6 ms·

If made to fulfill the word of the law without actually having to follow it in spirit, this would be my modus operandi too. By designing $1200 deposit, $49 ren

If made to fulfill the word of the law without actually having to follow it in spirit, this would be my modus operandi too. By designing $1200 deposit, $49 rental & two Pelican suitcases of tools and manuals, while keeping the battery replacement price same at $69 (what you'd normally pay in total at Store), they have entirely disincentivized self-repair without actually breaking any law. Masterstroke /s

wrycoder 4y ago
> The real victory will come months or years down the road, though. That’s when Apple can tell legislators it tried to give right-to-repair advocates what they wanted — but that consumers overwhelmingly decided Apple knows best.
xattt 4y ago
> Masterstroke. And we think you’re going to hate it too!
fartcannon 4y ago
I have never understood this kind of compliance. The hordes that buy their disposable garbage aren't going to care, they've shown repeatedly that they're insensitive to, sometimes even aggressive towards their own autonomy. So why do this? Just to _waste_ more? It's so petulant.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  There’s also a PR aspect to this in showing that 80 lbs worth of expensive equipment is the only way to replace batteries safely.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    But who's actually being converted by that? No one with any sense, and the rest were already fanboys.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Politicians? The shock value of seeing all that lab-grade equipment contributes to their narrative of “repair is unsafe”.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- vlovich123 4y ago
  Probably to make sure that their iPhone repair business (and that of their authorized partners) doesn’t just collapse by getting massively undercut by unauthorized resellers that can use the official repair kit.
  - mcphage 4y ago
    If you’re going to run a business replacing batteries, eating the $1,200 deposit loss and keeping the equipment seems a no-brainer.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      Which is otherwise known as “paying for the equipment.”
- hatware 4y ago
  You can thank the finance and legal departments for their lack of creativity.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    How much you want to bet Tim laughed? "Oh that'll teach them!", he grinned.
- nunez 4y ago
  it is less that i am against my own autonomy and more that i value my time aggressively and don't want to spend it repairing shit i don't want to repair i know i _can_ repair my own stuff. i've worked soldering irons and have a heat gun and could go into it again if i need to. i just don't want to make the time. i don't want to spend hours repairing my iDevices. been there, done that. i'm not fucking with impenetrable adhesives and cracking screens and ultra thin wires, especially when i'm doing so at the cost of losing waterproofing, faceID, and warranty (extremely important to me). (i completely get why apple disables faceID for screen replacements; gotta protect the software supply chain) i'd much rather drive to my apple store 15 mins away, go to the genius bar and say "iphone broke" and get a new one right there or have it repaired in a few hours.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    OK, you can still do that. No changes for you. Someone else who wants to repair their own gets openly mocked by Apples 'compliance'.
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
Did they conveniently forget to say that Apple will give you a further refund in you return the replaced part? Ah, yes, they did. In the case of the battery for iPhone 13 mini described in the article, that's an additional refund of $24.15. Since I've never heard of anyone getting back the broken part when getting an in-store repair, it'd be reasonable to compare at the $44.85 price, wouldn't it?
- canuckintime 4y ago
  They didn't 'conveniently' forget; it's mentioned and accounted for in the article: > $49 to rent Apple’s tools for a week, more than wiping out any refund I might get for returning the old used part.
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    It's $49 to have Apple ship two Pelican cases of tools to you, to have you use them for the week, then to ship them back to Apple and (presumably) to have someone inventory them to make sure there's nothing missing and that they're reading to ship out to the next person. You think Apple is making money on that?
    - Teever 4y ago
      No, I think Apple is making money in slow-walking an actual, practical repair program and if we lived in a society with proper regulatory bodies they would get their hand slapped so hard for doing so.
Aeolun 4y ago
I think the EU is generally better at designing it’s regulations to avoid exactly this problem. Probably something to the extend of “tools to repair must be found in any general DIY store”.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  I look forward to seeing the new phones being sold in the EU complete with #0 Pozidriv screws as fasteners; ought to be hilarious.
- draw_down 4y ago
  [dead]
- srvmshr 4y ago
  I think, barring the USB-C issue which is more supportive of industry wide efforts to standardize and reduce e-waste, you cannot by any legal instrument force an equipment manufacturer to stick to certain parts or boiler plate designs, which can be seen as harming their competitiveness. This argument can be construed by Apple lawyers as exerting unfavorable judicial bias to downgrade/bottleneck technical capabilities, which Apple would have otherwise provided to its customers & claim significant advantage over competition in offering their products. EU or not, such regulation will be dead fish in water unless smartly crafted.
- Teever 4y ago
  Are they though? Doesn't Apple just ship Lightning to USB-C dongles with iPhones to satisfy EU requirements?
- Macha 4y ago
  At the same time, it means Americans often complain about EU regulations as being too vague as overly specific ones are too prone to workarounds. See much of the discussion about GDPR where it's clear many of the complainers just want to task their lawyers to find the right magic loophole clause to put in their ToS to avoid doing any of it, and get frustrated when the law is intended to avoid that exact behaviour
- 4y ago
Spivak 4y ago
I don’t know what Apple could have done better here. For $50 they shipped, both ways, all the expensive equipment Apple themselves use to repair their devices. For how adamant Apple has been about the price of genuine parts for so long I’m starting to think that they actually sell replacement batteries at cost and eat the labor. Because having used 3rd party batteries they’re about half the cost but they degrade is way fewer cycles. The problem with “right to repair” is that people thought they could hitch what they really wanted — “right to use cheaper 3rd party parts” which is a tougher political sell than “right to cosplay as the underpaid Apple service tech.”
- fartcannon 4y ago
  They already bought it. What they want is autonomy with the product they purchased. They want Apple to support their rights and for Apple to not be babies about it.
mindslight 4y ago
IMO the $1200 deposit is less ridiculous than the same-as-store $70 battery price. If the cost for the new battery were at wholesale prices, and one were able to purchase tools from the kit individually, I think that would be the best Apple could do (besides redesigning their devices to make repair easier). Tools always cost money, a capital investment which ends up being vested in professionals that buy the tools once and then repair many people's gadgets. Right to repair is just as much about empowering independent repair shops as the individual DIYer. Us DIYers have kind of gotten spoiled with the continually dropping prices of tools and parts combined with the always rising price of labor and overhead. For example, I was just shamelessly quoted $1300 for a rear brake job (wtf?). For that price I could buy all the tools to do the job, premium parts, and still come out favorably compared to engineering rates.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I have a standing offer for my friends: I’ll do a brake job with you in my driveway to show you how easy and cheap it is. It’s common for those $1000+ dealer quotes to be $75-$150 in parts, $5 in consumables, and < 90 minutes from door open to putting the last cleaned tool away (while explaining each step to them and having them do at least part of each step). Over 20 years, I’ve done this for a few handfuls of people. How many have switched to DIYing anything more than filling washer fluid and maybe replacing a lamp? One. (Two others have switched to indy mechanics.) The others keep complaining about their $800-1250 per axle brake jobs and $2500+ service visits at the dealer and how expensive it is to own a car, but keep right on doing it. <shrug />
  - mindslight 4y ago
    Yeah, the "could" in my comment was only because I already own the tools, and I had just done the brakes on the other car. I might take the excuse to buy a new jack though, so I can lift up to the jack stands without needing to cheat with blocks. The funny thing is they also wanted $700 to adjust the valve clearances. This is expensive (it's the stealership after all), but I might have said yes just to have one less thing on my docket. However after the outrageous brake quote put me in the mindset to DIY, I figure I might as well do that myself as well.
saagarjha 4y ago
This is a bad take, because Apple has shown how they do this with the App Store and it their behavior there was far uglier than providing high-quality, albeit bulk and awkward, repair equipment.

wrycoder 4y ago

> The real victory will come months or years down the road, though. That’s when Apple can tell legislators it tried to give right-to-repair advocates what they wanted — but that consumers overwhelmingly decided Apple knows best.

xattt 4y ago

> Masterstroke. And we think you’re going to hate it too!

fartcannon 4y ago

I have never understood this kind of compliance. The hordes that buy their disposable garbage aren't going to care, they've shown repeatedly that they're insensitive to, sometimes even aggressive towards their own autonomy. So why do this? Just to _waste_ more? It's so petulant.

Nextgrid 4y ago
There’s also a PR aspect to this in showing that 80 lbs worth of expensive equipment is the only way to replace batteries safely.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  But who's actually being converted by that? No one with any sense, and the rest were already fanboys.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Politicians? The shock value of seeing all that lab-grade equipment contributes to their narrative of “repair is unsafe”.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
vlovich123 4y ago
Probably to make sure that their iPhone repair business (and that of their authorized partners) doesn’t just collapse by getting massively undercut by unauthorized resellers that can use the official repair kit.
- mcphage 4y ago
  If you’re going to run a business replacing batteries, eating the $1,200 deposit loss and keeping the equipment seems a no-brainer.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Which is otherwise known as “paying for the equipment.”
hatware 4y ago
You can thank the finance and legal departments for their lack of creativity.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  How much you want to bet Tim laughed? "Oh that'll teach them!", he grinned.
nunez 4y ago
it is less that i am against my own autonomy and more that i value my time aggressively and don't want to spend it repairing shit i don't want to repair i know i _can_ repair my own stuff. i've worked soldering irons and have a heat gun and could go into it again if i need to. i just don't want to make the time. i don't want to spend hours repairing my iDevices. been there, done that. i'm not fucking with impenetrable adhesives and cracking screens and ultra thin wires, especially when i'm doing so at the cost of losing waterproofing, faceID, and warranty (extremely important to me). (i completely get why apple disables faceID for screen replacements; gotta protect the software supply chain) i'd much rather drive to my apple store 15 mins away, go to the genius bar and say "iphone broke" and get a new one right there or have it repaired in a few hours.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  OK, you can still do that. No changes for you. Someone else who wants to repair their own gets openly mocked by Apples 'compliance'.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago

Did they conveniently forget to say that Apple will give you a further refund in you return the replaced part? Ah, yes, they did. In the case of the battery for iPhone 13 mini described in the article, that's an additional refund of $24.15. Since I've never heard of anyone getting back the broken part when getting an in-store repair, it'd be reasonable to compare at the $44.85 price, wouldn't it?

canuckintime 4y ago
They didn't 'conveniently' forget; it's mentioned and accounted for in the article: > $49 to rent Apple’s tools for a week, more than wiping out any refund I might get for returning the old used part.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  It's $49 to have Apple ship two Pelican cases of tools to you, to have you use them for the week, then to ship them back to Apple and (presumably) to have someone inventory them to make sure there's nothing missing and that they're reading to ship out to the next person. You think Apple is making money on that?
  - Teever 4y ago
    No, I think Apple is making money in slow-walking an actual, practical repair program and if we lived in a society with proper regulatory bodies they would get their hand slapped so hard for doing so.

Aeolun 4y ago

I think the EU is generally better at designing it’s regulations to avoid exactly this problem. Probably something to the extend of “tools to repair must be found in any general DIY store”.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
I look forward to seeing the new phones being sold in the EU complete with #0 Pozidriv screws as fasteners; ought to be hilarious.
draw_down 4y ago
[dead]
srvmshr 4y ago
I think, barring the USB-C issue which is more supportive of industry wide efforts to standardize and reduce e-waste, you cannot by any legal instrument force an equipment manufacturer to stick to certain parts or boiler plate designs, which can be seen as harming their competitiveness. This argument can be construed by Apple lawyers as exerting unfavorable judicial bias to downgrade/bottleneck technical capabilities, which Apple would have otherwise provided to its customers & claim significant advantage over competition in offering their products. EU or not, such regulation will be dead fish in water unless smartly crafted.
Teever 4y ago
Are they though? Doesn't Apple just ship Lightning to USB-C dongles with iPhones to satisfy EU requirements?
Macha 4y ago
At the same time, it means Americans often complain about EU regulations as being too vague as overly specific ones are too prone to workarounds. See much of the discussion about GDPR where it's clear many of the complainers just want to task their lawyers to find the right magic loophole clause to put in their ToS to avoid doing any of it, and get frustrated when the law is intended to avoid that exact behaviour
4y ago

Spivak 4y ago

I don’t know what Apple could have done better here. For $50 they shipped, both ways, all the expensive equipment Apple themselves use to repair their devices. For how adamant Apple has been about the price of genuine parts for so long I’m starting to think that they actually sell replacement batteries at cost and eat the labor. Because having used 3rd party batteries they’re about half the cost but they degrade is way fewer cycles. The problem with “right to repair” is that people thought they could hitch what they really wanted — “right to use cheaper 3rd party parts” which is a tougher political sell than “right to cosplay as the underpaid Apple service tech.”

fartcannon 4y ago
They already bought it. What they want is autonomy with the product they purchased. They want Apple to support their rights and for Apple to not be babies about it.

mindslight 4y ago

IMO the $1200 deposit is less ridiculous than the same-as-store $70 battery price. If the cost for the new battery were at wholesale prices, and one were able to purchase tools from the kit individually, I think that would be the best Apple could do (besides redesigning their devices to make repair easier). Tools always cost money, a capital investment which ends up being vested in professionals that buy the tools once and then repair many people's gadgets. Right to repair is just as much about empowering independent repair shops as the individual DIYer. Us DIYers have kind of gotten spoiled with the continually dropping prices of tools and parts combined with the always rising price of labor and overhead. For example, I was just shamelessly quoted $1300 for a rear brake job (wtf?). For that price I could buy all the tools to do the job, premium parts, and still come out favorably compared to engineering rates.

sokoloff 4y ago
I have a standing offer for my friends: I’ll do a brake job with you in my driveway to show you how easy and cheap it is. It’s common for those $1000+ dealer quotes to be $75-$150 in parts, $5 in consumables, and < 90 minutes from door open to putting the last cleaned tool away (while explaining each step to them and having them do at least part of each step). Over 20 years, I’ve done this for a few handfuls of people. How many have switched to DIYing anything more than filling washer fluid and maybe replacing a lamp? One. (Two others have switched to indy mechanics.) The others keep complaining about their $800-1250 per axle brake jobs and $2500+ service visits at the dealer and how expensive it is to own a car, but keep right on doing it. <shrug />
- mindslight 4y ago
  Yeah, the "could" in my comment was only because I already own the tools, and I had just done the brakes on the other car. I might take the excuse to buy a new jack though, so I can lift up to the jack stands without needing to cheat with blocks. The funny thing is they also wanted $700 to adjust the valve clearances. This is expensive (it's the stealership after all), but I might have said yes just to have one less thing on my docket. However after the outrageous brake quote put me in the mindset to DIY, I figure I might as well do that myself as well.

saagarjha 4y ago

This is a bad take, because Apple has shown how they do this with the App Store and it their behavior there was far uglier than providing high-quality, albeit bulk and awkward, repair equipment.