[HN Gopher] Apple expands Self Service Repair to Mac notebooks
___________________________________________________________________
Apple expands Self Service Repair to Mac notebooks
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 401 points
Date : 2022-08-22 13:00 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| GeckoEidechse wrote:
| While the limitation to newer models sucks. The fact that thanks
| to (planned) legislation Apple feels pressured to make parts
| available to consumers is an absolute win for right to repair.
|
| Is Apple doing as much as they can to make this as unviable as
| possible? Yes, but it's a first step in the right direction :D
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| So last week I was quoted, by Apple, 680 EUR to fix the cracked
| screen of my 1000 EUR MacBook Air M1. I'm giving them the finger
| but, to add insult to injury, I still need to pay 50 EUR to get
| the computer back.
|
| It's sad because I was satisfied by my two previous MacBook Air
| (non retina / non M1) and I was satisfied by my Mac Mini.
|
| But now the Apple love story at home is done. Now recommending
| Chromebooks to the 65 years+ around us (where we used to
| recommend Apple).
|
| In case there's any class action lawsuit in Europe over this new
| M1 bend-gate I'll be sure to join and donate to the cause.
|
| Typing this from my MIL-SPEC LG Gram, which is an actual proper,
| sturdy and lighter than any Mac laptop.
|
| This comment is what you reap for screwing people over.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| I mean, the screen is a major part of that initial 1000 EUR
| cost. Could easily be half. No way you can get a MacBook Air M1
| for much less that 1000 EUR used, those things keep their price
| for years and years. And how much were you willing to part
| with? Is that 100-200 (or even 300) EUR difference really worth
| the near-aneurysm you're having?
|
| I am like this too. I will flip my lid over something like
| this, but about half the time upon further reflection I will
| come to the conclusion that I was being irrational, and simply
| upset at how much things objectively cost or how long things
| take, or whatever.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| You seriously believe that a screen replacement (even after
| including labor) costs 70% of the price of the laptop? And
| that OP is irrational for thinking otherwise?
| samatman wrote:
| Seems plausible, yes.
|
| The screens arrive at the factory by boat, in an optimally-
| packed container. Replacement screens are individually
| packaged and delivered in low volume by courier.
|
| Apple must first examine the laptop, which isn't free, then
| put in the replacement, and do acceptance testing, because
| they warranty repairs, and even if they didn't, not
| repairing something and claiming it's a repair is bad
| press.
|
| Maybe they make profit as well who knows, but it's easy for
| me to believe that the assembly-line price of a screen
| triples by the time a repair is installed and the user gets
| the laptop back.
|
| Starting to look like some of the M1 Airs got a bad batch
| of screen glass, which is a separate matter. If so, here's
| my prediction: Apple will do the same thing they did for
| the butterfly keyboards and eat the replacement cost, and
| people will be complaining about it ten years later.
|
| Unlike the butterfly fiasco, I'm not betting on this being
| a design flaw, it's either the law of large numbers or a
| badly-tempered batch of glass.
|
| None of that is relevant to the cost to replace an
| uninsured screen which broke under user-error conditions.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Everyone here is capable of looking up shipping prices
| from China or similar even for the volume of 1 screen,
| and seeing it doesn't cost hundreds of dollars.
|
| Similarly, the average pay of Genius Bar employees and
| Apple repair techs is semi-public knowledge that can be
| found on the internet.
|
| Nobody is believing that it costs Apple $400-500 in
| additional expenses _per screen_ to repair MacBooks.
| dis-sys wrote:
| > but it's easy for me to believe that the assembly-line
| price of a screen triples by the time a repair is
| installed and the user gets the laptop back.
|
| Like it or not, in a lovely city called Shenzhen, it
| costs you $200 to get your macbook pro's screen replaced
| in a regular roadside repair shop just next building to
| your fancy apple shop.
|
| As a low skill job, you get to master the procedure by
| watching online video tutorials, interestingly, that is
| also a viable business in Shenzhen, they have such
| "online schools" to get people trained for such jobs and
| some of their videos are free -
|
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLCQRIZLWDzzzhgKwSWBoRg/
| vid...
| samatman wrote:
| No doubt, feel free to find a service in Shenzhen you can
| ship your Mac to and employ them. It's not even
| implausible if you speak fluent Chinese, there are uh.
| Limits to your ability to recover if you make a bad
| choice, but it might work out.
|
| And locals can import those screens right? Little bit of
| markup. Anyway let me know what the actual price is where
| you are, from someone who will actually do it, and isn't
| Apple, all of this is legal and the service is available.
| That will give us a point of comparison.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| A replacement costs $600 at iFixit:
| https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-
| Pro-14-Inch-2021-A2...
|
| That seems like a pretty normal price for recent MacBook
| screens:
| https://www.ifixit.com/Parts/MacBook_Pro_13%22/Screens
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| iFixit has to get those screens by salvaging them off of
| MacBooks. The cost to Apple to produce the screen is
| almost certainly closer to $100-$200.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >The cost to Apple to produce the screen is almost
| certainly closer to $100-$200.
|
| Where are you getting this number from? Why not $50, or
| $300?
| hashishen wrote:
| https://medium.com/macoclock/is-apple-fleecing-
| you-a682c851a...
| widowlark wrote:
| So many people commenting on OP's post essentially
| gaslighting them for not wanting to pay $1000 for a screen
| repair, as if we dont live in a universe where replacing
| screens on every other product is 1/3 that cost.
| dis-sys wrote:
| > the screen is a major part of that initial 1000 EUR cost
|
| No, LCD screens are pretty affordable these days. You can buy
| yourself a portable external display with a 4k samsung panel
| for about $200-250 depending on where are you. Such portable
| displays have extra batteries included, so extra $ costs
| included.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| We're not talking generally about LCD screens. We're
| talking about an original part to a specific laptop.
| achow wrote:
| Alibaba.com: $167 for generic replacement. Considering
| Apple's buying power it would cost less than that.
|
| https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-Laptop-Apple-
| Scre...
| danieldk wrote:
| How many nits? Does it support the P3 colorspace? Does it
| support TrueTone?
|
| How do you know if it is even a remotely comparable screen
| qualitatively?
| tpmoney wrote:
| Yes the well known "touch screen" that MacBook Airs are
| well known for. Displays might be able to be had cheaper
| (in fact straight from the manufacturer they surely are)
| but I'm not sure I would trust buying from a vendor that
| doesn't even know what they're selling
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >generic replacement
|
| Could they be dead-pixel factory rejects that aren't even
| like-for-like? "Touchscreen" seems suspect.
| achow wrote:
| Well.. well.. well, another source quotes even lower - $52
| for 13" display.
|
| Is Apple Fleecing you?
|
| https://medium.com/macoclock/is-apple-fleecing-
| you-a682c851a...
| chaosbolt wrote:
| >I mean, the screen is a major part of that initial 1000 EUR
| cost. Could easily be half.
|
| The macbook air m1 here is 1100 euros, the mac mini is 800
| euros.
|
| So the keyboard, trackpad, battery, screen and form factor
| are worth 300 euro according to Apple. So that LCD screen
| they put there even though has a high res, is definitely not
| worth half the price of the laptop.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Was this the case where the screen cracks on its own? You seem
| to [edit, reworded] be much more angry about it than I'd be if
| I'd damaged the computer myself.
| matsemann wrote:
| If I had damaged a small part of something I'd bought, I
| would be angry if the quote for fixing it would be nearly the
| price of the whole item new.
|
| If you buy a car, hit a kurb and destroy a wheel, wouldn't
| you be annoyed if it was only the manufacturer that could fix
| it, and they would charge you 70% of the price of a full car?
| hyperbovine wrote:
| Not a very good analogy--a wheel, even a nice one, is like
| 1% of the value of a new car. That display is probably
| single most expensive component in the whole machine.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Why assume something that is a "small" part necessarily
| would result in a repair price that is less than x% of
| purchase price?
|
| There are myriad factors that affect repair place,
| especially for something as technologically advanced as the
| newest laptops. Labor prices, design of the laptop, parts
| supplies, etc.
|
| Of course, the ability for only one entity to source and
| supply those will tilt the scales towards a higher price,
| but that is unrelated to the "small"-ness of the damage.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The only thing broken on the Mac was the glass display,
| which I _guarantee you_ does not cost more than $100 to
| replace wholesale, even with labor. However, Apple doesn
| 't offer this repair for you. Instead, they sell you an
| entire topcase to replace the _entire top half of your
| computer_ , even if your aluminum case, display, hinge,
| backlight, microphone and webcam are all fine. Your only
| option is replacing _everything_ , at which point, I
| think OP has reason to be mad. Apple simply doesn't
| invest money in making their devices more repairable,
| they make too much money off selling replacements for it
| to be lucrative. That's fine, and their decision to make,
| but there's a real human/UX cost that comes with making
| fragile hardware.
| sbuk wrote:
| Parts? Manufacturing? Shipping? Labour? Storage?
| Distribution? There's more to a part than the cost. Now
| whether or not what they're charging is over the top,
| then I doubt you'll find much disagreement; however, the
| GP doesn't say how the damage happened. I don't know of a
| single vendor that will cover accidental damages on a
| screen, and no-one is responsible other than the party
| that caused the damage. Also, late 2020 MBA (M1) goes for
| $465, with ~$30 for the parts, ~$15 for shipping.
|
| Edited words...
| jahewson wrote:
| No that's ridiculous. These retina displays go for $400
| on eBay (for a used one) and labor isn't going to be less
| than $100 on top of that.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Why assume something is a "small" part necessarily
| would result in a repair price that is less than x% of
| purchase price?
|
| It's not a mere assumption. There _do_ exist people who
| do many repairs better than Apple for hundreds of dollars
| less, in the US.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is not related to the quoted statement.
|
| As a hypothetical, suppose the camera glass or lens was
| made with materials or a technique that caused it to be
| 90% of a phone's cost to produce. Then replacing this
| item would cost >90% of the phone's price, even though it
| is "small".
|
| Or you have a huge transport ship that has an issue with
| a propeller or a small part of the ship on the bottom,
| but it needs a dry dock to repair, and there are only a
| couple dry docks in the world that can handle it. Then
| the price could be a very high percentage of original
| price due to the extreme supply and demand curves
| involved.
|
| Repair costs are not a simple a function of the "size" of
| the damage.
| dataflow wrote:
| > As a hypothetical, suppose the camera glass or lens was
| made with materials or a technique that caused it to be
| 90% of a phone's cost to produce. Then replacing this
| item would cost >90% of the phone's price, even though it
| is "small".
|
| When I say there are people who do the repair for much
| cheaper I mean _including the price they pay for the
| part_ , not merely their labor. Your hypothetical is not
| the case here.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I addressed that with this portion of the original
| comment :
|
| >Of course, the ability for only one entity to source and
| supply those will tilt the scales towards a higher price
| dataflow wrote:
| I don't get how that addresses anything. Maybe they're
| "tilted" toward a "higher" price, but until you put
| actual numbers on these (are we talking $10 higher or
| $1000 higher?) it doesn't say anything. I'm saying that,
| for a wide variety of common repairs, it is a fact that
| you can literally get the exact same repair done for the
| exact same issue (parts, labor, everything being the
| same) for _far_ less (literally hundreds) than Apple does
| it for you. And I 'm talking about profitable businesses
| here, not charities. There's no need to give hypothetical
| academic rebuttals on economics when the facts are clear
| on the ground.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| Welcome to the Western world then. Where time of a human is
| typically the most expensive component. I guess...
| ashaikh wrote:
| And if you bent the frame of the car and broke the
| suspension and did some damage to the sensors on your
| suspension? In the US it would cost a fortune and it
| wouldn't shock me if it costs 70% of the value of the car.
|
| The outrage is justified if the screen cracked due to a
| manufacturing defect. Otherwise, get over it and be careful
| with your stuff if you can't afford the repair.
|
| And before you send something off, ask questions. The
| shipping costs I'm sure would have been disclosed.
| anonymous_sorry wrote:
| > Otherwise, get over it and be careful with your stuff
| if you can't afford the repair.
|
| I don't know if you're an engineer, but if you are you
| probably don't take the same approach to errors in your
| software. Being careful is only part of the solution to
| reducing risk. Another is adopting practices and patterns
| that are less error-prone. And another is to reduce the
| impact of errors when they do happen.
|
| With a software service, we might have redundancy, and a
| watchdog or orchestration system that restarts any
| instances that crash. With a laptop, we might purchase
| accidental damage insurance, or just decide to buy a
| brand that is cheaper to repair.
|
| When humans are involved, "be more careful" is rarely a
| successful strategy on its own.
| ghaff wrote:
| The display on a laptop is almost certainly not a small
| part. When I got the display replaced on a 2015 MacBook
| under warranty (Apple extended because of screen mottling
| due to a manufacturing defect), they replaced the entire
| display assembly, i.e. top half of the laptop case and all.
|
| In general, I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect the
| manufacturer to make parts available more granularly than
| they do to their own repair centers.
| matsemann wrote:
| But what if you had to replace the RAM, what would that
| cost? The CPU? Fix the keyboard? I think the total sum if
| you add the various components up it would be 10x a new
| machine, excluding the actual labor costs. And when there
| are others wanting to do it cheaper, but are being
| blocked by Apple, this doesn't sit right with me.
| [deleted]
| wyager wrote:
| MIL-STD-810 isn't the same as mil-spec, and neither of them
| means what you think it means. You've fallen for marketing
| wank.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| > This comment is what you reap for screwing people over.
|
| ?
|
| Have you attempted to get it repaired by a third party? What do
| they quote? Is it possible that the part + labor is worth
| around $680? It does sound like an absurd price, but I would
| expect the display to be a relatively expensive part (a
| replacement is $600 at iFixit[0]) to replace depending on the
| extent of the damage. It might also be labor intensive
| considering how unrepairable Apple products are.
|
| > I still need to pay 50 EUR to get the computer back.
|
| Presumably this is for shipping? $50 is expensive sure (unless
| you're talking expedited shipping), but I suspect you'd be mad
| even if this was a more reasonable price.
|
| ---
|
| It sounds like you're just being vindictive because you feel
| slighted by a company. If you actually want a solution it seems
| that tomorrow you can buy the part yourself and replace it.
|
| [0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-
| Pro-14-Inch-2021-A2...
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| iFixit gets those screens by salvaging them from existing
| MacBooks, hence the price.
|
| Similar screens from other manufacturers can be found for
| retail at $100-$200, and Apple pays less given they
| manufacture in bulk.
|
| So unless you think the labor is worth $400-$500...
| [deleted]
| anonymous_sorry wrote:
| > It might also be labor intensive considering how
| unrepairable Apple products are.
|
| Even if two thirds of the price of the laptop is a reasonable
| reflection of the cost of repair, poor repairability is a
| choice Apple made. It seems fair to criticise the cost, and
| to factor it in to future buying decisions.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| There are no shortages of alternatives to Apple. Apple
| doesn't hold a monopoly on anything. They're also a known
| quantity -- they value form over function, are very
| expensive, and very hard to repair. You know what you're
| getting.
|
| This doesn't mean we shouldn't ask for Apple to do better,
| or try to get changes made. But, I do think it's completely
| ridiculous to rage about repair-ability like the parent
| did.
| anonymous_sorry wrote:
| Poor repairability is not usually an obvious cost when
| buying a laptop. And many people don't buy laptops
| frequently. Sharing stories like this helps people make
| buying decisions that are right for them, making the
| market work better. As you say there are plenty of
| alternatives, although computing platforms can be sticky
| (by design).
|
| What would obviously be even better than anecdotes is
| some statistical data on the likelihood of failure,
| average cost & convenience of repairs etc. I don't know
| if such a thing exists - in its absence we have to make
| do with anecdotes.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I guess that I'm expecting everyone to know Apple's
| reputation, but that's definitely not the case,
| especially outside of tech circles; I would expect
| someone on this site to not be surprised with
| repairability & Apple.
|
| I think sharing stories is fine, but the poster seemed to
| be going much further than that by seemingly trying to
| get revenge on Apple, which is a strange thing to do.
|
| Statistical ownership data would be awesome. Like a graph
| saying that if you expect the device to last x years you
| should expect y costs in repairs. That could even be a
| selling point for tech protection plans like Apple Care.
| nano9 wrote:
| That one is for a MacBook Pro. GP probably wants one for an
| Air[0] instead.
|
| [0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-
| Air-13-Inch-A2337-L...
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Ah I thought I picked the M1 Air because I wanted to be
| generous, but it looks like I was wrong.
| Twisell wrote:
| This doesn't fit my experience with apple reparation process.
| You usually can request a quote prior to any action, can you
| elaborate on the context? Was it returned to factory via a
| shipping company prior to any quote from the support? I know
| laws are much kinder to the customers in EU than in the USA,
| but such a difference of process sound pretty odd.
| ancorevard wrote:
| For the last 15 years I've always bought AppleCare and never
| regretted it. Always a great experience and worth every penny.
| nano9 wrote:
| The display assembly itself is $450, so 680 EUR sounds about
| right to have it professionally repaired.
|
| Also, it makes sense that it would cost that much. Most of the
| product is that luxury display, with an M1 hanging off it. You
| could probably open up the case, rip out the logic board, and
| pay less in repairs.
|
| AppleCare+ is pretty fairly priced and generous with their
| services, and would have made your display repair substantially
| cheaper, most likely free unless you tell them straight up that
| you dropped your MacBook or punched the screen.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Apple isn't sourcing their repair parts from iFixit (which is
| where I assume you got that price from)
| Ycombigatorz wrote:
| kikowi wrote:
| I got the same quote two years ago when my Macbook Pro 2015 got
| staingate display issue. It was a few weeks after the "4 years
| repair period" and they wouldnt replace it for free, even
| though its a known problem and their fault. I also didnt
| receive any email notification about 4 year repair period
| regarding staingate issue. If anyone is sueing in Europe about
| staingate issue let me know. It was sad to throw away 3000EUR
| machine after 4 years.
| vuln wrote:
| Wait wait so your MBP was 4 almost 5 years old before the
| staining issue showed up? That doesn't seem right...
| vuln wrote:
| This is the exact opposite of my experience. 2015 maxed out
| MBP bought USED off Craigslist for $500 in 2019. The machine
| had the stains on the screen. So I called up apple, got an
| associate explained the staining and "staingate" they didn't
| have a clue what I was talking about. I then proceeded to as
| for their supervisor who knew exactly what I was talking
| about. After a few minutes on hold the supervisor said they
| would replace the screen as a one time curtesy (side note the
| supervisor tried to confirm the original purchase date which
| I didn't have an tried to guessimate somehow that guess was
| only week outside the 4 year extension). Apple mailed me a
| box and I mailed in the MBP. MBP arrived at the repair depo
| and sat there for 3 days. I sweated thinking they're going to
| kick it back. The next day I get a shipping confirmation that
| the MBP is being returned. Day or two later I received the
| MBP. Brand new screen, top case, keyboard, battery, they
| replaced everything but the logic board.
|
| Just a recap: Bought 4 year old MBP off Craigslist for $500
| within a week had almost a completely refreshed laptop for
| free (minus the time on the phone ~45 minutes and me
| constantly refreshing the repair status).
|
| This isn't the first time. Another time I dropped my Pixel
| and messed up the screen real bad. Pulled out my wife's old
| iPhone 7 and used that until I decided which new phone I was
| going to get. About a week into using the 7 it wouldn't
| detect the SIM card. Phone is out of warranty, no apple care,
| nothing. Book an appointment at the apple store. Show the
| genius my issue. They offered to provide a loaner (iPhone 6)
| and send it off to be repaired for free. Within a couple days
| I get an email that the phone is ready to be picked up. Pick
| up the phone and depot replaced EVERYTHING minus the metal
| back on the phone. New logic board, new screen, new battery.
| Completely refreshed iPhone 7 in 2019.
|
| Just these two events along would make me stick with Apple.
| Either their customer service is top notch or I'm a really
| really good talker.
|
| Ps. Still rocking the 15" MBP and the iPhone 7 sits back in a
| drawer until it's needed again (I ended up getting a 2020 SE
| and now a 2022 SE.)
| samstave wrote:
| I had a macbook pro that was involved in the recall for that
| series for catching fire.
|
| The machine caught fire in my bed. I woke up to it burning and
| melting.
|
| I took it to apple SF... they had the machine for nearly 2
| months while they "investigated" -- then they returned it to me
| and said that at one point in the machines life, the moisture
| sensor had been triggered.
|
| Apple "offered" me an opportunity to buy a replacement at full
| price. even though the machine was under recall for battery
| fires. I had a battery fire. But because they claimed the
| moisture sensor had been hit - they wouldnt honor the recall
| and didnt replace my machine.
|
| Fuck that.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Hmm, that's strange. I guess out of warranty? Even still, I
| just walked in 3 days before the 3 years ran out and got them
| to replace the screen that only had some standard permanent
| keyboard imprints on it. Though it is a shame that the
| likelihood of encountering this does make applecare necessary.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Macbook air M1 was released in November 2020,all electronical
| goods in Europe have a 2years warranty, so unless the person
| bought it on a Grey market/2nd hand, it's strange. I believe
| most credit cards are also offering extended warranty
| (Switzerland, 3y and 5y with a debit card).
|
| Europeans generally knows their rights on warranty and
| warranty period.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Good points. I think if my 2019 MBP has a problem in the
| next year, I'll try and use the Mastercard extension
| jupp0r wrote:
| What happens when a Chromebook or your MIL-SPEC LG laptop
| breaks? The possibility to even get a repair done in a matter
| of days was what kept me with Apple so far. When you have to
| rely on a device being available (or suffer economic losses as
| a consequence) I don't really see any alternatives right now to
| Apple. Worst case is you could buy a new device and restore
| your backup. In the past, the only comparable service was IBM's
| on site technician service where they'd send out somebody in a
| van full of replacement parts to repair your ThinkPad on site.
| indymike wrote:
| > What happens when a Chromebook or your MIL-SPEC LG laptop
| breaks?
|
| Chromebook: if in warranty fix, if out of warranty, buy two
| more Chromebooks for the price of one M1 Macbook Air screen.
|
| LG Gram: LG has a pretty good repair network. My team (5) has
| been using LG Gram 17" laptops running Ubuntu for about a
| year, and one person managed to chip the paint (it's anodized
| black on a metal body), but that was about it. They've been
| surprisingly sturdy despite weighing a few ounces more than a
| 13" macbook air. Also, battery life is on par with the M1 air
| I carry for occasionally dealing with App Store issues.
| jupp0r wrote:
| If you are telling me you are relying on LG notebooks just
| not breaking - I don't believe you. Everything breaks.
| indymike wrote:
| > If you are telling me you are relying on LG notebooks
| just not breaking
|
| LG has a first class repair network, so if they do
| break... same as any other global PC manufacturer. Also,
| standard procedure is to buy at least one machine and put
| it on the shelf so if one fails... we have an
| replacement.
|
| > Everything breaks.
|
| Yep.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| > Chromebook: if in warranty fix, if out of warranty, buy
| two more Chromebooks for the price of one M1 Macbook Air
| screen.
|
| That's incredibly wasteful.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| Is it wasteful though? Chomebooks generally can be
| repaired for cheap with a little time investment. Sell
| the broken one on ebay "for parts" and someone will
| repair it and continue to use it.
|
| OTOH Apple's are notoriously unrepairable, or way too
| expensive to repair (case in point; this entire thread).
| They become trash when they break.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| If you want fast repairs, then Apple - contrary to your
| beliefs - is a terrible option. For example, Dell includes
| next business day on-site service for all XPS laptops. They
| also offer up to 2-hour 24/7 on-site service plans if you so
| desire. So if you really do care about your hardware being
| available, you do the opposite of what you just said: Choose
| something other than Apple.
| freedomben wrote:
| Not GP, but I did similar. It was a non-issue because I could
| buy multiple Chromebooks for the price of the one macbook,
| and because they're fully cloud synced there was no
| backup/transfer of anything required.
|
| Once while traveling a kid stomped on the chromebook while it
| was on the ground. I was able to drive to the nearest walmart
| and buy a new one for $150*. Within 10 minutes of signing in
| it had restored everything and was ready to go.
|
| * I normally spend a little more to get a chromebook with
| higher specs, and I recommend everyone do that. The point
| here was that I was in a pinch but was able to get out of it
| quickly and cheaply. I suggest absolute minimum of 4GB of RAM
| (8GB preferred).
| [deleted]
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Exactly this. It's easy to call out Apple but I'm yet to have
| an experience with other brands where I don't have to ship my
| product somewhere and wait for weeks on end to see if
| anything can even be done. Samsung is the biggest offender
| from my perspective. Everything they make has broken on me.
| Phones, entertainment devices, and most recently appliances
| that don't even last 6 months. The good news is when the
| appliances broke, they sent dish network to my house who also
| had no clue why it was broken and left.
|
| Thankfully New Jersey (I'm in California) consumer fraud laws
| kicked in and I was able to get a full refund for my
| refrigerator.
|
| https://www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases09/20090804-Samsung-
| Ameri...
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Depending on the countries traveled to, Apple stuff can
| make a lot of sense for traveling because they have stores
| all over the place. If something happens to the MacBook I
| bought in the US while I'm abroad in Tokyo it's no problem,
| I can drop by the store in Shibuya or Ginza and get it
| repaired, probably same day in many cases.
| pmontra wrote:
| Phones: I gave my Samsungs and Sonys to shops close to home
| and got them back after a couple of days.
|
| Laptops: I either pay for HP's next business day support
| (they come to my home) or, for old unsupported models, I
| replace parts myself. As I wrote in another commend, I
| replaced this keyboard less than half an hour ago.
| nousermane wrote:
| > What happens when a Chromebook (...) breaks?
|
| You throw it away (or better, sell for $20 "for parts only"
| on craiglist/ebay), then buy a new one. They are 3-5 times
| cheaper than a regular laptop, and aren't all that much more
| prone to breakage. And all the important stuff is in the
| cloud anyway. "Backup" and "restore" aren't even distinct
| operations there.
|
| Don't expect to run Adobe Premiere on one of those, but hey,
| you get what you pay for.
| jupp0r wrote:
| That makes sense and is a viable model to handle breakages.
| Still kind of funny to see this in a discussion about the
| "right to repair" though.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Symbiote wrote:
| Do you have any non-Apple experience?
|
| Dell, HP or Lenovo would send a technician to your office (or
| home office). For simple repairs (e.g. battery), they can
| also send the replacement part and you can swap it yourself
| -- two of my colleagues chose this during Covid lockdown, and
| changed the batteries in their work laptops.
|
| And "a matter of days" is a low bar. These companies offer
| next-business-day on-site support.
|
| Here's an example for a Dell Chromebook, although I'm not
| familiar with buying individually from a reseller:
|
| > Keep your 2-in-1 laptop protected with the 1-Year Mail-In
| to 3-Year Next Business Day Warranty Upgrade for Chromebooks
| from Dell. Providing 3 years of coverage, this manufacturer
| warranty upgrade features next business day onsite hardware
| support following remote diagnosis. Plus, get technical
| support via phone or online during business hours and self-
| service case management and parts dispatch. $63.50.
|
| https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1692748-REG/dell_848_.
| ..
| jupp0r wrote:
| What happens if you are abroad? I don't have recent
| experiences but in the mid-2000s, IBM refused to repair my
| Thinkpad T42 that I bought in Germany when I was living in
| the US. Apple on the other hand doesn't care if you bring
| an Indonesia bought MacBook into a store in Sweden.
| Symbiote wrote:
| If you move permanently, I think you need to tell them.
|
| I don't think they support devices during
| holiday/business trips, but I could be wrong. (I don't
| handle the laptop/desktop support myself, only the
| servers, and they rarely move.)
|
| https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Legal_Docs/en/us/pro
| sup...
| vertis wrote:
| When my Mac had to be repaired in December 2021 it took 3
| weeks (Battery, Touchbar and Keyboard). I ended up buying a
| second computer so I could keep working.
|
| Plenty of other big PC manufacturers have decent repair
| programs. Often you can even do the repairs yourself (as
| Apple is finally allowing again).
| pmontra wrote:
| I just booted up my HP ZBook after replacing the keyboard.
| Plenty of videos about how to DIY [1]. Granted, pulling it
| out is not as simple as in the video (I'm not doing it
| every day, not every other year) and the laptop weights 3
| kg but I'm not buying something that I can't service myself
| for basic stuff like replacing keyboard and expanding or
| replacing RAM and disks. I had a HP technician come to my
| home to replace the screen (a bad wire in the right hinge).
| It was included in the extended warranty, something between
| 100 and 200 Euro, 3 years.
|
| I'm about to buy another spare keyboard for when it will
| wear out again. It's 62.99 Euro.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWrh6IIq57o
| vertis wrote:
| I have Keychron K1 and one of the keys failed (I carry
| around the world as a digital nomad). I took it to a
| hacker space in Sofia and unsoldered a working less
| important key and switched it for the broken 'T' key.
|
| Repairable hardware is vital.
| jonathantf2 wrote:
| The big 3 laptop vendors (Dell, HP and Lenovo) all offer a
| next business day warranty, usually worldwide. To have an
| engineer show up at my home and business and repair the
| computer in a matter of hours is a much better experience
| than having to trek to an Apple store, make an appointment
| and be told that the entire unit has to be replaced.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| How much is that warranty going to cost? I seem to remember
| Dell's being $300 for 2 years.
| jonathantf2 wrote:
| HPs is about PS50 for 3 year NBD
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| Nothing at all the first year as it's included in the
| price for XPS machines.
| zamalek wrote:
| This is the most bizarre and foreign concept for Apple
| zealots.
| cromka wrote:
| I am an Apple ecosystem user myself, but previously used
| Dells, Lenovos and HPs, and never without NBD warranty,
| so I laugh at all these reactions, too haha. Apple
| warranty is not bad, but in 8 years of using their
| products, they definitely deteriorated both in timing,
| willingness and quality of the repairs. And the frequency
| increased, too. I pretty much serviced each of my recent
| (~3 years) MacBooks and iPhones. Personal experience, but
| still, I used to praise them, no longer do.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/support/products/
| cromka wrote:
| Did you actually even read this thread? This is about NBD
| warranty, not _any_ warranty.
| zamalek wrote:
| It's free for the first year.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Apple laptops come with a 2 year warranty by default.
| I've taken advantage of that probably ~10 times over the
| last decade. Not sure what you are implying.
| Symbiote wrote:
| [1] says 1 year, but this will vary widely by country
| anyway.
|
| https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/mac-
| english.ht...
| [deleted]
| yeputons wrote:
| I guess it's only available if you have purchased the
| laptop in the US or some specific parts of the EU
| originally, isn't it? At least, I cannot see any way to
| purchase it or even extend the warranty for my laptop.
|
| I highly doubt such service is provided in Malta or Cyprus,
| for example, considering Lenovo only has a single
| authorized service center per each island, IIRC.
| bald wrote:
| I'm living in Cyprus; had a Lenovo technician come here
| from Nicosia (~150 miles return) to fix my left-side USB
| ports of my ThinkPad T590 about six weeks ago.
|
| In the past, I've had come Lenovo to remote parts of
| Switzerland and Germany, as well.
| jupp0r wrote:
| > remote parts of Switzerland and Germany
|
| There is no such thing. These are some of the most
| densely populated countries in the middle of the most
| densely populated regions of the world.
| jiripospisil wrote:
| I will never buy another Apple product without AppleCare+. It
| seems like with these ridiculous repair costs that's exactly
| what Apple was going for and it worked. If you had AppleCare+
| ($199 for 3 years), it would have cost $99 to fix. The funny
| thing is that in my country (Czechia) you cannot even
| officially buy it and have to jump through some hoops to get
| it. Fortunately, once you do have it, it's accepted everywhere
| including authorized repair shops regardless of your country.
| izacus wrote:
| Jacking up repair prices to force you into a subscription
| sounds like an extortion racket to me :/
| yesUgotit wrote:
| smoldesu wrote:
| Tim Apple built his computer so that if I bump it off my
| waist-height table, it will shatter into a million pieces
| and I'll be out >$500. Conveniently, Tim Apple _also_
| sells a peace-of-mind insurance policy that replaces your
| Mac no-questions-asked. Does this create a conflict of
| interests that encourages them to design fragile display
| assemblies, unfixable Logic Boards and un-upgradeable
| storage? You decide!
| solarkraft wrote:
| > Free market charges what it must
|
| Apple charges what they can because the market isn't
| free.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| How is the market not free? Apple is not even close to a
| monopoly in the laptop space
| abrouwers wrote:
| If my screen breaks, and I need a new screen, apple is
| the ONLY one who can provide the part.
| kube-system wrote:
| Not true, you can get new panels from third parties.
| abrouwers wrote:
| I googled (briefly), but couldn't find anything on an m1
| MacBook air, for example. How do prices compare to Apple?
| kube-system wrote:
| Search "M1 MacBook Air LCD" on Amazon, eBay, or
| aliexpress and there are dozens of options around $250
| yesUgotit wrote:
| But not the only laptop vendor to choose from.
|
| There's a free market to sell laptops in. What terms are
| attached are up to the consumer to consider.
|
| Many people are happy with Apples terms. That some
| technologists are not is not evidence of a conspiracy.
|
| Contemporary problem solving does not have to contort
| itself to the philosophy and nostalgia of some computer
| nerds. Same as we don't have to kowtow to a Bible; it's
| not about the what but who; present/future meat bags
| don't owe past meat bags. No one asked to be born.
| stale2002 wrote:
| ,> There's a free market to sell laptops in.
|
| But there is not a free market for Apple laptop repairs.
|
| That is the unfree market. So yes, that specific market
| is not free.
| fezfight wrote:
| So $200 x 3, + $100? It's 20 dollars more to get Apple's
| insurance than to just get it replaced!
|
| Brutal!
| ztrww wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it $200 for the entire 3 year period..
| yreg wrote:
| I buy Apple products, I like them, but I'm not going to buy
| AppleCare.
|
| I expect Apple (or the resellers since there is no Apple
| Store in Slovakia) to deal with anything that is supposed to
| be covered by warranty. Both of our countries have strong
| consumer-protection laws.
|
| AppleCare is basically insurance, and I would much rather
| take a 10% chance of having to pay $900 than a 100% chance of
| having to pay $100. Insurance makes sense for stuff you can't
| afford to replace, such as a house, not for consumer
| electronics.
|
| That is, unless Apple sells AppleCare at a loss, but I
| somehow doubt that.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| Unfortunately AC+ is not available in many regions. :(
| sokoloff wrote:
| AppleCare is insurance. There's a bit of a wrinkle in that
| it's insurance from a company who can do the repairs as well,
| but at the end of the day, it's insurance.
|
| At work, we looked across the body of devices we had and
| tracked the AppleCare incidents (times when insurance "paid
| off") and concluded that it wasn't worth buying across the
| fleet. (This is aligned with the general principle of "don't
| insure against losses you can afford".)
|
| If you can't reasonably afford the loss, insurance can make
| sense and you should consider AppleCare. If you can (or if
| you can self-insure across a large install base), you
| probably shouldn't.
| ummonk wrote:
| That wrinkle is important though - since their repair
| services could be more marked up when purchased directly
| Thant the insurance is. Looks like that isn't the case for
| Apple at least for your fleet but there is no reason in
| general that a membership / HMO style insurance service
| will be more expensive than paying out of pocket.
| ghaff wrote:
| Or if you know that you (or someone like your kid) is more
| likely to treat your gear more roughly than average. But,
| yes, in general extended warranties aren't a great deal.
| ivegotnoaccount wrote:
| Or if you know that you will probably have issues with
| your computer sooner than later even though you're not
| rough with it.
|
| I did initially not buy it with my current laptop.
| Something broke during the standard warranty. Got the
| motherboard replaced... With a faulty one. So they
| replaced it again.
|
| Got a feeling that buying extended warranty would be a
| good idea. And indeed, 3 months past the standard
| warranty end, it refused to boot at all. And once again,
| got replaced with a (less) faulty motherboard (some
| faulty USB ports).
|
| I'd have preferred not being given broken motherboards by
| the warranty service, but since I have no ultimate
| proofs, had I not bought it, I would most likely have
| been refused service.
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, repairs are usually warrantied themselves.
|
| There's probably a better case to be made for laptops and
| phones you use outside the house than there is with other
| things. Sure, a TV can die young. However, as the parent
| said, if you can afford to self-insure you'll probably
| come out ahead _on average_.
| ivegotnoaccount wrote:
| > Well, repairs are usually warrantied themselves.
|
| I don't know if this holds when the issue occurs more
| than one year after the repair, and has, at first sight,
| has nothing to do with it (Won't get into the details as
| it's not that interesting. The most important part being
| that the company's logs did not acknowledge a
| potentially-related issue reported while the servicing
| technician was still there).
|
| > if you can afford to self-insure you'll probably come
| out ahead on average.
|
| Yes. But if two parts of my TV broke in its first year
| and it needed to be serviced a second time just after
| because the replacement parts sent the first time
| randomly shut down with the company refusing to
| acknowledge it because "Yeah, the first technician said
| this, but the second time a technician came, it was not
| having issues" or missing logs, my guess is that buying
| the extended warranty at that point would probably cost
| less on average _for that TV_ as I would not put any
| trust in it surviving long without needing another
| repair.
| heartbreak wrote:
| If you have a fleet of devices you are probably big enough
| to insure the fleet via a traditional insurance company.
| sokoloff wrote:
| _That_ insurance company is also going to [intend to]
| make a profit on that policy. Self-insuring lets you keep
| that profit (in exchange for fading the variance
| yourself).
|
| (You also get the additional benefit of not having to
| deal with an insurance company over a claim. :) )
| dan1234 wrote:
| > If you can't reasonably afford the loss, insurance can
| make sense and you should consider AppleCare. If you can
| (or if you can self-insure across a large install base),
| you probably shouldn't.
|
| You should also check to make sure you aren't already
| covered by an existing policy. My home insurance covers
| accidental damage with only a PS100 excess, so AppleCare
| isn't so useful for me (although I've yet to test it!).
| paulmd wrote:
| note that this often counts as a claim against your home
| insurance as well, which can result in higher rates.
| Generally speaking equipment riders are generally not
| worth it except for during a larger event (home burns
| down, etc) because of this - they get you on premiums if
| you don't make a claim (generally it ends up zeroing out
| after a couple years) and they get you on premium
| increases if you do make a claim.
|
| It's insurance, on average the underwriter is still
| coming out ahead, that's the premise of the industry.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Insurance companies only need to (and only do) come out
| ahead in aggregate, not on any specific individual.
| paulmd wrote:
| Generally the point of underwriting is to look at the
| specific individual and write a policy that accounts for
| their own particulars. Otherwise nobody would take any
| policy in any case where they would come out behind, so
| the insurance pool would be 100% 'adverse selection'.
| Insurance companies need to come out ahead _on every
| policy, on average_ , that's how they're written.
|
| A practical example of this, my insurance company told me
| to cut down a tree they thought was too close to my house
| for example (and I agree, it was a pine which tend to
| blow down, and it was too close), or else it would have
| affected my rates, and if you have particular high-risk
| breeds of dogs (dog attacks are covered by insurance) you
| will pay more as well.
|
| In this case - if you keep making claims against your
| homeowner's for accidental damage to contents, even via a
| separate high-value-property rider, that is going to be
| accounted for the next time your renewals come around.
| And the next underwriter will be able to see those claims
| as well, those claims data are shared.
|
| I had a high-value-property policy on a laptop (through
| USAA) and made a claim, they actually tried to come
| through to my parent's homeowners' insurance as well
| (which my parents didn't like and they backed them down
| lol). USAA is great in general, great about paying up
| when the bill comes due but, insurance is insurance.
|
| So if you want to be nitpicky - no, they do come out
| ahead _on any specific policy, on average_ - that is the
| point of diligence in underwriting, to account for those
| individual-specific factors. Even if you are "riskier
| than average", they will eventually account for that too.
| What is true that once written, they either win or they
| don't - and some policies they will lose. But the
| expected net value is biased to the house, on every
| single policy, given the best information they have.
|
| In economic terms: perhaps there is some alpha that you
| as an individual can extract with your precise knowledge
| vs an unaware underwriter - but over time as you exploit
| that, the alpha will decrease to zero, because it will
| show up in your claim data. Just like any other market,
| alpha decreases to zero.
|
| The house always wins in insurance, on average. You're
| not special, you aren't going to beat the house in the
| long term. Insurance is a "smoothing" tool, it lets you
| break a $5k lump expense out into $50/mo payments, it's
| not free money.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| > Insurance is a "smoothing" tool, it lets you break a
| $5k lump expense out into $50/mo payments, it's not free
| money.
|
| This is called a loan. Insurance "smooths" across the
| population, because not everybody breaks their laptop.
|
| Of course you pay more after renewal when you make a
| claim (because you've shown yourself to be at risk for
| breaking laptops), but if you are able to make an
| insurance claim for something you generally do better in
| the long run making that claim than not - that's the
| entire point of insurance, nobody would get it if it was
| a net negative when you had to use it.
| paulmd wrote:
| > but if you are able to make an insurance claim for
| something you generally do better in the long run making
| that claim than not
|
| nobody has ever disputed that, but if you read my comment
| again, you'll see that I was discussing expected value of
| writing/taking a policy.
|
| > that's the entire point of insurance, nobody would get
| it if it was a net negative when you had to use it.
|
| in fact, on the topic I was discussing - _everyone_ takes
| insurance policies _even when they expect it to have
| negative net expected value_ - which all homeowners
| insurance policies are underwritten to have. Yes, if you
| make a claim you come out ahead, but _on average_ you are
| expected to come out behind.
|
| The fact that you also remembered some other thing that
| also works by the same method, is not particularly
| interesting or insightful. See:
|
| > This is called a loan
|
| Yes, indeed, loans also have neutral or negative expected
| return, so do lotteries, and that doesn't mean that
| insurance doesn't too. A is a member of S doesn't mean
| that the cardinality of S is 1.
|
| You're trying to be cute and contrarian, in the finest HN
| spirit (it's also not cute or funny when anyone else does
| it, fyi) but you're going off on irrelevant tangents.
| Please, you're not furthering the discourse here, you're
| just being tangential and contrarian.
|
| Please re-read the rules, it is very explicit that you
| need to take the most generous interpretation of a
| comment, and the reason that rule exists is because it's
| tiresome dealing with this contrarian nitpicking mindset.
| It's pretty clear that this statement does not imply in
| any way that _you shouldn 't make a claim if you have an
| event_, only that taking a rider generally has a net-
| negative expected value - as does all insurance. Your
| entire comment chain here is the _least-generous_
| interpretation and should not have been posted.
|
| > Generally speaking equipment riders are generally not
| worth it except for during a larger event (home burns
| down, etc) because of this - they get you on premiums if
| you don't make a claim (generally it ends up zeroing out
| after a couple years) and they get you on premium
| increases if you do make a claim.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I do think your original text was clear enough that I was
| able to figure out what you meant, but it would have been
| a lot clearer if it explicitly mentioned spreading a
| lump-sum expense across multiple people rather than only
| mentioning spreading a lump-sum expense over a multiple
| time periods.
|
| By only mentioning the time-series of payments, it took
| me more than a single read to understand and I could
| easily see someone genuinely misunderstanding your point.
| paulmd wrote:
| I actually don't know what you mean by that, but, the
| "insurance industry comes out ahead on average" is true
| both of individual policies and on average, which is why
| his response is kinda irrelevant. If you're a high-claim
| buyer that will get passed along to you in your premiums
| (which is what I specifically said in the first
| paragraph). They don't just write "here's the average
| policy, we'll do this for all situations" because then
| they would be hit by adverse selection. All
| homeowners/etc are underwritten against a specific
| property and person.
|
| Of course any particular policy may end up being a win or
| a loss for the insurer - but - the policy is written so
| the insurer wins _on average_ , and that's also true of
| any particular rider or supplemental coverage. The
| expected value of all particular policies and all
| particular supplementals/riders is, from the insurer's
| data, negative for the buyer, otherwise they won't write
| it.
|
| I did not address it in that comment in particular, but
| in the specific case of when you already have an
| accidental damage rider or it's generally included in
| your policy, whether you should take it... the answer is
| probably yes, but, you should also expect it to impact
| your rates down the road, especially if you do it more
| than once. You'll have to weigh that, and sometimes it's
| not worth it unless it's part of a larger claim. Yeah,
| sometimes you do win on a particular insurance policy
| but... the insurer can still win on the backside too,
| with higher premiums in the long term. And even if you
| pick up and move insurers, the next insurer will see that
| claim too and it will affect the quotes you get. Again,
| not a money fountain, it's just risk smoothing.
|
| What I was more going for was, _in general_ the net
| expected value is negative so you _shouldn 't_ take the
| rider, because it will come back in your rates if you
| actually need to use it. The rider premium isn't the
| total cost here, there's additional long-term costs if
| you end up being a claims pest. Homeowners is not
| designed for every time you drop your laptop, and if you
| use it in that way you'll end up with substantially
| higher premiums in the long term to account for it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'm specifically responding to your explanation of
| insurance here, to which another poster said "that's a
| loan" [and you objected]
|
| > Insurance is a "smoothing" tool, it lets you break a
| $5k lump expense out into $50/mo payments, it's not free
| money.
|
| If you believe insurance is _only spreading payments for
| losses over time_ , you don't have a grasp of how it
| works. If you believe insurance is spreading payments for
| losses over multiple policyholders, you know how it works
| but didn't express yourself very clearly and then
| objected when someone read your words and got misdirected
| by them.
|
| > the "insurance industry comes out ahead on average" is
| true both of individual policies and on average
|
| What would the former mean _as distinct from the latter_?
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| > nobody has ever disputed that, but if you read my
| comment again, you'll see that I was discussing expected
| value of writing/taking a policy.
|
| Your original post strongly implies that making a claim
| against the policy is net negative: "they get you on
| premium increases if you do make a claim". I am disputing
| that implication.
|
| > Yes, indeed, loans also have neutral or negative
| expected return, so do lotteries, and that doesn't mean
| that insurance doesn't too. A is a member of S doesn't
| mean that the cardinality of S is 1.
|
| The point is that you said that insurance "lets you break
| a $5k lump expense out into $50/mo payments", this is not
| true. That is what a loan does. There is a meaningful
| difference. Insurance allows you to pay to guard against
| risk by spreading payments out over _multiple people_ ,
| not spread out a large payment _over a period of time_.
|
| > You're trying to be cute and contrarian, in the finest
| HN spirit (it's also not cute or funny when anyone else
| does it, fyi) but you're going off on irrelevant
| tangents. Please, you're not furthering the discourse
| here, you're just being tangential and contrarian.
|
| Please read the HN guidelines before commenting, in
| particular this section:
|
| > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead
| of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3"
| can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
|
| You can find a link to the guidelines at the bottom of
| the page, or here's a direct link:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| paulmd wrote:
| Again, the comment I made:
|
| > Generally speaking equipment riders are generally not
| worth it except for during a larger event (home burns
| down, etc) because of this - they get you on premiums if
| you don't make a claim (generally it ends up zeroing out
| after a couple years) and they get you on premium
| increases if you do make a claim.
|
| This in _no way_ implies that you should not make a claim
| if you have a covered event. It simply says that the
| expected value of any given policy or clause within a
| policy is net-negative - because that 's how insurance
| operates.
|
| You took that comment and cleaved off the bits you didn't
| like, until you had a sufficiently narrow statement that
| you could come up with some contrarian bullshit to look
| pithy on HN.
|
| Again, have you finally accepted that just because loans
| also operate in this way, that it doesn't mean insurance
| can't too?
|
| > Please read the HN guidelines before commenting, in
| particular this section:
|
| Haha, this from the person who didn't even read the
| "please follow the most generous interpretation" clause?
|
| Your entire comment chain has sprung from a least-
| generous interpretation of the rules, which is explicitly
| against the HN rules. Don't cite rules to me while you're
| breaking them yourself. And again, you should read the
| rules about not being snarky or making shallow
| dismissals.
|
| You wanted to make a cute contrarian comeback post and
| you made a very in-generous reading of the comment in
| order to do it, and then if I point that out I'm the bad
| guy. Again, a very HN phenomenon - too much coddling
| here. You broke the rules trying to look cool on a
| social-media site and when called out you tried to rules-
| lawyer to make yourself look like the good guy.
|
| Take it up with @dang if you want, I don't really care.
| But I'm not going to be scolded by the wrongdoer for
| pointing out that someone is cleaving apart substantive
| comments to make little gotchas. It's a real problem on
| this site, as is the hiding behind rules-lawyering when
| people call it out.
|
| Your reply is a low-value comment that doesn't belong on
| this site and it's gone downhill from there on both
| sides. This is why we have a rule about that, your
| comments set the downhill direction here.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _So last week I was quoted, by Apple, 680 EUR to fix the
| cracked screen of my 1000 EUR MacBook Air M1._
|
| Have you ever had a refrigerator break? A stove? Have you seen
| the repair costs for those? Not much difference than the above.
|
| From 2010, "That [Home Appliance] Repair Bill Is Huge, but
| There Are Reasons":
|
| * https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/your-money/household-
| budg...
|
| It's cheaper to initially make something because economies of
| scale in low(er)-wage countries where most of our stuff is
| built. Repairs are 'artisans' working at high(er) wages (and
| sometimes parts that need to be ordered and shipped over long
| distances).
|
| Someone at Foxconn can make "x" devices in an hour in their
| sleep because that's all they do. A repair technician has to
| spend an hour tearing something apart and poking around just to
| figure out what's wrong _and only then_ start fixing it.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Apple's equipment is also designed in a way to be difficult
| to repair.
|
| Swapping the battery on a Dell laptop takes a few minutes for
| someone unfamiliar with the process -- unscrew 6 normal
| screws, swap the battery, replace the cover and screws.
|
| Replacing the battery in a MacBook takes an hour for someone
| familiar with the process, and several hours for someone
| unfamiliar. It also requires special tools.
| nano9 wrote:
| It's not all due to mass production. Modern industrial design
| has made it so that accidents are expensive.
|
| If you involve yourself and in a minor automobile collision
| and damage one of your front headlights on your Lexus with
| adaptive lighting, your total repair cost for the headlight
| itself will exceed $1000. A new headlight will require
| removal the front bumper and calibration of the adaptive
| sensors, both of which add labor costs. It's not just
| headlights; if you have lane-keeping technology in your
| vehicle and this is achieved via a forward facing camera,
| then a windshield replacement exceeds $1000 as well. If you
| smash your rear bumper into a mailbox and need to replace the
| whole bumper, you need your parking sensors re-calibrated.
| And this is with a maintainable car make like Lexus. For the
| more ostentatious luxury makes, the costs will be
| significantly more.
|
| You might think, I'll buy a truck then. But trucks also have
| windshield-integrated forward-facing cameras, backup/parking
| sensors, and adaptive headlights. You wouldn't save much
| versus the Lexus.
| deidei wrote:
| >It's cheaper to initially make something because economies
| of scale in low(er)-wage countries where most of our stuff is
| built. Repairs are 'artisans' working at high(er) wages
|
| I get your point but my MacBook Pro's screen cracked a few
| years ago. This happened in India, they quoted $700 (around
| 55k rupees) for a Mac that cost $1100 (around 90k rupees)
| moxplod wrote:
| Will we be able to upgrade RAM on M1
| Toutouxc wrote:
| No.
| mkagenius wrote:
| I am from India. My 10 day old Macbook M1 Pro suddenly died with
| no signs of life. As sad that may sound its nothing compared to
| what happened next at the Apple Authorized service center. The
| lady at the counter put a giant scratch across the Apple logo
| going further ahead on the case.
|
| Now these service centers are so much afraid of Apple and its
| policy that she started parroting that its a cosmetic damage and
| Apple policy doesn't allow to replace it for that. I asked her I
| am not invoking my warranty, the scratch is done by you and you
| have to fix it.
|
| Days pass and they divert me to the seller, who refused to
| replace the laptop due to the scratch.
|
| The Apple Support in India is equally pathetic with no authority
| at all. Had it been the U.S. and someone at Genius store would
| have done that, it would have been much easier to get a new
| machine (it was just 10 day old) or atleast the display case
| replaced but welcome to India where consumer laws take the second
| seat and Apple's policy take the first.
|
| After all this, I had to call the police and when the police came
| the service center gave me in writing that they would replace the
| display.
|
| Filing consumer case now against Apple for the harassment,
| preparing the docs. If you are from India and want to join in -
| drop me a mail.
|
| Edit: forgot to mention the popping sound on my older macbook
| from 2017 with touchbar. Will apple do anything about that? Seems
| it is also clueless.
| Fradow wrote:
| I'm surprised the popping sound doesn't surface much more than
| that. I recently bought a 2021 M1 Macbook Pro (so a 2KEUR+
| machine) and this popping sound I get when I use the built-in
| speakers is awful.
|
| After Googling around, it seems this issue hits a lot of people
| and dates back to the first M1 Macs being released (nearly 2
| years now) and has still not been properly addressed (and I
| never found a workaround other than plugging headphones and
| just not using the speakers). And as you said, Apple seems
| clueless about it.
| mkagenius wrote:
| > popping sound I get when I use the built-in speakers is
| awful.
|
| My issue might be a different one, it comes when I touch the
| display back side (and sometimes just randomly). I did some
| research and it seems to be caused by expansion and
| contraction of some kind of metal inside the body.
| bluedino wrote:
| Is the problem here with Apple or the 'Apple Authorized Service
| Center'?
| mkagenius wrote:
| The root of the problem is essentially Apple since there is
| no other way than going to these service centers. Moreover
| the policy fears are so much instilled in these service
| centers and Apple support people that they can't even see
| whats the right thing to do by the customer.
| [deleted]
| crooked-v wrote:
| I can't wait for the next big article complaining about Apple
| renting you exactly the same equipment they use, at cost, because
| it's all just too big and complicated.
| shaan7 wrote:
| Valve's approach to the Steam Deck has been a refreshing approach
| in all this. It is a well-built product and replacement parts are
| a few clicks away https://www.ifixit.com/Parts/Steam_Deck People
| keep asking me why I don't like Apple products. I actually like
| most of their actual products, but their attitude as a company is
| frustrating. I don't want to pay a premium to feel limited.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| I feel you. I want Apple's privacy advantages but every single
| time I use an Apple product I just feel like I can barely do
| anything useful with it. Do you still have to jailbreak your
| iphone to set a custom ringtone?
|
| Edit: I just checked and amazingly, yes. Unless you have a mac
| from a specific time with specific software to maybe help you
| out. If it's a song available on itunes you might be able to
| buy it as a ringtone but if it's something like your own
| recording, and you don't have a mac, basically go die in a
| ditch. Embarrassing.
| lostgame wrote:
| You can't still use GarageBand on the iPhone to make custom
| ringtones on device?
| bombcar wrote:
| I think you can, I know I have a custom ringtone and I
| forget how I did it, but I didn't jailbreak or pay.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| It's always weird to me when I hear people with custom
| ringtones on their phones, it feels super boomer and a bit
| embarrassing. I'm not sure I've even heard my iPhone 12 ever
| audibly ring, vibrate or gtfo.
| sircastor wrote:
| Thinking on it, I think I've heard my 12 mini ring a couple
| of times, but always in the context of "What? Weird, why is
| that on?"
|
| I had a custom ring tone on my first iPhone, and probably
| the Android after that. Since then, it's never been worth
| the effort. I'm rarely in a situation where I need to hear
| my phone ring.
| bogwog wrote:
| Jailbreaking isn't even possible anymore on the newer phones.
| The latest iOS bricks your device if it detects any changes
| to the filesystem.
| zamalek wrote:
| I recently ditched my OneWheel for an EUC because _just look at
| this awesome stuff:_ https://www.myinmotion.com/pages/parts-
| and-accessories
| MivLives wrote:
| I was always surprised at how good the one wheel after market
| parts stuff was. Like you could replace almost everything
| besides the front foot pad, brains, and motor. I guess most
| of it is just injected molded plastic bolted on with screws
| but still it was nice to have the option of different rear
| foot pads, fenders, tires, etc.
|
| How have you found the switch? Still enjoy riding as much? I
| had to sell my One Wheel because I moved and the new area the
| roads were too annoying to cruise on. I've been considering
| it since the bigger wheels might make it easier to ride on
| the rougher roads.
| zamalek wrote:
| The learning curve is _significantly_ steeper. I am already
| (2-3 weeks) feeling a more frequent urge to go for a ride,
| compared to the OW, but they say it takes about 6mo for it
| to really click and drag you in.
|
| It definitely doesn't feel as cool, though, and doesn't
| start conversations.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| You mentioned a wheel in the context of Apple and I thought
| you were talking about the Apple MacBook Wheel.
|
| https://youtu.be/9BnLbv6QYcA
| mcguire wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| After Steve Jobs left Apple the first time, Apple became much
| more like the other hardware companies of the time, including
| opening up things that they had previously held tightly closed.
| When Jobs returned, they clamped back down. Now, Jobs has left
| Apple permanently and Apple is once again opening up.
|
| So here's a question: Is this a good thing, or is it a sign that
| Apple is returning to the mediocrity of the earlier non-Jobs era?
| Is Apple losing what made it great?
| jld89 wrote:
| Apple quoted me 900 EUR to repair a motherboard problem (replace
| the whole damn thing). On a 3K EUR macbook pro.
|
| I went to a third party, 250 EUR, they just repaired the
| motherboard, works like a charm, and did it in 1 day. It's been 2
| years. Fuck apple.
| CharlesW wrote:
| If there are 3rd parties who do inexpensive fixes quickly, what
| is the problem?
| josephcsible wrote:
| That Apple goes out of their way to make it harder for those
| third parties to do that.
| threeseed wrote:
| But they don't though.
|
| They go after third parties who are using counterfeit or
| non-OEM parts.
| foldr wrote:
| Apple can't realistically do board level repairs because they
| can't guarantee that a board level repair will bring the device
| back to its original level of reliable functionality. When you
| mess around with soldering and desoldering individual
| components, you can't guarantee the end result in the same way
| that you can when it's the outcome of a reliable and repeatable
| manufacturing process. For example, rework with a hot air
| station might imperceptibly weaken a solder joint somewhere
| else on the board, which will then fail 6 months later.
| fmntf wrote:
| It's repair versus buy. If you cut the power cord of your
| dishwasher, you can buy a new dishwasher from Bosch for 900EUR,
| or ask a 3rd party to repair it for 25EUR. I don't see any
| "fuck Bosch" logic here.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| It would be "fuck Bosch" if they were charging 125EUR for the
| otherwise 25EUR fix.
| krnlpnc wrote:
| Would it be better for them to sell you a surface mount
| electrical component and let you figure out how to solder it
| yourself?
| a2128 wrote:
| Yes. Repair shops have been advocating for a long time for
| companies like Apple to allow repair shops to obtain certain
| parts and ICs which are otherwise unobtainable due to
| exclusivity deals with chip fabs, as well as to provide
| repair schematics. When companies go out of their way to make
| both impossible to obtain, it becomes very difficult for
| independent repair shops to do their work.
| halostatue wrote:
| Apple has programs for repair shops.
|
| This program, like the iPhone program, is _not_ that
| program. This is for adventurous people who want to do the
| repair themselves because they don't value their own time
| highly enough.
|
| One can complain about how Apple deals with repair shops.
| One can complain about how Apple deals with self-service
| repair. One should not confuse the two situations as if
| they were in any way equivalent.
| oneplane wrote:
| That's great (for you), but there's no telling what "works like
| a charm" actually means, and no real way to tell if the specs
| as-advertised still match the specs-post-repair. This is also
| why Apple doesn't bother with board level repairs on an
| individual basis.
|
| For some people, that measure or metric doesn't matter, and
| that's fine, but it by no means is a universal "see this is
| better" approach. And I say this as someone who does board
| level repairs. On iPhones. (and that mostly came about because
| people tried to replace the screens on their phones with the
| power on, blowing the backlight circuit)
|
| Doing something as a one-off is nothing compared to doing
| something world-scale.
| [deleted]
| pbmango wrote:
| If you take two obvious leaders in manufacturing excellence (for
| this audience at least), Apple and Tesla, they both now in 2022
| seem to be running up against repair and service problems. Part
| of this might be that they have so optimized the rest of the
| funnel that these blotches stand out in even more contrast. When
| the goods are cheap, late, or defective their lack of post-
| purchase service is taken for granted.
| closetohome wrote:
| I do kind of wonder how much the new repair-friendly Apple has
| to do with the fact that they lose basically the entire
| laptop's margin every time they have to replace a battery under
| warranty.
| widowlark wrote:
| I am taking a look at the comments on this thread and im
| astonished. HN is full of intelligent, self-reliant people and
| yet, all throughout this thread I see so many users trashing
| people for complaints about price and service quality from Apple.
|
| So many users here have had obviously bad experiences with Apple
| Care and Apple Repair Services, why is it so hard to believe
| them? Also, why is it so hard to imagine that Apple is making
| some mistakes in their repair model?
|
| Commenters defending Apple here - they dont care about you at
| all, they dont need the assistance from you in defending them,
| and you dont get a discount for doing so, so what is your
| motivation for doing it? It is clear this 'Self Service Repair'
| model is designed to _prevent_ independent repair shops from
| making money, therefore eliminating them. In what way is this
| good for the consumer?
| harha wrote:
| > It is clear this 'Self Service Repair' model is designed to
| prevent independent repair shops from making money, therefore
| eliminating them. In what way is this good for the consumer?
|
| The quality can be highly questionable. One shop first put an
| old battery in my MacBook, and after I complained they put in a
| new one from a bad manufacturer which ended up breaking
| touchpad and keyboard. On my iMac a different store installed
| the wrong screen (from the previous model that had ghosting
| issues and wasn't as bright) - I ended up changing it myself
| for around EUR250 instead of 700 the store charged or 1100
| Apple wanted. Also the screws were loose on the MacBook and the
| camera and microphone weren't aligned on the iMac. I obviously
| went to different stores and checked the reviews before, but it
| didn't help.
|
| Ideally it should be simple enough to make these repairs- on
| the same MacBook I replaced a broken fan which worked perfectly
| fine for four years. You really don't know what happens in the
| store.
|
| That being said, I don't think apple is seriously interested in
| helping users with this, it starts with the design of products.
| My old MacBook Pro retina was so much more robust than the new
| m1 pro I had to replace it with. The iMac screen is just silly
| with the easily breaking glass front that makes you replace the
| whole thing and also with the inaccessible drives.
| widowlark wrote:
| >The quality can be highly questionable. One shop first put
| an old battery in my MacBook, and after I complained they put
| in a new one from a bad manufacturer which ended up breaking
| touchpad and keyboard. On my iMac a different store installed
| the wrong screen (from the previous model that had ghosting
| issues and wasn't as bright) - I ended up changing it myself
| for around EUR250 instead of 700 the store charged or 1100
| Apple wanted. Also the screws were loose on the MacBook and
| the camera and microphone weren't aligned on the iMac. I
| obviously went to different stores and checked the reviews
| before, but it didn't help.
|
| Is this not due entirely to how hard Apple makes it to get
| OEM parts?
| harha wrote:
| For the iMac panel: I did some research because I wasn't
| sure if it actually had a problem (I just had a hunch on
| the brightness and the monitor symbol had changed) - then I
| found one that worked as expected on alibaba, but dealing
| with all the glued on panel etc. Was a real pain.
|
| For the battery: probably. I didn't bother searching
| replacing that one though and gave away the laptop. I would
| have changed it myself but at that time my government was
| subsidizing small shops with half price coupons so it was
| actually cheaper to go to a store than to change it myself
| (looking back I should have just registered as a repair
| shop and taken the subsidy myself)
| zamalek wrote:
| > alibaba
|
| Note that importing these items might work out for an
| individual, but Apple has a very recent history of
| seizing "counterfeit parts" at the border:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3ppvj/dhs-seized-
| aftermarke...
| harha wrote:
| Wow this is evil. Talking of a company that claims being
| super green by not adding a charger or using different
| boxes for refurbished devices, but then makes sure you
| have to replace your otherwise functional electronics
| every few years. Or also as a side note: causing a major
| annoyance with the non standard cable.
|
| The panel I bought doesn't have any apple references,
| just the LG part number. Funnily enough, the previous
| model panel from the store falsely had the same part
| number after I opened it.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| The current state means you deal with "refurbishers" that
| mass sell used components (possibly fixing common issues at
| a micro-level), buy "broken" units yourself to harvest for
| parts or grab them off eBay et al.
|
| Sometimes the manufacturers do run extra production runs so
| you get new OEM parts. Or there is cross compatibility.
|
| I've covered a fair bit of the expense of my new Mac units
| by parting out my old ones.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > I obviously went to different stores and checked the
| reviews before, but it didn't help.
|
| This is an issue with reviews in general: most people
| critique the wrong things.
|
| They have no idea how to review the finished product, but
| feel compelled to review anyway and beyond "it turns on now
| and it didn't before" (which I guess is a great minimum bar),
| focus on the cleanliness of the shop, politeness of the staff
| or their hours. All of which I consider less important than
| fixing the issue properly.
| harha wrote:
| > focus on the cleanliness of the shop, politeness of the
| staff or their hours
|
| I was in a European country at that time, so all of this
| was pretty much standard for this tier of shop (reasonably
| clean, not very polite, bad hours), anything higher would
| have cost as much as the Apple Store, so it would have
| almost been worth replacing the whole device
| fzfaa wrote:
| Apple is doing this to placate regulators. I want them to
| succeed because I don't want regulators dictating how the
| devices I buy, from Apple or otherwise, should be. Apple is
| fighting by my side.
| freedomben wrote:
| Which regulators? Or rather which regulation threat? Are you
| thinking right to repair or something else like the EU
| monopoly stuff?
| Fradow wrote:
| > It is clear this 'Self Service Repair' model is designed to
| prevent independent repair shops from making money, therefore
| eliminating them.
|
| That's not clear at all. See for yourself the actual user
| experience of using it:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/technology/personaltech/a...
|
| From reading that a while ago, it seems to be designed so that
| Apple score some marketing points and plan ahead for
| regulations making that mandatory, while not actually
| delivering a credible service on that front. Virtually no one
| is going to use that service if it is indeed what's described
| in the article.
| widowlark wrote:
| I think we are arguring the same point. I don't think Apple
| is doing this with good motivations and eliminating the
| independent repair shop is _bad_. The article you linked only
| further articulates why this move is bad for many other
| reasons, too
| dang wrote:
| I think it's because those comments are provoked reflexively by
| the appearance of $BigCo in a story (automatically guaranteed
| to generate generic complaints about $BigCo), and if the story
| is the tuple ($BigCo, $Theme) (where $Theme = something like
| support, repair, price, you name it) then the reflex is even
| stronger to reproduce any-associated-complaint in that space.
|
| Because this is reflexive, it's not really a response to the
| story at hand--such comments are more self-referential than on
| topic. That is not intellectually interesting--we're not
| learning much from them. It's satisfying, though, to those who
| have similar pre-existing associations and feelings, so
| inevitably it brings up a lot of me-too reactions and similar
| posts. But again, those aren't particularly related to the
| original story--they're just prompted by it, sort of like
| tapping on a knee--so they aren't interesting to people who
| don't personally have the same associations with that topic
| tuple.
|
| Eventually, users who have opposite associations get tired of
| seeing these generic, not-particularly-on-topic comments, and
| respond by complaining about the complaints. Of course that's a
| reflexive and generic response in its own right. I sometimes
| call this the contrarian dynamic of internet forums (https://hn
| .algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
|
| The only two things I know of to counteract this trend are (1)
| for users to consciously post more substantive, on-topic,
| curious comments, which provide nuclei for better discussion to
| organize around; and (2) for moderators to downweight generic
| and offtopic subthreads, which counteracts their unfortunate
| tendency to stick at the top of the page.
|
| p.s. Another way of describing this is that curious
| conversation needs reflective comments rather than reflexive
| ones: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| sor....
| widowlark wrote:
| As always thanks for the insight, dang
| choppaface wrote:
| Ycombigatorz wrote:
| evanriley wrote:
| > astonished
|
| Why? This is quite literally every thread involving Apple. It
| doesn't matter the topic of the thread, it will eventually
| devolve into the same shit.
| duxup wrote:
| Everyone thinks the other guy is just some hater or corporate
| sellout.
|
| Share a differing point of view, and someone thinks your one,
| someone else might think you're another. Even from the same
| comment.
| widowlark wrote:
| When someone has a bad experience with a product I love, I
| try to help them, I don't put them down for trying to destroy
| my preferred brands reputation.
|
| Apple users are always convinced that people experiencing
| problems with the product are intentionally complaining to
| damage Apple, rather than honestly having an issue
| duxup wrote:
| >Apple users are always
|
| There's those extremes I'm talking about. No such user
| could possibly be anything else right?
| widowlark wrote:
| I see your point and will append always with 'seem to
| always be convinced'
| bredren wrote:
| I think Apple has made major cost cutting changes on their
| repairs and returns department. As recently as a few years ago,
| Apple was much more liberal about returns and fees for repairs.
|
| I've also noticed that the quality of the customer support
| around returns has gone south. I've seen cases where basic
| information about the context of the return seems missing and
| customers are put in long loops dealing with simple problems.
|
| I've seen the miserly behavior myself. I've put a lot of cash
| toward Apple SW, HW and services but that loyalty is not
| recognized or rewarded in how you're treated by the company.
|
| Between this lack of awareness of who their sophisticated
| customers are and their loyalty and cost cutting measure, I
| suspect some people have been shocked at how bad the repair /
| returns experience can be today.
| kmlx wrote:
| > It is clear this 'Self Service Repair' model is designed to
| prevent independent repair shops from making money, therefore
| eliminating them.
|
| how is this clear? do you think everyone will simply start
| fixing their own devices? from my experience a tiny tiny
| minority of people have both the necessary experience and the
| time to do this, thus leaving the independent shops mostly
| unaffected.
| widowlark wrote:
| It's clear because of the details. You need a serial number
| to get a part (so therefore cannot purchase in bulk or
| generically) and the prices are not any better, and in many
| cases worse, than apple's own in-house price.
| dwaite wrote:
| Reference to it being a worse equipment price?
| coder543 wrote:
| Watch this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdYzVaC6HSQ&t=9m37s
|
| LTT runs the numbers to demonstrate it. Apple is making
| you pay more to do it yourself, and you have to wait days
| for the parts to arrive, when you could just go down to
| the Apple Store. The pricing completely nullifies any
| real-world benefit of this program, making the program
| seem like it is entirely performative.
|
| If an individual can't even save money doing it this way,
| the program is worse than useless for repair shops since
| they won't be able to compete with Apple Store repair
| services. That's also without even addressing the
| inability for repair shops to buy parts _before_ a
| customer shows up with a problem. Repair shops want to be
| able to provide same day service, which this program
| makes impossible... unless your name is Apple.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _what is your motivation for doing it?_
|
| For many of them, they identify with Apple. That is, part of
| their self identity is tied to Apple. To them Apple isn't just
| a for-profit company that makes good products, it's a
| philosophy, a way of life, a team, an identity.
|
| If someone challenges or says something negative about Apple,
| it's a negative about their identity and they take it very
| personally.
|
| To be clear, this tendency is not limited to Apple. Humans do
| it regarding all manner of companies/things. But Apple does
| have a particularly large and passionate following.
| widowlark wrote:
| Yes I suspect you are right, but it saddens me to see such an
| illogical approach.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| When I switched from PC to Mac about 10 years ago, for the
| most part I was thrilled. But I missed a few features. The
| two big ones I remember are cut and paste files with
| Cmd-X/Cmd-V, and selectively delete specific files from the
| trash.
|
| I can't tell you how many times fanboys told me that neither
| of those features made any sense, and I was silly for even
| wanting them. Yet within a few years Apple added both
| features.
| ouid wrote:
| apple is almost a 2 trillion dollar company, it is not
| inconceivable that they juat hire PR to defend them in
| comment sections
| jonny_eh wrote:
| While it is possible that they hire surrogates to post on
| HN, the simpler explanation is that they have rabid fans
| that stick their necks out for a trillion dollar company.
| The proof is that this behavior has been around Apple even
| well before their re-rise to dominance.
| svnt wrote:
| It would be very interesting to pull a history of
| complaints about e.g. Apple's white power cords and their
| failure rate from reddit and then examine the self-
| similarity of the "what are people doing, this has never
| happened to me" responses.
|
| Of course to do this properly you also have to realize
| and account for the idea that others are just as
| incentivized to fund artificial critiques as Apple is to
| artificially defend themselves.
| dougk16 wrote:
| The even more simpler explanation is that it's both.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I disagree, the fewer assumptions means the simplest. I'd
| argue it's not worth the risk for Apple to hire people to
| shill for them, when there are so many who do it not just
| for free, but do it genuinely. Imagine if Apple hires
| shills, then they spill their guts to the NYTimes, that
| overall makes Apple look far worse.
| dougk16 wrote:
| We're both making the same number of assumptions. The
| difference is that yours is in the negative and mine is
| in the positive. Your example about the risk of someone
| leaking to the press shows we simply live in completely
| different realities, thus argument is impossible. Which
| is fine! In my reality people are leaking to the press
| all the time about such things and simply being ignored
| by most who don't want to confront how dark corporate and
| government PR and marketing has become.
| chaxor wrote:
| I do t think this is necessarily true for many of the users
| here "defending" Apple. It's likely that many people just use
| their mac and find that the hardware quality, etc is nice
| compared to other competition. If the company now wants to
| make it possible to fix your computer, I would imagine that
| would typically be celebrated by HN, since apple has had such
| a history of lock-in/non-customization problems with the
| professional computing demographic. The note here about
| affecting small businesses is nonetheless a good point, and
| should be recognized for the potential problems it may bring;
| however I don't think discrediting the users by making it
| 'their identity' to defend some hardware is correct.
|
| There are reasons to not like Apple products, but there are
| also quite a few great qualities about them as well. For
| example, the ARM processors they're making right now are
| excellent (best in class by _a lot_ , as far as I can tell) -
| _for battery life_. While they may certainly have lower
| benchmarks than some i7s, they are doing fantastic for only
| using 15W. In today 's age, few developers use their laptop
| for more than ssh and firefox, so it makes more sense for a
| good Linux dev to be on asahi Linux with an M2, while the
| 'typical business user' or 'creative type' would be more
| likely to use a Falcon Northwest TLX with a nice dGPU for
| their heavier workload.
|
| So, again - there are plenty of reasons to not like Apple
| such as all the lock-in associated problems - but you can
| certainly _use_ a device and it not be 'your identity'.
| freedomben wrote:
| I agree with you. I didn't mean that _all_ defense of Apple
| is for identity reasons.
|
| I am often an Apple critic because of their lock-
| in/closed/proprietary nature, but i think this is a good
| move. Personally I think it's a cave to pressure from the
| right to repair movement, and they won't be sad about
| killing independent shops, but that doesn't make it a bad
| move. I'm happy to see it.
| widowlark wrote:
| I personally love the Apple products I own. I also have
| many other products from brands I trust that I love. When
| someone has a bad experience with a product I love, I try
| to help them, I don't put them down for trying to destroy
| my preferred brands reputation.
| derac wrote:
| He said they make good products.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Apple is following the Harley Davidson strategy. Their brand
| becomes a lifestyle and personality for their customers.
| Build quality falls, prices go up, and people who've bought
| into the brand-as-a-lifestyle defend it all while acting
| disturbingly hostile to everybody else who isn't in their
| club.
| verisimilitude wrote:
| Caveat: repair now available for Mac Notebooks "with the M1
| family of chips" - this is reasonable, I think. However, I do
| feel badly because I have a 2017 with a noisy fan that needs to
| be replaced, but I don't think I'll ever be able to get the
| precisely OEM Apple-blessed one. This is important to me because
| of the non-annoying whoosh sound that the varied blade spacing of
| the OEM fans normally provide. My options are (1) used or (2)
| rando cross-your-fingers 'brand' fan. I guess I could just try a
| variety of those no-names and use the least annoying one.
| bluedino wrote:
| My 2017 had a clicking/buzzing fan when it was about 2 years
| old. I bought a used fan from a seller on eBay (I think it was
| a $12 part), took the laptop apart (involved some very tiny
| screws) and replaced it and it's been fine ever since. There's
| even videos on YouTube you can follow along with.
|
| Nowhere near as simple as repairs on the old non-Retina,
| unibody machines but easier than an iPad.
| [deleted]
| scarface74 wrote:
| 3) take it in to Apple for repair.
| lstamour wrote:
| And do it soon, or the 7 year "legacy" period might kick in.
| Apple has a cut-off past which they will not service or
| support their products. It's usually 5-7 years from when they
| were first or last sold. (Actually, it's a bit arbitrary if
| you ask me, because Apple is the one that sets whether a
| product is still serviceable or not, regardless of how long
| it's been.)
| samatman wrote:
| I'm not seeing the viable alternative to a clearly-stated
| policy on the duration of repair services.
|
| Ok. I can imagine a world where I could bring in an Apple
| II from 1980 and get it serviced at a shiny glass Apple
| store. That would be pretty cool in fact, leaving aside the
| small but entirely real population of enthusiasts who would
| lose income, livelihood in some cases.
|
| But it doesn't seem like a reasonable demand. At some point
| the specialist aftermarket takes over. Clearly stating when
| that will be in advance is the most one can ask for.
| Joeri wrote:
| They could give out an expiration date for repair
| services at the moment of purchase, instead of having
| what comes across as a yearly lottery for current owners.
| samatman wrote:
| It's nothing of the sort:
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624
|
| The relevant quote "Products are considered vintage when
| Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 5 and
| less than 7 years ago".
|
| "More than 5 and less than 7" means some time in the
| sixth year. It couldn't be more clear than it is without
| them putting a retirement party on the calendar.
|
| Maybe they should?
|
| Edit to add: of course you don't _want to_ know how long
| the device will be supported, to the day, because this
| policy gives a minimum of the sixth year after the date
| of purchase, and if they sell it for longer, they 'll
| repair it for longer as well.
| plonk wrote:
| Mandate a reasonable support delay, beyond the
| 5-to-7-years that seems to be the gold standard today. A
| computer from 10 years ago can still do a lot of things.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I'm not aware of any product that Apple stopped
| supporting as far as hardware repairs for less than 5
| years.
| verisimilitude wrote:
| Not to make this my personal tech support but... I thought my
| 2017 model was 'vintage' status and not repaired at Apple
| anymore? I'll see what I can find out...
| scarface74 wrote:
| I actually checked before I commented. All 2017 models are
| still eligible for repairs
| solarkraft wrote:
| At what cost?
| scarface74 wrote:
| It depends on what's wrong. Just like anything else you
| have to take it in for an estimate. I don't expect my car
| dealer to quote me a price on a repair without bringing
| it in.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| 2016 entered vintage just a few weeks ago, so 2017 will
| likely dry up in about 11 months. Don't put that off too
| long...
| verisimilitude wrote:
| Thank you! You are correct. Off to my friendly local
| Apple.
| mikece wrote:
| Somehow I suspect Louis Rossmann will still be non-plussed by
| this and release a video explaining why... and he makes solid
| points. When Apple starts allowing him to order all of the chips
| (like charge controllers) to repair his customers' devices then
| this is just lip service from Apple meant to do the absolute bare
| minimum to look like they are accommodating Right To Repair while
| giving the middle finger to independent repair shops who are only
| being held back by lack of access to parts.
| pca006132 wrote:
| I remember there is a LTT video saying that buying components
| from this self service repair is more expansive than their
| official repair service, you need a device serial number to buy
| some major components. So it is probably not really for
| independent repair shops, just a lip service.
| xyst wrote:
| I remember watching this video. If I recall correctly, he was
| including the cost of the tools to repair as well and not
| just components.
|
| I'll need to re-watch and update this comment.
|
| edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3kggpE9W8A
|
| I was wrong, parent comment is correct. Program is priced to
| be more expensive and less convenient than taking it to an
| Apple Store or buying/upgrading to a new phone.
|
| this is why right to repair needs to exist. apple is just
| paying a lip service right now.
| handonam wrote:
| Wrong link i think
| copperx wrote:
| > this is why right to repair needs to exist. apple is just
| paying a lip service right now.
|
| This "service" is how Apple is trying to fight right to
| repair.
| smoldesu wrote:
| One of the problems is that truly 'fixing' a Macbook is
| impossible. If your Logic Board has water damage, 90% of the
| time you'll need to replace the _entire board_ instead of the
| $0.50 component that 's failing. That's why Louis (and other
| repair shops) have used donor boards to attempt actual repairs
| instead of just replacing your whole mainboard.
|
| I reckon that's what Apple is going to do here, too. Of course
| they don't have the gall to sell consumers their Texas
| Instruments ICs for board repairs, it's likely they're only
| going to sell piecemeal topcases, Logic Boards, and if we're
| lucky, batteries too.
| jahewson wrote:
| Please name one device manufacturer that sells the individual
| electronic components on the logic board for repair.
| r3012 wrote:
| Do fuses count as an electronic component or does it have
| to be an active device? If so then I can name a couple. :)
| marshray wrote:
| Unlikely that Apple even stocks "Texas Instruments ICs for
| board repairs" for their own use either.
|
| Custom ICs (and at Apple's volume why wouldn't they be
| custom?) will be ordered and delivered straight to the
| manufacturing line. They'll know exactly how many to buy to
| minimize waste. A few leftovers may end up on AliExpress, but
| Apple is pretty tight so they probably go into the trash.
|
| In no situation would we expect either Apple or TI to keep a
| stockpile of out-of-production custom voltage regulators
| around, unless a hardware engineer happened to have some in a
| desk drawer somewhere.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Apple is pretty tight so they probably go into the trash.
|
| Let's destroy our spare parts to make sure that Louis
| Rossmann can't get his hands on them and use them for
| board-level repair!
| r3012 wrote:
| I wonder why Apple would even want to protect a battery
| charger IC? All of the interesting stuff would be in software
| anyway. Maybe the reason repair shops can't buy it is more
| mundane. Basically it's an expensive part, particularly to
| Apple's logic board, and distributors don't believe there are
| enough Rossmanns out there to sell through a 100k part
| factory order. When I made PCBs for a large company I had
| parts I could buy direct from Maxim, at 250k parts minimum,
| that weren't on Digi-Key for just that reason.
| [deleted]
| kube-system wrote:
| Apple is selling you exactly what they use to repair their
| machines. If Apple shares all of the tools/parts/manuals they
| use to do component level repairs, the result is NULL.
|
| This isn't anything limited to Apple, or even computers. For
| just about any OEM repair process for nearly any product,
| there's _someone_ who will do a repair with a higher labor
| cost and lower parts cost. That doesn 't mean it's a
| reasonable process for a business at scale.
| [deleted]
| 120photo wrote:
| I trust Rossmann, He will give Apple (or any company) credit
| when they do something right. Apple lost my trust years ago.
| M4v3R wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| > Self Service Repair for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro offers
| more than a dozen different repair types for each model,
| including the display, top case with battery, and trackpad,
| with more to come
|
| So you can purchase the whole display assembly, top case (so
| basically the whole computer except the display assembly) and
| trackpads separately. Buying these parts in most cases will not
| be cost-effective and it's just pure waste to offer them
| instead offering components more granularly. So yeah, I fully
| expect Louis to roast this and he will be right.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| > Buying these parts in most cases will not be cost-effective
|
| Apple also requires a serial number when purchasing these
| parts and the parts are paired to the device. So even if you
| wanted to start a repair shop that just replaces those parts
| you can't stock or even install them.
| CarVac wrote:
| And you can't harvest parts from a dead device.
| vehemenz wrote:
| A lot of people seem to think Apple purposely made the
| components less modular for profit purposes, but I think the
| bigger reason is that Apple took was limited by the
| tolerances of the case design and took shortcuts with the
| component assembly to make manufacturing/QA cheaper.
| widowlark wrote:
| they designed the case
| goosedragons wrote:
| Why not both? They certainly aren't pricing RAM and SSD
| upgrades from the goodness of their hearts. And I do wonder
| if continually making the base models have sub-par amounts
| of SSD and storage for the price gets people to upgrade the
| entire machine earlier.
|
| Doesn't help that you can't easily get a 1TB MBA either,
| that BTO, but you can pay an extra $1000 and get a 1TB 14"
| MBP right now.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Of course. That's why I said "the bigger reason" instead
| of "the only reason."
| idk1 wrote:
| The iPhone self service program is very clearly a case of
| malicious compliance, they have gone about everything in the most
| un-Apple way possible. I expect they'll send you equipment the
| size of a pool table to fix your Mac (this is pure speculation,
| it may well be a very helpful program and not the bare minimum
| they have to provide to legally cover themselves incase they're
| accused of not letting people repair devices at home).
| nojito wrote:
| If they didn't send the exact same tools they use people will
| complain that they aren't sharing the real tools.
|
| It's a lose lose situation.
| kepler1 wrote:
| So what would you have them do? Send you a kit with some janky
| aluminum foil, tools bought off Ebay, and instructions on how
| to scrounge around your kitchen for stuff that can be used to
| pry off the screen?
|
| For fucks sake, it's like they can't satisfy you no matter what
| they do. You wanted to be able to repair to the quality and
| assurance that the manufacturer does and now are griping about
| the cost of it. (or did you? and now are having 2nd thoughts?)
| idk1 wrote:
| I didn't criticize the price of it.
|
| If I had to say one thing it would be have the purchase of
| the items through the apple website and normal apple account.
| Not that strange third party thing. Just hook it into the
| apple eco-system like all of their other stuff.
|
| Imagine if they did the apple trade-in program or returns
| this way or applecare this way, created a whole new obtuse
| website to use.
|
| Also I don't appreciate the swearing and I don't have 2nd
| thoughts.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The big case of equipment is optional. You're not required to
| rent it to repair your own iPhone.
| groovybits wrote:
| No need to speculate. The LinusTechTips crew posted a video
| detailing what you get: https://youtu.be/F90q1WVZ2N4
|
| I'm not an Apple employee or repair technician. They seem like
| professional tools - I would definitely need to reference the
| included instructions.
| pphysch wrote:
| This looks a lot more like Apple finding additional revenue
| streams selling "genuine(tm)" parts than a genuine attempt at
| making their devices economically repairable. What's the markup
| on the genuine(tm) sticker?
| jbaczuk wrote:
| Wow this is unlike Apple. Is this a result of some legal action
| or legislation?
| solarkraft wrote:
| Certainly. They're trying to get ahead of right to repair
| legislation.
| bzxcvbn wrote:
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2022/6988...
|
| Probably preempting this to avoid stricter regulations that
| would force them to do it regardless, along with other things
| they don't want. "See, we're already giving our customers the
| right to repair!"
| Gigachad wrote:
| They have had the parts available for the iPhone for a while
| now. The general consensus is that while the program is a good
| step forward, it isn't nearly good enough and all the parts
| that authorised repair stores wouldn't fix like charge ports or
| power buttons, is still not possible to fix.
| [deleted]
| depr wrote:
| It's so that they can claim people can repair their stuff,
| while making it more expensive than bringing it into an Apple
| store. Then they'll argue that nobody does this, so strong
| right-to-repair legislation is not necessary.
| paulmd wrote:
| Apple has claimed to operate the repairs division at a loss
| (this is likely separating things like applecare out as
| services, however).
|
| It's unsurprising that fixing an apple product with official
| apple tools with official apple parts costs something more
| than apple, given the claim.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Following the right to repair movement, Apple seems to only be
| providing coarse-granular self-repair, meaning that a large
| amount of small issues need expensive fixes. For instance,
| display cable broken due to normal wear -> replace entire
| display assembly @ ~50% of MSRP on an older model. Apple
| themselves are often doing the same thing when repairing in-
| house, replacing larger components and charging a premium. And
| why wouldn't they? Sure, they lose a bit to independent repair
| shops, but they win massively by having people buy new instead.
|
| In other words, democratizing the Apple-grade repairs is not
| enough, we need individual components to be replaceable, like
| with a car. Apple quite literally HUNT anyone selling those
| right now.
|
| This new stunt is an amazingly smart way of confusing
| legislators for a few years. It's even confusing tech
| enthusiasts. But apple is very much against proper
| repairability (like a car), no matter who does it.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| >Apple quite literally HUNT anyone selling those right now.
|
| This is just objectively not true. Apple only goes after
| people claiming to sell OEM parts because that's a trademark
| issue. You can sell 3rd party parts without any issues and
| Apple can't do anything about it.
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's what they seem to be talking about. If you want to
| buy replacement ICs from Texas Instruments, you can't.
| Apple won't let you order the parts from them, entirely
| because they want to monopolize the Macbook repair
| pipeline. Your only choice is buying sketchy third-party
| components, or risking damage by removing a similar part
| off a donor board. This is entirely a side effect of
| Apple's control over their supply chain, and it's 100% a
| conscious decision. The only word suitable for describing
| it is 'petty', but that seems to be the crux of most of
| Apple's business decisions recently.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Texas Instruments doesn't make those IC's available
| because the design is custom to Apple. TI is just
| manufacturing them. They're Apple parts so repair centers
| and customers need to go through Apple to get them.
| There's no incentive for anyone, Apple or otherwise, to
| allow people to buy parts directly from their vendor.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > They're Apple parts so repair centers and customers
| need to go through Apple to get them
|
| By that logic, Apple also has no reason to offer Self
| Service Repair for their Macbooks.
|
| Edit: FYI, self-service repair isn't through Apple at
| all. It's been outsourced to a different company, same as
| they did with iPhone repairs.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| You seem to have an issue with how logic works. Self-
| Service Repair is _through Apple_.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > But apple is very much against proper repairability (like a
| car), no matter who does it.
|
| Cars are extremely hard to repair for an increasing number of
| tasks.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Nod. I should've said how cars used to be. I used the
| analogy because it's a familiar mental model, worked well
| even for safety critical heavy machinery, and is the
| obvious way things should be.
| greedo wrote:
| Sure, we should just go back in time to when we had
| carburetors and simple fuses instead of CAN bus etc. Who
| needs modern tech in our cars (or computers).
|
| Sometimes the whole right to repair movement seems to be
| populated with luddites who just want to live with 1980's
| technology so they can enjoy turning a wrench.
| mrastro wrote:
| Maybe some. But a lot of the right to repair movement is
| just fighting companies like Apple or John Deere actively
| preventing tinkers and 3rd party repairers from fixing
| devices they supposedly own.
|
| Apple preventing computer repair folks from sharing
| blueprints and hardware locking some components are two
| examples.
| jhugo wrote:
| A lot of wear items on cars have been hard to repair for a
| long time. If we're judging "right to repair" by how easy
| it is to replace, say, a clutch on a front-wheel-drive car,
| I think computers are already ahead.
| redconfetti wrote:
| I wonder if they're afraid of losing the market to platforms
| like Frame.work.
| threeseed wrote:
| I think, like most people here, you are overestimating the
| demand for self-service.
|
| Most people are far too busy these days to be trying to fix
| their own device.
|
| And as someone who tried to fix a MacBook it requires a
| level of care, skill and confidence that is a step beyond
| most people.
| chromakode wrote:
| Doubtful. It'll be a while until Framework operates at a
| scale that even makes a blip on Apple's bottom line.
| Legislation could have a large and immediate impact on
| Apple.
|
| (I say this as a happy Framework laptop owner)
| jagger27 wrote:
| selectodude wrote:
| I remember when stealing peoples iPhones and iPods on the
| subway was affectionately referred to as "apple picking" by the
| perpetrators. iCloud locking has cut that down to almost
| nothing.
|
| Rather not go back to the "fun" old days.
| SahAssar wrote:
| Why do this for even phones not marked as stolen? The video
| even suggests having a "timeout" of only allowing a reset
| after 30 days of inactivity, at which point the original
| owner has gotten plenty of time to mark it as stolen.
| jagger27 wrote:
| The thing is that almost none of what I'm talking about are
| marked as stolen. They're just old devices bricked because
| they weren't removed from an account.
| selectodude wrote:
| Objectively, what is the difference? With no real
| information, how can you tell?
| jagger27 wrote:
| Objectively, the result is a mountain of e-waste.
|
| edit: and of course, "Mark as lost" is a separate thing
| from iCloud locking. That's the difference.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Thanks to the miracle of what is now called "Find My," I got
| to watch as my wife's newly stolen iPhone made its way from
| Rome to Tunisia. Unfortunately, in its early iterations, you
| could only locate an item, not take any action on that item.
|
| I suspect that wouldn't happen today, since I could now
| remotely lock the phone.
| raunak wrote:
| Such a strong pipeline of stolen Apple devices -> backdoor
| shady PC repair shops -> North Africa. I too got to watch
| my buddies iPhone's live journey. At least it was a bit
| entertaining.
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| > referred to as "apple picking" by the perpetrators
|
| There was a missed opportunity here to call it scrumping
|
| "To steal fruit, especially apples" -
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scrump
| sschueller wrote:
| Agreed, they should add a 30 day expiration and send people a
| reminder to set their device to stolen if they haven't done so
| yet (if it was actually stolen). If the device is lost give
| them the option to extend the auto removal of the lock. If by
| expiration of that time period and the device was not marked
| stolen it should be unlocked so that it doesn't become e-waste
| because someone forgot their password and reset their phone.
|
| Second Apple should provide a way to verify if a phone is
| locked to allow people who purchase phones on eBay to not get
| f'd. I see no reason for Apple not to provide this service
| again.
|
| Third, apple should to take back all phones that are marked as
| stolen and recycle, refurbish or whatever without compensating
| the person who brought it in.
| lstamour wrote:
| What if the stolen iPhone was your only way to access your
| email/iCloud? You might not be able to confirm it as stolen
| then.
|
| I do agree that e-waste can be a problem, but unlocking the
| iPhone seems trivially easy, and as noted in this article,
| the real problem is that when devices you own break, they
| might become very expensive paperweights (aka e-waste) as
| repairing them might cost more than the device is currently
| worth.
|
| And I believe Apple already has a program where they can
| recycle an iPhone back to spare parts without compensation as
| you describe.
| sschueller wrote:
| That small percentage of people who can't mark their phones
| as stolen is not zero but it's small enough for theives not
| to bother stealing a device which 9 out of 10 times is
| unusable. The upside however of being able to recover a non
| stolen phone is so much higher.
| status200 wrote:
| As someone who has repaired Apple devices over the years,
| swearing under my breath each time they put new hurdles in the
| way, it is so refreshing to see a full repair manual for my
| relatively new phone [0]. Lots of negativity in the comments but
| it is so relieving to see Apple change course and lift the
| curtain.
|
| Also adding to the anecdotes with my own: I have never needed a
| case for my phones or computers, and have barely even scratched
| the shell. I go on adventures for a good portion of the year and
| still manage to keep it intact, so i scratch my head when people
| say they break easily or that they always shatter their screen,
| it really seems to go beyond accidental damage and stray into
| carelessness.
|
| [0]
| https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2074/en_US/iph...
| boppo1 wrote:
| > I go on adventures for a good portion of the year and still
| manage to keep it intact, so i scratch my head when people say
| they break easily or that they always shatter their screen, it
| really seems to go beyond accidental damage and stray into
| carelessness.
|
| How often/ how much alcohol do you drink?
| fezfight wrote:
| Those negative comments are from the types of people who helped
| push the governments of the world to force Apple to do this.
| CivBase wrote:
| I'd have an easier time feeling relieved if the limited parts
| selection and prices weren't obviously calculated to make self-
| repair extremely undesirable. Not to mention you can't order a
| part until you've registered with Apple - ensuring third
| parties can't sock up on parts for quick in-store repairs.
|
| Parts availability and pricing wouldn't be so much of a problem
| if Apple would stop getting in the way of third parties
| replacing broken parts with with genuine OEM parts from donor
| devices, selling those parts themselves, and sharing schematics
| for component-level repairs. The vitality of the classic car
| community is an excellent example of how valuable the used
| parts market is to independent repair.
|
| It's a start and Apple deserves credit for taking a few steps
| in the right direction. But the limitations of this program
| highlight how it is obviously nothing more than ammunition for
| their lobbying efforts against the right-to-repair movement.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I mostly agree with your post, with one exception: Apple
| doesn't deserve any credit for doing this, since they only
| did it because the EU made them.
| soared wrote:
| Some people fumble things in their hands, it's not
| carelessness. Just differences between people, hand eye
| coordination, etc.
| paulmd wrote:
| anecdotally there are two kinds of people, the people who
| break their phone twice a year and the people who break one
| maybe every 10 years. It'd be really interesting to see a
| probability distribution function of failure rates.
| srk_hn wrote:
| That's really not a fair comparison. There are plenty of
| people who are elderly or dealing with disc injuries where
| they are prone to losing their grip or slipping a phone
| when moving about, picking it out of their pocket, etc.
|
| While you may be in good health, it's important to remember
| not everyone is the same and some people are dealing with a
| variety of issues.
| pythonaut_16 wrote:
| Parent comment seems more focused on the
| probability/distribution than in the reasons why.
|
| The anecdote seems true from my experience as well;
| people tend to either break their phones often or very
| rarely/not at all. Of course it could be that you are far
| more likely to take notice of someone breaking their
| phone if it happens often.
| josephcsible wrote:
| A lot of perfectly healthy teens and twentysomethings
| break two phones a year.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Yup. I got my first smartphone in 2010. In those 12 years,
| I've only cracked a single one, and there were extenuating
| circumstances.
|
| It was my Droid Turbo, which was known for having a
| shatter-proof screen. One of the things that helped achieve
| its durability was that the bezel actually had a lip around
| the screen, so if it got dropped, then the screen glass
| never took the impact.
|
| That changed once the battery had reached nearly 4 years of
| age and had started to swell, pushing the screen outside
| the bezel. Dropped it onto concrete and it got one crack
| across it.
|
| I replaced it with a Pixel 3, and then later a Pixel 6 Pro.
| I put cases on them, but they're thin TPU, and I use them
| mostly for being able to have a better grip, since the
| trend for phones now is a slick glass back which offers
| zero grip in your hand.
|
| I might just opt for a pop-socket on my next phone. To be
| honest, I rolled my eyes at them at first, but I realized
| it was just cynicism for hating popular things. They're
| actually quite nice for using your phone one-handed, and
| almost a must-have considering how big phones have gotten.
| r00fus wrote:
| Anecdote - my wife went through 3 iPhone screens in the
| course of 18 months due to dropped phones (6, 8, 8) but
| then she got a plus-sized iPhone and an otter box case and
| hasn't broken one in years.
| paulmd wrote:
| yup I think the "uses a case vs doesn't use a case" is a
| strong factor here. I've always used otterbox cases and
| never broken a phone - I've actually _broken one of the
| otterbox cases_ , but never the phone itself.
|
| And the one ipad I've broken, I broke one time when I
| took it out of a case for a bit and ended up taking a few
| weeks to put it back in...
| Tronno wrote:
| The glass back of my phone was smashed by a grocery store
| turnstile without ever leaving my pocket. Assigning user
| error all the time is a mistake - sometimes the product is
| just fragile.
| fortylove wrote:
| Yes, this. I have two kids and am always juggling different
| things. I have dry hands that are crusted from manual labor.
| They don't have the same kind of grip that they used to have.
| Between those two factors, I drop my phone at least once a
| week.
| JohnGB wrote:
| It's not as if Apple didn't do everything they could to not do
| this. They were forced kicking and screaming by the EU to do
| this, and now they are trying to take credit for doing it.
| MBCook wrote:
| So because they did it for the wrong reason we should ignore
| it and keep complaining?
|
| This is good.
|
| People can keep arguing for more. That's fair. But how is
| this a bad development in any way?
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Let Apple embrace this forced change. Let them squeeze as
| much money as they can out of doing the right thing. This is
| no time to be petty, it's win-win.
| fezfight wrote:
| It's not the right thing if its prohibitively expensive and
| inaccessible. The right thing is doing it without the
| inflated costs and expensive leased equipment. The right
| thing is not building your product in such a way as to
| require specialised equipment in the first place.
|
| This is effectively malicious compliance.
| kepler1 wrote:
| No specialized equipment? So an iPhone / Mac has to be
| repairable with a consumer Phillips head screwdriver?
| Full size? Or is a T6 screw allowed? How about glue?
|
| Who is to make the call about what specialized equipment
| and level of expense is ok enough by you? If people are
| buying the phones for the features they offer and the way
| they're constructed, and they offer a repair path, what
| do you suggest we do now, to satisfy your criteria?
| pzo wrote:
| For starter they could use 0.1mm thicker glue pads so
| that they won't break so easy. If anyone tried to change
| battery on iPhone then knows how easy they are to break
| then you have to resort to using dental floss or fishing
| line as an improvised saw to remove the battery.
|
| Seriously there is enough space to make it just 0.1mm
| thicker
| bradleybuda wrote:
| You can buy that phone. I don't want to, I'll keep buying
| the one they sell.
| kepler1 wrote:
| So, that's one part out of thousands. You're going to
| write up the 100 page list of all the considerations for
| how it has to be done, just for the iPhone? And that's
| going to be enacted into law/regulation?
| munk-a wrote:
| Why is Apple unable to make sane decisions about their
| product to make it legitimately repairable? Do we need to
| result to specific laws for every common sense thing?
| kepler1 wrote:
| If common sense ruled us, we wouldn't need any laws.
| Maybe you're not thinking about how laws and regulations
| work, but they usually require specific wording and
| criteria to be laid out so that
| companies/people/governments know what is ok to do, and
| what is not ok to do. What criteria are they to be held
| in legal jeopardy for not following?
|
| So are you proposing that you simply tell companies to
| use "good design principles and sane decisions" and leave
| it at that? It's up to their interpretation? How does
| that get us something different from what we have today,
| and how could you say they didn't follow that regulation
| then? "We did use good and sane design principles that
| are repairable."
|
| If you can't say what rules (words and details) govern
| what you want to happen, how can you pass a law that gets
| people to do what you want?
| threeseed wrote:
| It is legitimately repairable now since they and third
| parties are doing it en masse.
| josephcsible wrote:
| No pentalobe screws that they own the patent to and use
| to prohibit third parties from making screwdrivers for.
| r3012 wrote:
| You can buy one here:
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/P2-Pentalobe-
| Screwdriver-...
| munk-a wrote:
| Cool - philips head would also just be nice since pretty
| much everyone has one of those.
|
| Also - it might be nice if Apple allowed competitors to
| manufacture pentalobe screwdrivers themselves.
| threeseed wrote:
| Phillips head are genuinely terrible. Pentalobe and
| similar are far less likely to have stripped heads.
|
| And maybe check Amazon before saying Apple is preventing
| third party screwdrivers. There are hundreds there.
| kepler1 wrote:
| So, no technology that others own the patent/license to
| is allowed to be incorporated into any product?
| munk-a wrote:
| I don't think you're arguing from a good place - specific
| concerns have been called out about pretty specific
| design flaws from Apple. Instantly upgrading those
| criticisms to a full generalization about all components
| in the phone doesn't feel particularly constructive.
|
| Do I think that Apple shouldn't use some proprietary
| thermal paste to mount their heatsinks? I don't really
| care and I don't think anyone here does either - but the
| tools to get general access to the device body are a
| different matter... they're necessary for a wide range of
| relatively simple repair operations.
| kepler1 wrote:
| I think your argument is not from a well-thought-out
| place, and I'm pointing out how it will not work unless
| you have some principles about what laws will govern the
| companies to be able to follow.
|
| What rules that companies can follow and be strictly held
| liable for, do you propose be published?
|
| If you cannot propose specific and concrete do-this/do-
| not-do-that rules, you do not have a law that you can
| implement. "No parts that require a licensed and
| proprietary tool may be used?" What potential rule
| addresses the pentalobe screw issue you've raised? What
| words would you put in a law to lay that out?
| krnlpnc wrote:
| I've taken apart various macs using screwdrivers,
| spudgers, and plastic pry tools.
|
| The most awkward was a plastic pizza cutter designed to
| cut the adhesive backing of the screen.
|
| It's really not _that_ hard, but very happy to see it
| getting easier.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > The right thing is not building your product in such a
| way as to require specialised equipment in the first
| place.
|
| A product like this would not be popular because it would
| be thicker, heavier, and have worse specs.
| fezfight wrote:
| Since we've seen it done elsewhere, you'd need to
| probably show or at least explain where/how it can't be
| done for Apple.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think it's a tall order to argue that worse performance
| is a necessary requirement of repairability and height
| and weight are constantly obsessed over but very few
| people I've met actually care about it (and a fair number
| like the Mac interface but would be happy to trade height
| for keyboard improvements).
| jchw wrote:
| That sounds like a picture perfect argument for industry-
| wide regulation. People don't want thicker phones, but if
| it must be done, then the market should compete to do it
| at the lowest overall cost.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| I wonder what people would say if it was Microsoft or
| Amazon on the exact same position.
| [deleted]
| xyst wrote:
| > Apple announced Self Service Repair will be available tomorrow
| for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks with the M1 family of
| chips,
|
| No M2 support? Also, no support for Intel based Macs? Seems like
| lip service to me.
|
| Although on the bright side, at least Apple is making an effort
| in the past 1-2 years towards repairability. Would be better if
| they pull their opposition for "right to repair".
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Seems like lip service to me
|
| I think that would invalidate the warranty. You need to use
| your hands.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| Only if they can prove that your lipservice caused the damage
| in question, which should be avoidable with the use of
| antistatic lipstick and regular blotting to ensure the lips
| are suitably dry.
| dwaite wrote:
| The repair program is operated through a third party; products
| in active production with available OEM repair parts is
| possibly the criteria, and they may be rolling this out on a
| product-by-product basis in terms of producing comprehensive
| end-user DIY instructions and processes.
|
| A M2 Mac isn't out of warranty yet, making self-repair more
| costly for all but a few non-covered instances (e.g. liquid
| damage, screen drop). For this reason, I would expect newer
| Intel Macs to be supported before the M2.
| ericmay wrote:
| I don't forsee Intel support, but M2 support will come. They're
| just slowly rolling this out.
|
| > Would be better if they pull their opposition for "right to
| repair".
|
| But then you'd be in the same position you are now with Apple
| where you'd just get the individual parts and fuck your
| computer up.
|
| Though maybe they should pull their opposition (if indeed they
| are opposed to this for no good reason) so then companies would
| have to support the right to repair products like dSLR cameras,
| TVs and computer monitors, Nintendo Switches, and Samsung
| mobile phones. I think this would be a nice little market
| advantage for Apple since these companies are fucking terrible
| at support for products beyond "send it in". Can you imagine
| Google trying to support repairing a Chromebook? Though I think
| what you'd find is just more throw-away electronics because a
| screen for a Chromebook individually purchased and sent to you
| will probably cost half as much as a new one. Good for the
| environment there.
|
| Another thing I wonder about is should we treat personal
| electronics differently? There's a lot of focus on them but
| most are cheap and disposable. I think there's significant
| issues with manufacturing or industrial scale products like the
| infamous John Deere tractors that you can't fix yourself.
| wishfish wrote:
| My niece broke the screen on her dirt cheap Chromebook. A
| Samsung Chromebook 3. I bought her a new screen for about $30
| and was able to replace it myself in about 5 minutes after
| watching a short Youtube howto.
|
| The Lenovo Chromebook 3 seems to be similar. I bought one
| during the recent $79 sale. Was curious if I could DIY an
| upgrade to an IPS screen. Found some screens that looked like
| a good fit for around $40 and the screen is easily user
| serviceable. There's many videos on how to fix various
| aspects of this ultra cheap laptop, and Lenovo has an easily
| downloaded service manual.
| ericmay wrote:
| Then what's the issue? Apparently we already have right to
| repair in practice. Or is specifically that people want to
| be able to do this with Macbooks and iPhones? Vote with
| your wallet then.
| wishfish wrote:
| I was responding to your mention of Chromebooks and how
| expensive you thought they would be to fix. And also
| because I thought it was interesting that these two very
| cheap gadgets were easily fixable. I guess since the main
| customers for these cheap laptops are schools, they'd
| have to be repairable. School budgets would almost
| mandate their hardware acquisitions be cheaply repairable
| instead of having to replace the entire unit. Especially
| when they hand these things out to accident prone kids.
|
| But we don't have right to repair across the board. Would
| be nice if manufacturers took this into account.
| ericmay wrote:
| To nitpick a bit I was more so criticizing what I
| envision Google's _support_ for repairing these devices
| to be. More from an infrastructure /customer support
| perspective. I did mention that these devices were
| inexpensive and I would guess that for most people they'd
| prefer to throw the device away instead of repair it
| given our current cultural climate.
|
| Now I do not have a lot of experience fixing devices, I
| tend to use and then either gift old devices to family
| members or recycle them, but I am curious about how much
| more repairable one of these devices is compared to, say,
| a new Macbook Pro. Also I wonder if current state is
| indicative of future state. For all we know Apple might
| make repair and upgrade of devices a top priority.
| Certainly they're showing some serious movement here in
| my opinion.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Not enough. Right to repair should be mandated by law,
| because throwing away perfectly good hardware damages
| _our_ planet, so it is not just a matter of the money
| exchanged between the producer and the customer.
| ericmay wrote:
| Then don't throw away your hardware? The person I'm
| responding to didn't. Would you also mandate recycling?
| I'd certainly support that. I'm just not sure what a
| right to repair law is addressing here that's different
| than what's currently happening. I would hypothesize that
| mandatory recycling would go further in effect than right
| to repair.
| threeseed wrote:
| > Then don't throw away your hardware?
|
| No you see the world is black or white.
|
| So either you can repair it yourself or it has to be
| thrown out.
|
| Definitely no way to take it to Apple or a third party
| repairer to have it fixed.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > Can you imagine Google trying to support repairing a
| Chromebook?
|
| iFixit has Chromebook guides. Hobbyist communities and niche
| boutique repair shops arise to fit the needs.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Search?query=chromebook
| ericmay wrote:
| They have them for Macs and iPhones too, and there are a
| lot of device repair shops for their products.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook_Pro
| jozzy-james wrote:
| unless google recently bought out ifixit, not seeing the
| relevance to the statement
| [deleted]
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I wonder what the possible reason could be to not sell OEM
| batteries for non M processor MacBook Airs.
|
| It is just a screwdriver and a replacement battery. And they do
| it themselves for a large fee, so they have the supply of
| batteries.
| GeckoEidechse wrote:
| Planned obsolescence? Batteries are consumables, so once it's
| dead the consumer is essentially forced to buy a new model.
| kube-system wrote:
| Apple will replace batteries on MacBooks up to 10 years
| old.
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple replaces batteries for a very affordable price
| compared to third parties.
|
| https://www.apple.com/batteries/service-and-recycling/
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, and they charge $129 to remove some screws, unplug
| an old battery, and plug in a new battery. So why do they
| not give people the option to just buy a battery, if they
| are doing all these self service repair rollouts.
| threeseed wrote:
| That $129 includes verifying it actually works and
| providing warranty if it fails.
| [deleted]
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The point is they are going through this song and dance
| of selling parts directly to customers, but have excluded
| extremely easily replacement batteries.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Unfortunately no support for previous gen Intel machines. The
| ones that were notorious for keyboard failures. Guess that means
| my keyboard will never work again.
| threeseed wrote:
| iFixit has keyboards available if you want to repair it
| yourself.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Parts/MacBook_Pro/Keyboards
| jmillikin wrote:
| https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n...
|
| The page says it applies for "4 years after the first retail
| sale", but in practice they seem willing to replace covered
| models older than the cutoff. If you've got broken keys, might
| as well take it in to see if they'll replace the keyboard for
| free.
| amelius wrote:
| Does it mean we can now get individual M1 chips from Apple?
| nesk_ wrote:
| I don't think it will ever happen, they are sold to the
| motherboard and their efficiency probably depends on that.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| That'd be fairly standard with laptop CPUs in general as far
| as I know. Apple barely sells any actual desktops too (e.g.
| mac mini is really just a laptop build with some extra
| ports).
| [deleted]
| api wrote:
| It would be hard to use such a chip since it's so customized
| for Apple hardware, and it's likely only available in BGA(?) or
| similarly consumer-unfriendly manufacturing oriented packaging.
|
| I would really love to see an ARM64 ecosystem similar to what
| exists for PC hardware with motherboards and chips and other
| parts available. The chip for that would probably be the
| Graviton or something similar, and apparently that chip is
| being sold to other vendors including high-end router vendors
| like Mikrotik.
|
| Unfortunately I do think the M1 beats the crap out of the
| graviton in at least single core performance, but I think
| that's because the M1 is optimized for fewer beefier cores for
| desktop work loads where single threaded performance matters
| more. Graviton is mostly for cloud and other applications where
| most work loads are highly multithreaded or multi-tenant.
| maven29 wrote:
| Isn't this what the RPi4 and other single board computers
| have already accomplished? They even support UEFI, ACPI and
| other modern amenities as certified through the SystemReady
| program. You have socketed peripherals through the compute
| modules as well.
| api wrote:
| I guess to some extent. I'm talking about the extension of
| this into higher-end ARM systems which still seem largely
| bespoke and proprietary.
| maven29 wrote:
| The Ampere Altra Developer Platform might be the closest
| you will get for now.
|
| Although you might have to go into debt trying to procure
| one - it's probably a low volume product with debug
| interfaces that isn't cost-engineered in the slightest.
| jandrese wrote:
| Apple isn't going to supply bare M1 chips. They may let you buy
| a replacement mainboard for basically the price of a new laptop
| though.
| oneplane wrote:
| Highly unlikely considering it also contains the secure enclave
| and considering it's PKI-based security you will only ever get
| chips that are matched to a serial number. Pretty much the same
| way Intel chips are matched to Intel PCHs using the CPU ROM.
| You can of course get the PCH and the CPU from Intel, but
| you'll never get the firmware to load on them unless you're a
| mainboard manufacturer.
|
| Considering the secure enclave is also used for data
| encryption, anti-theft and machine identification to APIs like
| iMessage, it's probably not a good idea to have them available
| on the open market in manufacturing mode anyway (unless someone
| comes up with a smart way to have PKI while also having free-
| for-all).
| immmmmm wrote:
| the problem is more often in some specific chips that burn all
| the time (USB-C, battery controller), are rather cheap, and are
| un-available because Apple (and others) forbid the manufacturer
| to sell those separately.
|
| there are plenty of videos of Louis Rossmann on this issue last
| years, if one of those 1$ chip burn the whole motherboard is
| good for the bin. the "good" news is that there will be a
| supply of M1 chips from these boards, if BGA (un)soldering is
| your thing.
| goosedragons wrote:
| No it probably means that with a valid M1 Mac serial number you
| can buy the entire logic board for $800.
| Twisell wrote:
| TL DR for comments: Apple damned if it does and damned if it
| doesn't
| EugeneOZ wrote:
| Sounds good, but for now that store they provide only has
| "iPhone" in the list of supported products.
|
| I hope I'll be able to purchase a new battery for my wife's M1
| Air (without buying the whole top case).
| cromka wrote:
| I was told at Apple Service that replacing the battery in M1+
| generation laptops no longer requires replacing the whole case.
| Specifically I also have M1 Air and was told that battery is
| easily replaceable. Waiting for that one myself, too.
| mrpippy wrote:
| Aa the link says, the Mac program doesn't start till tomorrow
| mihaitodor wrote:
| > Apple will offer rental kits for $49, so that customers who do
| not want to purchase tools for a single repair still have access
| to these professional repair tools. Customers will have access to
| the tool kit for one week and it will be shipped free of charge.
|
| Shipping isn't free. It's just included in the cost. Wish it was
| possible to force companies to stop using bullshit marketing
| tactics.
| CGamesPlay wrote:
| Eh, I prefer to see one upfront total cost than a bunch of
| smaller fees that only appear later and later in the checkout
| flow.
| mihaitodor wrote:
| It also implies that you get no benefit from picking it up
| yourself from their shop. I might be tempted to check out
| some of their other products if I feel incentivised to drop
| by.
| tpmoney wrote:
| You can't pick it up at the apple store yourself. They're
| not stocking these kits in the retail stores, its online
| only
| mihaitodor wrote:
| I'm based in Europe, where it's more popular to go and
| pick stuff up from a physical store. Maybe they should
| consider having such an option in some countries, but
| this is a different issue.
| solardev wrote:
| ...this is really what you're upset about?
| dymk wrote:
| Apple is doing pretty good if this is what people are
| reaching to complain about
| mihaitodor wrote:
| Yep. They could've simply used "shipping included" or any
| other honest phrasing.
| solardev wrote:
| _shrug_ I guess we all have our pet peeves.
| jeromegv wrote:
| It just means that they don't charge an extra fee for shipping.
| Of course the cost is included, just like the cost of employee
| time to design products is also part of the cost and not
| something we need to disclose.
| mihaitodor wrote:
| But that's not the same as saying it's "free".
| shagie wrote:
| It is included in the cost. It is not going to change based
| on location. It is not going to be a surprise fee tacked on
| (c.f. airline booking). Additionally, as it is something
| that is incorporated into the cost of the service it isn't
| something that can be removed if some later legislation
| says that repair kits must be shipped free.
| mihaitodor wrote:
| Yeah, but "included in the cost" is not the same as
| saying "it's free", which I guess is what you're also
| saying.
| sbuk wrote:
| To all intents and purposes, yes, it is. You're naive if
| think anyone offering "free" delivery hasn't factored it
| into the overall pricing.
|
| Typo: s/has/hasn't/
| mihaitodor wrote:
| Please enlighten me. How can a shipping service be free
| and why do you think I'm naive to assume that they
| bundled the shipping cost in the service fee?
| sbuk wrote:
| I had a typo - should read "hasn't factored" and not "has
| factored".
| httpz wrote:
| I tried replacing a broken speaker on my old Macbook Pro. I
| followed a very detailed guide from ifixit and it involved
| removing the motherboard, disconnecting 7 different ribbon
| cables, and keeping track of the exact location of 30 different
| screws of various sizes.
|
| I've done a fair share of self-repair on various laptops and
| smartphones I owned and this was by far the scariest one. It
| didn't seem like something an average person can pull off easily.
| sircastor wrote:
| I can't help but think that no average person fixes their own
| laptop these days. And for that matter, I'd say that the
| average person doesn't change their own oil anymore either.
| CivBase wrote:
| I think those are both true but for very different reasons.
|
| The competition for oil changes has become so intense that
| there's basically no profit margin on it. People can have
| their oil changed "professionally" for so little cost over
| doing it themselves that it's just not worth bothering.
| Professionals do oil changes to get customers in the door and
| hopefully upsell them.
|
| Meanwhile, consumer electronics repair has so many barriers
| to entry that it's usually just easier to cut your losses and
| buy a replacement or pay the exorbitant prices demanded by
| manufacturers.
| pacetherace wrote:
| Even in the past, most people who had the courage to open up
| their laptops, would do minor repairs like
| replacing/upgrading RAM, HDD, etc.
| JohnGB wrote:
| That's because those laptops were specifically designed to not
| be easily repairable. The new ones are complying with EU
| regulations, and so are easier to repair.
| dmix wrote:
| They were designed to be as small as possible, which
| sacrificed internal access. I doubt they purposefully made
| repairablity difficult. It just wasn't a major factor when
| 90% of the time they just give you a new laptop when you show
| up at Apple with a broken one (with a warranty or Apple+).
| user3939382 wrote:
| > I doubt they purposefully made repairablity difficult
|
| I'm more cynical of Apple since they started doing things
| like soldering in RAM connections on the Mini totally
| unnecessarily.
| saagarjha wrote:
| What about "the RAM is on-package" strikes you as being
| unnecessary?
| acdha wrote:
| What makes you think it was unnecessary? Sockets are good
| for expansion but they increase failure rates and the
| extra distance increases latency so losing it is one
| thing helping push unified SoC performance.
| user3939382 wrote:
| They did it to prevent people from upgrading the RAM, and
| instead having to buy an entirely new machine.
| threeseed wrote:
| Would add to the other comments that having sockets
| increases the thickness of the device.
|
| Now you can argue that you wouldn't make this trade-off
| but for others including myself it is the right decision.
| For most people, including professionals, RAM is no
| longer the bottleneck for system performance.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I don't think the Mac Mini's case has gotten any thinner
| in spite of having soldered RAM. The M1 says it's 3.6cm
| thick, while my old intel mini is 3cm exactly, in spite
| of having socketed DIMMs (I upgraded it to 32GB, which
| was slightly harder than I expected, but manageable).
| kepler1 wrote:
| That's a pretty bold claim, to say that a company had the
| motivation to purposely make it difficult to repair. What
| support do you have for that statement?
|
| And what support do you have on your claim that any EU rule
| has mandated an approach to make something easier to repair
| that has made Apple (or any other company) change the way
| they design their hardware?
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