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> It's not all that hard to find screwdrivers for the fancy screws that Apple (and other companies) use. And yet it's a barrier to their repair. Is it excuseab

> It's not all that hard to find screwdrivers for the fancy screws that Apple (and other companies) use. And yet it's a barrier to their repair. Is it excuseable? Is there a reason you felt the need to mention how "hard" it is to find these specially-designed screwdrivers, and yet don't at all give a good reason for why they're used in the first place? >Allowing consumers to disassemble the devices will practically guarantee that they break That's a responsibility for customers, not Apple. Better still, Apple could release the kind of documentation that would prevent customers from breaking devices when opening them up, but they've chosen not to do that. Do they really care about the danger of home repair, considering that? >The only people who should be disassembling them are people specially trained to repair them That should really be the choice of the customer. Apple devices are not in the common interest - your neighbour pulling apart their phone is none of your business. Why do you feel this shouldn't be available to whoever ends up owning the device?

criddell 9y ago
> And yet it's a barrier to their repair. It's not much of a barrier. If that stops you, then you probably weren't going to be able to fix anything inside the phone anyway.
- ivanbakel 9y ago
  >It's not much of a barrier. This would be missing the point. There is a barrier in place. It hasn't been justified by anybody for technical reasons, so it exists only for the sake of being a barrier to repair. Is that acceptable behaviour from a company?
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    If disassembly will cause the company more harm than benefit (e.g. consequences of inept repair attempts, or even just idle curiosity), it makes sense for them to put up a toekn barrier of some kind. I think that as far as the actual repairability of Apple devices goes, focusing on the screws is bikeshedding. The screws are trivial to get around. Why not talk about the glued-together, soldered-on parts instead? Those seem like much bigger issues to me.
    - ivanbakel 9y ago
      Because the internal glue might be forgiven by Apple's design needs, in the kind of statement like the one they made at the top of this thread. The screws aren't important as a barrier to repairability, but because they have no other purpose. It is not a consequence of product design to select a screw solely on the virtue that it makes user repair more difficult. On principle, the screws are more significant as a reflection of Apple's negative attitude towards its customers.
      - eridius 9y ago
        Its attitude is that its customers shouldn't be self-repairing devices. And that attitude is absolutely correct. The average Apple customer has no business whatsoever opening their device. And that's what the screws are, a small barrier that tells the user "you shouldn't open this unless you know what you're doing".
      - khedoros1 9y ago
        > The screws aren't important as a barrier to repairability, but because they have no other purpose. Ah. From experience, the only thing that stopped me from disassembling things as a youngster that I couldn't have gotten back together were often unusual screws. In my mind, that's a more reasonable reason to use specialized screws, because they aren't more than a token barrier to actually repairing the device. Since I don't have access to Apple's internal design documents, I have no idea if that's actually their stated reason, but it makes more sense to me than malice on Apple's part.
        ivanbakel 9y ago
        This is direct contradiction to your previous statement that the screws are trivial to get around.
        khedoros1 9y ago
        For someone who could believably repair it. I thought that would be implied by "that I couldn't have gotten back together", but I forget that someone need that kind of thing spelled out to them. It's easier to get a hold of the necessary screwdrivers than to actually repair the device.
eridius 9y ago
They're used so consumers don't take apart their iPhones. I thought that was pretty obvious. > That's a responsibility for customers, not Apple. That's incredibly naïve. If Apple does nothing to make it hard to open up their devices, then consumers who don't know any better will decide to try and "maintain" their devices themselves (e.g. swapping the battery) and will end up breaking them. Apple has a responsibility to their customers to avoid making it easy to break their devices. And besides just protecting their customers, this also saves Apple money because they don't have to provide support to customers whose devices "just broke, no really I didn't open it up". Using custom screws is a fairly minor roadblock all things considered. It won't stop anyone who knows what they're doing, but it will prevent the average customer from trying to muck with their device and breaking it. > Apple could release the kind of documentation that would prevent customers from breaking devices when opening them up Haha no they couldn't. There's not a chance in hell that Apple could provide any sort of documentation that would prevent the average customer from destroying their device, unless that documentation simply said "DO NOT OPEN YOUR DEVICE". Apple devices are not designed with end-user repair in mind, and the only people that should be opening them up are people with expertise in disassembling electronics, not average consumers. > That should really be the choice of the customer. What choice? "Do I want to break my device, or not?" That's not a useful choice. > your neighbour pulling apart their phone is none of your business Not my business, no, but it definitely is Apple's business. Not only does Apple not want to see its customer destroy their phone, but Apple also doesn't want to have to provide support to that customer now that they've done that.
- ivanbakel 9y ago
  > They're used so consumers don't take apart their iPhones. I thought that was pretty obvious. What is this in response to? That's exactly what we're talking about - the use of proprietary screws to try and prevent users from opening up their devices. Nobody is debating what the choice of screwhead is for. >Using custom screws is a fairly minor roadblock all things considered. It won't stop anyone who knows what they're doing, but it will prevent the average customer from trying to muck with their device and breaking it. And yet you also state that the screw is not a real barrier. If someone is determined enough to replace their battery that they're willing to open up their phone to do it, what about the act of buying a special screwdriver online to do it is suddenly too much? It seems to me that the screws don't really help to protect against customers at all. > Apple devices are not designed with end-user repair in mind Which is the original point of contention - by designing devices which are not intended to be repaired at home, Apple takes away from the rights of its customers, with the added benefit of lining its own pockets with repair fees and replacements. The excuse of "making your device harder to repair" shouldn't be "we don't want you to repair it", if you're trying to defend on principle the idea that Apple isn't deliberately trying to hamper home repair. If they are, then there's no point continuing the original discussion - Apple's difficulty of repair doesn't come from its great design, but because they are made to be unrepairable, and Apple is guilty of all the shameful practises they're being accused of in the first place.

criddell 9y ago

> And yet it's a barrier to their repair. It's not much of a barrier. If that stops you, then you probably weren't going to be able to fix anything inside the phone anyway.

ivanbakel 9y ago
>It's not much of a barrier. This would be missing the point. There is a barrier in place. It hasn't been justified by anybody for technical reasons, so it exists only for the sake of being a barrier to repair. Is that acceptable behaviour from a company?
- khedoros1 9y ago
  If disassembly will cause the company more harm than benefit (e.g. consequences of inept repair attempts, or even just idle curiosity), it makes sense for them to put up a toekn barrier of some kind. I think that as far as the actual repairability of Apple devices goes, focusing on the screws is bikeshedding. The screws are trivial to get around. Why not talk about the glued-together, soldered-on parts instead? Those seem like much bigger issues to me.
  - ivanbakel 9y ago
    Because the internal glue might be forgiven by Apple's design needs, in the kind of statement like the one they made at the top of this thread. The screws aren't important as a barrier to repairability, but because they have no other purpose. It is not a consequence of product design to select a screw solely on the virtue that it makes user repair more difficult. On principle, the screws are more significant as a reflection of Apple's negative attitude towards its customers.
    - eridius 9y ago
      Its attitude is that its customers shouldn't be self-repairing devices. And that attitude is absolutely correct. The average Apple customer has no business whatsoever opening their device. And that's what the screws are, a small barrier that tells the user "you shouldn't open this unless you know what you're doing".
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      > The screws aren't important as a barrier to repairability, but because they have no other purpose. Ah. From experience, the only thing that stopped me from disassembling things as a youngster that I couldn't have gotten back together were often unusual screws. In my mind, that's a more reasonable reason to use specialized screws, because they aren't more than a token barrier to actually repairing the device. Since I don't have access to Apple's internal design documents, I have no idea if that's actually their stated reason, but it makes more sense to me than malice on Apple's part.
      - ivanbakel 9y ago
        This is direct contradiction to your previous statement that the screws are trivial to get around.
        khedoros1 9y ago
        For someone who could believably repair it. I thought that would be implied by "that I couldn't have gotten back together", but I forget that someone need that kind of thing spelled out to them. It's easier to get a hold of the necessary screwdrivers than to actually repair the device.

eridius 9y ago

They're used so consumers don't take apart their iPhones. I thought that was pretty obvious. > That's a responsibility for customers, not Apple. That's incredibly naïve. If Apple does nothing to make it hard to open up their devices, then consumers who don't know any better will decide to try and "maintain" their devices themselves (e.g. swapping the battery) and will end up breaking them. Apple has a responsibility to their customers to avoid making it easy to break their devices. And besides just protecting their customers, this also saves Apple money because they don't have to provide support to customers whose devices "just broke, no really I didn't open it up". Using custom screws is a fairly minor roadblock all things considered. It won't stop anyone who knows what they're doing, but it will prevent the average customer from trying to muck with their device and breaking it. > Apple could release the kind of documentation that would prevent customers from breaking devices when opening them up Haha no they couldn't. There's not a chance in hell that Apple could provide any sort of documentation that would prevent the average customer from destroying their device, unless that documentation simply said "DO NOT OPEN YOUR DEVICE". Apple devices are not designed with end-user repair in mind, and the only people that should be opening them up are people with expertise in disassembling electronics, not average consumers. > That should really be the choice of the customer. What choice? "Do I want to break my device, or not?" That's not a useful choice. > your neighbour pulling apart their phone is none of your business Not my business, no, but it definitely is Apple's business. Not only does Apple not want to see its customer destroy their phone, but Apple also doesn't want to have to provide support to that customer now that they've done that.

ivanbakel 9y ago
> They're used so consumers don't take apart their iPhones. I thought that was pretty obvious. What is this in response to? That's exactly what we're talking about - the use of proprietary screws to try and prevent users from opening up their devices. Nobody is debating what the choice of screwhead is for. >Using custom screws is a fairly minor roadblock all things considered. It won't stop anyone who knows what they're doing, but it will prevent the average customer from trying to muck with their device and breaking it. And yet you also state that the screw is not a real barrier. If someone is determined enough to replace their battery that they're willing to open up their phone to do it, what about the act of buying a special screwdriver online to do it is suddenly too much? It seems to me that the screws don't really help to protect against customers at all. > Apple devices are not designed with end-user repair in mind Which is the original point of contention - by designing devices which are not intended to be repaired at home, Apple takes away from the rights of its customers, with the added benefit of lining its own pockets with repair fees and replacements. The excuse of "making your device harder to repair" shouldn't be "we don't want you to repair it", if you're trying to defend on principle the idea that Apple isn't deliberately trying to hamper home repair. If they are, then there's no point continuing the original discussion - Apple's difficulty of repair doesn't come from its great design, but because they are made to be unrepairable, and Apple is guilty of all the shameful practises they're being accused of in the first place.