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They only sell parts for phones that are probably still under warranty or Apple Care+ coverage. They don't sell parts for any models that actually need reliable

They only sell parts for phones that are probably still under warranty or Apple Care+ coverage. They don't sell parts for any models that actually need reliable sources for parts.

bradfa 4y ago
They have to start somewhere. This is somewhere. Sure, they could do better, but if this turns into just a thing that they do for all new phones they release then it'll be great. Hopefully they will keep having availability of parts and tools even after software and security updates end for given devices.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  This is a bad-faith attempt to try and prevent right-to-repair legislation that's slowly making its way through various legislatures, just like their BS "independent repair provider programme".
  - bradfa 4y ago
    I don't understand how Apple starting to do exactly what the "right to repair" people appear to be asking for is in bad faith or in any way trying to prevent it. Can you clarify? I understood right to repair to be that people want access to parts, tools, and information on how to repair their things. This seems to be the beginning of exactly that. I'm clearly misunderstanding some side of this.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Well my problem is that knowing Apple's (and the tech industry in general) bad faith regarding repair (and any kind of "ownership" users might gain on their devices), I don't think this is a "beginning". I think this is just a PR piece designed to slow down right to repair legislation efforts that will be left to rot as soon as that objective is achieved, or the experience being so terrible that it's unusable to begin with. In fact, in my case it's already unusable - I keep spares for commonly broken parts for my phone (screen, case, battery & all the seals needed to reassemble) so that I can quickly repair it in a couple hours if I break it. This program would make it impossible as I'd need to ship the old parts back which means I can only order them when I actually need to do the repair and then wait for shipping - it turns a "I have a couple hours this evening, let me fix my phone so it doesn't look like shit" into a thing I have to explicitly schedule. As of now not only is the selection of parts laughable (where can I buy a genuine new housing or mainboard, or proprietary mainboard components that Apple explicitly prohibits their vendors from selling to the public?) but there's extra BS such as the "system configuration" which has to be done via Apple Support instead of releasing the software or the protocol (so open-source tools can be built) in the open or even making devices be able to perform the configuration directly (new part detected -> a new option appears in Settings to do the initial config).
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      There is a little dance that Apple has done a dozen times. It starts with "Apple supports independent repair*!" and ends with terms of the asterisk that completely preclude independent repair. Not in a half-assed way, either, but in a carefully crafted airtight trap. Grandparent post might be jumping the gun, but Apple has shot this gun so many times and hit the RtR crowd so many times that I have a very hard time blaming them for jumping. It may turn out that this program is good, in which case the correct path forward is to codify it into law. Apple should have a seat at the table when deciding terms. However, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should they be allowed to dictate terms, because they have abused that privilege time and time again. Otherwise, the moment the press looks away, they'll bring back the killer asterisks. They've done it before and they'll do it again if we let them.
    - CogitoCogito 4y ago
      If Apple sells any parts for any phone for any reason without unjustifiable markups to anyone without requiring registration of phone serial number (mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180032 ) or any other random unnecessary requirements whose only purpose is to get in the way of there being a market for parts, well then and only then will I believe that Apple actually is trying to support right to repair. If they're not doing that, then I'm only lead to believe that they are putting this up to deflect criticism and continue their hold on the parts market.
      - s17n 4y ago
        Apple takes a >50% margin on everything else they sell, why should parts be any different?
        Nextgrid 4y ago
        I understand a large margin on the device itself because that includes various software licenses and IP. Auxiliary parts that can't be used to rebuild a full device (as the mainboard is missing) shouldn't carry that markup as you've already paid for those licenses when you originally bought the device.
        colejohnson66 4y ago
        Yes, but that depends on if the licensing fees are per board or per device. And even if your contract says “per device”, you could still be taken to court by the IP owner.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Not being different, as in the spare parts having the same margin as the full device, is good enough. In the past they've had some very big and unreasonable markups on replacement parts.
        CogitoCogito 4y ago
        You seem to be putting words in my mouth. Maybe you think I said that a 50% margin is unjustifiable? Well I'm not sure what to say other than please read my post again and note that I did not.
    - baisq 4y ago
      Because many people who say they support the right to repair just hate big corporations and want to see them forced to do things that hurt them.
    - kxrm 4y ago
      I used to live in a major Texas city that refused to implement a bus service. After several years of criticism, they decided to finally trial a bus service. They setup bus stops around the city to gather data and determine if this would be a service residents would use. Several bus stop started to appear about 2 miles from my home basically on a main parkway next to an open field. There were no bus stops next to the largest shopping mall in the community, nor in or around any of the growing suburbs that were forming during this time. Of course their trial failed because of lack of demand. They used this lack of demand to justify shutting down the service within a year of starting it. This is what Apple is doing. Setting a bus stop up next to an open field which will inevitably create data proving their narrative. A genuine attempt would certainly utilize their own branding. Creating a clear intent to bridge the trust their customers have gained for their brand to this service. Additionally, they would at least attempt to sell parts a lower cost since their own repair service is just a few dollars more. I think it is fairly clear what their intentions are with this service based on how they are incentivizing it's use.
  - prvc 4y ago
    That they are not producing old parts is not in itself an indication of bad faith. Manufacturing more after having stopped would be prohibitively expensive. We have to wait until they fail to create enough spares for the current models to support this program in order to draw this conclusion.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      I don't believe they've stopped manufacturing the parts (or ran out of stock) since they're still able to "repair" those devices out of warranty at a huge premium.
    - ben-schaaf 4y ago
      They provide repair services for products 5 years after they stop selling them, which will by law be extended to 7 years for products after 2020. They clearly have the parts. See https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201624 https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201624
      - prvc 4y ago
        They have such a large volume of sales that they would be able to very accurately estimate the number of parts they need in order to fulfill their warranty obligations and paid repairs. Their inventory of old parts would presumably be earmarked for that purpose, without significant leftovers.
  - bastardoperator 4y ago
    Don't care, I wouldn't take my device to a third party anyways. Secondly after owning an iPhone for over a decade not once have I needed a repair. I feel like the repair issue is manufactured outrage for a problem that doesn't actually exist. Seems like drama is all the rage these days...
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      > I wouldn't take my device to a third party anyways Me neither, which is why I want the right to repair to be a thing, so I can get parts just like the third-party I wouldn't use and do the repair myself instead. > Secondly after owning an iPhone for over a decade not once have I needed a repair. Beyond actual repair there are consumable parts such as batteries which need replacement after a year or so. > I feel like the repair issue is manufactured outrage for a problem that doesn't actually exist It may not exist for you, but does it hurt you or make your situation worse in any way if the repair issue were solved? If not, then why is it a bad thing if some other people (for whom repair is an actual problem) benefit from it?
      - bastardoperator 4y ago
        I'll never do a repair on my phone, my time is too valuable to be futzing around with things I don't truly understand. You most certainly do not need a new battery after a year, my kids are playing with an iphone 4 as a toy. I'm also not the one upset that apple is providing parts, great. It just seems like nothing is ever good enough or everything is done in bad faith and I just don't see the world through that kind of myopic or dystopian lens.
    - wrycoder 4y ago
      You have a ten year old iPhone, and you never replaced the battery?
      - bradfa 4y ago
        My daughter uses my wife's old iPhone 4 as her "phone" (it's not allowed to connect to our wifi nor does it have a SIM card or active mobile phone plan). The battery isn't super robust but it still works well enough to be a kids toy to play with for taking pictures and making little movies and listening to music. Original 10 year old battery.
  - cyral 4y ago
    I mean they even have tool kits that you can rent that come with everything to make the repair (since some tools are very custom like the battery or display press). That doesn't seem very bad-faith of them. Not sure why anyone expected them to release parts and repair guides for every device in the span of five months. They also have to get the logistics sorted out to enable people to order individual parts. These devices were released before the program was announced, so it is not surprising that they may be hard to repair or have limited self-repairable parts when they weren't designed with that in mind. Apple certainly does have an incentive to keep them difficult to repair, so I'm not saying that will change - but they haven't gotten a chance yet.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      At least for the repair guides, it's something they must already have internally (in fact some have leaked in the past) so releasing them should be trivial.
  - onphonenow 4y ago
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Apple's repairs are extremely expensive for certain things like non-display cosmetic damage (it costs more to fix a broken back glass or housing scratches than an actual broken screen) and relies on an Apple Store (or AASP) being available and you being able to get to it and back or ship your phone off and wait for days. I have the skills & equipment to do my own repairs and would like the option to do so (in fact, I'm doing so anyway using knockoff or grey-market parts that do the job just fine, but would consider using official parts if the pricing & terms were acceptable).
      - onphonenow 4y ago
        Than this new offering may be useful to you? I'm not aware of that many companies doing something like this. The right to repair folks and their criticism of offers like this ("bad faith" etc) seem weak to me still.
    - robonerd 4y ago
      Apple customer support sucks. I had a macbook air with a dead battery under warranty that I wanted to get replaced. It took a month of discussions with their customer support before the Apple Store (University Village) actually got the damn battery. And then to add insult to injury, the "genius" accused me of damaging the laptop with water and acted like he was doing me a favor by giving me the battery I was owed. I'm certain he was trying to scare me into buying a new computer. The whole thing made me think back to my old thinkpad, for which I could perform a battery swap myself in seconds (plus two days for the battery to arrive in the mail.) More recently, my Dell XPS 13 died while under warranty. After a three minute phonecall with Dell customer service, they had a perfectly polite repairman come to my home the next day to replace the motherboard.
      - onphonenow 4y ago
        I worked with an educational institution that did tons of apple devices. AppleCare claims were pretty frequent given use case, and hassle free. I honestly haven't even HEARD of months long replacements. This was some time ago though so things may have changed, but something seems off. My own experience was simply, how can apple be making money with this service? I believe the cost is $6/month currently. Highly worth it if you are concerned about service. Dell does a 16/month support offering, but limited to 2 years.
- dogleash 4y ago
  >They have to start somewhere. This is somewhere. Did you unironically re-phrase the politician's syllogism as a positive? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
TillE 4y ago
The situation is bad and wasteful even with recycling, but I suspect it would be very complex to continue manufacturing years-old parts.
bluescrn 4y ago
'Oldest' model supported is the iPhone 12. Very limited set of parts. Requires a device serial number. Clearly being done very reluctantly. May be beneficial to those with a habit of dropping phones and smashing their screen, but the real problem is the slightly older phones becoming e-waste due to a degraded battery or parts like buttons wearing out. (But we've got bigger worries with degraded batteries leading to e-waste, with Chevrolet discontinuing support for a 5yr-old EV (Chevy Spark) setting an example that others seem likely to follow. No battery replacements for your EV! Buy a new one! We're heading for a world where so-called 'green' EVs are barely repairable and thrown on the scrapheap as soon as the battery degrades)
- bradfa 4y ago
  Automotive has a very strong track record of 3rd party parts being available shortly after genuine parts become hard to obtain or not-affordable. As long as there's enough of a given vehicle on the road to justify the cost, surely a 3rd party will create battery replacements for many EVs. There's plenty of Leaf battery replacement services and parts as far as I can tell. The original Leaf is quite old now in EV-years.
  - ToniCipriani 4y ago
    > Automotive has a very strong track record of 3rd party parts being available shortly after genuine parts become hard to obtain or not-affordable With the exception that the car doesn't throw error codes and disable the power windows if I use a third-party brake pad.
  - bluescrn 4y ago
    With the move to EVs (and perhaps even before, to some extent), cars seem to be changing, in the same way that 'computers' evolved/regressed from fairly open, upgradeable, repairable PCs to smartphones and tables with locked-down OSs, no upgrade options, and minimal repairability. We've accepted a world of throwaway phones/tablets (with a life of maybe 2-5 years). We can't afford to accept that with EVs.
    - 4y ago
volkl48 4y ago
That'll probably expand over time. I would imagine they don't know what demand for this will be like, and parts for older devices are probably not in production at this point - so they probably don't have inventory to support a lot more than what they expected to service through their traditional processes. ------------ While not self-service, I'll note they've expanded service lifespans on the Mac side for repair in recent years. They'd previously guaranteed service would be available for 5 years (from end of new production of the model - which could be a while later than you purchased yours. The mid-2012 13" MBP is still less than 5 years from end of production.), but it was a hard cutoff after that. 5 years and 1 month? Nothing. Now it's up to 7 years if the parts are available (10 years for batteries on some models), and anecdotally we've had a few repaired in that age range without issue. That direction suggests to me that in the long run you're likely to see similar things on their "self-service repair" side.
Someone 4y ago
Chances are they don’t have parts for older models. That’s what “Just in time” manufacturing is about, and Apple is fairly good at that. Also, if they had them, chances are you would find the parts too expensive. They would either have to keep a production line running for low quantities of products, build a new one specialized for small production runs, or stock parts for years. Both have significant costs. For example, let’s suppose they decide to stock parts, and plan perfectly, so that all parts can be sold over a period of 10 years. On average, that’s five years between spending money on producing the part and getting money back on selling it. That likely warrants at least a 25% price increase. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a business for offering electronic parts in the long-term (old timer cars are a different case, as many parts can be made almost by hand, and customers are willing to pay good money for them)
- darknavi 4y ago
  > Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a business for offering electronic parts in the long-term I think that's OK, but I think it's immoral to lock down a device to the point where it prevents third parties from producing these parts if they need to.

They only sell parts for phones that are probably still under warranty or Apple Care+ coverage. They don't sell parts for any models that actually need reliable sources for parts.

bradfa 4y ago

They have to start somewhere. This is somewhere. Sure, they could do better, but if this turns into just a thing that they do for all new phones they release then it'll be great. Hopefully they will keep having availability of parts and tools even after software and security updates end for given devices.

Nextgrid 4y ago
This is a bad-faith attempt to try and prevent right-to-repair legislation that's slowly making its way through various legislatures, just like their BS "independent repair provider programme".
- bradfa 4y ago
  I don't understand how Apple starting to do exactly what the "right to repair" people appear to be asking for is in bad faith or in any way trying to prevent it. Can you clarify? I understood right to repair to be that people want access to parts, tools, and information on how to repair their things. This seems to be the beginning of exactly that. I'm clearly misunderstanding some side of this.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Well my problem is that knowing Apple's (and the tech industry in general) bad faith regarding repair (and any kind of "ownership" users might gain on their devices), I don't think this is a "beginning". I think this is just a PR piece designed to slow down right to repair legislation efforts that will be left to rot as soon as that objective is achieved, or the experience being so terrible that it's unusable to begin with. In fact, in my case it's already unusable - I keep spares for commonly broken parts for my phone (screen, case, battery & all the seals needed to reassemble) so that I can quickly repair it in a couple hours if I break it. This program would make it impossible as I'd need to ship the old parts back which means I can only order them when I actually need to do the repair and then wait for shipping - it turns a "I have a couple hours this evening, let me fix my phone so it doesn't look like shit" into a thing I have to explicitly schedule. As of now not only is the selection of parts laughable (where can I buy a genuine new housing or mainboard, or proprietary mainboard components that Apple explicitly prohibits their vendors from selling to the public?) but there's extra BS such as the "system configuration" which has to be done via Apple Support instead of releasing the software or the protocol (so open-source tools can be built) in the open or even making devices be able to perform the configuration directly (new part detected -> a new option appears in Settings to do the initial config).
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    There is a little dance that Apple has done a dozen times. It starts with "Apple supports independent repair*!" and ends with terms of the asterisk that completely preclude independent repair. Not in a half-assed way, either, but in a carefully crafted airtight trap. Grandparent post might be jumping the gun, but Apple has shot this gun so many times and hit the RtR crowd so many times that I have a very hard time blaming them for jumping. It may turn out that this program is good, in which case the correct path forward is to codify it into law. Apple should have a seat at the table when deciding terms. However, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should they be allowed to dictate terms, because they have abused that privilege time and time again. Otherwise, the moment the press looks away, they'll bring back the killer asterisks. They've done it before and they'll do it again if we let them.
  - CogitoCogito 4y ago
    If Apple sells any parts for any phone for any reason without unjustifiable markups to anyone without requiring registration of phone serial number (mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180032 ) or any other random unnecessary requirements whose only purpose is to get in the way of there being a market for parts, well then and only then will I believe that Apple actually is trying to support right to repair. If they're not doing that, then I'm only lead to believe that they are putting this up to deflect criticism and continue their hold on the parts market.
    - s17n 4y ago
      Apple takes a >50% margin on everything else they sell, why should parts be any different?
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        I understand a large margin on the device itself because that includes various software licenses and IP. Auxiliary parts that can't be used to rebuild a full device (as the mainboard is missing) shouldn't carry that markup as you've already paid for those licenses when you originally bought the device.
        colejohnson66 4y ago
        Yes, but that depends on if the licensing fees are per board or per device. And even if your contract says “per device”, you could still be taken to court by the IP owner.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        Not being different, as in the spare parts having the same margin as the full device, is good enough. In the past they've had some very big and unreasonable markups on replacement parts.
      - CogitoCogito 4y ago
        You seem to be putting words in my mouth. Maybe you think I said that a 50% margin is unjustifiable? Well I'm not sure what to say other than please read my post again and note that I did not.
  - baisq 4y ago
    Because many people who say they support the right to repair just hate big corporations and want to see them forced to do things that hurt them.
  - kxrm 4y ago
    I used to live in a major Texas city that refused to implement a bus service. After several years of criticism, they decided to finally trial a bus service. They setup bus stops around the city to gather data and determine if this would be a service residents would use. Several bus stop started to appear about 2 miles from my home basically on a main parkway next to an open field. There were no bus stops next to the largest shopping mall in the community, nor in or around any of the growing suburbs that were forming during this time. Of course their trial failed because of lack of demand. They used this lack of demand to justify shutting down the service within a year of starting it. This is what Apple is doing. Setting a bus stop up next to an open field which will inevitably create data proving their narrative. A genuine attempt would certainly utilize their own branding. Creating a clear intent to bridge the trust their customers have gained for their brand to this service. Additionally, they would at least attempt to sell parts a lower cost since their own repair service is just a few dollars more. I think it is fairly clear what their intentions are with this service based on how they are incentivizing it's use.
- prvc 4y ago
  That they are not producing old parts is not in itself an indication of bad faith. Manufacturing more after having stopped would be prohibitively expensive. We have to wait until they fail to create enough spares for the current models to support this program in order to draw this conclusion.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    I don't believe they've stopped manufacturing the parts (or ran out of stock) since they're still able to "repair" those devices out of warranty at a huge premium.
  - ben-schaaf 4y ago
    They provide repair services for products 5 years after they stop selling them, which will by law be extended to 7 years for products after 2020. They clearly have the parts. See https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201624 https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201624
    - prvc 4y ago
      They have such a large volume of sales that they would be able to very accurately estimate the number of parts they need in order to fulfill their warranty obligations and paid repairs. Their inventory of old parts would presumably be earmarked for that purpose, without significant leftovers.
- bastardoperator 4y ago
  Don't care, I wouldn't take my device to a third party anyways. Secondly after owning an iPhone for over a decade not once have I needed a repair. I feel like the repair issue is manufactured outrage for a problem that doesn't actually exist. Seems like drama is all the rage these days...
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    > I wouldn't take my device to a third party anyways Me neither, which is why I want the right to repair to be a thing, so I can get parts just like the third-party I wouldn't use and do the repair myself instead. > Secondly after owning an iPhone for over a decade not once have I needed a repair. Beyond actual repair there are consumable parts such as batteries which need replacement after a year or so. > I feel like the repair issue is manufactured outrage for a problem that doesn't actually exist It may not exist for you, but does it hurt you or make your situation worse in any way if the repair issue were solved? If not, then why is it a bad thing if some other people (for whom repair is an actual problem) benefit from it?
    - bastardoperator 4y ago
      I'll never do a repair on my phone, my time is too valuable to be futzing around with things I don't truly understand. You most certainly do not need a new battery after a year, my kids are playing with an iphone 4 as a toy. I'm also not the one upset that apple is providing parts, great. It just seems like nothing is ever good enough or everything is done in bad faith and I just don't see the world through that kind of myopic or dystopian lens.
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    You have a ten year old iPhone, and you never replaced the battery?
    - bradfa 4y ago
      My daughter uses my wife's old iPhone 4 as her "phone" (it's not allowed to connect to our wifi nor does it have a SIM card or active mobile phone plan). The battery isn't super robust but it still works well enough to be a kids toy to play with for taking pictures and making little movies and listening to music. Original 10 year old battery.
- cyral 4y ago
  I mean they even have tool kits that you can rent that come with everything to make the repair (since some tools are very custom like the battery or display press). That doesn't seem very bad-faith of them. Not sure why anyone expected them to release parts and repair guides for every device in the span of five months. They also have to get the logistics sorted out to enable people to order individual parts. These devices were released before the program was announced, so it is not surprising that they may be hard to repair or have limited self-repairable parts when they weren't designed with that in mind. Apple certainly does have an incentive to keep them difficult to repair, so I'm not saying that will change - but they haven't gotten a chance yet.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    At least for the repair guides, it's something they must already have internally (in fact some have leaked in the past) so releasing them should be trivial.
- onphonenow 4y ago
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Apple's repairs are extremely expensive for certain things like non-display cosmetic damage (it costs more to fix a broken back glass or housing scratches than an actual broken screen) and relies on an Apple Store (or AASP) being available and you being able to get to it and back or ship your phone off and wait for days. I have the skills & equipment to do my own repairs and would like the option to do so (in fact, I'm doing so anyway using knockoff or grey-market parts that do the job just fine, but would consider using official parts if the pricing & terms were acceptable).
    - onphonenow 4y ago
      Than this new offering may be useful to you? I'm not aware of that many companies doing something like this. The right to repair folks and their criticism of offers like this ("bad faith" etc) seem weak to me still.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Apple customer support sucks. I had a macbook air with a dead battery under warranty that I wanted to get replaced. It took a month of discussions with their customer support before the Apple Store (University Village) actually got the damn battery. And then to add insult to injury, the "genius" accused me of damaging the laptop with water and acted like he was doing me a favor by giving me the battery I was owed. I'm certain he was trying to scare me into buying a new computer. The whole thing made me think back to my old thinkpad, for which I could perform a battery swap myself in seconds (plus two days for the battery to arrive in the mail.) More recently, my Dell XPS 13 died while under warranty. After a three minute phonecall with Dell customer service, they had a perfectly polite repairman come to my home the next day to replace the motherboard.
    - onphonenow 4y ago
      I worked with an educational institution that did tons of apple devices. AppleCare claims were pretty frequent given use case, and hassle free. I honestly haven't even HEARD of months long replacements. This was some time ago though so things may have changed, but something seems off. My own experience was simply, how can apple be making money with this service? I believe the cost is $6/month currently. Highly worth it if you are concerned about service. Dell does a 16/month support offering, but limited to 2 years.
dogleash 4y ago
>They have to start somewhere. This is somewhere. Did you unironically re-phrase the politician's syllogism as a positive? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

TillE 4y ago

The situation is bad and wasteful even with recycling, but I suspect it would be very complex to continue manufacturing years-old parts.

bluescrn 4y ago

'Oldest' model supported is the iPhone 12. Very limited set of parts. Requires a device serial number. Clearly being done very reluctantly. May be beneficial to those with a habit of dropping phones and smashing their screen, but the real problem is the slightly older phones becoming e-waste due to a degraded battery or parts like buttons wearing out. (But we've got bigger worries with degraded batteries leading to e-waste, with Chevrolet discontinuing support for a 5yr-old EV (Chevy Spark) setting an example that others seem likely to follow. No battery replacements for your EV! Buy a new one! We're heading for a world where so-called 'green' EVs are barely repairable and thrown on the scrapheap as soon as the battery degrades)

bradfa 4y ago
Automotive has a very strong track record of 3rd party parts being available shortly after genuine parts become hard to obtain or not-affordable. As long as there's enough of a given vehicle on the road to justify the cost, surely a 3rd party will create battery replacements for many EVs. There's plenty of Leaf battery replacement services and parts as far as I can tell. The original Leaf is quite old now in EV-years.
- ToniCipriani 4y ago
  > Automotive has a very strong track record of 3rd party parts being available shortly after genuine parts become hard to obtain or not-affordable With the exception that the car doesn't throw error codes and disable the power windows if I use a third-party brake pad.
- bluescrn 4y ago
  With the move to EVs (and perhaps even before, to some extent), cars seem to be changing, in the same way that 'computers' evolved/regressed from fairly open, upgradeable, repairable PCs to smartphones and tables with locked-down OSs, no upgrade options, and minimal repairability. We've accepted a world of throwaway phones/tablets (with a life of maybe 2-5 years). We can't afford to accept that with EVs.
  - 4y ago

volkl48 4y ago

That'll probably expand over time. I would imagine they don't know what demand for this will be like, and parts for older devices are probably not in production at this point - so they probably don't have inventory to support a lot more than what they expected to service through their traditional processes. ------------ While not self-service, I'll note they've expanded service lifespans on the Mac side for repair in recent years. They'd previously guaranteed service would be available for 5 years (from end of new production of the model - which could be a while later than you purchased yours. The mid-2012 13" MBP is still less than 5 years from end of production.), but it was a hard cutoff after that. 5 years and 1 month? Nothing. Now it's up to 7 years if the parts are available (10 years for batteries on some models), and anecdotally we've had a few repaired in that age range without issue. That direction suggests to me that in the long run you're likely to see similar things on their "self-service repair" side.

Someone 4y ago

Chances are they don’t have parts for older models. That’s what “Just in time” manufacturing is about, and Apple is fairly good at that. Also, if they had them, chances are you would find the parts too expensive. They would either have to keep a production line running for low quantities of products, build a new one specialized for small production runs, or stock parts for years. Both have significant costs. For example, let’s suppose they decide to stock parts, and plan perfectly, so that all parts can be sold over a period of 10 years. On average, that’s five years between spending money on producing the part and getting money back on selling it. That likely warrants at least a 25% price increase. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a business for offering electronic parts in the long-term (old timer cars are a different case, as many parts can be made almost by hand, and customers are willing to pay good money for them)

darknavi 4y ago
> Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a business for offering electronic parts in the long-term I think that's OK, but I think it's immoral to lock down a device to the point where it prevents third parties from producing these parts if they need to.