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>How do we know that the third-party teams hadn't previously seen these videos? The best third-party repairers are vastly more advanced than Apple's own warran

>How do we know that the third-party teams hadn't previously seen these videos? The best third-party repairers are vastly more advanced than Apple's own warranty repair service. They're constantly pushing the limits of what is considered possible in SMD rework. None of these videos would have provided any useful information to them. iFixit are rank amateurs compared to companies like G-lon, REWA and ZXW. The fact that Motherboard praise them as "incredible" is frankly embarrassing.

andrewmcwatters 8y ago
Thanks for adding the perspective: I had no idea who these players were in the space prior to you mentioning them. I guess that says something about iFixit's marketing outreach.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  iFixit sell DIY repair kits to ordinary consumers, so they need to cultivate a certain public image. The companies I mentioned sell tools to professional repairers, so they don't really care if consumers have heard of them. My gripe is with the author of this piece, who seems to unquestioningly regurgitate iFixit's PR talking points. iFixit provide a useful service and do cool stuff, but they're much better at marketing than they are at fixing things.
  - yborg 8y ago
    You seem to have some gripe with iFixit itself - the article just points out that iFixit has reverse-engineered some of these techniques and makes them available to the public unlike the many undoubtedly skilled professional repair companies who have a vested interest in making sure the public is as ignorant as possible. This makes it impossible to show other such examples; how this becomes "regurgitating iFixit PR" is unclear to me.
    - urda 8y ago
      Based on the comment history GP has some axe to grind with iFixit. I don't get why they dislike iFixit, as the guides they put out are high quality and well suited for their target demographic. Not everything has to be geared to the super-knowledgeable reader, especially things like repair guides for consumer electronics.
      - ryanlol 8y ago
        >Based on the comment history GP has some axe to grind with iFixit. Their actual comment history doesn't seem to reflect this https://hn.algolia.com/?query=jdietrich%20ifixit&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?query=jdietrich%20ifixit&sort=byPopu...
    - jdietrich 8y ago
      As I said, iFixit provide a useful service and do cool stuff. If you know absolutely nothing about electronics repair, they will show you enough to perform basic repairs with a reasonable degree of confidence. They publish repair guides in order to sell more tools. I have absolutely no qualms with their business model. It's a positive, socially beneficial way of making a living. My objection is with journalists who uncritically describe iFixit as experts. iFixit are not experts on consumer electronics or electronics repair. They are well-meaning amateurs who run a tool shop and have a media budget. If a professional technology journalist is unable to discern this, then that is indicative of a profound malaise within journalism. Every time Apple launch a piece of hardware, iFixit get a huge amount of SEO juice from technology news websites linking to their teardown. Why is literally nobody in the media doing it themselves? iFixit have taken on an outsized role in technology journalism, because the overwhelming majority of technology journalists simply do not have the knowledge to take apart a piece of technology and say anything meaningful about what they see inside. That is most certainly not the fault of iFixit.
babypuncher 8y ago
Doesn't the cost of these advanced repairs kind of negate the value of getting your device repaired versus just replacing the whole thing (or parts)? I'm sure Apple has done lots of cost benefit analysis and found that it's way cheaper to just replace an iPhone motherboard than it is to pay someone skilled at SMD repair to find the bad component(s) and replace them.
- marvin 8y ago
  Well, if Apple has exorbitant markups on motherboard replacement (and other repairs) outside of warranty, repair makes perfect sense.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  The third-party repair industry exists because companies can profitably undercut Apple's out-of-warranty repair charges. That's true in the US and it's doubly true in lower-wage economies. It may be that skilled repair work isn't scaleable, so Apple have decided to constrain their repair operations to simple module swaps. It may also be that Apple would rather sell you a new device than fix your old one, so have taken an approach that is broadly hostile to repair. I suspect it's a bit of both.

andrewmcwatters 8y ago

Thanks for adding the perspective: I had no idea who these players were in the space prior to you mentioning them. I guess that says something about iFixit's marketing outreach.

jdietrich 8y ago
iFixit sell DIY repair kits to ordinary consumers, so they need to cultivate a certain public image. The companies I mentioned sell tools to professional repairers, so they don't really care if consumers have heard of them. My gripe is with the author of this piece, who seems to unquestioningly regurgitate iFixit's PR talking points. iFixit provide a useful service and do cool stuff, but they're much better at marketing than they are at fixing things.
- yborg 8y ago
  You seem to have some gripe with iFixit itself - the article just points out that iFixit has reverse-engineered some of these techniques and makes them available to the public unlike the many undoubtedly skilled professional repair companies who have a vested interest in making sure the public is as ignorant as possible. This makes it impossible to show other such examples; how this becomes "regurgitating iFixit PR" is unclear to me.
  - urda 8y ago
    Based on the comment history GP has some axe to grind with iFixit. I don't get why they dislike iFixit, as the guides they put out are high quality and well suited for their target demographic. Not everything has to be geared to the super-knowledgeable reader, especially things like repair guides for consumer electronics.
    - ryanlol 8y ago
      >Based on the comment history GP has some axe to grind with iFixit. Their actual comment history doesn't seem to reflect this https://hn.algolia.com/?query=jdietrich%20ifixit&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?query=jdietrich%20ifixit&sort=byPopu...
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    As I said, iFixit provide a useful service and do cool stuff. If you know absolutely nothing about electronics repair, they will show you enough to perform basic repairs with a reasonable degree of confidence. They publish repair guides in order to sell more tools. I have absolutely no qualms with their business model. It's a positive, socially beneficial way of making a living. My objection is with journalists who uncritically describe iFixit as experts. iFixit are not experts on consumer electronics or electronics repair. They are well-meaning amateurs who run a tool shop and have a media budget. If a professional technology journalist is unable to discern this, then that is indicative of a profound malaise within journalism. Every time Apple launch a piece of hardware, iFixit get a huge amount of SEO juice from technology news websites linking to their teardown. Why is literally nobody in the media doing it themselves? iFixit have taken on an outsized role in technology journalism, because the overwhelming majority of technology journalists simply do not have the knowledge to take apart a piece of technology and say anything meaningful about what they see inside. That is most certainly not the fault of iFixit.

babypuncher 8y ago

Doesn't the cost of these advanced repairs kind of negate the value of getting your device repaired versus just replacing the whole thing (or parts)? I'm sure Apple has done lots of cost benefit analysis and found that it's way cheaper to just replace an iPhone motherboard than it is to pay someone skilled at SMD repair to find the bad component(s) and replace them.

marvin 8y ago
Well, if Apple has exorbitant markups on motherboard replacement (and other repairs) outside of warranty, repair makes perfect sense.
jdietrich 8y ago
The third-party repair industry exists because companies can profitably undercut Apple's out-of-warranty repair charges. That's true in the US and it's doubly true in lower-wage economies. It may be that skilled repair work isn't scaleable, so Apple have decided to constrain their repair operations to simple module swaps. It may also be that Apple would rather sell you a new device than fix your old one, so have taken an approach that is broadly hostile to repair. I suspect it's a bit of both.