6 ms·

If I loosely quote Louis Rossmann, one of the issue of right to repair is that more and more companies (Apple leading the trend) are using slightly modified chi

by xroche 5y ago

If I loosely quote Louis Rossmann, one of the issue of right to repair is that more and more companies (Apple leading the trend) are using slightly modified chips from manufacturers, and them make then sign contracts that prevent any part selling to anyone. So technically even you can replace those chips, you can't buy them. And next Apple if putting serial numbers to prevent that even if you get the part, you will have a non-functional device. This bill does not appear to address that. Besides, the "information they need to repair" is also where the devil will be. Companies like Apple provide instructions on how to unscrew the laptop cover with a screwdriver (literally), but won't provide any data sheets.

nrp 5y ago
That is largely Apple-specific, as most other OEMs use off the shelf chips. Even in that case though, the distribution doesn’t exist for many components to be available to individuals or repair shops, since the component makers only want to deal with their couple dozen big customers directly.
- nipponese 5y ago
  On that note, Rossmann is a curious character. He openly and variously despises Apple’s hardware choices and policies, yet to my memory, that’s his shop works on. Are the economics of repairing Apple products that strong or is the man is a true masochist?
  - snuxoll 5y ago
    He runs a shop that supports many employees and himself, so, yes, the economics obviously work in his favor. One doesn’t need to like the choices of a company to offer to service their products.
    - InvertedRhodium 5y ago
      And given that each repair could, in theory, eat into the profit margins that Apple enjoys (either via 1st patty repairs or through a customer not buying a replacement device) it would make logical sense to do so if he dislikes Apple that much
  - xroche 5y ago
    If my memory is correct, he explained that this was where most of the market was (especially on the neighborhood of NYC he lives in), and it was easier to fix a bunch of Apple models, rather than thousands of different Android brands/models.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Familiarity breeds contempt. If you work with the greatest stuff in the world all day every day you'll be able to find a million reasons it sucks.
    - noizejoy 5y ago
      “First world problems” is also a related concept. Our priorities and judgements are very much borne from the larger context of our individual and group experiences. Even the very definition of “greatest stuff in the world” is highly dependent on one’s particular circumstance and priorities.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    He stopped working on iPhones because of the BS.
  - andrei_says_ 5y ago
    Watch some of his videos. He has a lot of insight about the subpar quality of Apple devices, about the outrageous lies of Apple Genius Bar quoting people thousands of dollars for repairs that take him 5-10 minutes, for apple’s efforts to make the devices non serviceable, withholding schematics, controlling access to replacement parts etc. Here’s a televised CBS report. https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns He is extremely good at repair while despising the company’s despicable practices - and warns people about them.
    - dntrkv 5y ago
      I'm not sure that's the best example. In my mind, it makes sense that Apple won't repair a device that has signs of water damage without replacing all potentially affected parts (the bit about humidity is a discussion all on its own). Water damage can surface in a myriad of ways, and the last thing they want to do is charge a customer for a fix, only for them to come back demanding a refund because their device is broken again. Rossmann has a small enough operation that he can handle this on a case by case basis. Apple operates at scale, so the fact that they have blanket policies like this makes sense. Of course the debate changes when Apple makes it so that you can only use them for repairs.
      - andrei_says_ 5y ago
        An additional perspective is that Rossman’s 5-min free repair cost Apple $1000+ in revenue. Apple can totally scale repair but it won’t be as cheap and profitable. So what they scale instead is lying to their customers. The Genius Bar employee presented a lie as a certain fact. They didn’t say that there’s more to be found out, that humidity indicators are sometimes unreliable etc. They went with the highest grossing lie. That’s a policy. Having such policies calls for legislation protecting the customer and giving independent repair some chance.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
Amend the bill to include all consumer electronics manufacturers must provide replacement parts for all their new products for twenty years. The churn of slightly different pieces in next years models should fall off a cliff when warehouses need to get built to hold everything. Or something
- reflectiv 5y ago
  20 years is a bit much IMO...5-10 tho, that sounds at least reasonable.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    As long as it’s 5-10 years after the date the company last sold the device as new.
  - teh_klev 5y ago
    I disagree, five to ten years is far too short. I have a couple of audio devices that are ~14 years old and working perfectly fine. If either of them broke then I'd want to repair them (unless of course the fault was fabulously catastrophic). Once upon a time even affordably priced equipment lasted way more than 5-10 years. Maybe it's a generational thing, due to my being on the wrong side of 50 :), but stuff used to be built to last for affordable money. Hell I'm still wearing the Seiko mechanical auto-wind watch I was given for my birthday in 1983, and it still (mostly) tells the right time and day. Twenty years should be a minimum.
    - mikepurvis 5y ago
      I think past a certain point it's reasonable to expect that your repair operation may also involve some scrounging for the parts— for example, the classic frankenstein procedure where a laptop with a dead motherboard is married to another of the same model where the screen is cracked. I think for most electronics, past 5-10 years is pretty reasonable for this kind of thing. I mean, the GameCube came out in 2001-2002, and many circles now consider that to be a vintage/retro machine at this point. Would we really expect Nintendo to still be supplying repair shops with the full BOM of whatever's in there? Anyway, the real trick with this of course is forbidding the serial number based lockouts.
squarefoot 5y ago
> So technically even you can replace those chips, you can't buy them. They don't even need to resort to this. If the chip requires programming, they keep the chip protected from read and the code locked and bingo: you can buy an identical one but it won't work without the original code. Pretty much any digital product in existence works like that today. One could have the entire BOM of an iPhone available, but without their iron level firmware, all programmable chips would just sit there doing nothing thus making the device unusable.
ksec 5y ago
Apple had to cut the time to buy AppleCare+ in China down to 7 days simply due to the fact people were swapping parts in iPhone and return for exchanges. And I am not entirely sure if it is a good idea Apple sell these parts for repairing. Which Apple will definitely do so with their hardware margin. i.e They will sell you the Display Screen with Glass for $300+. At this point you might as well go to Apple and fix it. I had always wish the Services Strategy of Apple was to raise the price of iPhone and Mac by $100, move those to Services Revenue and included AppleCare+ by default. Also lowering any replacement and fixing price rather than try and gouge their customer at their Genius Bar. Which is increasingly a thing since 2015. Getting third party fixing also have risk when your Data aren't fully backed up. Which is something likes to push for their iCloud Services.
unnouinceput 5y ago
Doesn't matter. Serials numbers can be spoofed, chips can be found in already discarded electronics of the same model by other reasons. Have 2 or 3 broken phones, make one good from them. The bill is a big step in preventing Apple suing the local shop that was doing just that.

by xroche 5y ago

nrp 5y ago

That is largely Apple-specific, as most other OEMs use off the shelf chips. Even in that case though, the distribution doesn’t exist for many components to be available to individuals or repair shops, since the component makers only want to deal with their couple dozen big customers directly.

nipponese 5y ago
On that note, Rossmann is a curious character. He openly and variously despises Apple’s hardware choices and policies, yet to my memory, that’s his shop works on. Are the economics of repairing Apple products that strong or is the man is a true masochist?
- snuxoll 5y ago
  He runs a shop that supports many employees and himself, so, yes, the economics obviously work in his favor. One doesn’t need to like the choices of a company to offer to service their products.
  - InvertedRhodium 5y ago
    And given that each repair could, in theory, eat into the profit margins that Apple enjoys (either via 1st patty repairs or through a customer not buying a replacement device) it would make logical sense to do so if he dislikes Apple that much
- xroche 5y ago
  If my memory is correct, he explained that this was where most of the market was (especially on the neighborhood of NYC he lives in), and it was easier to fix a bunch of Apple models, rather than thousands of different Android brands/models.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Familiarity breeds contempt. If you work with the greatest stuff in the world all day every day you'll be able to find a million reasons it sucks.
  - noizejoy 5y ago
    “First world problems” is also a related concept. Our priorities and judgements are very much borne from the larger context of our individual and group experiences. Even the very definition of “greatest stuff in the world” is highly dependent on one’s particular circumstance and priorities.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  He stopped working on iPhones because of the BS.
- andrei_says_ 5y ago
  Watch some of his videos. He has a lot of insight about the subpar quality of Apple devices, about the outrageous lies of Apple Genius Bar quoting people thousands of dollars for repairs that take him 5-10 minutes, for apple’s efforts to make the devices non serviceable, withholding schematics, controlling access to replacement parts etc. Here’s a televised CBS report. https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns He is extremely good at repair while despising the company’s despicable practices - and warns people about them.
  - dntrkv 5y ago
    I'm not sure that's the best example. In my mind, it makes sense that Apple won't repair a device that has signs of water damage without replacing all potentially affected parts (the bit about humidity is a discussion all on its own). Water damage can surface in a myriad of ways, and the last thing they want to do is charge a customer for a fix, only for them to come back demanding a refund because their device is broken again. Rossmann has a small enough operation that he can handle this on a case by case basis. Apple operates at scale, so the fact that they have blanket policies like this makes sense. Of course the debate changes when Apple makes it so that you can only use them for repairs.
    - andrei_says_ 5y ago
      An additional perspective is that Rossman’s 5-min free repair cost Apple $1000+ in revenue. Apple can totally scale repair but it won’t be as cheap and profitable. So what they scale instead is lying to their customers. The Genius Bar employee presented a lie as a certain fact. They didn’t say that there’s more to be found out, that humidity indicators are sometimes unreliable etc. They went with the highest grossing lie. That’s a policy. Having such policies calls for legislation protecting the customer and giving independent repair some chance.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago

Amend the bill to include all consumer electronics manufacturers must provide replacement parts for all their new products for twenty years. The churn of slightly different pieces in next years models should fall off a cliff when warehouses need to get built to hold everything. Or something

reflectiv 5y ago
20 years is a bit much IMO...5-10 tho, that sounds at least reasonable.
- Spivak 5y ago
  As long as it’s 5-10 years after the date the company last sold the device as new.
- teh_klev 5y ago
  I disagree, five to ten years is far too short. I have a couple of audio devices that are ~14 years old and working perfectly fine. If either of them broke then I'd want to repair them (unless of course the fault was fabulously catastrophic). Once upon a time even affordably priced equipment lasted way more than 5-10 years. Maybe it's a generational thing, due to my being on the wrong side of 50 :), but stuff used to be built to last for affordable money. Hell I'm still wearing the Seiko mechanical auto-wind watch I was given for my birthday in 1983, and it still (mostly) tells the right time and day. Twenty years should be a minimum.
  - mikepurvis 5y ago
    I think past a certain point it's reasonable to expect that your repair operation may also involve some scrounging for the parts— for example, the classic frankenstein procedure where a laptop with a dead motherboard is married to another of the same model where the screen is cracked. I think for most electronics, past 5-10 years is pretty reasonable for this kind of thing. I mean, the GameCube came out in 2001-2002, and many circles now consider that to be a vintage/retro machine at this point. Would we really expect Nintendo to still be supplying repair shops with the full BOM of whatever's in there? Anyway, the real trick with this of course is forbidding the serial number based lockouts.

squarefoot 5y ago

> So technically even you can replace those chips, you can't buy them. They don't even need to resort to this. If the chip requires programming, they keep the chip protected from read and the code locked and bingo: you can buy an identical one but it won't work without the original code. Pretty much any digital product in existence works like that today. One could have the entire BOM of an iPhone available, but without their iron level firmware, all programmable chips would just sit there doing nothing thus making the device unusable.

ksec 5y ago

Apple had to cut the time to buy AppleCare+ in China down to 7 days simply due to the fact people were swapping parts in iPhone and return for exchanges. And I am not entirely sure if it is a good idea Apple sell these parts for repairing. Which Apple will definitely do so with their hardware margin. i.e They will sell you the Display Screen with Glass for $300+. At this point you might as well go to Apple and fix it. I had always wish the Services Strategy of Apple was to raise the price of iPhone and Mac by $100, move those to Services Revenue and included AppleCare+ by default. Also lowering any replacement and fixing price rather than try and gouge their customer at their Genius Bar. Which is increasingly a thing since 2015. Getting third party fixing also have risk when your Data aren't fully backed up. Which is something likes to push for their iCloud Services.

unnouinceput 5y ago

Doesn't matter. Serials numbers can be spoofed, chips can be found in already discarded electronics of the same model by other reasons. Have 2 or 3 broken phones, make one good from them. The bill is a big step in preventing Apple suing the local shop that was doing just that.