[HN Gopher] Apple's iPhone 14 Redesign for Repair
___________________________________________________________________
Apple's iPhone 14 Redesign for Repair
Author : walterbell
Score : 594 points
Date : 2022-09-19 15:15 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ifixit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ifixit.com)
| crisdux wrote:
| Totally speculating here. I wonder if this is preparing for a
| future where Apple encounters supply issues or pricing pressure
| caused by environmental and political turmoil. I could see the
| average lifespan of devices continuing to increase and more
| people using repair services. It also makes it easier to refurb
| devices for second hand use.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Now is probably a good time because it seems like there is less
| pressure for new features. Apple is so far ahead of the rest
| right now that they can afford to release almost exactly the
| same phone a second time and it wont hurt.
| hedgehog wrote:
| This design isn't more resilient vs supply chain problems in
| any obvious way but my guess is the next iPhone SE will be a
| derivative of the iPhone 14. Lowering repair costs paves the
| way to Apple offering leased phones and is directly aligned
| with a shift towards services revenue.
| greyhair wrote:
| From the text of the article:
|
| "Every Android phone opens from the back."
|
| I have replaced screens an a couple different models of Motorola
| phones, and the screens popped off the front. Just looking at my
| Pixel 5a, the screen clearly pops off the front.
|
| This wouldn't bother me as much, except it is on the ifixit web
| site, which posts videos on screens repairs, that clearly show
| any number of Android phones being opened from the front.
|
| Disappointing mistake, coming from ifixit.
| [deleted]
| beckman466 wrote:
| why don't we just open source everything and use peer-to-peer
| software for a new type of digital networked resource accounting
| to replace money and privately-owned resource planning (ERP)
| software that is used today to produce imperialism.
| webmobdev wrote:
| It's good to see Apple behaving and recognising the momentum the
| Rights to Repair movement has got globally in the last few years
| (especially in the large market of EU, and now picking up in
| Asia). But I think iFixit has been too generous in giving the
| iPhone 14 a repairability score of 7 out of 10 when Apple still
| places additional unwanted hurdles and control through software:
|
| > _We are hearing reports that Apple is continuing their hostile
| path of pairing parts to the phone, requiring activation of the
| back glass after installation. You really shouldn't need Apple's
| permission to install a sheet of glass on a phone that you
| already own. Using software to prevent the use of aftermarket
| parts gets a big thumbs down from us. These locks are frustrating
| and ultimately futile--Apple simply can't control all the repairs
| that happen with their products, no matter how hard they try._
| grumpycamel wrote:
| If Apple allows super easy salvage of another device for parts,
| I wonder if phones will start to be stolen again. Easy salvage
| might create an unacceptably wide-spread life-safety risk to
| ALL smartphone owners.
|
| Tradeoffs, unintended consequences.
| webmobdev wrote:
| > _Easy salvage might create an unacceptably wide-spread
| life-safety risk to ALL smartphone owners._
|
| Yeah, it'll be the end of the world if an iPhone is
| disassembled and its parts sold worldwide! /s
|
| If preventing theft was the real goal behind requiring
| software activation for repairs, then Apple can simply
| display a warning to the user that a replaced part is stolen
| and to inform the police. The real reason for this anti-
| repair feature is to ensure that iDevice users are forced to
| buy Apple care, are forced to buy parts from Apple at
| artificially inflated prices and to prevent them from
| sourcing cheaper parts from elsewhere. When I buy an iPhone,
| I own it. If I want to replace a part in it with a non-
| genuine non-apple spare part it is my right to do so, and
| Apple doesn't have any right to prevent me from doing so.
| jhickok wrote:
| Agreed, but in this example they specifically cite the glass.
| Does seem like you should be able to replace glass without
| phoning in to Apple in some manner.
| reisse wrote:
| Life-safety? Seriously? It's gun control and law enforcement
| problem, not the one of easy salvaging. Y'know, it's hard to
| imagine that someone in Europe or most of the Asia would be
| robbing at gunpoint for the smartphone.
|
| Risk/reward just does not match - it'll be most likely few
| years or even probation for simple robbery with good ol'
| bats, and tens of years for robbing at gunpoint, a good part
| of it from illegal firearms possession. Not to mention that
| actual murder for smartphone will move it much closer to life
| sentence.
| spideymans wrote:
| >Life-safety? Seriously? It's gun control and law
| enforcement problem, not the one of easy salvaging. Y'know,
| it's hard to imagine that someone in Europe or most of the
| Asia would be robbing at gunpoint for the smartphone.
|
| Yeah, instead you'd be robbed at knifepoint. And if not at
| knifepoint, then by using any serious of improvised
| weapons.
| 0x38B wrote:
| A knife scares me far more than a gun up close, as a
| sharp knife causes massive damage to tissue and internal
| organs, while many are shot by pistols and live.
| cududa wrote:
| Well I mean it also cuts down on their repair costs quite
| substantially. Repairing anything but the front screen has been
| a nightmare since the iPhone 8
| webmobdev wrote:
| Not if I am forced to buy the parts from Apple or they stop
| providing it. The real goal behind this anti-repair feature
| is to prevent users from sourcing parts from elsewhere and
| using it to repair their device. If Apple decides to support
| a device for only 5 years, you will no longer be able to
| repair your device once Apple stops distributing the parts.
| This anti-repair feature prevents you from using other
| compatible (non apple) parts on your phone (which, by the way
| are often much cheaper than Apple's artificially inflated
| prices to force you to buy Apple care).
| spideymans wrote:
| >The real goal
|
| Rather bold of you to assume that you understand the
| motivations behind any of the decisions within the Apple
| organization.
| joshfraser wrote:
| Now if they would just get rid of those hideous camera bumps. Why
| not make the phone a millimeter thicker and fill the extra space
| with battery?
| dcre wrote:
| More like 3-5mm, or half the thickness of the phone. Which
| answers the question. (They're a lot bigger on the 14 than on
| my 12.)
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| I find my iPhone 13 Pro to be heavy as it is, I don't want the
| phones to become heavier.
| atestu wrote:
| I'm with you except making the battery bigger would make it
| heavier and I think my 13 Pro is pretty heavy already...
| fckgw wrote:
| It would be like 50% thicker, it's not an insignificant size
| difference.
| [deleted]
| postalrat wrote:
| Now just put a usb-c port on the phone and allow me to use any
| web browser.
| Spivak wrote:
| Web browsers, like communism, is a red herring. There would be
| absolutely no point to using alternative browser engines on an
| iPhone unless they got super special second party access. Not
| being able to run any downloaded code, no JIT, or extensions
| would make them useless, and allowing those things effectively
| breaks the iOS security model. Most obviously with screen time,
| and parental control, but Apple also disables their JIT in
| lockdown mode.
|
| I think the sanest compromise would be adopting Firefox,
| Chrome, and/or Edge as second party browsers. I guess we will
| see what happens in 2024 because I doubt it will be opening the
| floodgates.
| postalrat wrote:
| Apples own browser downloads code that can download more code
| that itself can download even more code before finally
| executing the last bit of code.
|
| The technology to secure it surely already exists or ios
| devices are already insecure.
| Spivak wrote:
| Apple's own code also implements all the security of the
| device. The mechanism Apple has to run arbitrary untrusted
| code on the device is their JavaScript engine. Whatever you
| want to replace JSC with, like V8, isn't the thing that's
| constrained by the sandbox, it's the thing that implements
| the sandbox.
|
| Everyone who's like "just sandbox it" -- yeah that's
| exactly what JSC is for.
| postalrat wrote:
| What protects an ios user from a malicious app? Just the
| agreement the app developer made with apple?
| Spivak wrote:
| Sorta kinda, iOS apps are jailed using all the normal
| stuff you might find in a hardened Linux distribution but
| there isn't a system in the whole wide world that is
| confident that these kinds of jails are sufficient to
| safely run arbitrary untrusted code. This is half the
| reason Firecracker exists on Linux because
| containerization just isn't enough. Hence why it's only
| allowed to run actually sandboxed in the JavaScript VM
| and even then the JIT makes it not airtight. This is how
| past Jailbreak exploits worked.
|
| Like we're talking about code running in a VM completely
| isolated from the host system but has one teeeeny tiny
| escape hatch, a _single_ WX page used by the JIT and that
| has been exploited multiple times.
| randomdata wrote:
| Web browsers could be given super special access or some
| other suitable sandbox. We know how to do it, even if it
| comes with some tradeoffs.
|
| Communism is a thought experiment about how people might
| organize if we ever achieved post-scarcity. We haven't yet
| figured out how to achieve post-scarcity. We have absolutely
| no idea how to do it, if it is possible at all.
|
| Quite different.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I don't understand how it's not possible to just sandbox all
| of that in iOS, like you would on desktop.
| post_break wrote:
| Not just USB C, but USB C 3.1 or higher. If they put USB C 2.0
| I'll rage.
| daxelrod wrote:
| It would make sense for Apple to tout a replacement connector
| as being faster, so I'd imagine they would go above the USB
| 3.0 that Lightning is capable of.
| skunkworker wrote:
| They should just do Thunderbolt 3 on the iPhone 15 and rename
| it the iPhone T1 (thunderbolt/titanium etc).
|
| With the way cameras are going and the use of iPad external
| docks, it would be a pretty great ultimate mobile device.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Apple Care + is going to become an insane profit center and an
| absolute no brainer when purchasing a new Apple device.
|
| This puts Apple's recent "no limit to accidental repairs" policy
| update in perspective. When I saw that I said, "well I guess this
| is how they are going to use their cash reserves, because no way
| will this be net profitable"
|
| To boot, I always wondered why it was so cheap - $200 for AC+
| then $29 per screen or back replacement. When considering the
| employee time and equipment, that's absolutely a loss.
|
| As someone that just wants good things in the world, this makes
| my heart flutter. It's wonderfully aligned with customers and
| does good for the bottom line.
|
| Sorry to all my fellow repair brethren still slogging it out
| there. Accuse me of being a fanboy - but this is amazing.
|
| [Edit]: This may potentially eat into the phone case market as
| well. The feel of a bare iPhone is that much better _and_ you can
| put the cost of the case toward AC+.
| usaphp wrote:
| Hmm, my apple care for iPhone is $6/mo. So it's just $72/year
| not $200
| hot_gril wrote:
| $200 per year plus $30 per repair is still a lot. How often do
| you smash your phone?
|
| Generally insurance is never positive-EV for the buyer unless
| peace of mind is considered, and to that I say, it's cheaper to
| find peace with the risk of breaking your phone.
| joshmanders wrote:
| > How often do you smash your phone?
|
| So little that the 1 time it could happen in the 2 years of
| AppleCare makes it pay for itself.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Once every 2 years is kind of a lot.
| [deleted]
| babypuncher wrote:
| In 13 years of using smartphones, I've needed exactly one out-
| of-warranty screen repair. And I don't even use a case. Not
| buying AppleCare+ has definitely saved me money.
|
| I can't see how Apple really loses money on this move unless
| people just start throwing their $1,000 pocket computers on the
| ground.
| mkagenius wrote:
| Maybe not for iphones, but macbooks have a habit of dying on
| me. My 10 day old macbook pro's logic board died and the
| replacement new macbook's palm rest started giving clicking
| sound within 10 days again. How can i be so unlucky. Apple
| certainly is overlooking QC with macbooks.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I qualified my statement with "out of warranty". I have had
| to take <12 month old devices that had defects crop up and
| have them repaired, but those repairs were free and did not
| require me to have AppleCare+.
|
| A logic board randomly dying 10 days after purchase would
| certainly be covered under the factory warranty.
| mkagenius wrote:
| What I wanted to convey with the extreme examples was
| that macbooks die more often due to QC issue or
| something. They have died after the first year of
| warranty thrice on me.
|
| Due to this it is certainly mandatory to buy applecare+
| for macbooks. I have not used iphones after the 5s so
| can't comment on that but it seems they have less problem
| than Macs.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Commercial repairmen are already pretty quick with repairs, if
| this make repairs easier, they will make more money as well.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Most people surely are not going to use it so how is it going
| to be a loss? Do people actually break their iphones every
| year?
| sp332 wrote:
| Apple Care only costs $200 per phone. One person replacing a
| $1,000 phone wipes out five people's worth of revenue.
| Gigachad wrote:
| $1000 is the retail price. It costs less for Apple to give
| a replacement.
| kccqzy wrote:
| You can even pay it monthly, which probably costs $9.99 per
| month. Anecdote: I was on my seventh monthly payment when I
| accidentally smashed unassembled IKEA furniture on my phone
| at an IKEA store and broke the entire back glass and
| cameras. The technician noticed small cracks on the screen
| too that didn't actually bother me, but bothered him enough
| to swap the entire device.
| eastbound wrote:
| Phones are automatically dismounted in a special factory.
| It doesn't cost $1000.
| hot_gril wrote:
| It doesn't cost Apple $1000 to make a new phone, but they
| miss out on $1000 of revenue if that person would
| otherwise buy a new iPhone.
|
| But maybe the person doesn't buy a new one. The cost of
| the consumer replacing a years-old iPhone is the used
| price. Personally I would never buy a used iPhone from
| eBay or something anymore, since there are too many
| gotchas with SIM locking and whatnot, but Apple also
| sells older models at a discounted price.
| shuntress wrote:
| I think you are forgetting about everyone who pays for "Peace
| of Mind" and never breaks their phone.
| layer8 wrote:
| So far, not buying AC+ has had better amortized cost for me.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Until it doesn't. I also gamble with this because I've never
| damaged my phone ever and I've had an iPhone since the OG.
| I'm not under any delusion, though, that this streak will
| last forever. I think I would currently need to
| damage/replace my phone twice to come out in the negative but
| that's still a possibility. I've been extremely careful
| and/or lucky.
| layer8 wrote:
| I damage my phone every couple of years. So it happens, but
| not frequently enough to warrant AC+.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| That doesn't mean that everyone has the same experience
| as you, though. All it takes is for you to damage your
| device 1 more time than usual for it to be worth it.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Yeah but Apple has probably found that on average the
| insurance isn't worth buying, otherwise they wouldn't
| offer it at this price. I guess it's worth buying if you
| know you're gonna break your phone even more frequently
| than the average AppleCare+ user does (which is likely
| more than the average iPhone user), but those $30 fees
| and the waiting time to repair a phone aren't free.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| AppleCare has always been a loss for Apple. The entire
| repair division is a loss for them. They don't make a
| profit from repairs. This update is partially marketing
| spin but, for a lot of users, it was worth buying before
| and is now even more of a value. If you look at the
| things that Apple prioritizes, they want to
| disincentivize self-repair because any quality variations
| reflect on them whether they did the repair or not.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Do you have a source for this? AppleCare+ for a MacBook
| Air is $250. You can get a 4 year 3rd party extended
| warranty for a similarly priced laptop off Amazon for
| $170. Presumably they make money off this but don't have
| advantages that Apple does like at cost repair parts.
|
| Are Apple products such garbage or so hard to repair that
| shorter more expensive warranties lose money? Seriously?
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Yes. You can look at every earnings statement they've
| released for the last 10 years or so. There are also
| articles that made a stink about it a while ago. Here's
| one but there are plenty more like it:
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-
| repair...
| dkonofalski wrote:
| 3rd party extended warranties don't work the same way as
| the repair program. With a 3rd party warranty, they don't
| have to fix it with an equal part and they can also swap
| out the machine for a refurbished one.
| hot_gril wrote:
| A swap sounds like it'd cost them more than it costs
| Apple to repair it.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Not if they're swapping with a machine that they
| refurbished. They can keep swapping them ad infinitum.
| That's what Asurion does with cell phone warranty claims.
| You pay a $150 deductible and you get a refurbished phone
| in exchange. They fix the part that was broken on your
| phone that you're returning to them and it gets refurbed
| to the next person.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I don't buy that Apple repairs are a loss given that
| third-party repairs can still be profitable at lower
| prices, but even if they are, it doesn't mean AppleCare
| is a loss vs making users pay per repair.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Here you go:
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-
| repair...
| hot_gril wrote:
| It's not clear there what counts towards the revenue and
| towards costs, since third-party repair shops are
| involved. I want to know if one user taking a phone to
| Apple for repair costs them more than the user pays, and
| they don't really say, nor is it a simple answer with all
| the fixed costs and shared resources involved (like,
| stores have footprints, and geniuses do other stuff too).
| Third-party repair shops are a much simpler situation
| since they _only_ repair stuff, and at moderate scale.
| They 're somehow profitable on their own, unless Apple is
| subsidizing them.
|
| Also, the title is from Apple's PR in one of those
| congressional hearings where they're responding to (often
| over-simplified) complaints of anti-competitive behavior.
| It's going to be spun like none other. Apple also claims
| a way higher effective tax rate in Europe than what
| they're regularly accused of, and calculated some way
| they're probably technically correct.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's exactly my point that everyone has to make their own
| decision based on their risk profile. It's far from a
| clear case that AC+ always makes sense.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Then, in that case, I agree. I just felt like you were
| downplaying the number of people that actually do benefit
| from it and would benefit more with the recent change.
| joshmanders wrote:
| I don't know, the amount of people who aren't tech savvy
| that I know who contact me because they know I'm tech
| savvy tells me that a lot more "normal people" can find
| advantages in AC+ than us tech savvy people who take
| better care of our devices.
|
| I know since meeting my gf who is tech dumb, my device is
| more beaten up than it ever had been before due to just
| her using it randomly here and there.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| This is my experience as well. As I've stated elsewhere,
| I've never needed to use an AppleCare repair myself but I
| know at least 5 people that have had multiple repairs
| done within a _single_ year.
| tshaddox wrote:
| It's definitely easy to imagine breaking even if you have
| the more expensive "AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss" plan
| where you can replace your phone twice a year for a $149
| deductible.
| alana314 wrote:
| Same, I use a case and do my own repairs when stuff breaks
| [deleted]
| mrtksn wrote:
| > Forget satellite SOS and the larger camera, the headline is
| this: Apple has completely redesigned the internals of the iPhone
| 14 to make it easier to repair.
|
| I find this line hilarious because it's an example of law of the
| instrument[0]. iFixit and other activist repair shops treat these
| devices as if their(the iPhones) purpose is getting a repair and
| all this talk over they years about iPhone repairability was from
| that standpoint.
|
| I'm happy that Apple is making the new iPhones easier to repair
| but I never in my life purchased a brand new device with
| intention or plan to repair it. Why would anyone try to sell me a
| device by talking about how easy it is to repair it? What I
| expect is that it would never need a repair and if it needs a
| repair the vendor will handle it. Also, iPhones were always the
| easiest phones to repair because specialists who repair iPhones
| could be found on every corner. Every repair shop repairs
| iPhones, so repairing an iPhone was never a real issue but
| something that repair nerds like to speculate on. It's almost as
| if the happiest they could have been if Apple shipped the iPhones
| broken but easy to repair using some cheap generic part.
|
| I had my iPhones replaced, repaired or self services by buying
| the parts online through the years. It's no accident that iPhones
| always were best at retaining second hand value.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
| jorvi wrote:
| > Why would anyone try to sell me a device by talking about how
| easy it is to repair it?
|
| I guess Framework laptops must have a hidden compartment full
| of gold, because they keep selling like hotcakes.
| mrtksn wrote:
| How many millions of laptops they have sold so far? Are they
| selling over 10 million a year thanks to the superb
| repairability?
|
| I like Framework, it's nice concept and if I had a few
| thousand dollars expandable money I would definitely buy one
| to fiddle with.
| dota_fanatic wrote:
| You're moving the goalposts.
|
| _> Why would anyone try to sell me a device by talking
| about how easy it is to repair it? What I expect is that it
| would never need a repair and if it needs a repair the
| vendor will handle it._
|
| Because people value reparability, which someone posted
| evidence for. Buying a computing device that you can use
| and depend on for decades is a laudable goal, and
| reparability is table stakes for that goal because stuff
| breaks.
| mrtksn wrote:
| IMHO Framework's value comes from modularity,
| repairability is just a perk of modularity. I like it but
| it comes at cost of design features like thickness,
| weight or robustness.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Not yet, but they are still scaling. Is that your measure
| of success? 10 million units?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Success on what? If I measure repairability success would
| look like Framework laptops, if I measure mainstream
| adoption success would look like Apple/Dell/Samsung, if I
| measure for longevity and versatility success would look
| like Apple/Thinkpad, if I measure for refined design
| success would look like Apple.
|
| There are many ways to be successful.
| lake_vincent wrote:
| As a happy Framework user, the selling point for me is
| _upgrading_ , not repairing, the device. To be able upgrade
| to a new mobo, processor, memory module, or port, without
| having to buy a whole new device is incredible. As such, I am
| not planning on buying a new laptop for a loooong time.
| Clearly the iPhone is not taking that approach - it's repair
| only, which is not nearly as exciting.
| dang wrote:
| This comment was originally a reply to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32899758, but that was a
| bad comment and I'm going to mark it offtopic and downweight
| it.
|
| Your comment is fine, so I'm going to detach it so it doesn't
| get downweighted by proxy.
| outworlder wrote:
| > but I never in my life purchased a brand new device with
| intention or plan to repair it
|
| We all expect our devices to work forever and never break while
| we are still using them.
|
| Yes, Apple handles the repairs, but they are _expensive_. If
| you are not in the US, chances are that some 'authorized' third
| party will repair it. So now you are into 'expensive' and
| potentially dodgy territory. I've seen substandard repairs over
| the years. One common issue is that a repair is done but FaceID
| (or Touch ID) no longer works.
|
| Repair shops manage to repair some things but many repairs are
| not economically viable. A phone that's easy to repair is also
| cheaper to repair.
|
| Case in point: you have to take your phone to a repair shop to
| replace the battery (unless you are pretty handy yourself).
| That costs money. When phones had removable batteries, repair
| labor cost was $0. Just get a new battery and replace yourself,
| in seconds.
| originalvichy wrote:
| iFixIt and others come from an era were smartphones were in the
| small space between repairable and expensive to replace. Like
| small laptops. Sure after years of specialization many shops
| offer quick fixes but it didn't use to be that way. Sure you
| will never repair your phone but when and if it needs fixing
| the more accessible repairs are the better it is for the wallet
| and quality of work.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I went from Ericsson(GH688, T10) to Alcatel to Nokia to
| Siemens to iPhone 4s and have been using iPhones since then.
|
| At what point was the timeframe when you threw away your
| iPhone because was not possible to repair on a high street
| repair shop? I never had and I don't know anyone who ever had
| an issue with repairing their iPhone. Was it at the iPhone 3G
| years?
|
| My last repair was getting the battery and the front glass of
| my iPhone 6s that I still use as a secondary phone replaced.
| It cost me about 50$ if I recall correctly.
| dvdkon wrote:
| > I never in my life purchased a brand new device with
| intention or plan to repair it
|
| The last two laptops I bought, repairability was a very high
| priority. The T440s I had before my current HP Envy x360 I
| actually bought because I got burned with a cheap Acer, where I
| couldn't find any replacement touchpads. A less repairable
| laptop wouldn't have lasted me even two years, since I broke
| the display around that time.
|
| At first, I wanted to buy a used enterprise laptop, since they
| often have repair guides available and parts can be found on
| eBay. However, HP made the repair guide and parts for this
| "consumer-grade" notebook available officially, which gave me
| the confidence that this laptop could last me five years or
| more.
|
| I think people who expect their electronics to last more than
| the length of a warranty should definitely consider
| repairability to be a big factor. You don't want to buy a beefy
| laptop for the next decade, only to have it made useless by a
| broken keyboard or screen.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I think you are wrong, people think a lot about repair costs,
| which is why Apple Care sells so good. If people didn't think
| of repair, why would they buy Apple Care?
|
| When the back glass on my iPhone X broke, I stopped buying
| iPhones. Authorized service providers would have charged more
| for repairing the device than it costs on the second hand
| market, and 3rd party repair shops would probably do a half
| assed job because it is so difficult to do.
|
| It's really ridiculous that the part that breaks most easily is
| hardest to repair.
|
| I ended up buying an Android with a plastic back, and I kind of
| hate some parts of it, but I also hate that iPhones are so
| fucking fragile.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > I think you are wrong, people think a lot about repair
| costs, which is why Apple Care sells so good
|
| Good point but I think this is more like an insurance because
| accidents happen. People also buy cases and screen protectors
| so they are definitely aware that these things can break but
| the plan is always not to break it.
|
| No one really cares if that the device would be hard or easy
| to repair as long as they know that repair is a thing and it
| is a thing because people see the shops on the high street,
| know apple store fixes broken iPhones or know people who got
| their devices repaired. Hard or easy to repair is not very
| relevant to most people because they wouldn't care how much
| effort took the technician to do their job.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _I never in my life purchased a brand new device with
| intention or plan to repair it._
|
| Devices don't last forever. What happens when inevitably, it
| fails? I don't want to be buying a new iPhone all the time --
| money still doesn't grow on trees -- and even outside of
| Apple's ridiculously overpriced products, replacing e.g., my
| entire laptop1 because a component failed is not enticing.
| Better if the design permits a $5 replacement, instead of a $70
| or $700 replacement.
|
| And as an engineer, it hurts when you _know_ a small change to
| the design could have made the repair $5 instead of $75,
| without impacting anything on the manufacturer 's end --
| except, of course, the amount they're getting manufacturing
| replacement parts nobody needs!
|
| Not to mention the e-waste generated by re-manufacturing then
| entire device just to fix a single component.
|
| > _What I expect is that it would never need a repair_
|
| Alas, stuff breaks. Such is the world.
|
| > _and if it needs a repair the vendor will handle it._
|
| ... well, good luck finding such a vendor. Apple, in
| particular, does not offer compelling warranties. (Though IME
| warranties have shrunk across most vendors. Which is a proxy
| for quality: the manufacturer themselves don't think their
| device can withstand more than 1 or 2 years at most.)
|
| 1phones are, unfortunately, _extremely_ limited in what you can
| repair with almost any model on the market today. It 's a
| shame.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Apple devices last forever, it's pretty common to give the
| old devices to your parents or sell them - the Apple device
| market is very vibrant because they last. By the time that
| the device would fail due to wear and tear you probably
| wouldn't want to use it anyway.
|
| You may remind me about design failures of Apple where the
| devices would break down but Apple does repair programs or
| recalls when something like that happens. That's also why we
| have warranties.
| everyone wrote:
| This has gotta be cus of pressure from EU? Like if they didnt
| make them more repairable it might be illegal to sell them here
| soon.
| Aissen wrote:
| As usual with these things, it's a convergence of factors.
| People caring, both in and outside Apple. French repair index
| (this update earned them 0,5 points / 10 compared to previous
| gen). Internal cost pressure on warranties, etc. "The time is
| right", i.e less things to optimize/design for in other areas
| (already solved problems). Probably many other factors that
| only mechanical engineers and product owners at Apple can
| answer.
| edhelas wrote:
| Naaahhhh it's only because they wanted to.
|
| Took a few years and a few hundred millions difficult to repair
| devices to get there.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The EU pressure would be in the domains of software
| distribution (Apple thinks third-party app stores are just
| malware) and charger compatibility (Apple still holds onto
| Lightning). They've yet to talk about either of these at all,
| and I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of these
| requirements is either geolocked or exclusive to EU models.
| tomxor wrote:
| > Apple thinks third-party app stores are just malware
|
| Apple is greedy not stupid. They don't want third party app
| stores because it would cause competition and interfere with
| their almost entirely vertically integrated consumer milking
| machine... they don't care about malware, they care about
| control, controlling the user, to make sure they spend as
| much money as possible with Apple.
|
| Notice that they have been increasingly swapping out as much
| third party as possible so they can take all of the profit,
| they "produce" film and tv shows and sell those tv shows on a
| device they make with a payment processing method they own...
| lots of layers of profit, it goes well beyond monopoly, they
| are destroying the concept of a free market. They do similar
| things with hardware and tech, buying out or forcing
| businesses into positions where they have to sell to Apple
| out or get pushed out.
| spideymans wrote:
| I can assure you there are plenty of people within the
| Apple organization that genuinely care about security and
| privacy. And if Apple happens to profit due to those
| efforts, all the better. Not everything is some evil
| nefarious ploy.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| There's also very nice people working for Oracle. That
| doesn't really reflect on how decisions are taken and
| what priorities are set at the higher level.
| spideymans wrote:
| This is just nonsensical speculating, unless we
| understand the internal motivations of Apple's decision
| makers. Maybe they're evil and view this as a tool to
| dominate the world. Maybe they think these are genuinely
| beneficial decisions for their customers. Who knows.
| tomxor wrote:
| > This is just nonsensical speculating, unless we
| understand the internal motivations of Apple's decision
| makers
|
| No, your reasoning is nonsensical, you can defend
| anything with that argument. If you apply it to the rest
| of the world then no one can do evil because you can
| never know someone's true motivations... at a certain
| point you have to draw conclusions from actions, and it's
| pretty hard to see Apple's actions as not intending to
| maximise wealth extraction at this point, sure "tech"
| stuff still happens there out of some necessity and
| momentum, but the people at the helm clearly have a
| singular goal.
|
| If your argument is merely that strong inference is
| flawed, then you are in for a lot of disappointment with
| reality in general, since 99.9% of what everyone does
| every day is based upon it out of necessity.
| outworlder wrote:
| > Why isn't Tim Cook bragging about repairability?
|
| This is Apple, they totally would have. If the flagship was also
| similarly repairable.
|
| As it is, this is making the 14 more appealing to me than the 14
| Pro.
| mmazing wrote:
| https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2022/09/18133349/iPhon...
|
| Uh, look at that wonky Qualcomm SDR735 chip.
|
| Actually looking at it a bit closer it seems like the board was
| destroyed during disassembly?
| zeroflow wrote:
| Yeah. If you look at the complete board shots, those chips are
| inside the sandwich of PCBs. So yeah, it was probably
| disassembled in an reflow oven without much care for the
| components.
|
| 1.
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+14+Pro+Max+Chip+ID/15322...
| fodmap wrote:
| Not only that, in the previous picture you can see some smd
| components have been blown away as well.
|
| https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2022/09/18133340/iPhon...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I noticed that too. They might have been poking and prodding
| around with the different chips or something to see what is
| inside. That or it is the result of aggressively removing all
| the shielding. Sure threw me for a loop though.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Taking all the shielding off those chips is probably what
| destroyed the board. Without doing that though, these images
| would just have all the chips covered by shielding
| metals/alloys.
| cromka wrote:
| > Why isn't Tim Cook bragging about repairability? We had no idea
| this was coming, because Apple didn't mention it--at all. But
| they should have.
|
| I wonder how the team behind that redesign must have felt when
| they watched the keynote. Probably like this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZCszIUcyVM
| [deleted]
| ornornor wrote:
| I don't know. They call it a victory for repair ability but the
| parts are as paired as they've ever been... Even replacing the
| rear glass triggers a warning and requires activation... That's
| hardly repairable if the software is crippled as a result.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| > It's an upgrade so seamless that the best tech reviewers in the
| world didn't notice.
|
| I think it's bad taste on how he keeps on knocking tech
| reviewers. Of course they won't notice because they don't open
| phones for a living.
| pwthornton wrote:
| Correct. Tech reviewers don't open phones for a living, and the
| vast, vast majority of cell phone buyers literally could not
| care less.
| xpe wrote:
| Maybe it is an oblique criticism or maybe it isn't.
|
| It also implies this question: Best reviewers? Or most popular?
| ohadron wrote:
| I think he meant that though the redesign is comprehensive an
| it's basically a different phone from the inside, reviewers
| still considered it an exact same design externally.
| gcau wrote:
| Only the base model, and it's gone from bad to less bad? I can
| forgive that designing a phone to be easily repairable can be
| very hard, just as long as you don't purposely make it harder to
| repair, or unnecessarily expensive.
| MBCook wrote:
| They're still doing the pros so they may have improved as well.
| [deleted]
| SayMyName wrote:
| Odd article considering everything is still software locked to
| the phone. Sure it's easier to repair, but if you get your parts
| from anywhere else than apple's program directly, a lot of
| features will stop working.
|
| Hugh Jeffreys made a video interchanging parts on two brand new
| iphone's and it disabled a lot of things including auto-
| brightness.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2WhU77ihw8
| viktorcode wrote:
| > interchanging parts on two brand new iphone's and it disabled
| a lot of things including auto-brightness.
|
| I think one problem is not being discussed enough is iPhones
| being stolen for parts (since in most cases they can't be
| reactivated). I strongly suspect inability to simply switch
| parts without remote authorisation is Apple's way to address
| the problem.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Okay, let's discuss it then. Why do I need Apple's consent to
| repair the device I paid for? Why is there no way for me to
| (even temporarily) disable this feature if I _actually want
| to fix my phone?_
| Gigachad wrote:
| You chose to buy it knowing that's how it works. As a user
| I find this an extremely compelling feature that my phone
| is close to worthless to anyone who would try to steal it.
| cromka wrote:
| > Why is there no way for me to (even temporarily) disable
| this feature if I actually want to fix my phone?
|
| You want to be able to temporarily disable a feature that
| Apple introduced to prevent from installing potentially
| stolen parts in your phone?
| smoldesu wrote:
| All parts are 'potentially stolen', that's just a scary
| thing that John Deere and Apple says to justify their
| first-party stranglehold on repairs. Louis Rossmann and
| co. use donor parts for repairs all the time. If they own
| and can unlock the donor Macbook/iPhone, they should be
| able to attest that the device is being used for
| parts/repair and disable the protection. I see no
| potential for abuse here, _and_ it prevents more iPhones
| from becoming landfill. Win /win, since Apple cares about
| the environment _so much!_
|
| If I own my device and can enter the password on it, I
| should be able to decide which software features are
| enabled and disabled. That shouldn't be a controversial
| opinion.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| The amount of uncritical comments in any post around
| apple on HN is usually quite something, I wouldn't get
| too excited about that. Its mainly US website so that's
| to be expected.
|
| That being said, there are some good points raised here
| by folks. If you don't like how Apple does things
| overall, there are mighty fine competitors that provide
| even more in some areas and are not Chinese, but they do
| charge premium for their quality too. Just expect some
| similar/other limitations there too.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The problem is that we should be able to choose, not
| Apple. Overriding Apple's software choices should not
| necessitate leaving the ecosystem, period. Especially
| considering Apple is _the largest company in the world_ ,
| it shouldn't be a problem for them to add a few toggles.
| We need regulation to hold them accountable for these
| simple options, but knowing Apple (and how deep in bed
| they are with the US government) this won't happen.
|
| I agree though, and I've been moving myself away from
| Apple products since Catalina. The water is now lukewarm,
| and this little frog doesn't intend to be around when
| they put the lid on the pot.
| newtritious wrote:
| Those few toggles would defeat the security protections.
| Most people want a security. Indeed most people never
| even repair a phone.
| [deleted]
| specialist wrote:
| Applying zero trust (or equiv) to a system's internals is
| pretty cool.
| devrand wrote:
| This does coincide with Apple changing Applecare+ to cover an
| unlimited number of incidents. Their motivation was simply to
| streamline their own internal repairs?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| That "unlimited" thing only impacts a very small number of
| devices. It is a better headline than reality. Previously you
| could have two accidental damage incidents PER YEAR, which
| means four for a standard Applecare+ 24 months plan.
|
| How many people, realistically, had over four accidental
| damage incidents in a two-year period wherein they benefit
| from this "unlimited" change? As I said, it is good
| marketing, a very niche change in reality.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _How many people, realistically, had over four accidental
| damage incidents in a two-year period_
|
| My wife. Mostly because of the Minnesota State Fair.
| astrange wrote:
| Did she fall into the dunk tank?
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I don't even have a case on my phone (and never have on any
| phone in the past) and have never had an incident. I know
| at least 5 people that have broken their phones more than 4
| times _per year_ and they all use cases. Some people just
| do not treat their electronics like the expensive devices
| they are.
| shuntress wrote:
| Some people expect their expensive tools to withstand the
| rigors of daily use.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Dropping devices on concrete is not "daily use". That's
| like saying that people should expect cars to be
| unaffected by randomly crashing into walls.
| joshmanders wrote:
| Not to mention I've dropped mine a LOT. scratched up
| screen, dings in the sides, everything. (No
| case/protection at all too) It definitely withstands
| daily use. Dropping it 4-5 times a day every day however
| probably slowly chips away at the sturdiness of the
| device.
| shuntress wrote:
| > Some people just do not treat their electronics like
| the expensive devices they are
|
| Phones hit the floor sometimes. It just happens and it is
| normal in daily use.
|
| You aren't _wrong_ that phones are expensive devices but
| your comment oozes a toxic elitist "PEBCAK" attitude
| similar to something like "The antennas are VERY well
| designed you're just holding it wrong"*
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Of course they do. Most phones, iPhones included, can
| withstand the occasional drop without any issue. That's
| clearly not what we're talking about here.
| neon_electro wrote:
| That's fair - but "the rigors of daily use" as parent
| post wrote absolutely include resilience and resistance
| to physical damage if/when a fall happens.
|
| I agree dropping a phone _every day_ is not accurate, but
| the risk exists with "the rigors of daily use".
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Well, anecdotally, I've had every other iPhone since the
| original and use it daily and have never had it break or
| otherwise needed to replace/repair it. People who use
| terms like "rigors of daily use" typically always mean
| wanton abuse.
| synaesthesisx wrote:
| I do not use cases, and have dropped my naked iPhone 13
| Pro Max many many times (with $29 screen replacements via
| AppleCare, I'm fine taking the risk). This phone has
| literally hit concrete and has yet to crack, a testament
| to the durability improvements.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I think that what you are saying is valid, but this should
| still be celebrated as a win for consumers. You don't have to
| see something as all good or all bad.
| buildbot wrote:
| Good! I want to know that even a used and repaired iPhone has
| genuine parts in it
| rasz wrote:
| >interchanging parts on two brand new iphone's
| Bilal_io wrote:
| Exactly! One important argument for Right to Repair is the
| environment. If I cannot salvage parts from a dead phone
| then it'll be e-waste. This doesn't help the consumer nor
| the environment, but it will definitely affect Apple's
| pockets in a positive way.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I've been thinking about a future where deepfakes/AI are more
| everyday (which is soon).
|
| I can imagine Apple doing some kind of hardware-level signing
| of camera and video data, so that any image shot by an
| iPhone/iPad would have a signature declaring that is was not
| edited by the user in any way. Details on whether RAW or any
| kind of auto-cleanup could be included.
|
| In other words, a chain-of-custody kind of thing so that images
| can be asserted as real vs. created by a computer.
|
| Depending on how such a system would be implemented, this would
| require "real Apple hardware" from the ground up.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I can imagine Apple doing some kind of hardware-level
| signing of camera and video data, so that any image shot by
| an iPhone /iPad would have a signature declaring that is was
| not edited by the user in any way._
|
| This exists, and is why the (Canon?) cameras used by police
| departments at crime scenes are so expensive.
| shuntress wrote:
| And "Real Apple Hardware" supporting "Real Apple ID" on every
| device in the network.
| samatman wrote:
| Cryptographic signatures can be decoded by anything which
| has the public key, that's not how this would work at all.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Ah, so there _is_ a way to disable auto brightness! Are there
| any aftermarket upgrades which will also permanently disable
| "live photos"?
| incanus77 wrote:
| Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings > Live Photo
| lostlogin wrote:
| OP wants an aftermarket method.
| kube-system wrote:
| Ship me the phone and I will click the button for you for
| only 3 easy payments of $19.95.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Yeah I've done this. It somehow keeps getting turned back
| on wether it gets grazed by my finger, an update happens
| and resets the setting, or whatever else.
|
| I'm saying i want a way that disables it and then prevents
| it from _ever_ being re-enabled.
|
| Also: it's a joke.
| pb7 wrote:
| Jokes are supposed to be funny.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| The Settings menu
| reaperducer wrote:
| Not aftermarket, but Apple offers something for both of
| those. It's called The Manual.
|
| You can get one here:
| https://support.apple.com/manuals/iphone
|
| It's even free!
| [deleted]
| millzlane wrote:
| This makes it easier for my technicians when customers lie by
| omission when they have had their device repaired someplace
| else and they bring it back to us for repair. It's not until we
| get into the repair and find out someone has stripped screws
| that can't be removed without extraction tools and replaced
| LSI's.
|
| It's also nice for consumers who get their devices stolen
| strictly for parts. Preventing someone from basically chop
| shopping phones. I don't use iphone's but it's a nice feature.
| If the parts are serialized they could prevent your stolen
| iphone's camera from working in someone else's stolen iphone.
| Essentially locking the parts to a iphone that locked by an
| appleid.
| Veliladon wrote:
| The other thing is that Apple is trying to make things harder
| for people with large amounts of resources (think nation
| states) to exfiltrate data by using pwned components. Like
| when you take it into a repair shop, how do you know that the
| replacement part isn't compromised?
|
| If I was replacing the front facing FaceID complex I sure as
| hell would want verifiable Apple gear and it to be paired to
| the phone. Why would I want some random person to be able to
| put something in my phone's biometric authentication path?
| tjoff wrote:
| If you give your phone to an adversary with large amounts
| of resources it is game over.
|
| If you have to worry about that I most certainly would hope
| that you wouldn't leave your phone to a repair-shop.
| sosull wrote:
| It's a very fair point, but stranger things have
| happened. Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu
| nter_Biden_laptop_controvers...
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Or leave your MacBook at a repair shop with texts and
| emails to various VIPs, etc on it... oh wait.
| Spivak wrote:
| Everyone keeps parroting this like it's 1995 but infinite
| resources doesn't really help you. In the US FBI case
| they happened to chain a few now patched exploits in the
| lightning port that did nothing except allow them the
| ability to brute force the password. Had the password
| been strong it would have been game over.
|
| Regular, run of the mill encryption you can download at
| every corner store can withstand attacks from nation
| states.
| chasd00 wrote:
| well, depending on the adversary, the resources required
| could be trivial.
|
| https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/security.png
| solardev wrote:
| Zero-days are a thing, as well as companies that find
| them specifically to sell to governments
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Do you actually believe that nation states with shitton
| level funding can't waltz in and out of an original iPhone?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Maybe? But shouldn't we (and Apple) at least try to make
| things more secure?
| _V_ wrote:
| How does disabling TrueTone/autobrightness help your
| security? Or vibration motor? Or battery? Or rear facing
| camera?
|
| I can answer for you: these are completely unrelated to
| security. It is just a middle finger from Apple to anyone
| wanting to repair their device.
|
| edit: typo
| buildbot wrote:
| This exactly. To have a more secure device this is one of
| the trade offs. Can you imagine the articles if you could
| swap out faceID systems to unlock an encrypted iphone?
| jorvi wrote:
| I mean.. they could just show a pop-up after required
| passcode unlock: 'your iPhone recently had its
| FaceID/brightness/battery/whatever swapped - do you wish
| to fully enable the replacement part for this iPhone?'
| dylan604 wrote:
| because the $badGuy doing the swap could just okay that
| request
| candiddevmike wrote:
| AFAIK face ID generates a key used to decrypt the data.
| Swapping the system wouldn't let you unlock it, unless it
| was performing a MitM against the user of the phone.
| Honestly most of the TPM and trusted enclave stuff Apple
| does is mostly to prevent that kind of MitM situation.
| For most users, I don't see it as a threat to worry
| about.
| neilalexander wrote:
| It's even more impressive than that -- the infrared dot
| pattern of every Face ID sensor is also physically
| unique. You can't swap out Face ID sensors and keep the
| same enrolment data as a result because the replacement
| sensor will produce a slightly different pattern.
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/business-
| docs/FaceID_Security_Guide.pd...
| sennight wrote:
| > Can you imagine the articles if you could swap out
| faceID systems to unlock an encrypted iphone?
|
| Yes, the articles would go something like this: "WTF is
| wrong with Apple, did they intentionally implement
| 'security' in the worst possible way, by leaving the
| phone unencrypted and just using faceID as a lock
| screen?!"
|
| That is what they'd have to do for your statement to make
| any sense, they'd have to leave the data unencrypted and
| just use a removable component as a pass or fail doorman.
| So the system would have always been unsecure, it would
| just be more obvious in this scenario.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| pb7 wrote:
| You are at liberty to buy other products and leave these
| to those who are happy about the security considerations.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Dont worry I do, the problem is all the other companies
| play "Follow the Apple"
|
| The solution is never just "dont by apple if you do not
| like it" the solution is highlighting why it is bad, and
| getting people to pressure companies like Apple to
| change.
|
| Right to Repair is movement, and it is winning. Part of
| right to repair includes resistance to parts
| serialization, and/or ensuring that approving new parts
| that are serialized is free and open to all end users not
| locked down to only "Authorized repair"
| pb7 wrote:
| >the problem is all the other companies play "Follow the
| Apple"
|
| Then blame the companies you buy from. You are not an
| Apple customer so they don't owe you anything. Frankly
| I'm tired of people that don't even buy the products
| constantly trying to dictate what those products should
| be.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You don't have to be an Apple customer to be affected by
| Apple's anticompetitive business practices. Apple's
| actions affect the whole market and all consumers in that
| market, that's the point behind antitrust law and
| litigation.
| pb7 wrote:
| How do their actions affect you as an Android user?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Easily, Apple and Google collude to maintain dominance in
| the mobile OS markets and leverage that duopoly to
| dominate other markets like mobile app distribution and
| mobile app payments. Google's app payments policy is now
| nearly identical to Apple's, you must use their payment
| platform to distribute apps on their app store. Just like
| Apple's policy to prevent competition in the mobile app
| payments market prevents app developers from even
| mentioning alternative payment methods in apps or app
| store listings, Google quickly followed suit and
| implemented the exact same anticompetitive policy.
| pb7 wrote:
| >Apple and Google collude
|
| Citation needed.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Yes, it's just a coincidence that Apple and Google's
| anticompetitive policies in the mobile OS and app
| distribution markets have converged such that they are
| both practically identical and also allow them to
| leverage their dominance in those markets to dominate
| other markets like mobile app payments, as well.
| sennight wrote:
| > ... the solution is highlighting why it is bad, and
| getting people to pressure companies like Apple to
| change.
|
| I don't think pressure campaigns are the solution, for a
| lot of reasons: but the top two are obvious: they are
| easily astroturfed and manipulated by moneyed interests,
| but more importantly the game theory doesn't stand up to
| scrutiny - asymmetric costs (constant vigilance = time).
|
| This would be my solution: unrestrained ridicule for
| their customers. Apple productions are all about
| conspicuous consumption, users desperately want you to
| know that this isn't just any soon to be e-waste - this
| is the kind that telegraphs a specific message from a
| specific type of person. By unrestrained I mean
| unrestrained... I'd provide an example, but it would very
| likely be flagged by useful idiots. If you are familiar
| with Terry Davis and his opinion on Microsoft customers,
| you are in the right ballpark. The problem would work
| itself out very quickly, as soon as Apple customers start
| stuttering "...bbbut not all Apple fanboys..." the value
| of their product falls through the floor. This forces
| systemic change inside their comically pretentious HQ, or
| drives them out of the market.
| pb7 wrote:
| Your "solution" to people buying products they love is
| "unrestrained ridicule"? Who hurt you that you have such
| disdain for people choosing to live the way the want?
| Look inside yourself and seek help dude.
| sennight wrote:
| > Look inside yourself and seek help dude.
|
| You'd benefit from that kind of introspection more than I
| would. Consider your response to the perfectly logical
| solution I propose in order to counteract a brand built
| on classic status signaling marketing, an intentionally
| wasteful brand that does in fact have externalities to
| the otherwise disinterested: make that signaled status an
| undesirable one. To that you imply that people "love"
| their purchased products, and that these products are
| intrinsic to these people's way of life? Think about that
| for a second, how incredibly disturbing those ideas
| really are, and how easily you were manipulated into
| thinking those things were not only reasonable - but
| worthy of defense.
|
| > Who hurt you
|
| `make -j64 buildworld buildkernel` is slow when debug is
| enabled.
| shuntress wrote:
| Sort of. For now. How much higher do the walls need to
| become before it's no longer reasonable to live outside
| Apple's garden?
| joshmanders wrote:
| > How much higher do the walls need to become before it's
| no longer reasonable to live outside Apple's garden?
|
| Do you mean "How much longer do I have to watch people
| enjoy their cake before I give in and want to eat the
| cake too?"
|
| I find it pretty absurd that people demand Apple do
| things differently because their choice of alternative
| feels the need to follow Apple instead of leading
| themselves.
| pb7 wrote:
| Slippery slope fallacy. Wake me up when it actually
| happens because it never does.
| shuntress wrote:
| It's not a slippery slope. It's just the natural
| progression of a monopoly.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is the fallacy fallacy. Just because you can
| identify a potential logical fallacy in a statement
| doesn't mean it isn't true.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Hey, if Apple doesn't want to follow the new Right to
| Repair laws, then it can shutdown the company or move to
| a different country.
|
| They have an obligation to follow the law as much as any
| other company.
| sennight wrote:
| You know, I bet somebody responded very similarly to a
| complaint about the first game studio to put loot boxes
| in their games. Now we are plagued by them.
|
| "Don't like it? Well just make your own ____!" is another
| classic.
| pb7 wrote:
| Weird, I have never played a game with lootboxes nor have
| I had to even think about avoiding it. Only supports my
| point that your fear of it affecting you is unfounded in
| reality.
|
| Except I didn't say make your own, I said pick from the
| variety of competitors. Who are you to dictate what a
| third party does, especially when that third party's
| decisions are well liked by their customers? I don't want
| the "freedom" to put in cheap aftermarket parts in my
| high end device, I want it to work extremely well and it
| does.
| sennight wrote:
| > Except I didn't say make your own...
|
| No, that is what comes next - after somebody mentions
| Apple's part in the herpes like spread of chicklet
| keyboards.
|
| > Who are you to dictate what a third party does...
|
| Who are you to put words in my mouth? I've counseled
| something other than compulsion, I've suggested that you
| and apologists like you should be openly mocked for
| reasons that I can't list - because it would be bullying,
| run afoul of various codes of conduct, etc.
| [deleted]
| eropple wrote:
| If you play AAA games or mobile games, sure, you're
| plagued by them.
|
| I don't play either. The games I do play don't have much
| in the way of that sort of thing at all. And I think
| they're more fun games besides.
| sennight wrote:
| I don't understand your point, which effectively seems to
| be "not all games!"
|
| This is actually a zero sum scenario, games that are pay-
| to-win would have been something else had the concept not
| been popularized. Even games that are completely
| structured around these gambling mechanics... no, they
| wouldn't necessarily be different games in an alternate
| reality - they'd just be a different use of the dev's
| time. So maybe a birdhouse. Also, if this was a derail
| attempt - well done, I'm now thinking about carpentry
| instead of how much I dislike Apple.
| ScoobleDoodle wrote:
| I do like both security and freedom. How do we get both
| in this scenario?
|
| Have the iOS device ask the user for permission to allow
| unverified hardware to work? Also have a periodic
| reminder that unverified hardware is installed and the
| possible consequences?
| mqus wrote:
| yeah, let the logged-in user re-pair (pun not entirely
| intended) their swapped-out components and log it
| somewhere for future technicians. Apple can also go an
| extra step to register stolen components to also show
| that once it is inserted into another devices. ofc there
| then needs to be some core to pair with but apple will
| figure it out.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Have the iOS device ask the user for permission to
| allow unverified hardware to work?
|
| Why is 'asking the user' out of the question? If Apple
| detects a non-OEM component, then give me a modal when I
| power the device on asking me if I want to enable it. I
| certainly don't trust Apple to make that decision for me,
| everything they've done in the past suggests that they're
| primarily motivated by increasing profit margins.
| pb7 wrote:
| A company that wants to make money? Gasp, say it ain't
| so!
| smoldesu wrote:
| It wouldn't be so distressing if they weren't already
| valued beyond a trillion dollars.
| pb7 wrote:
| You don't become a trillion dollar company selling
| products people don't love.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Correct, companies can only get there with subterfuge and
| good marketing.
| pb7 wrote:
| Marketing only works until you get your hands on the
| product. People love Apple products. No subterfuge
| required, nor cringeworthy marketing like this:
| https://9to5mac.com/2022/09/09/samsung-apples-new-
| iphone-14-...
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Do we want to talk about labor conditions in China and
| how that contributes to becoming a Trillion Dollar
| company?
| ElCheapo wrote:
| I don't see how bringing up a right wing conspiracy meme
| adds anything to what your parent said. Your biometrics
| should be processed and gathered by the most secure parts
| of the device, which means going through more hoops to
| get a replacement.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| It is neither right wing nor a conspiracy, the fact that
| you believe both of those things seems to be commentary
| on your sources of news content more than anything
|
| >Your biometrics should be processed and gathered by the
| most secure parts of the device, which means going
| through more hoops to get a replacement.
|
| The problem here is not just limited to biometrics but
| even if it where many many many many people have posted
| long commentary on how it could be implemented in a way
| that is friendly to right to repair, nothing about
| security is in compatible with repair. NOTHING
| [deleted]
| baybal2 wrote:
| shuntress wrote:
| You are conflating separate concerns.
|
| Tracking serial numbers to black-list stolen parts _(too much
| effort for too little value IMO but I 'm not a bean counter
| for a nation-state-sized corporation so what do I know?)_ is
| very different from white-listing ordained parts.
|
| Independent shops should be able to buy broken phones from
| individuals and part them out for repairs without jumping
| through Apple's hoops.
| dwaite wrote:
| > Independent shops should be able to buy broken phones
| from individuals and part them out for repairs without
| jumping through Apple's hoops.
|
| I assume in this scenario that all independent shops are
| trustworthy entities that won't use stolen, reclaimed, or
| third-party parts in order to save money, without informing
| the customer?
| robocat wrote:
| Apple could provide a genuine parts and stolen parts
| tracking tool for the most valuable parts: screen,
| camera, motherboard.
|
| The goal is to make stolen iPhones worth nearly zero to
| thieves, which makes iPhones more valuable to all iPhone
| owners. Otherwise stolen iPhones are worth enough to
| incentivise a stolen iPhone economy.
| https://www.ifixit.com/Parts/iPhone_13/Screens Not having
| your phone stolen is worth your replacement cost to you.
| shuntress wrote:
| Nothing exists in a vacuum.
|
| Tracking stolen phones and busting chop shops is probably
| something that should be handled by law enforcement.
| newtritious wrote:
| Until it is, Apple are serving their customers by
| protecting them from this problem.
| tjoff wrote:
| The first part doesn't require functionality to be disabled
| though.
| buildbot wrote:
| Probably a combination of missing calibrations and the
| software locking. It seems better to fail visibly than to
| have a device silently phoning home that it is non-genuine.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| You can sign things without locking them though. The utility
| you're speaking of is identification, what's the utility for
| a user in locking a device against repair?
|
| Apple probably report way more data than a list of part IDs
| already.
| [deleted]
| agilob wrote:
| Rooting even those easily fixable Android, with unlocked
| bootloader and coming with Android One still voids the warranty
| and might break cameras. Unlocking more potential of a
| software, breaks hardware.
|
| Apple is preparing to legislative changes in EU that hardware
| must be repairable. This law is already a reality in France
| https://www.ecr-community.org/implementing-the-reparability-...
| jitl wrote:
| Apple started offering home repair kits for iPhone this year, but
| they're super difficult to use:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/technology/personaltech/a...
|
| There's speculation that offering the kits is an attempt to head
| off right-to-repair legislation. But seeing this redesign, I
| wonder to what degree the repair program is incentivizing
| repairability within apple's corporate structure. Now that
| "profit/loss per self service repair" is tracked in a spreadsheet
| - does repairability matter more?
|
| Anyways - it's great to see some improvement here, for whatever
| motivation.
| oneplane wrote:
| I don't think those really relate to each other that way. The
| lead time and design time for a complex device, especially one
| with such high vertical integration is much longer than the
| whole debate on repairs has gone public.
|
| Switching a product from a front-to-back stack to a mid frame
| design with nearly no interchangeable structures between those
| designs takes multiple years.
| dijit wrote:
| > but they're super difficult to use
|
| I can't read the link as it's paywalled: but my understanding
| of the Apple tools is that they're hilariously over-engineered;
| not that they're hard to use.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The tools are made to guarantee a factory-quality repair,
| complete with stock levels of part fit and water resistance,
| regardless of the skill level of who's using it. That can't
| really be done in a way that's not overengineered and bulky.
| kube-system wrote:
| I'd argue that they're not over engineered at all. They're
| engineered for a particular purpose. Which is: Apple doing
| warranty repair.
|
| I love how people used to complain that Apple didn't make
| their tools available, and now people complain that their
| tools are too nice. Well duh, did people think that Apple
| was using hairdryers and guitar picks for warranty work?
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| It's Apple. Haters are going to hate no matter what they
| do.
| potatolicious wrote:
| Yeah I really wonder what people's expectations are here.
|
| "First step by putting a hair dryer to the front face of
| the phone and turning it up to max. We don't really know
| what temperature that will be, but hopefully it's enough
| to loosen the adhesive. Now improvise a tool for lifting
| the screen off, hopefully you won't cut the ribbon cables
| underneath while doing that - maybe a guitar pick? Ok
| then, when reassembling the device try to get the new
| screen on as evenly as possible. Who knows if you've done
| it right - but if you did it wrong your phone will
| definitely bork if you get it wet!"
|
| Like, you _can_ still do all of the above. There 's
| nothing preventing you from doing a phone repair cheaply
| (and poorly) - but to expect a company to support that
| officially seems nuts?
|
| It turns out repairing modern consumer electronics at a
| high quality bar _is_ expensive! And it 's equipment
| intensive!
| Bud wrote:
| "hilariously over-engineered"
|
| read: "not crap"
| cududa wrote:
| I mean I can take pictures underwater with a freakin phone.
| I guess you could call that "over engineering" but I also
| understand that means maintaining that type of device
| integrity would require some heavy lifting to service the
| device after it's been sealed up.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > I also understand that means maintaining that type of
| device integrity would require some heavy lifting to
| service the device after it's been sealed up.
|
| Wel;l... it _did_ require heavy lifting but according to
| this article that is no longer the case! Sure you 'll
| still need a bunch of specialized tools for handling
| super small components but it is miles ahead of what it
| once was.
|
| It took me a while to come around to the idea of "right
| to repair" because I had the same concerns many people
| here have. To make it repairable would mean to sacrifice
| a bunch of stuff like waterproofing and weight. But I
| guess with this new iphone it's "game on" for
| repairability. Which is awesome.
| Spivak wrote:
| They just seem engineered to a different market, their own
| repair techs. Bulky doesn't matter, expensive doesn't matter.
| Being absolutely completely foolproof when used by non-expert
| techs with a few weeks training and having as little risk of
| damaging the device at possible does matter.
| threeseed wrote:
| > They just seem engineered to a different market, their
| own repair techs
|
| I would hope and expect that third party repair techs (and
| to a slightly lesser extent ordinary people) would be
| repairing devices with the same level of quality as Apple's
| techs.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Also they need to work day in, day out, for years, not just
| a couple of times.
|
| Which can sometimes end up in James Webbification, as the
| more expensive and robust it gets, the more likely it's the
| only one and the higher the stakes if it breaks. So you
| make it more over-engineered and expensive.
| _V_ wrote:
| Last time I checked it was not like that - those kits are
| actually quite easy to use.
|
| The catch is that in order to buy it, you need to give them SN
| of the device _in advance_. Meaning you cannot have stock and
| thus you cannot offer any reasonably fast repair service. And
| even after that you have to contact their support in order to
| "pair" the newly installed parts to that device.
|
| Most of the people I know use 3rd party repair shop because
| they can change battery/screen in 1-2 hours and they will not
| wipe your data. Apple takes 2 weeks and wipes your phone.
| anotherboffin wrote:
| Apple took 30 minutes when last I had them replace a
| battery...
| _V_ wrote:
| Congrats. My battery change took them 2 weeks, had to send
| it. Came back wiped.
|
| I guess it depends on where you are (Central Europe for me)
| scarface74 wrote:
| You mean you sent your phone in without wiping it in the
| first place?
|
| I always wipe my phone before handing it to Apple.
| _V_ wrote:
| Yeah, I made a mental shortcut when writing that - sorry
| :-)
|
| Of course I wiped it beforehand - they told me that they
| will have to send it somewhere and it would get wiped
| regardless.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| > but they're super difficult to use
|
| That dude is looking for problem when there's none. He starts
| off the article with this
|
| > For people like me who have little experience repairing
| electronics, the self-repair setup was so intimidating that I
| nearly wussed out.
|
| Did he expect Ikea like instruction manual to repair an
| advanced consumer electronic gadgets? That kit is clearly meant
| for professional (or at the very least hobbyists) repairers who
| clearly have experience, and know what they are doing.
|
| To be fair he does call out Apple's recommendation and that
| this repair kit is better used by experts. I also feel that
| faced with increased regulation and public scrutiny Apple threw
| the entire kitchen sink as a cruel joke. I mean that 75pound
| repair equipment requiring $1200 hold on a card should is a big
| signal to retail users "do not even dream of attempting repair"
| wmeredith wrote:
| I also found the tone of that article annoying. The author is
| talking about repairing one of the-if not the- most advanced
| _things_ ever mass-assembled. No shit, it 's not easy.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It's not as hard as you think it is. Apple is indeed
| massively over complicating the process.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| They gave him three machines to use for replacing his
| battery.
|
| 1. A machine to melt the glue holding the battery in
| place
|
| 2. A machine to apply even pressure to the new battery to
| ensure it's properly adhered
|
| 3. A machine to apply heat and even pressure to the
| entire phone to properly give the phone with a watertight
| seal.
|
| That seems like exactly what I'd expect has to happen to
| repair the phone back to original spec. I'm actually
| impressed that Apple gives this out to consumers to use.
| _V_ wrote:
| Any modern iPhone has its battery held by pull tabs
| (double sided tape that lets go when you pull on it
| sideways). They are sometimes PITA to remove but you just
| need tweezers, fingers and bit of luck to remove it :-)
|
| Adhering the battery is the same - just press in place.
|
| Heat is only needed for opening/closing the phone.
| danielheath wrote:
| Yeah, but you can do the whole repair without it, if
| you're confident that you won't set the existing battery
| on fire removing it, and don't mind some small risk of
| the new one exploding in your pocket after you sit down,
| and waterproofing isn't important to you...
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I mean that 75pound repair equipment requiring $1200 hold
| on a card...
|
| How is this legal? Holds ought to be capped at the maximum
| payable for a transaction.
| matt-attack wrote:
| What's the problem if you intend to return it?
| waffleiron wrote:
| Not everyone has 1200 USD laying around.
| _V_ wrote:
| You don't really need their toolkit to make the repair -
| most of the repair shops has the necessary tools already
| available for other phones.
|
| The basic process of opening/closing any moder phone is
| basically the same.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _How is this legal? Holds ought to be capped at the maximum
| payable for a transaction._
|
| Sounds like you've never rented a moving truck. Or a power
| tool. Or tried to rent a car with a debit card.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Last time I rented a van, the hold was AU$500 (around
| US$300). Seems pretty crazy to put a $1200 hold on some
| phone repair gear.
| Nekhrimah wrote:
| Vans may be slightly harder to hide than phone repair
| equipment.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I've rented all the items you've listed, plus
| construction equipment and hotel rooms, and none had this
| absurd cost:hold ratio. Notably, only the powertools were
| cheaper than the repair equipment in absolute terms.
|
| Having a difference of 2 orders of magnitude between card
| hold and actual fee is absurd and atypical. I cant
| imagine a $7,500 hotel room stay placing a $120,000 hold
| jitl wrote:
| It's a hold to ensure the rental of very expensive
| equipment used to perform the repair.
| [deleted]
| joshspankit wrote:
| I suspect that the driving force behind Apple's new desire to
| be repairable is legislative.
|
| IMO:
|
| Not profit of the "self-service" repairs, nor the improvement
| to the bottom line when they refurbish their own devices.
|
| Not some future goal of selling people the parts and/or tools.
|
| Not the goal of being ecologically sustainable (though IMO they
| do very well at this).
|
| I think they are working _very_ hard to steer the Right to
| Repair ship so that it avoids successfully docking.
|
| If Right to Repair gets everything that it could in the
| interests of the public, Apple will lose a lot of things. They
| will lose exclusivity contracts that lock in the manufacturers
| (it will be almost impossible to stop 3rd party duplicates of
| parts). They will lose a portion of the income from users who
| would would repair instead of upgrading. They will lose the
| illusion of security that they enjoy currently (unrestricted
| repair communities uncover every tiny detail, especially those
| ones that are security holes). They will lose the ability to
| lock people in to the Apple cloud (Jailbreaking will be
| inevitably easier). And they might even lose the pristine brand
| image they have built.
|
| If Apple continued on the path of unrepairable iPhones, at some
| point they would be one of the examples that got Right to
| Repair signed in to law. However, they might be banking on the
| idea of saying "we're making steps" for long enough that
| legislators will have space to stand down and the public will
| lose momentum.
|
| Then they can go full-throttle on control.
| surewe wrote:
| I don't see how software security relates to being able to
| repair hardware -- third party logic boards would most
| likely... not exist, for example.
| threeseed wrote:
| > I suspect that the driving force behind Apple's new desire
| to be repairable is legislative.
|
| I disagree. It's all about customer LTV.
|
| Apple is increasingly seeing a larger percentage of their
| revenue come from services e.g. Music, TV+ and iPhone-centric
| devices e.g. Apple Watch.
|
| Keeping users in the ecosystem is incredibly important to
| Apple so much that they are happy to have users use older
| phones for longer. Just as long as they don't switch to
| Google or Samsung.
| zzzbra wrote:
| increasingly happy that I held out since iPhone 7+ for this one
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > We are hearing reports that Apple is continuing their hostile
| path of pairing parts to the phone, requiring activation of the
| back glass after installation.
|
| On the other hand, this makes stealing an iPhone more and more
| pointless, as more and more parts cannot be parted out and sold.
| After activation lock was added, thieves started parting out
| screens and batteries to sell them and get at least some value
| out of an otherwise useless stolen iPhone. Want to see how
| useless an activation locked iPhone is? Check eBay. I assume that
| for iP14+ it'll be even less. I welcome this move.
|
| (all opinions my own)
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| That goal could presumably also be accomplished by enabling the
| owner to check a "stolen" box in their iCloud and after that
| all serialized parts of that phone go on a blacklist. An iPhone
| checks every day or something if any of it's parts are
| blacklisted and refuses to work if true.
|
| To prevent a massive attack on Apple by corrupting the
| blacklist, the phones would only perform this check if any of
| the factory parts have been replaced.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Your plan has serious a flaw. Imagine this timeline:
|
| 1. steal iphone A
|
| 2. split it into parts
|
| 3. install parts into iPhone B
|
| 4. parts not yet marked stolen, they work, check passes
|
| 5. Iphone A marked stolen
|
| ...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| You are missing step 6, which is for iphone B to stop
| working after step 5. And part 6 would also include some
| kind of nasty "your phone has stolen parts in it" message
| to the user.
|
| Just like the "don't boot with non-registered hardware",
| this is all software and can be changed. Maybe in future
| releases of iOS they change how this "check for legit
| parts" process works.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I don't think they missed it. I think this is exactly the
| flaw they're pointing out.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| I did actually think of that but decided it would be a net
| good. People would learn to buy from trusted sources (which
| would probably work in Apple's favour) and also it would
| out the thieves in a rather unfortunate way for them, so
| they'd probably get the reputation they deserve rather
| quickly.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| You miss the point. I do not care what "the people"
| learn. I care that my car window is not smashed if some
| low-life sees an iPhone inside, cause it is known that it
| holds no value if stolen.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Yeah I mean I get that. I'm assuming enough people would
| care to mark their devices stolen so that the same
| happens.
| [deleted]
| e44858 wrote:
| The thief could just ask you for your iCloud password and
| unlock the phone (with a gun/knife for motivation).
|
| https://xkcd.com/538/
| formerly_proven wrote:
| There's no expectation of getting an open platform with
| iDevices so anything that disincentives stealing them is a
| plus.
| thathndude wrote:
| Really happy to see this write up. I'm probably in the tank, but
| I genuinely believe that Apple strives to do right by its
| customers, and to be a good company. it's not a nonprofit, and I
| don't expect them to act like one.
|
| Sometimes I feel like people enjoy piling on because they are the
| big dog.
|
| Again, please don't mistake this comment for a blindness to some
| of its operations. But it's nice to see them get credit for the
| good stuff.
| mildmotive wrote:
| > Apple strives to do right by its customers, and to be a good
| company
|
| Meanwhile, millions of people accidentally turn on iCloud
| without understanding the consequences, due to Apple's UI
| decisions.
|
| Apple need to do way more than this to show that they really
| strive to be good.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So after however many years since iCloud was offered, I
| finally broke down and decided to subscribe. It's way more
| than just a switch that can be accidentally flipped. I had to
| agree to terms (yes, not a show stopper), and I had to
| authorize payment. Are people as cavalier with authorizing
| payments as they are to accepting ToS?
| gene91 wrote:
| I think you're confusing iCloud and iCloud+. The former
| doesn't require payment.
| newtritious wrote:
| You haven't said what these evil consequences are.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Oh come on. The backside is made of glass and costs an
| astonishing 570euros to replace. That's not striving to do
| right.
| cromka wrote:
| I'd rather say they simply know that being evil is not a good
| look. It's still driven by profit, they just have a more
| holistic view on that.
| newtritious wrote:
| This is kind of a weird take. If everyone is driven by
| profit, but some get it by evil means and others get it by
| doing things that benefit their customers, can't we simply
| say that the people who do evil stuff are evil, and the ones
| who don't aren't?
| spogbiper wrote:
| They are one of the most profitable companies in the world..
| basically the opposite of a non-profit, and they do generally
| act like it. It's not unexpected, but it isn't good for me as a
| consumer.
| [deleted]
| incanus77 wrote:
| > Forget satellite SOS and the larger camera, the headline is
| this: Apple has completely redesigned the internals of the iPhone
| 14 to make it easier to repair.
|
| HN: <crickets>
| [deleted]
| mcguirep wrote:
| This doesn't make any sense to me, considering it's being
| commented upon literally as you wrote that comment within days
| of the phones release.
| incanus77 wrote:
| This post was on the HN front page and made it all the way
| there without comment, mine being the first.
| dang wrote:
| Breaking the silence by posting something unsubstantive is
| the worst thing you can do. Threads are sensitive to
| initial conditions. Please don't do that again.
|
| It's quite normal for a thread to get upvoted but not get
| comments for quite a while. If that means people are
| reading and digesting the article, that's great. We want
| reflective comments, not reflexive ones (https://hn.algolia
| .com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...) and those
| take time.
| Uehreka wrote:
| Yeah but you posted that comment like, 20 minutes after the
| post even went up, probably less than 10 minutes after it
| hit the front page. For a post to not have any/many
| comments at that point is pretty normal.
| [deleted]
| smlckz wrote:
| Extra hilarious as I can actually hear the sound of crickets.
| elteto wrote:
| There's another comment already moving the goalposts: "sure
| it's more repairable now but what about the closed
| software????".
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| dang wrote:
| If you keep posting unsubstantive comments we are going to
| have to ban you. We've already asked you multiple times,
| and you've unfortunately continued to do it a lot.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| notriddle wrote:
| Swift is great. Apple should use it more.
| [deleted]
| _V_ wrote:
| I dunno, this article reads... strange.
|
| I mean yeah, it is nice to be able to open it from front and
| rear. But what good does it make when they pair every single
| component to the motherboard? Yeah, technically parts are more
| accessible (physically) but thats only the beginning of the
| repair process. And unless you can buy genuine parts without
| hassle and put them in, you are still SOL.
|
| To me it is like cheering that murderer did not also litter I
| mean I guess it is kinda nice of him, but...
| Gigachad wrote:
| Because the rear glass was very common to break and Apple would
| not replace it because its borderline impossible. Now it seems
| very likely that they will offer it as a reasonably priced
| repair.
| _V_ wrote:
| Yeah, I know. It was painfull process full of shattered
| glass.
|
| Reasonably priced repair - unless they found some random part
| glued to the backside that they paired to the motherboard for
| "security reasons" :-D
| wmeredith wrote:
| I think this is a big deal because far and away, the most
| common repairs made to iPhones are replacing the front or back.
| _V_ wrote:
| Exactly and this is why Apple pairs the front part (and
| various other parts) to the motherboard. To make it easier or
| something. Got it
| varenc wrote:
| Making repairs much easier is still a huge win.
|
| We're also constantly moving the goalposts on Apple. The iPhone
| 11 had no public repair manuals and only special authorized
| repair centers could purchase genuine parts or perform the
| "System Configuration" pairing step.
|
| With the iPhone 12, 13, and SE we suddenly we got public repair
| manuals[0] and public access to genuine parts[1]. The "System
| Configuration" step still exists, but it's accessible to anyone
| and requires chating[2] with Apple/SPOT (their self repair
| subcontractor).
|
| Now the new iPhone 14 has been expensively re-engineered to
| make self repair easier. But you're saying because the same
| self-serve "System Configuration" step is required for _some_
| components it 's all moot? Let's take a win when we get one. It
| could still be better, but the trend is definitely moving in
| the right direction.
|
| edit: Also not all repairs require motherboard pairing step,
| albeit the most common ones do. But you can replace the iPhone
| SE camera, taptic engine, SIM tray, and speaker without any
| System Configuration step. See the the SE repair manual [0].
|
| --
|
| [0]
| https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2049/en_US/iph...
|
| [1] https://selfservicerepair.com/order
|
| [2] https://selfservicerepair.com/support
| _V_ wrote:
| I'm not moving goalposts at all. All I'd want is a way to get
| most of the parts from OEM & be able to install them. At the
| very least I'd expect to be able to swap: 1) Battery
| (consumable) 2) Front (LCD) 3) Back (either just the glass or
| the whole frame)
|
| But we have to be honest with ourselves here: what good is it
| to have a repair manual when you cannot buy genuine parts? I
| mean yeah, this is a small-ish win, but it will not help to
| say it is "good enough". Sorry, but that is just not good
| enough.
|
| The thing that pisses me the most is that I genuinely think
| that iPhones are amazing phones. They are quite nicely
| engineered and they easily could last you 5-8 years. Why put
| so much engineering effort to artificially cripple the
| device? Most of us will buy the new model anyway. And those
| who cannot (or don't want) should be able to keep theirs for
| as long as possible. It seems wastefull and unnecessary to
| fight it.
| varenc wrote:
| > what good is it to have a repair manual when you cannot
| buy genuine parts?
|
| You can absolutely buy genuine parts for recent iPhones:
| https://selfservicerepair.com/order (that website looks
| random, but it's actually Apple's official self repair
| supplier)
|
| Yes, the System Configuration step is still required to
| pair many of those parts. This has been discussed ad
| nauseum. Perspectives vary between it being a necessary
| security precaution and an entirely self-interested move by
| Apple to control their supply chain. I suspect the truth is
| somewhere in between.
|
| I've never done the System Configuration step, but it
| requires chatting with a support agent and it sounds much
| easier than the repairs themselves. I absolutely agree
| things could still improve. But I also think we should
| recognize this new iPhone 14 re-design as a huge
| improvement that shows a promising trend.
| _V_ wrote:
| The last time I tried it I had to put in the SN of the
| device I wanted to repair in advance to get the part.
| Maybe they fixed it from then, have not checked.
|
| If you cannot get parts in stock (meaning in advance),
| you might as well send it to the Apple and not bother
| with repair shop at all. I also think this is the main
| reason for making it like that. Display, battery and
| vibration motor has absolutely no security implications.
|
| I would be very happy to see Apple not screwing with
| individual repair shops. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge
| fan of their HW (be it iPhones or MBPs). But I'm not a
| fanboy and I'm not going to bend backwards to praise this
| corporate entity when it is not deserved. If you compare
| the ease of getting part for Samsung and Apple, it is
| like night and day.
|
| That System Configuration step is also a middle finger.
| Having to chat with some support agent just for changing
| a consumable item like a battery? Or a vibration motor?
| What the actual f?
|
| edit: Checked and they _still_ want the SN of a target
| device before selling you anything - even a battery! From
| the site: _The serial number is required and will be
| shared with Apple. This number must be from the device
| that is being repaired or you may encounter issues that
| prevent the completion of the repair._
|
| Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
| newtritious wrote:
| Why are you upset about giving Apple the serial number of
| your device?
| _V_ wrote:
| ???
|
| Please read the thread (shrug emoji).
| alana314 wrote:
| Does the 14 Plus have the redesigned midframe as well?
| oneplane wrote:
| This has got to be one extremely expensive toolchain and supply
| chain redesign to do, but since they have done it a few times
| before (instead of incremental changes) I suppose the money
| department has worked out when it is feasible to do that kind of
| thing while keeping the people in charge happy.
|
| I'm curious to see if this is a 'test' to see if this doesn't
| have too many downsides, I imagine ingress area increasing this
| much might be a point of worry (well, there are flexible seals
| for that now), and instead of having a one-way stack you now have
| a two-way stack so tooling and workstations around that (even if
| we just think in terms of assembly and rework) are going to be a
| PITA to convert or completely replace.
|
| Either this will be a success and allow for the architectural
| change to be applied to other products, or it's a medium-success
| in which this only works for specific parts/antenna/power
| envelope configurations and we won't see this design in other
| form factors.
|
| What does itch a little is iFixit whining about the parts needing
| be a signed set to work together. Nobody has come up with a
| better integrity protection method, and no-protection isn't an
| option either for the ecosystem. Besides, instead of having a
| 'safe' and 'unsafe' option for which practically no user will
| ever be able to make an informed decision, you can simply choose
| not to buy it if this is a feature you seriously despise.
| hammock wrote:
| Redesigning iPhone to be repairable means that Apple can have a
| higher tolerance for part failure. That in turn means that they
| can reduce quality controls and put cheaper parts into their
| phones. It probably pays for itself
| londons_explore wrote:
| I disagree that integrity protection is necessary across many
| components of the phone.
|
| There should be integrity protection on the SoC, and then all
| other components should be untrusted.
|
| Sure, that means someone can proxy the fingerprint sensor or
| put on a fake screen that shows a fake consent dialogue. But I
| think that is an acceptable risk - after all, you can never
| protect against someone making an entirely new device that just
| happens to look like an iPhone.
| grishka wrote:
| > There should be integrity protection on the SoC
|
| And even that should be possible to disable the same way
| Android allows bootloader unlocks.
| oneplane wrote:
| > But I think that is an acceptable risk
|
| And I think it is unacceptable.
|
| That doesn't mean that you also have to think the same thing,
| but I would rather not have that option taken away from me. I
| also don't think that you have made a case for any similar-
| security implementation for integrity protection.
|
| I think distributed trust is the only way to make trustworthy
| components, and the only known-good way to do that is using
| PKI, and the only proven way to do that is to have a CA.
|
| > [..] after all, you can never protect against [..]
|
| That's the kind of thinking that gets you stuck in "we have
| already lost so we should stop trying".
|
| If you can make sure that your finger print never leaves the
| secure enclave, and you can make sure that the Secure Enclave
| cannot be replaced, you can trust the device a whole lot more
| than a fake security measure that can be circumvented at
| every stage. What is the point of an insecure security
| control? You don't send your passwords plain-text over the
| internet, do you? Just because TLS is imperfect, and your CA
| store can be compromised, and your screen might be recorded
| using a camera and a telescope doesn't mean that therefore we
| should stop improving TLS...
| smoldesu wrote:
| > And I think it is unacceptable.
|
| If you're uncomfortable with the idea of buying potentially
| backdoored hardware, what makes you comfortable using
| backdoored software? I don't understand the "hardware
| matters but software doesn't" threat model. It certainly
| doesn't benefit you in any pragmatic sense, the best it
| will do is give you warm fuzzies while Apple adds your OCSP
| data to a running tab for your iCloud account.
| oneplane wrote:
| Because unless you go collect some sand and make your own
| wafers etc. you have to put some trust somewhere. I trust
| a relationship between me and a manufacturer of choice
| more than an adversary. Keep in mind that trust does not
| equal blind trust. I trust an Apple SoC and Apple SEP
| more than say, a RockChip SoC or a MediaTek SEP. And I
| trust a finger print reader that does not transmit actual
| fingerprints to the application processor more than a
| finger print reader that does.
|
| If you are really on the spectrum of 'trust nobody', then
| what are you doing here on the internet? You had to trust
| your GPU, your window manager, your browser, the network
| stack, your internet provider, the server this site runs
| on, the people who own it etc.
| dogecoinbase wrote:
| > after all, you can never protect against someone making an
| entirely new device that just happens to look like an iPhone.
|
| The specific threat being protected against (leaving aside
| the increased safety of iPhone users by making the stolen
| parts market untenable) is your phone, that you recognize and
| use as your phone and which contains your confidential
| material and credentials, having internal components swapped
| out while unattended.
| oneplane wrote:
| It is indeed a protection against evil maid attacks as well
| as the industrialised version of shipment interception.
|
| It's probably also some form of PR and brand protection,
| and part of platform security as a whole.
|
| I doubt that any commercial company would find the side-
| effect of less end-user tampering a true downside; if the
| device says "I have been tampered with", that's a very
| clear signal that someone coming in for some warranty
| repair has some explaining to do.
| tpmx wrote:
| The article text is kind of incomprehensible on its own, IMO. If
| you're not already knowledgeable about modern smartphone repair
| you have to watch the video to make sense of it.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| I'm not sure I care much about repairability. For me, makers
| should have the freedom to design products as they wish. I don't
| think that phones and laptops would be as light and portable as
| iPhones and Macs are if Apple was inhibited by the Right to
| Repair movement from arranging internal components in such a
| jampacked way.
|
| I also think that makers should have the freedom to design
| computers whose software tightly integrate with the hardware.
| Repairing a broken part with a third-party is exactly the
| opposite of tight integration. If people didn't want tight
| integration, then products that are built specifically for tight
| integration are just not the right tool for the job that they
| want to do, and I don't understand why they can't simply choose
| not to buy the product. It's not like the phone and computer
| markets are monopolies either. Androids and PCs of all form
| factors and OSes exist.
|
| It would make more sense to me to call for regulation against
| pricing abuse for the repairs of tightly integrated products. The
| Right to Repair movement as it stands just doesn't resonate much
| with me, nor do I agree with it, because integrated products that
| come with everything you need make for great user experiences.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Even if that was entirely true, I am fine with regulation
| leaning on manufacturers to make products that aren't full of
| soldered ram and storage, glued shut so even their own techs
| have trouble repairing them, because of the implications for
| generating mountains of avoidable e-waste. The ability to fix
| to fix your own gear is just a nice plus of that arrangement, I
| agree it won't be of use to most people, but it's still a plus.
| minimaul wrote:
| Soldered RAM isn't just to be difficult. It has genuine
| performance & power consumption advantages for
| DDR4/DDR5/LPDDR4/LPDDR5.
|
| Storage though, I agree with :)
| kube-system wrote:
| Yeah, LPDDR sockets don't even exist. Machines that use
| this type of RAM have to solder it, there's no other
| choice.
| r00fus wrote:
| > I'm not sure I care much about repairability.
|
| I think for me repairability comes down to: how long do you
| think this phone is supposed to be usable? Even if you don't
| own it (have gifted or sold it). Probably an ecological
| argument there.
|
| Primarily, given there is no up-to-date free/opensource phone
| OS (not to mention baseband software updates) after Apple iOS
| support ends... the phone can realistically only last till then
| unless you want to use legacy software (I have one relative who
| has such a device - but I'd not want one myself).
| chubbnix wrote:
| I think this is kind of a strange position to take when the
| article is demonstrating you wouldn't even notice the increased
| repairability as a consumer. What tight integrations were lost
| in Apple's redesign?
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Increased repairability != enough repairability, as per the
| comments here. Beyond the article, Apple products still
| aren't as repairable as the Right to Repair Movement would
| like, because people still have to peruse thousand-page
| highly technical manuals and buy specialized equipment if
| they wanted to fix certain parts of their Apple devices.
| boucher wrote:
| You're conflating multiple issues. Having the right to
| repair is valuable and desirable, even if it's not actually
| easy to do the repair. I think we've gone too far down the
| road of not owning anything we buy, and thus having no
| rights to use things outside of narrow legal agreements
| nobody even reads.
|
| Making the device easier to repair is _also_ desirable,
| both for Apple and for third parties, because these things
| break all the time and need to be repaired. It saves
| everyone time and reduces waste.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| > right to repair is valuable and desirable, even if it's
| not actually easy to do the repair
|
| Huh? If the act of repairing is difficult (and extremely,
| in Apple's case), then do you actually have the right, or
| is it only a right on paper? Is Right to Repair nothing
| more than printing out manuals no matter how difficult
| the process of repair itself is?
| boucher wrote:
| Nobody actively wants it to be difficult, but if you
| don't even have the actual legal right to modify the
| hardware or software it doesn't matter how easy it is.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Wait so are we outlawing closed-source proprietary
| software now?
| ska wrote:
| No, it's an important distinction. Right to repair is
| more about a company a) not being legally entitled to
| punish you for repairing yourself , and b) not making
| design or manufacturing choices specifically to make it
| harder (e.g. sealing a component against water ingress
| may make it harder to repair but is an acceptable trade
| off, sealing it just to make it hard to repair isn't).
|
| The nature of the device itself may make for difficult
| repairs, but that's a different issue.
| lapinot wrote:
| Imho you're missing the point, or at least, you've stated a
| valid conclusion but the point lies below.
|
| Sure, by tightly integrating you are getting material benefits
| (size, consumption, optimization, etc). But by doing this, you
| go further down into high-tech, which means complexity and
| energy intensive build/repair/dispose [1]. At this point i'm
| reformulating your tradeoff, in which you choose the material
| benefits.
|
| Now, one part of the right-to-repair movement comes from "low-
| tech" underpinning and objects the material benefits. Indeed,
| the point of a smartphone is not to crunch some machine
| instructions, it's to communicate with friends/family/world,
| interact with network services etc. Crunching code is just a
| byproduct of reaching this goal. It's even the same with
| supercomputers which one could think as performance-oriented:
| their goal is not to do the peta-flops, it's to solve some
| simulations at a given precision level. Nothing is built just
| for fun (or should): if you build a tool you better have a
| problem. And if you forget the goal, your tool will most likely
| be garbage. _This_ is the objection of the r2r /lowtech
| movement: it's an assertion that a lot of high-tech has lost
| the sight of it's actual use and hence is hindering progress
| more than anything else.
|
| This is a direct opposition with the pov which is widespread in
| modern western tech thinking that "if you build the tool they
| will use it". Obviously this pov has some depth to it, it's not
| completely nonsense (in the sense that creative and explorative
| processes are useful, i know i'm myself doing research in
| foundations of math). But this pov is also very extreme, and is
| in fact a corner-stone of the offer-driven production that is
| hegemonic today (with market economies). This same offer-driven
| production is also posing many social problems because of the
| need for aggressive marketing, problems with long-term stable
| availability of basic goods, with the focus on big/fast/shiny.
| We've gone too far into that direction and that a part of the
| reason for the pollution and resource exhaustion crisis (being
| themselves big parts of the climate and biosphere crisis going
| on rn).
|
| The position of r2r/lowtech is obviously not to go to the other
| extreme which would be completely planned production based on
| somehow knowing what needs to be done (which we already see
| cannot really work and is very conservative by nature). But
| there has to be a balance. My position: the bulk of the energy-
| intensive and stable mass-manufacturing of basic known-to-be-
| useful-and-desirable goods should be done by planning, with
| open standards, user-groups, cheap repair, and some fraction of
| the resources should be reserved to the free-for-all market-
| driven exploratory research. Obviously this poses a couple
| problem with the fat cats running mass-manufacturing and other
| commodity services.
|
| Hope this was a balanced explanation of the position.
|
| [1] The matter will be ordered on a smaller scale so: (1) to
| build it you need to put a lot of energy into putting
| everything in order (entropy!); (2) to repair you both have to
| diagnose a complex thing and then act on it precisely; (3) to
| dispose of properly you need to put a lot of energy into
| separating everything again (entropy again!). Here i say
| "energy" in a large sense, this energy might be embodied as
| direct energy put into the process but also as human time,
| dependency on high-tech tooling (hence cost), etc. Another
| concept linked to this is "capital intensity".
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple has proven with this iPhone (as have other manufacturers)
| that these goals don't need to be mutually exclusive. You can
| have wild products designed in all manner of ways (with
| satellite connectivity!!!), they just need to be user-
| servicable. That's not an unreasonable request for a company
| with 200 billion dollars sitting in their R&D coffers.
|
| Right-to-repair regulation isn't about stifling innovation,
| it's about giving the consumer leverage in the lifecycle of the
| product they own. Before now, Apple has gone out of their way
| to make life as hard as possible on third-party repair shops -
| that shouldn't be an engineering incentive. Regulation gives us
| the power to force Apple to put consumers before profit
| margins, and innovation somewhere in between.
| Joeri wrote:
| Design is a balancing of constraints, some of which are
| constraints of the product of the design, and some of which
| are constraints of the process. Repairability is a
| constraint, and when that constraint becomes stricter
| something else has to give. Maybe this is more expensive to
| manufacture (and given the massive price hike in europe it
| wouldn't surprise me), maybe this design took up a lot of
| designer hours, which held up other products. Whatever the
| trade-off is, it must be real.
|
| My point is: improved repairability always comes at the
| expense of something else.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| So if our goal is to prolong the lifecycle of consumer
| electronics, then repairability isn't a _necessary_ metric.
|
| If regulators instead went after service pricing abuse, that
| would force companies like Apple to drive down their repair
| prices--which might force them to design their hardware in a
| more modular manner, but not necessarily, so that if it
| becomes negligibly cheap to manufacture and replace the
| entire part of a less modular architecture, then they still
| have the freedom to design electronics in a less modular
| architecture. Repairability, considering the arbitrariness of
| the level of modularity that it stops, really does seem like
| a constraint on innovation.
|
| User-serviceability is another unnecessary requirement, in my
| opinion, and in this regard, regulators can go after service
| _availability_. Electronics manufacturers who insist on tight
| integration of their products should make their repair
| services highly available, which seems like a fair trade-off.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| >If regulators instead went after service pricing abuse
|
| How would this work in a manner that isn't vastly more
| invasive than right to repair bills? I can't think of
| anything similar.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| In what sense would it be vastly more invasive than right
| to repair?
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| The most obvious option to me seems to be price controls,
| which historically have been a very blunt instrument and
| as far as I know, most economists recommend against them.
| baskire wrote:
| An organization only has so much mental capacity to focus on
| challenges. Having a required repair-ability goal would
| hinder the pace of innovation.
|
| It might be worth the hit, but naive to think such an
| accomplishment is without innovation cost.
| ckosidows wrote:
| Isn't innovation frequently a result of limitations?
| boucher wrote:
| Seems to me like Apple was more innovative when they had
| fewer employees and fewer resources, so perhaps we should
| break up the company in order to increase innovation.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| >Apple has gone out of their way to make life as hard as
| possible on third-party repair shops
|
| No they haven't. They just had no reason to prioritize or put
| effort into making sure that third-party repair shops had an
| easy time to do this. Not putting effort into something isn't
| the same as actively putting effort into making things more
| difficult.
| ornornor wrote:
| Pairing parts with phones is going out of their way to
| hinder self repair.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| That is an incredibly ignorant statement. Pairing parts
| with the SOC is a security feature. The intent is to
| increase security with the side-effect being a more
| difficult repair process. You're acting like they did it
| with the purpose of trying to hinder self-repair. If that
| was the case, they wouldn't be taking any measures to
| make self-repair easier.
| GeckoEidechse wrote:
| Repairability and device thinness are by no means mutually
| exclusive IMO.
|
| When LTT did a review of the Framework laptop for example they
| also did a size comparison with a similarly specced Dell laptop
| and found that the framework both thinner and sturdier than the
| Dell laptop, next to being obviously more repairable -\\_( tsu
| )_/-
| [deleted]
| incanus77 wrote:
| > If people didn't want tight integration, then products that
| are built specifically for tight integration are just not the
| right tool for the job that they want to do, and I don't
| understand why they can't simply choose not to buy the product.
|
| This, a million times. I never understand the take "this
| product is a runaway, worldwide success, and I want to use it
| as well because it's by far the best, but I also want various
| other of my own, individual priorities factored in" in some
| sort of mythical unicorn product.
|
| And because many of us are
| hackers/makers/programmers/tinkerers, one of those priorities
| is the ability to have all of the above, but also unfettered
| access to the internals to modify it as we please.
|
| It's like... this car is perfect for my needs in every way, and
| far and above the best in its class. But I want it to run on
| hydrogen, so if they could just do that, it'd be perfect. Why
| are they forcing me to run on electric?
|
| Dude, don't buy it?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| To note, it would be a waste of everyone's time to scrutinize
| a product that has almost no users; it would need to have a
| really atrocious effect to make it worth considering.
|
| It's exactly because it's a runaway success that people care
| about repairability, environmental impact etc.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I never understand the take "this product is a runaway,
| worldwide success, and I want to use it as well because it's
| by far the best, but I also want various other of my own,
| individual priorities factored in" in some sort of mythical
| unicorn product._
|
| Just because a product is a runaway success does not mean
| it's also not a potential environmental disaster waiting to
| happen. Cars were also a runaway success. So were plastic
| bags and straws. So was snake oil and so are various sugary
| fizzy drinks that destroy your health.
|
| We can't just leave everything to the free market and the
| uninformed preferences of the consumers and watch everything
| around us burn because $THING is successful because
| $CORPORATION advertises it and consumers love it, otherwise
| we end up in the dystopian Idiocracy scenario of "Brawndo is
| what plants crave because it has electrolytes and is the no.
| 1 thirst mutilator".
|
| That's why we should regulate products that are a runaway
| success to make sure their success doesn't come at the
| expense of other things around us.
| incanus77 wrote:
| > That's why we should regulate products that are a runaway
| success to make sure their success doesn't come at the
| expense of other things around us.
|
| Yes, I agree completely. But I wasn't talking about
| regulation, I was talking about tinkerer users not
| understanding how the delicate balance achieved by a
| product _is_ the reason that it is successful and good.
| greenn wrote:
| Third parties are perfectly capable of making replacement parts
| that match the OEM parts in functionality and quality. This has
| no effect on integration. The other parts of the phone don't
| care who manufactured the part, unless they were programmed to,
| as long as they are functionally equivalent. The user certainly
| doesn't care who manufactured the part as it does not effect
| the user experience.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I think when you look at it from a profit-driven lens,
| though, third-parties are always going to have to compromise
| on something to keep costs down in order to make a profit.
| Apple, historically, overcompensates on its parts and has
| higher tolerances so, in order for a third-party to be able
| to make replacement parts at significant enough profits, they
| need to be parts that don't match the OEM in quality or
| function, by definition.
|
| Just look at screen repairs. Apple checks in software to
| verify the integrity of some of the hardware in screens and,
| in the past, it led to people being locked out of their
| devices when they were repaired with screens that had dummy
| FaceID/TouchID sensors.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| 3rd parties are very much not able to match. Just do a side
| by side of screen quality and battery life. That is what
| upsets a customer more than anything - but they never know
| exactly why.
|
| (Old 3rd party repair shop; thousands of data points)
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Right to repair is a societal and environmental topic. You
| personally not seeing a benefit to it is mostly beside the
| point: think about battery disposal laws, toxic material
| regulations, wireless power limitations, available frequencies,
| etc. These mostly matter at scale, taking input from single
| individuals would probably not land on the right trade-offs for
| the society as a whole.
| ojagodzinski wrote:
| > I'm not sure I care much about repairability. For me, makers
| should have the freedom to design products as they wish.
|
| No one should have the "right" to create products that turn to
| garbage when any part of it breaks. A clean planet is more
| important than "great user experiences". The second thing that
| they did it only for profit, is ergonomics of new repairable
| iphone any worse?
|
| Also "software locked" parts should be banned by EU regulators.
| astrange wrote:
| The EU preserving the rights of people to steal your phone
| and sell it for parts would go well with their trying to
| preserve the rights of people installing malware on it.
| manojlds wrote:
| If any company can figure out how to do it and be a tight
| integrated product that works amazingly, it's Apple.
|
| Let's not forget, this is also about reducing e-waste and it's
| not an option anymore to dump new phones because one part broke
| and you can't repair yourself.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| If there's any company that cares about e-waste and could do
| this, it would be Apple. They're the only company, from what
| I can see, that does any kind of changes with regard to an
| eye on environmental sustainability.
| yreg wrote:
| I have been of the same opinion (and I guess I still am, albeit
| less strongly). However, user wants aside, easily repairable
| products are better ecology-wise.
|
| I want Apple to be allowed to create any device they want, but
| I think iPhone and Mac repairability can be currently improved
| without noticably hurting features. Prioritizing it would be
| the right trade off to do. In that case they should go for it
| (as they apparently decided to do).
|
| Even without fighting for regulation, we can still celebrate
| companies when they decide to create repairable products with
| long term software support and complain about them when they
| don't.
|
| A regulation that I would like to see would be to perhaps force
| 'makers' to sell genuine spare parts to anyone (same goes for
| Tesla and others).
| Melatonic wrote:
| There is no reason that it would make the phones worse at all.
| Apple in the past intentionally made the phone harder to repair
| for no advantage.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| There are substantial externalities to commercializing products
| that cannot be repaired. Fantastic amounts of non-biodegradable
| waste, overconsumption of nonrenewable material resources, and
| of course financial loss to consumers and opportunity cost to
| the secondary market. "Just choose not to buy the product" is
| only sensible if choosing not to buy the product fully
| insulates you from the effects of its existence.
|
| Regulation places the cost of those externalities and/or the
| responsibility to prevent them back in the lap of the
| manufacturer.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Couldn't recyclability and repairability be mutually
| independent, though? It sounds possible to me that a product
| that is not highly repairable could still be highly
| recyclable just because its shattered parts can still be
| reprocessed into new products.
| babypuncher wrote:
| The iPhone 14 more or less proves that you can build a device
| as thin and sleek as Apple and still have it reasonably
| repairable.
|
| I think the same is true of Macbooks. There is no real reason
| that the SSD has to be soldered to the motherboard, Apple could
| easily put the NAND chips on a slim socketed daughterboard
| (they already do this on the Mac Studio).
|
| I won't say that every laptop needs to be built like the
| Framework, but I do think that any component that could be
| considered a "wear item" (batteries, NAND flash, OLED screens)
| should be designed to be replaced.
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| -- guessing - three things - 1) better margins on repair kits
| than hiring folks to replace screens all day - 2) difficult to
| assess if a screen/part is apple genuine or not at the store when
| dealing with trade-in/warranty returns - 3) apple genuinely cares
| about their environmental impact --
| MBCook wrote:
| #3 seems true, but remember all this bites Apple as well. The
| redesign also makes it cheaper/easier for them to repair
| things. So even if this is 100% selfish it would still be good
| overall.
| hot_gril wrote:
| > Forget satellite SOS and the larger camera, the headline is
| this: Apple has completely redesigned the internals of the iPhone
| 14 to make it easier to repair.
|
| This made me chuckle. I'm willing to bet that the overwhelming
| majority of users care far more about the camera than the
| repairability. The latter is hardly even something they consider.
| It will probably help them in unseen ways, like improving resale
| value.
| majani wrote:
| It would matter if it was highlighted. People care about
| repairability of expensive items. Admittedly, it is a secondary
| concern, but I would say it is probably the top secondary
| concern
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is it? Most people that might be concerned just pay for Apple
| Care, and then let Apple repair it. Only the 1% of people
| that are techy/nerdy enough to even try this are even
| bothered by this.
| hot_gril wrote:
| A secondary concern is resale value. Repairability isn't even
| that. To put it one way, even if you could repair an iPhone
| with legos, I think it'd sway few to zero buyers from an
| alternative.
| frio wrote:
| While I somewhat agree, the big repair that most people are
| going to want to do pre- or post- sale is replacing the
| battery. If that's something that anyone can do now, it'll
| improve resale value.
| georgehm wrote:
| Does the iPhone 14 still have the battery glued to the back?
| Couldn't figure it out from reading the article. I recently
| replaced the battery on my old iPhone 6s using the ifixit repair
| kit. Of all the steps I found removing the tape attached to the
| battery was the flakiest/hardest operation. After many attempts I
| did remove it but I also ended up cracking the battery a bit
| :sigh:. Any changes that make the removal of the battery easier
| would be a great win for repairability.
| _V_ wrote:
| They are still gluing it however they use "pull tab" strips.
| Although they are somethimes PITA to remove, they are not the
| worst thing.
|
| If you tear one off you can usually use a little bit of IPA to
| loosen it.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| Looking at the board photo, something bad happened during
| disassembly of the 14 Pro Max. At least 9 components were heated
| and moved off their pads on the main CPU board in the lower left
| corner. Some of the chips on the other side are also shifted.
| Will take some work to get that running again...
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Apple has completely redesigned the internals of the iPhone 14
| to make it easier to repair HN: <crickets>_
|
| Easier for who? Quote from the video:
|
| _" We're hearing reports of Apple continuing on the hostile path
| of pairing parts to the phone, requiring activation of the back
| glass after installation. Why in the world would you need
| permission to install a sheet of glass?! Using software to
| prevent the replacement of components with aftermarket parts gets
| a big thumbs-dwon from us."_
|
| Let's call it like it is. Apple is not doing _you_ a favor for
| easier repairability, they 're doing their bottom line a favor.
| If they actually cared, they wouldn't be so hostile to software
| lock you out of replacing a bloody glass panel.
|
| The internal design is still greatly thought out though. I've
| been asking myself for years: why can't phone makers make phones
| with a mid frame that allow both sides to be easily swapped out,
| instead of one or another. Seems like Apple has cracked it. I
| hope other phone makers copy this minus the SW locks.
| baybal2 wrote:
| selykg wrote:
| Sort of. You can still buy replacement parts from Apple as part
| of the repair program. This would, in theory, make repairing
| the iPhone 14 a lot easier than it has been in the past.
|
| No, this still doesn't mean you can go get the cheapest
| replacement option you can on Alibaba but the repair is STILL
| easier, even if you still have to buy from Apple. For certain
| replacement parts I can see this being important, like anything
| involved in Face ID or Touch ID.
|
| Credit where credit is due, let's hope it continues in the
| right direction.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> For certain replacement parts I can see this being
| important, like anything involved in Face ID or Touch ID._
|
| Those are secure elements. The back glass is not a secure
| element. That's just vendor lock-in malice for the sake of
| profiteering.
|
| Edit: Since I can reply to your comments below, your argument
| fails flat because:
|
| 1) SW lock-outs also apply to genuine apple parts, not just
| aftermarket ones
|
| 2) If the user's ability to verify the originality of the
| parts installed in their phone was the real reason, they
| Apple could just have a prompt for the user that the new part
| is not genuine instead of completely locking it out.
| laserlight wrote:
| There's a charitable interpretation. Customers can now
| verify that the replacements are genuine Apple parts.
| [deleted]
| selykg wrote:
| I wasn't arguing that the back glass was a secure element.
| I said it makes sense for certain replacement parts and
| then gave examples of those surrounding Face ID and Touch
| ID.
|
| I would agree with you that the back glass is not one of
| those things. But as another person said, it is nice to
| know that they're official Apple products as that does
| matter to some people.
| spideymans wrote:
| Apple's Activation Lock lead to a substantial drop in
| smartphone theft worldwide. That's something worthy of
| consideration. Apple must not re-incentivize phone theft to
| harvest parts.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/apples-activation-lock-lea...
| freedomben wrote:
| This is a really good point. Thanks for sharing. I'm highly
| critical of Apple for their practices, but this is great food
| for thought. I'm gonna have to marinade that for a bit and
| re-evaluate my position.
|
| Could they still do it for Apple official parts without
| locking out 3rd parties? i.e. if an official screen that was
| previously registered to a different phone, then lock it out.
| If it's never been registered, then allow it?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| But what if I want to transplant a part from my old phone to
| a phone same model that I both legitimately own? Why should
| Apple be the one to stop me? Why not let the user
| enable/disable the SW lock, like a lo-jack?
|
| Do you live in an area where phone theft is rampant? Ok, then
| leave SW lock enabled on your phone's parts.
|
| Do you want to legitimately transplant parts off your old
| phone to your new phone? Then let the user disable the SW
| lock after entering their PIN or Face-ID or whatever.
|
| It's not like this is some super-complex problem Apple
| couldn't solve with a few line of code to have the best of
| bot worlds if they really wanted to.
| noptd wrote:
| Exactly, it's such an easy problem to solve if you're
| actually interested in solving it which makes it quite
| obvious that Apple isn't.
| cruano wrote:
| I got mugged a couple years ago, or attempted to: The thief
| asked for my phone, saw it was an iPhone and just gave it
| back.
|
| That to me is worth the whole phone bricking thing. And it's
| also not like I've gone through a bunch of them, I got a 6S
| on release and a 12 pro when I felt it couldn't play video
| games anymore.
| altairprime wrote:
| It also considerably reduces the ability of nation-state
| attackers to replace parts with modified hardware without
| your knowledge, as Apple can detect and terminate misuse of
| the tool that creates new cryptographic signing keys for the
| pairing of phone and part. We saw signed-pairing appear with
| the Touch ID system in response to Apple learning of nation-
| state attacks on the iPhone that used hardware modifications.
|
| To date, no HN discussion of this crypto-pairing of the phone
| to its parts has revealed an alternative solution that would
| be effective at Apple's scale for preventing phones from
| being hacked by a parts swap _while also_ allowing any part
| to be swapped in -- not to mention while providing the anti-
| theft benefits described upthread. I'd love to see a viable
| alternative solution described, if anyone has one.
| jorvi wrote:
| > To date, no HN discussion of this crypto-pairing of the
| phone to its parts has revealed an alternative solution
| that would be effective at Apple's scale for preventing
| phones from being hacked by a parts swap while also
| allowing any part to be swapped in
|
| Random-ass repair shops are not going to expend the effort
| of putting in fake parts to hack you to.. hack a couple of
| thousand dollars off of your account and then get caught
| due to it easily being traceable to the repair shop?
|
| The only people who need protection from hardware-swap
| hacks are people like journalists. And if you are one, you
| shouldn't be giving people physical access to your device
| regardless.
|
| Here is a simple solution: give the normal user (after a
| passcode unlock) a pop-up: 'your X has been replaced. Do
| you wish to authorize this new part for use with your
| iPhone?'.
|
| Make it so that if your phone is set to the new Lockdown
| mode, you cannot authorize any new parts.
| ertemplin wrote:
| The "your X has been replaced" pop-up doesn't handle the
| situation where an attacker knows your passcode.
|
| I think you might also be failing to account for
| situations where you aren't in possession of your phone
| for an hour or two. Imagine if police in a foreign
| country take your phone for a couple of hours and then
| give it back to you. Or you leave your phone in a hotel
| room to charge for a few hours. Or your phone gets
| "misplaced" for an hour after going through the airport
| x-ray machine.
|
| There are many targets other than journalists too, such
| as people in the USA who develop export controlled
| technologies, certain tech company employees, defense
| contractor employees, other government employees, etc. I
| don't think you can expect every potential target to
| constantly set their iphone to lockdown mode.
| jorvi wrote:
| > The "your X has been replaced" pop-up doesn't handle
| the situation where an attacker knows your passcode.
|
| If this is the case, they can add their own fingerprint
| or face (alternate look feature) to your iPhone. You're
| thoroughly pwned at that point, no hardware swaps
| necessary.
|
| > I think you might also be failing to account for
| situations where you aren't in possession of your phone
| for an hour or two
|
| If I came back to my unattended phone after 2 hours and
| it was giving me a pop-up about a swapped part, I would
| never trust that phone again.
|
| > I don't think you can expect every potential target to
| constantly set their iphone to lockdown mode.
|
| If they are that much of an attractive target, their
| organizations would be stupid not to enforce it. I know
| that Lockheed used to give personnel that was China-bound
| a throwaway laptop and would shred it the moment they
| returned to the USA.
| altairprime wrote:
| Anyone crossing a border where a nation state takes
| physical possession of their device is, currently,
| protected. The US border authorities have a very awful
| policy of storing data they've stolen for up to 15 years,
| and other US federal authorities have been previously
| caught using hardware modifications to hack devices.
| Anyone within 100 miles of a US border is subject to
| seizure and search under US law, which is approximately
| one-fifth of the country, including SF tech workers and
| NYC fintech workers.
|
| These protections apply to considerably more of one
| country's populace than would benefit from off-market
| parts being usable at third-party repair shops. I
| appreciate Apple's choice to prioritize in this regard,
| but I'd still like to see if tech can overcome this
| barrier without sacrificing that safety.
| jorvi wrote:
| > Anyone crossing a border where a nation state takes
| physical possession of their device is, currently,
| protected.
|
| Assuming you are a normal person, you already are.
| Rapidly click the lock button 5 times and they cannot
| extract any data with normal means. If you are someone
| worthy of nation-state attention, why are you crossing
| the border without a wiped device, as has been the
| adviced standard practice for years?
|
| Again: these draconian repair protections should be tied
| to Lockdown mode. There is no reason to destroy
| repairability to protect a tiny group _that isn't giving
| their device out for repairs anyway if they're following
| opsec_.
| altairprime wrote:
| I have no faith in the ability of nation-states to
| accurately determine that I am not a criminal, and the
| authorities in my home nation-state are known around the
| world for both their excessive violence and their
| unannounced home invasions, in which (for example)
| scenario reaching for my phone would result in me being
| killed. Those protections benefit me and others like me
| especially, and I'm comfortable paying a few more dollars
| for authorized repairs to retain them. I appreciate that
| you do not see the need for those protections for
| yourself, but the convenience you seek comes at the cost
| of the safety it provides others. I remain unpersuaded.
| jorvi wrote:
| > I have no faith in the ability of nation-states to
| accurately determine that I am not a criminal
|
| No state will burn extremely expensive tools like Pegasus
| on a garden-variety criminal.
|
| I'm very conscious of my privacy and device security
| myself, but I'm also aware that I do not warrant high-
| cost surveillance. Most people are in that boat. You can
| model your threats accordingly.
| noptd wrote:
| Activation lock is effectively a remote kill switch, which
| have nothing to do with the topic at hand.
| boywitharupee wrote:
| Where's the display engine located?
| 127 wrote:
| So... it's easy to change a new battery in?
| kiririn wrote:
| This brings back memories of the Xperia Z1 Compact (+ several
| later generations) that used this same design of gluing the
| screen and back glass independently to a mid frame.
|
| Unfortunately they are not good memories. The slightest, barely
| visible bend or sub-par repair and the back glass would peel up
| in one corner and coat the underside of the camera in dust and
| condensation
|
| I'm not sure I would risk buying a phone with this design again.
| Apple will have to have worked some serious magic to make it
| strong and robust
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-19 23:01 UTC)