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>only about requiring the information and parts necessary for repair be available to the public. The parts and information are already available to the public,

>only about requiring the information and parts necessary for repair be available to the public. The parts and information are already available to the public, as noted by the article. The Right to Repair bill would compel companies to provide that information and parts directly.

simcop2387 7y ago
This isn't always true. Take a look at the whole thing with Linus Media Group's iMac screen repair. The screens are not available publicly, only to approved apple repair centers (which didn't even exist at the time of LMG's fiasco). They didn't give details in the video where they finally repair the thing, but strongly hint that they actually ended up getting the replacement part essentially off the black market of apple parts. Along with this Apple has a history of having customs destroy third party refurbish parts when being brought into the US. [1] final repair video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwDvz47lNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwDvz47lNw [2] first video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwDvz47lNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwDvz47lNw
- holy_city 7y ago
  >Along with this Apple has a history of having customs destroy third party refurbish parts when being brought into the US. Apple doesn't "have" customs do anything. Customs enforces the law. Those parts are counterfeits, and importing them is illegal. If they're not off-the-shelf, Apple has exclusive deals with their suppliers and forbids them from selling those parts to anyone else. Whatever you're buying as a "3rd party refurbish part" is either a fake, defective because it failed QA, or excess bulk that Apple didn't purchase. It's usually one of the former. Talk with some people in the device manufacturing biz about this - I've heard stories about suppliers getting customer support calls about QA issues when it turns out the distributor for the parts was selling both legit and counterfeits without the supplier or manufacturer knowing! And this is a tricky issue - if I manufacture something abroad you're damn sure I want the feds to help prevent counterfeits from being imported. Doesn't matter if it's the final product or part of the supply chain. And in as a supplier, you're not going to manufacture something longer than you make money off it, and the repair volumes don't justify anything. That said, I think a middle ground here could be a limits on exclusive deals between suppliers and manufacturers, and stricter "use it or lose it" policies on IP held by suppliers. So if Apple isn't buying batteries from FooBar corp anymore, they should be able to sell the batteries the previously did to repair shops stateside. Nothing nefarious there.
  - genmud 7y ago
    Not sure if you know this or not, but I assume you aren't willingly misrepresenting the situation. People will ship GENUINE/ORIGINAL apple parts, with lets say a cracked piece of glass, but otherwise good screen assembly, back to an OEM to have them replace the glass. When the REPAIRED part is returned to the company who sent them to an OEM, customs will destroy them as counterfeit, even though they aren't counterfeit parts, just repaired. I'm oversimplifying, but if repairing something makes it a counterfeit, then the same logic could be applied to a dell computer that had its HD replaced while overseas and should be destroyed, using that logic.
lm2s 7y ago
It's my understanding that not all of the parts are readily available and that Apple and others actually engage in making it hard to get some parts. This results in some parts having to be extracted from "bad" boards and such.
genmud 7y ago
They most definitely are not available to the public. For example, all the Apple documentation on board layouts are literally stolen and smuggled out. In fact, many of the large companies have exclusive agreements with OEM chip manufacturers to not provide data sheets or technical info about chips, in addition to having an exclusive supply. If cars worked this way, you would never be able to get them repaired anywhere but the manufacturer, but since the manufacturer doesn't replace components, such as the failed alternator, they have to replace the entire "engine assembly".
- intopieces 7y ago
  >They most definitely are not available to the public. For example, all the Apple documentation on board layouts are literally stolen and smuggled out. And yet >Experts, however, say Apple's and CompTIA's warnings are far overblown. People with no special training regularly replace the batteries or cracked screens in their iPhones, and there are thousands of small, independent repair companies that regularly fix iPhones without incident. This article wants to have it both ways. "Apple should release documentation because repair people need it" and "People repair their stuff all the time without incident." A better argument would be actually to take Apple's side on the "safety" issue and say, "People are already trying to repair their stuff because your OEM repairs are too expensive, so you ought to provide them with docs/parts"

simcop2387 7y ago

This isn't always true. Take a look at the whole thing with Linus Media Group's iMac screen repair. The screens are not available publicly, only to approved apple repair centers (which didn't even exist at the time of LMG's fiasco). They didn't give details in the video where they finally repair the thing, but strongly hint that they actually ended up getting the replacement part essentially off the black market of apple parts. Along with this Apple has a history of having customs destroy third party refurbish parts when being brought into the US. [1] final repair video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwDvz47lNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwDvz47lNw [2] first video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwDvz47lNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwDvz47lNw

holy_city 7y ago
>Along with this Apple has a history of having customs destroy third party refurbish parts when being brought into the US. Apple doesn't "have" customs do anything. Customs enforces the law. Those parts are counterfeits, and importing them is illegal. If they're not off-the-shelf, Apple has exclusive deals with their suppliers and forbids them from selling those parts to anyone else. Whatever you're buying as a "3rd party refurbish part" is either a fake, defective because it failed QA, or excess bulk that Apple didn't purchase. It's usually one of the former. Talk with some people in the device manufacturing biz about this - I've heard stories about suppliers getting customer support calls about QA issues when it turns out the distributor for the parts was selling both legit and counterfeits without the supplier or manufacturer knowing! And this is a tricky issue - if I manufacture something abroad you're damn sure I want the feds to help prevent counterfeits from being imported. Doesn't matter if it's the final product or part of the supply chain. And in as a supplier, you're not going to manufacture something longer than you make money off it, and the repair volumes don't justify anything. That said, I think a middle ground here could be a limits on exclusive deals between suppliers and manufacturers, and stricter "use it or lose it" policies on IP held by suppliers. So if Apple isn't buying batteries from FooBar corp anymore, they should be able to sell the batteries the previously did to repair shops stateside. Nothing nefarious there.
- genmud 7y ago
  Not sure if you know this or not, but I assume you aren't willingly misrepresenting the situation. People will ship GENUINE/ORIGINAL apple parts, with lets say a cracked piece of glass, but otherwise good screen assembly, back to an OEM to have them replace the glass. When the REPAIRED part is returned to the company who sent them to an OEM, customs will destroy them as counterfeit, even though they aren't counterfeit parts, just repaired. I'm oversimplifying, but if repairing something makes it a counterfeit, then the same logic could be applied to a dell computer that had its HD replaced while overseas and should be destroyed, using that logic.

lm2s 7y ago

It's my understanding that not all of the parts are readily available and that Apple and others actually engage in making it hard to get some parts. This results in some parts having to be extracted from "bad" boards and such.

genmud 7y ago

They most definitely are not available to the public. For example, all the Apple documentation on board layouts are literally stolen and smuggled out. In fact, many of the large companies have exclusive agreements with OEM chip manufacturers to not provide data sheets or technical info about chips, in addition to having an exclusive supply. If cars worked this way, you would never be able to get them repaired anywhere but the manufacturer, but since the manufacturer doesn't replace components, such as the failed alternator, they have to replace the entire "engine assembly".

intopieces 7y ago
>They most definitely are not available to the public. For example, all the Apple documentation on board layouts are literally stolen and smuggled out. And yet >Experts, however, say Apple's and CompTIA's warnings are far overblown. People with no special training regularly replace the batteries or cracked screens in their iPhones, and there are thousands of small, independent repair companies that regularly fix iPhones without incident. This article wants to have it both ways. "Apple should release documentation because repair people need it" and "People repair their stuff all the time without incident." A better argument would be actually to take Apple's side on the "safety" issue and say, "People are already trying to repair their stuff because your OEM repairs are too expensive, so you ought to provide them with docs/parts"