketing focuses on vague
| appeal to emotions, misrepresented specs, outright lies,
| and bait-and-switch "value-add" services. Most people who
| know better than to fall for such nonsense will just look
| at the one clear indicator - price.
|
| The point is: when you have a system connected to a bunch
| of input signals, you can't say that a particular signal
| doesn't affect the system, if half of the other inputs
| are flooded with noise that's 20dB higher than any legit
| signal would be. You first need to shut off the noise!
|
| > _If you disagree, there 's an unserved market segment
| wide open for you!_
|
| Not for me. There are too many capital barriers to entry
| around designing and manufacturing high-end electronics.
| You can't _just_ start a business in this space and hope
| to offer a comparable price to established magnitudes.
|
| Now if an established company like Samsung or Apple dared
| to try this, then we'd know. Maybe it would turn out
| there's no market for repairable smartphones. But I
| haven't seen anybody giving it a shot in a meaningful
| way.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| History is full of things that people did not want to
| mandate via their purchases, but we as a society decided
| was important... so we made it legally mandatory.
| datameta wrote:
| Let's set aside software RTR, which at first glance I
| believe has no increased costs associated (besides a
| decreased profit margin from lack of shortened support
| windows and a locked-down ecosystem).
|
| Could you expand on the specifics of what changes RTR
| would necessitate the hardware to have? Let's say beyond
| the fact that a non-reversible bond/connector would
| otherwise be the cheapest option (saving perhaps
| fractions of pennies on the BOM).
| LexGray wrote:
| Mandated right repair would raise weight for battery
| containers and latches, higher failure as connections
| would not be soldered in place and hinges and latches may
| fail, less water resistance as seals may get bumped
| loose, easier access for hardware hacks for bad actors,
| more potential consumer injury device damage during
| repair attempts, and more likely fire scenarios in planes
| and public areas from incorrectly installed parts. It is
| attempting to deny consumers those benefits.
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| Important distinction here! Right to repair does _not_
| prescribe design considerations! You can glue
| /solder/integrate all you want! Just need to make sure
| replacement parts are available and documentation is
| clear!
| kiba wrote:
| Sounds like exaggeration or either overblown concerns.
| It's also ignoring the fact that manufacturers going out
| of their way to make a device deliberately more difficult
| to repair rather than just implementing tradeoffs.
|
| It's one thing to have a waterproof phone that you need
| specialty tools to fix it, it's another thing when
| manufacturers try to make repairing deliberately more
| difficult than it should be, such as limiting the sale of
| OEM components or using security screws.
|
| Either way, your thought what Right to Repair is only one
| version/proposal of what RtR.
| operator-name wrote:
| The right to repair doesn't mandate any of that - you
| could have a product that has glued internal batteries
| and internal seals yet still release the schematics and
| allow your suppliers to sell the components to consumers.
|
| Just look at motor vehicles - people have the right to
| change their own brake pads yet or even engines! This is
| arguably way more dangerous than a badly repaired small
| electronic device!
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| > Your approach will always be a valid choice, for those
| who want it
|
| This isn't "my approach" - it's the approach that the
| vast majority of purchasers prefer. And pining for the
| good ol' days of technical datasheets doesn't help
| everybody who can't start their cars without the
| successful interaction of nearly a hundred proprietary
| microcontrollers running proprietary code speaking over a
| high-speed data bus.
|
| And here's the annoying thing: I _want_ a car that doesn
| 't have a hundred microcontrollers speaking over a high-
| speed data bus. I want a car like my old '88 Camry, that
| I could take apart with my dad and fix _almost all_ of
| the problems I ran into with the help of a Haynes manual
| and a trip (or two!) to the junkyard. But the market
| clearly does not agree with my desires.
|
| So how do you get there from here?
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| Do you have a source to cite for "the approach that the
| vast majority of purchasers prefer"?
|
| That seems pretty speculative. The market can be
| manipulated or directed by more than simply consumer
| choice, e.g. by business incentives of product
| manufacturers.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| > Do you have a source to cite for "the approach that the
| vast majority of purchasers prefer"?
|
| I mean, _gestures at every consumer-targeted product made
| since at least the early 'oughts_.
|
| People want things that are some combination of more
| capable, more convenient, more reliable, and less
| expensive. Different consumers obviously make different
| decisions, but there's a reason you can't go to a car lot
| and easily find a car with a stick shift. There's a
| reason you probably don't know anyone who has a Speed
| Queen top loader (pre-redesign model of course ;)) in
| their house, even though it is infinitely more reliable
| and repairable than the competition. Those offerings are
| less capable, less convenient, and more expensive than
| the alternatives, so customers don't want them.
| munk-a wrote:
| Customers are incredibly short sighted when it comes to
| purchasing new things - shaving 10% off a price while
| cutting the expected lifetime of the product down from
| ten years to three is likely to capture most of the
| market.
|
| I think this is a case where actors are acting in an
| irrational manner (i.e. not adhering to the perfectly
| rational actor assumption that's required for free-
| markets to function) and that necessitates government or
| other intervention to ensure that consumers are
| protected.
|
| It's depressing because I absolutely agree with you that
| users aren't purchasing devices with an emphasis on being
| able to repair them. It is a pain point but not one that
| comes up at the register and so manufacturers are free to
| exploit the situation to provide marginally cheaper goods
| that require full replacement more frequently to ensure
| consistent sales.
|
| Nobody wants to be like Hoover in the 90's that offered
| free plane tickets with vacuum purchases[1] and caused
| such an oversupply in the market that first party vacuum
| sales dwindled to nearly nothing over the next decade and
| that's fair. But we need to have a balance where we
| aren't rewarding manufacturers who build products that
| frequently break and for the consumer to make another
| purchase.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_prom
| otion
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Given a choice customers would very likely prefer a
| toaster that costs ten dollars less and has a 1 in 10,000
| chance of burning down their house instead of 1 in
| 1,00,000 even though saving 10 bucks and accepting a in
| in 10k chance of burning up your kids, cats, and stuff is
| an insane choice.
|
| The free market is in short pretty garbage on its own.
| Wohlf wrote:
| You can't buy a new car like an '88 Camry anymore, the
| government will not allow it to be sold due to safety and
| environmental regulation.
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| All I'm saying is that R2R in no way changes the products
| that are available to you if you want product-as-a-
| service. You can still take your phone to the Genius Bar
| or lease it from a carrier. It just guarantees that there
| are also options for those who _want_ to fix their own
| devices.
| mntmn wrote:
| Shameless plug: We're doing this with the MNT Reform laptop:
| https://mntre.com/reform2/handbook/schematics.html
|
| There's also a print version of this book that is included
| with the assembled version of the device:
| https://shop.mntmn.com/products/mnt-reform-operator-handbook
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the
| documentation_
|
| For a short time in college I worked fixing stereos at a big-
| name electronics company's east coast repair facility. You
| could always tell the gear that people had tried to fix
| themselves before sending it back to us as a last resort. We
| didn't begrudge them trying on their own. In fact, it was
| encouraged because home repairs kept the cost of maintaining
| the repair facility down.
|
| These days, since everything gets chucked in the garbage when
| it breaks, I guess that logic doesn't work anymore.
|
| As an aside, the Commodore 64 didn't come with the
| schematics, but they were part of the Programmer's Reference
| Guide, which many people had, and could be bought in most
| bookstores.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to
| be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support?
|
| Well, I would say it includes publishing the software interface
| of your hardware, and not making it impossible to replace the
| software. Those are the main roadblock on updating old tablets
| and phones.
|
| I do really read those lines as fighting closed boot loaders,
| DRM on real goods, dependencies on the manufacturer's servers,
| and all kinds of purposeful hindrances that are so popular
| between the large industries nowadays.
|
| I would really not include the "design for repairability" and
| software upgrades into the idea. But one does not need to
| include those to agree with the article.
| spinningslate wrote:
| >Well, I would say it includes publishing the software
| interface of your hardware, and not making it impossible to
| replace the software.
|
| 100% this. Case in point: I have two 'old' apple devices: a
| 2009 mac mini and an ipad c.2011. Apple doesn't provide
| updates for either any more. For the mini, that's not a
| problem: it's running Debian just fine, and kept up to date.
|
| The ipad is a different story. Physically it's still in
| perfectly good nick: it's a well-built device. Software,
| though, is a different matter. Progressively fewer websites
| render properly with the outdated version of safari; the
| number of installable apps is down to a faint trickle. It's
| broken. Doesn't matter that it's broken because the software
| is outdated rather than a hardware component has given up. It
| doesn't do what it was intended for, and there's no way to
| repair it.
|
| I've no issue with apple - or any other manufacturer -
| deciding there's a lifetime beyond which they're not willing
| to support the device. But they shouldn't be allowed to brick
| it. At the point it goes out of manufacturer support, there
| should be the option to 'unlock' and install 3rd party
| software.
|
| Of course it'll impact Apple's revenues. At least to some
| extent; plenty people will still want "shiny new". And it'll
| need 3rd party software to be available. But that's a whole
| new market opportunity.
|
| More fundamentally, it's simply unconscionable to consign
| devices to the scrap heap because the manufacturer built a
| time bomb into the software.
| II2II wrote:
| Perhaps the author kept moving the goalpost since we have lost
| so much over the years.
|
| Take that legacy software. For many technologies the software
| is not distinguishable from the hardware to the end user, yet
| faulty software could present a security risk or even pose
| physical danger. At the same time, vendors are dropping support
| for software at an accelerated rate while making it impossible
| to use third party fixes or replacements. This is not about
| having the latest features or being able to run the latest
| apps. It is about having the device being an asset rather than
| a liability.
| segmondy wrote:
| Are they also going to force "the right to sell" instead of
| rent? Nothing is stopping companies from renting instead of
| selling their products. We already see that with software, no
| one is trying to sell software these days, it's all
| subscriptions. It could happen with hardware, in which case
| you don't have the right to repair since it never belonged to
| you.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The populace is under no particular obligation to allow the
| company to continue to go about doing business in the US.
| The populace of the EU and Canada and so forth likewise.
|
| An act of such naked greed could trivially backfire.
| spaced-out wrote:
| I've been wondering if we're going to need to do something
| like that some day.
|
| With the way tech is increasingly getting locked down, what
| if we end up in a future where all the major computer
| vendors won't sell you anything, only lease it to you under
| strict terms, which include the right for them to brick it
| for any reason. Sure, you can still buy parts and build
| your own computer, but you can't use it for any bank or
| credit card transaction or government website because it's
| not SECURE. If fact, even wanting to own your own computer
| makes you a suspicious person to law enforcement because
| why do you need it? Are you trying to distribute child
| porn? In fact, child porn is the reason Comcast stated to
| justify a new policy that will go into effect soon, which
| will only allow devices running on trusted hardware/OS to
| connect to the internet at all...
| merlincorey wrote:
| This is the crux of the argument to me - if I own the
| device, why do some companies act like I am just renting
| it?
| beefalo wrote:
| Most cell phones are leased already today
| Karunamon wrote:
| No they're not. Leasing implies a limited, fixed term.
| Financing and leasing are two different transactions.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| That is only untrue because owning the phone would be
| disadvantageous to them. It's vastly more advantageous
| for them if you own it and are obliged to pay them for it
| because you own both pieces if it breaks.
| II2II wrote:
| Depending upon what you mean by "sell", I can assure you
| that software sales are still happening. (Though it's
| probably better to describe it as selling a license for an
| indeterminate period. I also suspect the "indeterminate
| period" part will result in an increasing number of legal
| actions.)
|
| Fundamentally, the repairs and sales are different things.
| A consumer knows whether they are making a purchase or
| renting when paying for a product. A consumer is much less
| likely to know what the extended support (i.e. out of
| warranty) options are, and they are subject to change as
| time goes on anyhow. This means that the market is less
| likely to accept a scenario where everything is rented and
| more likely to end up in a scenario where nothing is
| repairable.
|
| That being said, I suspect the right to buy would become an
| issue if every vendor switched to rentals or subscriptions
| only.
| rasz wrote:
| EU already established that licensing software means
| selling it and comes with right to resale (usedsoft vs
| oracle)
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| No, because the key difference between renting and buying
| is that if you rent something, the provider will be forced
| to repair it for you. The issue is that they try to have it
| both ways, the strict control of renting something (users
| can't resell it, repair it, modify it) and the reduced
| responsibility of selling it.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| I don't think Apple or Google have to open source every part of
| their software. They just have to make it possible for us to
| install alternative operating systems on their computing
| platforms. That would allow giving older devices new life by
| putting Linux on them, for example. A fully unlocked iPhone 6
| with Linux on it could be very useful.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Only if they're selling a computer. I've never wanted my
| phone to be a computer (although I don't mind if it is).
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| Good for you. You don't have to install Linux on your
| phone, but it would be better for the planet (eg:
| recycling) if we all could.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to
| be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support?
| Where do we draw this line? If your M1 dies, you can't fab one
| yourself.
|
| Or maybe unlocking the bootloader?
|
| >Now the author has shifted "right to repair" to mean mandatory
| device support and design requirements around repair-ability.
|
| It's part of the conversation on planned obsolescence but
| you're right that's not strictly part of right to repair.
|
| But these companies have been crowing about sustainability for
| a while now for PR purposes - now they may be legislated to
| actually provide sustainability in terms of product support and
| repairability.
| msla wrote:
| > Now the author has shifted "right to repair" to mean
| mandatory first-party device support and design requirements
| around repair-ability.
|
| I'm sure mandatory first-party device support is better for the
| manufacturer than giving people the idea they should be able to
| control what software runs on their device. I wonder if that
| stance is a lack of imagination on the author's part or
| something more deliberate.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Perhaps compulsory software updates at least as far as security
| issues for a reasonable time frame after selling a particular
| device as new to stores. I'd say 5 years to go with the 5 year
| warranty against defects in manufacture. This would discourage
| waste and improve the second hand market.
|
| So moto, samsung, et all would be obligated to provided fixes
| for 5 years after they sold the last unit. If an oem can't meet
| that obligation just forbid their import.
|
| We presume a right to the product of other people's labor for
| the privilege of doing business here all the time. See every
| product in existence.
| fouric wrote:
| I'm not very happy with the quality of the article, overall. It
| seems useful for a consumer, but obvious, and old-hat, to HN
| denizens.
|
| HN submissions are supposed to be "anything that gratifies
| one's intellectual curiosity", but we've seen dozens of right-
| to-repair articles by now, and this doesn't bring anything
| substantially new to the table (unlike the top previous
| submissions https://hn.algolia.com/?q=right+to+repair).
| rozab wrote:
| I think the reason it was posted was more to point out that
| the BBC was running this article on the homepage, rather than
| the content itself.
| kbenson wrote:
| I agree, the increasing awareness of this topic is itself
| interesting and worth note.
|
| Additionally, the fact that this submission has 350+
| comments at the time I write this is all the evidence I
| need that this was worthy of submission. Many times, the
| comments, even if it's a tangential discussion, are much
| more interesting than the article submitted.
| lsllc wrote:
| I think anything publicizing "right to repair" in mainstream
| media is a good thing. Agreed that for HN denizens, it's
| nothing new, but most people are just unaware of this topic.
|
| Glad to see the BBC running this.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Maybe, but it's all over the place and thus might cause
| confusion for readers who will later see 'right to repair'
| and think it means that Apple should be forced to send iOS
| 14 to their iPhone 4S.
| LocalH wrote:
| Maybe they should have to open iOS signing to all
| versions a device ever received when it becomes EOL? That
| also has implications with regards to preservation - if
| you can never install a given version of the OS again,
| then how can you trust it is properly preserved?
| judge2020 wrote:
| You can always install the old version, Apple just
| doesn't think they can optimize new iOS versions to make
| old phones work well with the new software (and the
| bloat/feature creep within).
| LocalH wrote:
| No you can't, and you haven't been able to in some time.
| Apple devices that need restoring post-EOL are generally
| restricted to the last-released version. I think you have
| to go back to the original couple of iPhone models to be
| able to ignore SHSH and APTicket.
|
| There are ways around this with some models, but it's
| been a long time since it was even "save SHSH blobs and
| replay them" easy.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Without circumventing protections you cannot install old
| versions of iOS. Many phone models have flaws in the
| protections that allow you to circumvent the protections,
| but officially installing old iOS versions ends when
| Apple decides.
| joshspankit wrote:
| Exactly my point as I read down this thread:
|
| For this type of legislation push it is _very_ important
| to keep the narrative focused on what's morally and
| technologically reasonable.
|
| Very few people agree that a manufacturer should be
| forced to spend time and money on supportting a product
| for life, many (I hope) agree that we should force
| manufacturers to give us the _ability_ to repair all
| functions ourselves (or at least not stand in our way),
| but almost everyone can agree that you should be able to
| replace something as trivial as a button, a cable, or a
| screen.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" I think anything publicizing "right to repair" in
| mainstream media is a good thing."_
|
| Absolutely, the more the merrier. Also, I believe that lay
| people are now becoming aware of the fact, as I've seen
| many articles both in the daily press and on the television
| news about it (where I live the Government's current
| inquiry into the matter seeking public comment has been
| reasonably well covered).
| criddell wrote:
| If we are going to allow software patents on the basis that
| software is a device, then laws affecting physical devices
| should apply to software as well.
| joshspankit wrote:
| I'm curious but don't know what laws you're suggesting. Could
| you dig a bit deeper?
| criddell wrote:
| I was thinking about right to repair laws. What's the
| analog for schematics when you are talking about a software
| device? It's going to be something like source code or API
| documentation.
| jryan49 wrote:
| If you want to help support right to repair (in US) consider
| donating to Louis Rossmann's GoFundMe for right to repair:
|
| https://www.gofundme.com/f/lets-get-right-to-repair-passed?u...
| mentos wrote:
| Been a fan of his for years was more than happy to donate to
| his campaign.
| emptyadam wrote:
| I joined this website to say this.
| IronWolve wrote:
| Louis explains its a david vs goliath situation, tech companies
| pay lobbyists to argue against right to repair. Small working
| repair shops cant afford to travel to these meetings, and not
| get paid.
|
| This is why the fund raiser, the public needs lobbyists to
| represent them against the corporate lobbyists.
|
| Its also bad that these companies are funding/donating to
| politicians to go against the publics interest.
| operator-name wrote:
| I'd highly reccomended his video "What is right to repair? An
| introduction for curious people." as it clears up many
| misconceptions about right to repair:
| https://youtu.be/Npd_xDuNi9k
| OrwellianChild wrote:
| Linus Tech Tips did an excellent rundown of the topic last week
| and advocates for Rossmann's fundraiser as well:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVafMi0l68
| rasz wrote:
| UK, Europe, Canada, Argentina, its as if the journalist went out
| of his way not to mention US and Louis Rossmanns direct ballot
| initiative fighttorepair.org
| CivBase wrote:
| Despite being a big fan of right to repair, I really didn't like
| this article. It gave me the impression that the only way to fix
| things is to impose regulations on manufacturers in the form of
| design restrictions and support requirements. IMO, that's not at
| all what right to repair should be focusing on.
|
| I disagree with any regulation which would force a manufacturer
| to compromise on the design of a device just for the sake of
| ease-of-repair or to provide parts or repair services. However,
| there are some practices which I do think should be illegal as
| part of right to repair law. Here are some examples:
|
| 1) Manufacturers should not be allowed to use serialization to
| prevent a device from working with replacement parts. It's okay
| for a device to user serialization to detect if the part has been
| replace and if the replacement is known to be compatible, but
| it's not okay for the device to refuse to work with a replacement
| part outright simply because the part ID is different.
|
| 2) Manufacturers should not be allowed to make exclusivity deals
| for parts with third party vendors. Apple should not be allowed
| to make a deal with Intersil that gives them exclusive rights to
| purchase the ISL9120 chip used in their Mac Books. This
| restriction should not extend to parts designed by the
| manufacturer whose production is merely contracted out to a third
| party.
|
| 3) Manufacturers should not be allowed to restrict sharing of
| schematics, specifications, or other legally acquired product
| information. If someone takes the time to map out the traces and
| identify the components on a circuit board, then they should be
| allowed to share that information without fear of legal threats.
|
| 4) Genuine used good should not be seized by customs under the
| pretext of them being "counterfeit".
|
| 5) Manufacturers shouldn't be allowed to restrict the purchase of
| replacement parts using "authorized repair" programs. If they're
| going to offer parts for repair, they should be available for
| purchase with no strings attached.
|
| Others have already pointed it out, but Louis Rossmann's YouTube
| channel and Fight to Repair website have some great information
| on the problems faced by independent repair.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
|
| https://www.fighttorepair.org/
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| hear, hear
|
| http and www and html are one of the most effective technologies
| keeping long-lived devices usable and useful.
|
| it's why i've made a point of testing in netscape 2.0 and up.
| tims33 wrote:
| Repairability seems like a good goal for sustainability. The
| challenge on electronics is determining what is a reasonable and
| useful life for a product. Should an iPhone SE or a knockoff
| Android last and be repairable for a decade? My worry is the
| regulation will get this wrong. Moderate rules are probably the
| best way to start.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Remember, its reduce, reuse, and recycle in that order for a
| reason.
|
| Companies like Apple and Microsoft love to claim they are green
| because they put money into recycling old hardware. Except
| their business model for hardware revolves entirely around
| Increasing consumption and not reducing it.
|
| Its cheaper and better for the environment to maintain
| electronics than it is to replace them every few years and
| recycle them. Recycling is far from 100%, especially with
| electronics. Its not like steel or aluminum where you can just
| toss scrap into a crucible and get pure ingots on the other end
| ready to be worked into something useful.
| viktorcode wrote:
| I don't think that repairability is better for sustainability
| in general, if we are speaking about electronics. Making an
| electronic device more repairable would make it more complex
| (again, not in every case, but in general). Where before a
| manufacturer could just solder numerous components to a single
| board, now will be arrays of sockets each of which is a new
| point of possible failure. Glue will be replaced by magnets,
| clips, etc. which is great for repair, but again, makes device
| more complex. And still most people will get rid of them after
| a few years of use. Consumerism is the top enemy of
| sustainability.
|
| Right to repair is a complex endeavour. There will be no simple
| solutions.
| scrose wrote:
| > I don't think that repairability is better for
| sustainability in general
|
| Sorry, but what? Being able to repair a device means that you
| can (and usually will) be able to prevent demand spiking for
| a brand new device that uses as many or more materials than
| the last.
|
| For starters, imagine a world where vehicles were not
| repairable. I'd argue that any mass-produced thing benefits
| from repairability.
| TideAd wrote:
| I suspect that a minority of people would choose to repair
| their old phones even if they were more repairable. When
| your phone dies, it's a good opportunity to buy something
| new and more fun. I don't know for sure but I don't think
| this would stop that much consumption.
| fsflover wrote:
| > When your phone dies, it's a good opportunity to buy
| something new
|
| If you have infinite money, yes. Most people in the world
| do not have it. (And if you do not care about the
| environment, too.)
| scrose wrote:
| > I suspect that a minority of people would choose to
| repair their old phones even if they were more
| repairable.
|
| Repair shops exist for this purpose. I'm not saying every
| individual will repair their device themself if it
| breaks. That would be as out of touch as saying most
| people will just buy a brand new phone anytime theirs has
| an issue.
|
| Making things less repairable means that whether you're
| willing to pay someone else or not to fix something, you
| will be unable to.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| The vast majority of people on the planet cannot afford
| to "buy something new and more fun" every time something
| of theirs breaks.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| > Making an electronic device more repairable would make it
| more complex (again, not in every case, but in general).
|
| Right to repair isn't about forcing manufacturers to make
| devices more repairable. It's about giving you the right to
| repair it in the first place. Right now we have paired
| components that can't even be replaced by genuine parts from
| a donor device, board components that aren't purchasable by
| anyone other than the OEM and a complete lack of access to
| repair documentation from OEMs.
|
| Even the most skilled repair technicians in the world with
| the best equipment money can buy aren't able to repair your
| device because they can't debug it without documentation, or
| they've reverse engineered it but can't buy the parts because
| they're not for sale, or they've taken the parts from another
| device but they won't function because the OEM software
| locked them to the device they came from.
|
| Linus from Linus Tech Tips said it best: "The vast majority
| of the opposition to right to repair comes from people who
| either haven't had it explained to them properly or from
| folks that are on board with right to repair even though they
| don't realize it yet"
|
| https://youtu.be/nvVafMi0l68?t=91
| nrp wrote:
| I get where you're coming from on this, but from a design and
| manufacturing perspective, it isn't correct. Fairphone has
| published a pretty extensive lifecycle analysis of their
| latest device that details the environmental impact of
| designing for repairability vs the extended life that comes
| from that change: https://www.fairphone.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/07/Fairpho...
|
| There's a similar study focused on notebooks that goes into
| the environmental benefits of extending longevity: https://ww
| w.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X1...
|
| Finally, we've spent the last year and a half building a
| highly repairable notebook at Framework, and it is as robust
| as any other premium thin and light notebook.
|
| I agree with you though that there is a behavioral change
| required to maximize the benefit. There are many audiences
| (like a lot of the folks on HN) who are ready to make their
| devices last longer, but others may need more time to get
| comfortable with it.
| scrose wrote:
| We used to have this right, but it feels like somewhere between
| 2010-2015, companies realized they could make more money by
| disallowing simple replacements.
|
| I used to make some money as a kid by buying batches of broken
| Iphone 3G/3GS's on ebay, replacing parts on them, and then re-
| selling them myself. Practically any part of that device could
| be replaced in less than 30 minutes with $15 worth of tools.
|
| I have a 2012MBP and a 2014MBP that I gave to my family that
| are still serving their purposes after a few quick(and cheap)
| battery, RAM and HDD replacements over the years.
|
| I don't expect my 2019 MBP to last more than 5 years without
| costing me at least several hundred dollars more when I
| inevitably have to bring it to the Apple store for them to fix
| something that very much used to be user-fixable in a matter of
| minutes.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I draw the line at SMDs. We should go back to through-hole
| components -- I can desolder and resolder those.
|
| Sorry, I'm not trying to mock you. Just saw an opportunity to
| be facetious, not facetious.
|
| And, actually, to sort of make a point:
|
| I don't buy into the idea that companies are intentionally
| doing this -- intentionally disallowing replacement parts,
| although I maybe just be naive. I do in fact loathe SMDs (as
| a hobbyist) but I am quite sure that companies have moved to
| them for non-nefarious reasons as well.
| rasz wrote:
| Your argument doesnt work, because your smd is crypto locks
| and monopolistic "you cant sell this part to anybody else"
| business deals. Manufacturers are starting to use
| cryptographic handshakes between components.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| There is ample proof that Apple pays off their parts
| suppliers to prevent them from selling components on the
| open market. Louis Rossman has documented it well. Failure
| prone chips like USB muxers and voltage regulators that are
| unique to Apple devices but made by suppliers who's
| products are otherwise available on Digikey and Mouser
| somehow those aren't.
|
| SMDs are not anticonsumer. They are harder to work with but
| with practice anyone can deal with them just fine. I've yet
| to see anyone argue for a through hole mandate.
|
| But I have seen people argue for banning clearly anti
| repair design practices like gluing assemblies together. Or
| designing a screen in such a way that you have a high
| chance of breaking it when removing it.
| jack_h wrote:
| This is pretty much it. Why do we use a BGA or WLCSP rather
| than a DIP package? Because we can't fit a DIP package into
| the form factor, and manufacturing costs are higher. Why
| did we glue/epoxy a few components to the board? Because
| the device needed to pass a drop test such that components
| aren't flying off. Why did we ultrasonically weld the
| enclosure shut? Because we needed IP68 or above rating and
| the price point we were trying to hit made that the most
| viable.
|
| I don't necessarily have a problem with right to repair,
| but a lot of people don't understand what goes into
| designing these things and attribute a lack of
| repairability with malfeasance rather than just the reality
| of manufacturing, economics, and consumer demands.
| rasz wrote:
| Straw man. No right to repair movement is arguing for
| making bulkier devices using older technology. I have
| zero problem with underfilled BGA _as long as I can buy
| replacement chip from legitimate source_.
| operator-name wrote:
| Apple is a very well documented example of companies
| intentially disallowing replacement parts.
|
| Many of their parts are linked to the motherboard in
| software, and even a doner replacement from another decide
| restricts features.
|
| There's a line between warning the user that the repair is
| potentially dangerous and removing their right of ownership
| to repair their product unless apple had authorised it.
| jbm wrote:
| I have a mid-year 2012 MBP. The battery was glued in place
| and it is generally a PITA to repair.
|
| I believe the generation before was the last one that was
| repairable.
| tims33 wrote:
| Our expectations on the size and integrated nature of these
| devices seem to be the thing that caused everything to get
| glued together.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| I took apart my old smartphone at one point. It was old
| enough that the battery was attached with screws and
| connected to the board with a cable and a connector.
|
| It's not bigger than existing phones. It doesn't weigh
| more, it's not thicker. The weight of a battery connector
| and a couple of screws is what, a couple of grams, if that?
|
| "We needed to make it thinner" is just an excuse.
| zepto wrote:
| Regulation of designs will very likely get this wrong, and very
| harm the environment and drive up costs.
|
| However there could easily be regulation of labeling that could
| help.
|
| E.g. mandate display of statistical years of working life, and
| number of years of software support.
|
| At least this way customers would be able to make a choice.
| LegitShady wrote:
| > Moderate rules are probably the best way to start.
|
| These changes almost never happen. Whatever change you put the
| first time is likely the only change that will happen. Starting
| off with a compromise for fear of 'getting it wrong' is the
| easiest way to make sure you get it wrong.
| tims33 wrote:
| That is a fair point. I just have visions of becoming
| cumbersome and limiting.
| overgard wrote:
| > 'It's your device, ...
|
| Sadly, while that /should/ be true, I'm not sure that on any
| practical level it is anymore. There's about a 1000 ways the
| manufacturer, carrier, os developer, etc., can make your device
| entirely useless without you having much of any recourse, because
| while they can't physically take the device from you, they can
| stop providing you service.
| joshspankit wrote:
| This is _exactly_ why "Right to repair" rose up to claw that
| ownership back.
|
| If we don't create laws, at some point down the road we will go
| from "not much recourse" to literally none.
|
| What if Apple created a phone with no ports that was filled
| with epoxy as the last step in assembly? What if powering it on
| at all meant logging in to your apple account?
|
| They could in every meaningful way take that device away from
| you at the run of a single function.
| scientismer wrote:
| If that would happen, and it bothers you, just don't buy an
| Apple phone. Problem solved.
| joshspankit wrote:
| If that happens and there are no laws, it will affect more
| and more products.
|
| Don't buy a laptop? A car? A building? A slab of wood?
|
| Yes, my examples are borderline unreasonable, but we're
| _already_ at the level of unreasonable products being
| licensed instead of owned (Tractors, DSLRs).
| varispeed wrote:
| I fear this is going to turn into some ambiguous law that only
| big companies will be able to navigate through and you and me
| still won't be able to repair anything, because it will be deemed
| "unsafe". There also has to be many years of commissions,
| banquets, meetings, dinners, bonuses before all civil servants
| feasting on tax payer money will come up with something.
| operator-name wrote:
| I'm cautiously optimistic, I've been following Louis Rossmann's
| efforts and Massachusetts recently passed their right to repair
| bill (https://youtu.be/8XN98T0KLGI).
|
| If other industries can do it why can't we?
| brap wrote:
| Maybe they should stop wasting their time (and our money) and
| simply let us decide for ourselves whether or not we want to
| buy a device?
| TchoBeer wrote:
| That's the status quo, where the government doesn't intervene
| in issues of repair.
| oneplane wrote:
| While calling things 'right to repair' is a nice easy wording for
| the lifecycle problem, it doesn't really show the complexity of
| the problem at hand.
|
| There are plenty of things you can do as a manufacturer to make
| things repairable, but there are just as many things that you
| can't do without creating major issues in other areas.
|
| Say you are a company that has a brand identity strongly linked
| to a certain aesthetic and a law now bans that because you are no
| longer allowed to glue on textiles on your product as a neat
| design choice. (yes, this has obvious/glaring problems on its
| own) What's the solution here? Ban a certain taste or preference
| for the certain many in the name of making it better for an
| uncertain few? This might also impact production processes in
| this example when you have a 'compromise'; i.e. you are required
| to sell spare parts because in the mind of policy makers "if they
| can mount that part in the factory, why couldn't they sell it
| separately".
|
| Say you have a design that is now optimised for production and
| the method with which a fabric or textile part is added is by
| preparing a bunch of glue on the spot where the textile goes,
| then laying a sheet of textile on top of that, and then using a
| specifically shaped melting device to melt it into the glue, and
| another cutting device to neatly cut all the excess off, and all
| of this while under a specific amount of pressure, maybe some
| inert gas etc. This is how industrial production works, and one
| of the few ways it works at all (at scale). But that would not be
| possible since it isn't repairable enough according to some
| people in certain echo chambers. So now we would have to ban an
| entire class of production and design methods... and that's just
| one example.
|
| The goal is relatively simple, and there will definitely be an
| impact that is worth attaining. But it's unlikely to be as simple
| as "provide us all the specs, datasheets and parts".
|
| Just as unlikely that it could be "provide us with the private
| key to your PKI so we can sign our own firmware". (which
| ironically is practically banned by the FCC on all devices with
| wireless communication modules - technically it's just an
| implementation you can restrict to a data table in a driver for a
| PHY, but practically this is much cheaper as a manufacturer to
| just blanket-sign and be done with it, which isn't fun for us
| hackers, but isn't surprising at all.) And not signing or
| encrypting things is a whole class of problems on its own. We're
| basically screwed, and since we're often on shared systems (like
| telecommunication networks, or physical roads and buildings, or
| we share the fuels and oils across many consumers) it's not as
| simple as 'do whatever you want' either.
|
| It's tough.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >There are plenty of things you can do as a manufacturer to
| make things repairable, but there are just as many things that
| you can't do without making creating major issues in other
| areas.
|
| Absolutely.
|
| Also consider the movement up the foodchain of product
| development. How do you 'repair' something that's a SoC with a
| few wires to the outside world. Mechanical items, car parts for
| example, tend to move towards more complex unserviceable
| items...there was a time when mechanical fuel pumps were taken
| apart and rebuilt, headlights were a standardized $5 part
| rather than a major part of front-end styling.
|
| I see the concerns of people although it usually all involves
| some particular product family that they have a special kink
| for.
|
| I would guess that the endgame consists of items that cannot be
| serviced in any way (in order to push down manufacturing cost
| usually) combined with a figleaf of published information in
| order to satisfy the text of a 'right to repair' law.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| I do not really understand the negativity on the comments. Seems
| everyone can agree on the "right to repair" (it is politically
| correct) but underneath there seems to be and undermining
| resentment.
| operator-name wrote:
| It looks like there is a lot of conflation between the _right_
| to repair and repairability of products. They 're related but
| distinct issues.
|
| A lot of dissent seems to be around forced repairability.
| scientismer wrote:
| It's socialism, yet again - government dictating to companies
| how they have to design and build their products. Only 0,00001%
| of people want to be able to repair their own stuff, but we all
| will have to pay for the extra hoops companies will be forced
| to jump through for political correctness.
|
| If you think people want repairable products, build them. If
| you are correct, people will buy them, rather than the products
| of the competition. Why do you need government rules for that?
|
| There are even companies trying to build repairable
| smartphones, and some people (the 0,00001%) are buying them.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| A bit of a tangent, but I'm really surprised one of the android
| vendors hasn't focused on the niche of easy to repair phones.
| Maybe even making them four or five times the thickness of the
| latest i-sung devices. extra hot swappable batteries and the
| like.
|
| I know the ostensible reasons waterproofing, planned
| obsolescence, looking cool, and being light weight. Though I
| suspect the real reason is they're just chasing the big players
| and are afraid to be different. It just doesn't make sense to me
| from a business perspective, if you know you can't compete in the
| general market, why not carve out a smaller market and serve that
| one well. An example of this is the Jitterbug phone.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Take a look at corporate or industrial devices.
| david_allison wrote:
| Fairphone[0] is a European manufacturer which does this
| (modular replaceable components, 10/10 on iFixit and usable by
| non-techies).
|
| In my experience it's the annual release cycle of Android
| coupled with the lack of OS updates by manufacturers which
| contributes to e-waste, closely followed by the lack of battery
| replaceability. My first smartphone (OnePlus One - 2014) still
| has the specs to be a perfectly usable phone, at least until 5G
| is widespread and 4G networks are decommissioned.
|
| [0] https://www.fairphone.com/en/
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Can anyone enlighten me about 5G? To me it seems to be
| absolutely nothing more than a marketing tool meant to sell a
| new generation of phones and phone plans. The fact that it is
| pushed so fervently just sets of red flags galore for me.
|
| 4G is plenty fast and works well for me. I see nothing gained
| for my phone by going from 100Mbps to 1Gbps(?). Nothing. But
| its pushed like the second coming of Christ.
| rocqua wrote:
| Old comment of mine:
|
| Generally there is said to be 3 parts to 5G. The first is
| eMBB: Enhanced Mobile Broadband. In other words faster
| mobile internet. This is where most operators start.
|
| The second is URLLC: Ultra-Reliable Low Latency
| Communications. This is mainly aimed at using 5G for things
| like self-driving cars. But also things like long distance
| remote control. This is where people see potential for
| innovation without being clear what the exact innovation
| will be.
|
| The third is mMTC: Massive Machine Type Communications.
| This is meant for IOT but also for factory control. The IOT
| thing is mostly allowing extra low battery useage, low
| speed, cheap connnectivity. The factory control thing is
| about getting the advantages of 5G (and e.g. URLLC) and
| allowing a factory to quickly set up their own private 5G
| network.
|
| This is on the consumer facing side. On the operator facing
| side, infrastructure is moving more towards virtualization
| and decoupling. Trying to make it easier to use multiple
| vendors, and stop requiring custom made hardware. And in
| general, moving towards commodity hardware and something
| closer to 'infrastructure as code'.
|
| This also helps roaming and virtual operators (for e.g. the
| factory control). It also helps a bit with the ultra low
| latency part by decentralizing the routing part and moving
| it closer to the devices.
|
| So "what is 5G gonna do for me" is mostly the 'faster
| internet'. But the idea is that it will enable widespread
| innovation that you can later use. With some luck
| (governments are thinking) being ahead in deploying 5G
| might also help boost your economy by boosting innovation.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| this video should help
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-gGeAe-PJA
| procombo wrote:
| Having a new technology to bring to the market is good for
| the industry. Service providers, hardware providers,
| salespeople, etc. Most consumers love the hype!
|
| I needed a new test phone the other day so I bought a new
| iPhone 11 at a Verizon store. The salespeople could not
| wrap their head around my choice because it doesn't support
| 5g. I gave them some great reasons and they relunctantly
| took my money.
| epanchin wrote:
| Upload of 4k streaming video will be cool. I imagine we'll
| get some really nice live news videos coming out from
| independant journalists.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| For the average consumer, mind blowing stereoscopic ultra
| high definition 3D porn with no lag or buffering. /s
|
| On paper there are benefits, at this time there is no
| killer need for it.
| david_allison wrote:
| I'm excited. Not for a specific use-case, but because it
| removes constraints and that lets developers push the
| boundaries of what's possible.
|
| As a European, I predict it'll be a catalyst for American
| companies to rethink data caps and data pricing, as you can
| blow through a data cap 10x as fast. That'll be massive and
| measurable progress.
|
| Paraphrasing Liebig's law of the minimum[0]: progress is
| hindered by the most scarce resource. I'm sure that
| bandwidth will have been that resource for some ideas.
| These ideas will have been 'before their time' a few years
| ago, and are now viable.
|
| Take spellcheckers[1], and electron-based apps: they've
| moved very quickly from "impossible" to "an everyday
| occurrence", I hope 5G enable this for another class of
| problem, and I hope it's unpredictable.
|
| I don't have a 5G phone, I don't plan to get one any time
| soon, I'll have one in 10 years time, and I'm excited to
| see what comes of it.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum
|
| [1]: https://prog21.dadgum.com/29.html
| fsflover wrote:
| The problem with Fairphone is that it relies on binary blobs
| which are not supported after a short time. Planned
| obsolescence is there, even though it is not the company's
| fault.
| varispeed wrote:
| I think current phones are just about enough performant to
| withstand many years of use. I think such proposition using
| some older tech than current generation just wouldn't sell.
| People buy new phones not only because new ones look "better"
| but also perform better than older phones. If I think about my
| previous phone, the user experience was far from satisfactory.
| The current phone I have also isn't great, but acceptable.
| However, I'd love to change to get something more performant -
| I missed so many moments, for instance, when I wanted to
| quickly take a picture, but the phone just wouldn't respond for
| seconds.
| poisonborz wrote:
| SoC vendors like Qualcomm do not support their chipsets more
| than a few years. Without new drivers, no updated Android
| versions. Without new Android version, no security patches. How
| could a company support an unsecure device that might be
| hackable by any Play store app or script kiddie?
|
| Software and hardware support (from the manufacturer) are tied
| closely together, and the industry makes it really hard to
| achieve this.
| swiley wrote:
| Android was explicitly designed to make it easy for component
| manufacturers to keep their drivers closed. Now that Qualcomm
| essentially has a monopoly on Android SoCs you can't really
| build a modern phone that will have up to date software in 3
| years.
|
| This is why projects like the Pinephone and lebrem5 use such
| weird SoCs. Open source drivers are absolutely the only way to
| know that the phone manufacturer will _even have the ability_
| to maintain up to date software.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the only reason you need a SoC
| is if you're trying to make the phone small. If you don't
| care about size you can have discreet components. There are
| millions of people with big enough pockets (literally and
| metaphorically) , who wouldn't notice the extra weight of
| their phone.
|
| edit: discreet might be the wrong word because they would all
| be ICs but not quite a SoC.
| swiley wrote:
| Find me a low power discrete CPU and we can draw the board
| for another open source phone together.
| operator-name wrote:
| RISC-V is not only looking interesting but promising.
| opencl wrote:
| The other issue is that none of the SoCs on the market with
| open source drivers available are remotely competitive in
| performance with today's Qualcomm/Exynos/Kirin.
|
| The Pinephone and Librem 5 are both using chips that are
| competitive with low end Snapdragons from 5 years ago.
|
| I think the RK3399 paired with an external modem is about
| as good as you can do today without needing blobs, and
| while it performs a whole lot better than the current
| Pinephone/Librem 5 it is still quite far behind today's
| SoCs.
|
| In most cases the open source drivers for these mobile SoCs
| are reverse engineered rather than released by the vendor,
| which is why they typically only exist for chips that are
| at least a few years old.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| > Maybe even making them four or five times the thickness of
| the latest i-sung devices
|
| Sure smartphones are quite thin these days, but there are
| vanishingly few people that want a phone that's 2.96cm+ thick.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| Have you seen the fairphone? It's exactly this. The first one
| let you replace all components without any tools. The latest
| one needs a screwdriver (which it comes with).
|
| You can upgrade a fairphone 3 to a fairphone 3+ yourself just
| by buying the updated components. It's pretty cool! But it
| isn't cheap.
|
| https://shop.fairphone.com/en/
| bogwog wrote:
| If a phone's hardware lasts 10 years, it's going to need 10
| years of updates. This shouldn't be a big deal since Android is
| open source and Google is the one investing in development;
| hobbyists regularly port modern Android versions to ancient
| hardware in their spare time, so even a small team of full-time
| developers at a manufacturer should have no problems doing the
| same for a company's devices.
|
| I wonder if the reason is really just that these manufacturers
| are all blindly following Apple's lead? To an outside observer,
| a lot of Android manufacturer's seem to be really stupid,
| however the reality might be different from their point of
| view. I don't know, but it's frustrating to see how little of a
| shit all Android phone manufacturers give. It's why I can't
| feel sorry when I hear that a company like LG or HTC are
| shutting down their smartphone division; it's their own damn
| fault.
| ploxiln wrote:
| It's basically because of drivers for the SoC (system-on-
| chip, the integrated chip from e.g. Qualcomm that has cpus,
| graphics, sound, camera, power management, etc). They're too
| messy/hacky/low-quality to be "upstreamed", it is mostly
| impossible for anyone but the SoC vendor to port to newer
| versions (closed-source binary blobs), and the SoC vendor is
| really not motivated to do so.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Is there a market for it? $200 Android devices with a big
| battery and decent performance and so on are out there, so I
| wonder how many people are worried enough about a swappable
| battery.
|
| Jitterbug makes the phone to sell their service, so it's not
| directly comparable (it does demonstrate that the devices
| aren't that expensive to produce).
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I was using a Moto G8 Power for exactly that reason, but I
| still think 3 days of battery life is just not enough. The
| phone could have easily been 4 times the size without being
| too big for me. Then the screen cracked and I made it worse
| trying to fix it because I dont have the patience to properly
| melt glue. Now I'm using a CAT phone which has cool features,
| and is supposedly stronger, but mostly the same problems.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Better repairability is always better, I just don't think
| people care about it.
|
| For the battery, I would certainly rather have an external
| power pack (which are readily available) if the idea is to
| last a week.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I have a Mophie for my 2016 SE, perfectly acceptable tradeoff -
| when I want the extra power I compromise with a larger phone,
| but most of the time I don't need the extra power, and don't
| use it, thus have a smaller phone.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" I'm really surprised one of the android vendors hasn't
| focused on the niche of easy to repair phones."_
|
| With the right marketing, this could be very successful.
|
| "A repairable phone built to last," or some other creative
| slogan and marketing campaign centered around how wasteful and
| expensive other phones built around planned obsolescence are.
|
| Caring about the ecosystem, recycling, and reuse is mainstream
| now (witness the BBC right-to-repair article itself, published
| on a mainstream news platform), so a company showing that it's
| sensitive to these concerns should do well.
| balozi wrote:
| A persistent question in my mind is why do customers buy
| unrepairable products, from smart phones and high-tech tractors.
| Why is the market failing? Or is it working perfectly?
| antattack wrote:
| Is there an alternative? This is a perfect place for government
| to step in and nurture an environment that discourages waste.
| zepto wrote:
| I buy 'unrepairable' iPhones.
|
| I actually have repaired iPhones myself in the past, including
| screens and batteries.
|
| That turned out to be a waste of time because the replacement
| parts failed in a much shorter time than the originals
|
| The reason I continue to buy iPhones is that more recent models
| don't typically _need_ to be repaired. I would much rather have
| a phone that doesn't fail easily than one that can be easily
| repaired.
| endisneigh wrote:
| How many customers do you think will even attempt to repair
| their own device? That's the answer to your question.
| mopsi wrote:
| People don't think about repairs before their stuff is broken,
| and by then it's too late. That's why things like seat belts
| and fire alarms have to be forced upon people.
| jahewson wrote:
| I think it would help to ask: repairable by whom? And at what
| cost?
|
| Apple will replace an iPhone screen for ~$100. I'm fine with
| that. But my washing machine which is repairable and has parts
| and schematics available from the manufacturer will cost me >
| $400 in labor to replace a $20 part. Plus it's > 10 years old
| so I know more parts will fail. I'm just going to buy a new
| one.
| procombo wrote:
| I agree. However, the logistics of repairing a 200 lb machine
| that sits in a cramped closet is very different. Phones are
| measured in ounces/grams and are easy to transport.
|
| Yes it is more efficient for you to buy a new washer.
| Delivery and haul-away are great upcharges (and worth it
| IMO). They will then repair and resell your old one at a much
| higher rate than phones are being reserviced.
| viro wrote:
| Because as "tech people" we live in an echo chamber. where we
| conflate our specialized knowledge as "easy with just a quick
| google". But in reality my Aunt that can barely troubleshoot
| her computer(avg person) probably shouldn't be risking an $800
| device to save $80 on a repair. So when she buys a phone why
| would she care about the repairability of a product, she's just
| going to take it to a professional anyways.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| The whole point behind right to repair is allowing 3rd party
| professionals to repair products.
|
| Apple doesn't do board repair. They make you buy new, whole
| components. So when your laptop breaks, instead of spending
| $120 to fix it they say you need to buy a new $1,000
| component and with labor that's more than the price of a new
| laptop.
| Tyr42 wrote:
| But it can drive down the cost of going to a specialist if
| your device has parts available, etc.
| rasz wrote:
| Why did consumers kept buying cars with no ABS or airbags?
| abawany wrote:
| Also, imo the platform walled gardens considerably hamper your
| ability to move away from a given vendor just because they made
| the current model less repairable. Plus, as other vendors see
| Apple's snowballing profit, they also adopt similar
| construction and thus you are left with pretty much no choice
| when you go out to buy a product. The only counterpoint I have
| in this regard is Microsoft Surface: their earlier models were
| terribly unrepairable but the newer ones seem to have
| considerably improved in this regard.
| riskable wrote:
| It's simple, really: Newer devices are faster and have nicer
| features (e.g. better camera) and it's not really that
| inconvenient to pay an extra $20-30/month to get a new phone
| every two years.
|
| You can pay $150 to get a new battery put into your old phone
| but that doesn't seem worth it when you can get an entirely new
| phone that's "better" than your old one for $500.
|
| If it were cheaper and easier to replace old batteries I'm
| guessing that people would keep their old phones much longer.
| That's my #1 reason for buying new phones: The battery in the
| old one just doesn't last as long as it used to and replacement
| batteries can be hard to come by and/or they're a serious pain
| to install (high risk too!).
|
| Within the next two to three years though (assuming the global
| chip shortage lets up) we should start seeing phones with
| carbon cathode technology. Then again, car manufacturers might
| hog all the dual carbon and carbon cathode batteries so it
| might take a bit longer.
| JoshTko wrote:
| The market is working as expected. Consumers are choosing
| devices that are less reparable because they come with other
| benefits such as being smaller, lighter, and are waterproof.
| Reparable devices come with tradeoffs that most consumers do
| not want.
| oth001 wrote:
| Even if it's a Tesla.
| skriticos2 wrote:
| So what benefit would the right to repair bring?
|
| Even if all the schematics were published, parts be more
| standardized and built in a way that things are easier to
| maintain, would it really make a difference?
|
| People want the shiny new PS5 no matter how repairable the PS3
| is. Maybe in a few decades the technology development slows to a
| point where this might be reasonable, but today people think on
| how to get their hands on the new M2 chip even before the M1 is
| fully rolled out.
|
| Then there is mechanical degradation, most components degrade
| over time and start to cause problems. The longer you wait, the
| more problems (basically the same as with cars). Most people who
| can afford will go for a median timeline where the devices work
| reliably and then dump them no matter what. So unless we make
| them last for decades reliably (not likely in the near future)
| this is not a viable thing to strive for.
|
| Then there is software support. Vendors continuously improve the
| software and add new hardware capabilities to stay competitive,
| because everyone else is doing it. So if we wanted to keep stuff
| working, we'd have to strangle competitive innovation and mandate
| a specific cap on technology for a given time.
|
| So I think that's all not reasonable. Instead we should strive to
| make the stuff we produce recyclable (like really), so that the
| materials can become the new shiny stuff that people crave for.
| But stuff is not designed to be recyclable at all and if you look
| at the global recycling industry (or fantasy really, so little is
| recovered) you can picture a giant dumpster we leave for the next
| generations.
| Epskampie wrote:
| Recycling and repairability are not mutually exclusive, more
| often quite the opposite.
|
| Also, there are many devices where i don't care for newer
| models, like the dishwasher.
| theqult wrote:
| Laughs in European <3
| jaworek wrote:
| There is currently a fundraiser for direct ballot initiative in
| the US.
|
| https://www.gofundme.com/f/lets-get-right-to-repair-passed?u...
|
| It was created by Louis Rossmann who has a Mac repair shop in NY.
|
| He talks a lot about it on his YT channel:
| https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
|
| Linus Tech Tips did a video about it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVafMi0l68&t=5s
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