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If you wonder whom to thank, his name is Louis Rossmann.
by artemonster 5y ago
If you wonder whom to thank, his name is Louis Rossmann.
- dzonga 5y agoand dozens of lawsuits and right to repair laws. this wouldn't have been a problem if the republic answered to citizens and not corporations
- surfpel 5y agoNah it was totally just a semi obscure vlogger and not myriad of lawsuits, lobbying from ifixit, changes in EU laws, a vocal Wozniak…
- 654wak654 5y ago"semi obscure"
- spiderice 5y agoWhat are you saying? Louis Rossmann is basically THE definition of semi-obscure. Marques Brownlee and Linus Tech Tips both have roughly 10 times the subscriber count compared to Louis, and even they could be considered semi-obscure to Apple's core user base (not HN crowd).
- acheron 5y agoOk, just “obscure” then.
- robertoandred 5y agoThe sketchy guy who uses counterfeit parts?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- remorses 5y agoIt’s incredible the influence and reach he is able to accomplish with just a YouTube channel
- lostgame 5y agoAnd an insane amount of talent and skill, let’s not forget. :)
- causality0 5y agoAbso-fucking-lutely. Nobody has fought longer or harder for this.
- kumarvvr 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos https://twitter.com/rossmannsupply https://twitter.com/rossmannsupply
- thrdbndndn 5y agoThat doesn't explain anything. Got any specific article about him vs Apple?
- jbverschoor 5y agoGo watch his 1000s of videos, but be careful! Before you know it you'll be replacing a charging port successfully.
- sumedh 5y ago> Go watch his 1000s of videos or you could link to just one video which explains his position. Not everyone has time to watch 1000 videos.
- vultour 5y agoHe's been working on a right to repair campaign in the US. I'd also discourage you from watching those videos; unless you want to see him complain for 45 minutes that the Genius Bar doesn't have microscopes and schematics and can't replace a tiny microchip on a circuit board. He's fighting for a good thing but the constant complaining, often way off base, just makes him look annoying.
- yurishimo 5y agoWhy did you link his Twitter when he hasn't tweeted since 2013!?!?
- isx726552 5y agoRossmann’s twitter looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2013, and all the links to rossmannsupply.com are dead (just a spam site in its place).
- mikkelam 5y ago100%. Apple is mostly doing this because they saw it coming anyway. Might as well bend now and position your brand in a better light. Right to repair is winning.
- chrisfinazzo 5y agoMakes me think of the changes they announced to how 3rd party repairs will be handled recently. Given this change, I am still wondering why independent repair shops aren't held to the same standard... E.g, We'll allow this, but you must (without exception) follow our procedures to the letter. I mean, AASP exists so they already have a framework for the Independent Repair Providers to adhere to as a way of enforcing QC among shops in a uniform way. Seems like an area where creating a closed system would be advantageous...
- rasz 5y agoThe procedure AASPs follow to the letter is "mail this device to repair depot, offer customer refurb or try to upsell them to a new device, here is a list of talking points"
- asow92 5y agoHis videos are gold
- megakid 5y agoAmen - Thanks Louis!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ilaksh 5y agoWait for the next video from Louis. He will expose this as a scam. Yes, they are scared and trying to appease their customers. No, it is NOT in any way actual right-to-repair. They will not let you replace a charge port (for example) and the prices they are asking for parts are ludicrous.
- SynasterBeiter 5y agoIs there a price list somewhere? Bear in mind Louis has an incentive here, as this Apple program directly competes with his business.
- ilaksh 5y agohttps://youtu.be/2jCtVDCiY_8 https://youtu.be/2jCtVDCiY_8
- neop1x 5y agoTL;DR His is skeptical. For example he needs to replace just the keyboard (not the whole topcase) to make the repair economical. He needs to replace LCD panel only instead of the whole screen assembly. It may be still beneficial to be able to buy genuine Apple parts but there is high probability that those parts would just be too expensive. And let's see if Apple will at least release tools and instructions to program those recently-introduced chips and make it possible to re-use a genuine screen from another iPhone without disabling faceID or having to desolder and re-solder that tiny BGA chip...
- mikece 5y agoMy first question was: "Will Louis Rossmann be happy with this or is there some BS in the fine print that he'll find and make another video about?" Either way I'll be watching his YouTube feed for updates: https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos
- kmeisthax 5y agoGiven his prior record, he'll wind up giving credit where credit is due, and then having to eat his words a few days later when it turns out the program is far too restrictive to be useful to repair shops.
- Macha 5y agoThis doesn't target repair shops at all so doesn't improve the situation there. So my reading is it's going to be "this is better for consumers but they still need to do something for those users who aren't technical enough to carry out their own repairs". Still waiting to see if Louis finds any problems though
- TrevorJ 5y agoCynically, I wonder if what Apple will do here is make it difficult/impossible for independent repair shops to take advantage of this. Thus, Apple gets good press ("See! We support right to repair!"), but in the end, they know most consumers won't feel comfortable effecting these repairs themselves so it won't eat into Apple's bottom line much.
- whoopdedo 5y agoParts bought through the self-service store will cost significantly more than even what the IRPs pay.
- checker 5y agoI don't see anything on this post about how they will warrant self-repair, so I imagine Louis will be bringing this up. Years back I replaced the battery on my iPhone (I tried to have Apple replace it ... it's a long, infuriating story). But I took it in for a charge port recall due to the port losing connection to the cable. It was completely unrelated issue but they wouldn't replace it under recall due to prior third party repairs. It's similar to Ford not replacing your recalled alternator because you replaced your radiator with a third party. In any case I haven't bought an iPhone since because of the frustration this experience left me with. So this is definitely a positive step in the right direction but hopefully it doesn't end without amendments to their warranty and recall policies.
- bogwog 5y agoThis isn't much of a victory though, it's just a shitty deflection. Sure, you can now buy (probably) overpriced screens and batteries from Apple when you're repairing your own phone, but 99% of people aren't going to repair their own phone. So where do 99% of people go to get their phone repaired? The same places they were going before: Apple's overpriced and shitty repair shops, or independent repair shops that don't have access to genuine parts because Apple refuses to sell to them (and prevents suppliers from selling parts to anyone but them). This announcement does nothing in the grand scheme of things, even if it is a marginal improvement over the previous situation. What I think is important to notice about this situation is that the only thing that caused Apple to take this (extremely tiny) pro-consumer and pro-environment step was regulatory pressure. They would not have done this on their own if it wasn't for the pressure put on by people like Louis Rossman. The logical conclusion of course is that if we want Apple to stop destroying the planet and exploiting consumers while doing it, then we need to apply more pressure. Apple is going to do shit unless we force them to. (this can also be seen with their App store monopoly, where they reduced the fee a while back only after the pressure from lawmakers and Epic's lawsuit).
- frakkingcylons 5y agoCouldn’t users just buy the parts and then bring them to their local repair store and pay them for the labor?
- xxs 5y agoLikely the most parts will be extremely limited, i.e. to battery and screen for the phones - which is what their current program is. So you'd be able order a battery or screen and go to some place and they'd swap it. Edit: just noticed Rossmann has released a video suspecting pretty much the same.
- dkonofalski 5y agoThis doesn't have anything to do with Rossmann. In fact, he's probably a little pissed because this is going to bite into his business model.
- Waterluvian 5y agoIf we take him at his repeated word, he is happy to be put out of business if this thing happens.
- dkonofalski 5y agoI see no reason why anyone would take him at his word. He's already shown that he will lie and mischaracterize things to get his way. I fully support right-to-repair but I despise that he's become the face of it.
- 2fast4you 5y agoHaven't followed him in awhile, what did he lie about?
- dkonofalski 5y agoHe's lied several times about various things and, while I can try to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe he misspoke or genuinely didn't know he was lying, my biggest issue is that he doesn't offer corrections for these things when he's called out by people and the videos with the lies and misinformation are still up and continue to get views. A big one that comes to mind is his remarks on the PCKompaniet case where he continued to say that Apple was suing a mom and pop repair shop for doing third-party repairs that weren't authorized. Not only did Apple not sue them for doing repairs (they sued them for copyright infringement and counterfeiting) but people repeatedly showed Rossmann that the store owner had actually advertised the parts as "genuine OEM" parts on his website and had only changed that advertisement after his parts from China were seized (the page was archived by archive.org). Another one was a story that was similar about parts being seized by Apple in the US (that actually, at one point, dealt with Rossmann directly as it was his order). Apple didn't seize anything, it was U.S. Customs that seized the parts because the import documentation didn't match and the batteries themselves had Apple logos on them and they contacted Apple to verify the authenticity of the parts. Rossmann continued to claim that Apple had seized the parts as retaliation and continued to claim that they were "original parts" despite actually coming from grey markets in China that refurbished and replaced components (which, legally, make them non-original parts). Overall, the sad thing is that I agree with him on the general right to repair argument but I feel like he purposely misrepresents certain things to garner sympathy from the right to repair "movement" and I feel like that hurts the movement as a whole. I feel the same way about Linus Tech Tips and their mischaracterizations. If your argument is sound and your principle is strong, you shouldn't need to do that in order to make your argument.
- prions 5y agoJust taking a look at his youtube channel. Why is he so hot on culture war issues now? It seems that right to repair has taken a back seat to his polemics about covid lockdowns, vaccine skepticism, and homeless people.
- loudmax 5y agoI wish Youtube had a "Culture War" button. It would be wonderful to have an easy way to steer clear of culture war bullshit. Not just for YouTube, the whole internet.
- lucaspm98 5y agoHe is a business owner in New York City so Covid lockdowns, vaccine mandates, local government bureaucracy, and the real estate market are affecting him personally. He seems to view his channel as a platform for his varied interests that often overlap instead of an algorithm-maximizing focus on purely Macbook board repair.