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Apple can’t win here. If they had sent the sleek, easy to carry tools this author asked for, the author would complain about the pathetic tools they are providi

Apple can’t win here. If they had sent the sleek, easy to carry tools this author asked for, the author would complain about the pathetic tools they are providing. Really disappointed in The Verge on this article. Could have been a cool piece about the specific tech that Apple provides, but instead it’s framed so disingenuously that I come away not feeling particularly good about right to repair in general. It no longer sounds to me like people trying to get access to their own devices. It sounds like people taking potshots at BigCo because big co bad. By the way. The tools this guy used are common, dead-common in China. Go to any repair mall in Shenzhen and you’ll see hundreds of these. Does he actually want to repair his phone? It doesn’t seem like it.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Furthermore, according to Apple technicians, these are the actual tools they have always used every day in Apple stores, but the author is framing it as though Apple went out of their way to make difficult tools for consumers - by giving them exactly what they were asking for, the actual tools. The author complains that after renting the tools and buying the battery, it’s more expensive than having Apple do it. So? Is Apple supposed to ship $1200 in tools to you for free without a hold (incentivizing theft), or sell parts for cheaper than they sell them to their own stores (the prices are the same as to their stores and service providers)? Repairing anything is expensive if you don’t have the tools or don’t want to buy the tools and reuse them. iFixIt should (frankly) denounce the article as it will almost certainly be used by Apple in a future court case to argue that Right To Repair activists are “extreme.”
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > by giving them exactly what they were asking for, the actual tools. When it comes to Apple devices, the "tools" that DIY repairmen want are the schematics, software to provision new parts (ideally there wouldn't be a need for this to begin with) and proprietary parts that can't be bought elsewhere. When it comes to opening the phones, there's nothing particularly complex about this and third-parties have figured it out already, all the way down to the proprietary screwdrivers.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    Right, but that’s not what the author of the article is complaining about. Instead, the author is complaining about the (shockingly reasonable and probably a loss leader) tool rental cost, complains about the part cost (even though it is the same cost service providers pay, and the author does not mention the ~$25 recycling refund to deliberately make it look worse than it is). Apple is totally going to use this in a future court case to argue Right to Repair people will never be satisfied unless the tools fit in a pocket, had free shipping and returns, the part is 50% off, and there are no credit card holds on the tools. (The authors comparison to how car rentals don’t require a full value hold is absurd because a thing called Car Rental Insurance exists.) The author wouldn’t be happy with anything else.
dwighttk 4y ago
I especially liked the line mocking the instruction to have sand available if the battery catches on fire. That’s a good idea.
- Moto7451 4y ago
  Yeah. Anyone who spends long enough at an RC car track will witness a battery fire. When I used to race it was ripe with people saving money by buying cheap chargers and batteries, charging things too fast, running motors that pulled too much current for the support hardware, and failing to balance cells. Thankfully sand will save you! The car is usually roasted though.
zenexer 4y ago
At least some of these tools are name brand. For example, the torque screwdrivers are Wera Kraftform Micro ESD pre-set torque screwdrivers. Apple sells them cheaper than anyone else, as far as I can tell—which is quite curious. Surely if you ordered them in bulk you could beat Apple’s prices, but you can’t order a single set of the same screwdrivers for less than what Apple is charging. I’m also told this is the exact same brand Apple itself uses in their stores. There’s an alternative, though: head to Home Depot and buy and adjustable torque screwdriver for $60. It’ll have the same 10% tolerance rating. It won’t be ESD-safe—but does it really need to be for a one-off home repair? You could find something even cheaper on AliExpress, I’m sure. Curiously, this program seems like a great deal for repair shops: for a bit over a thousand dollars, they can get the same tooling that Apple’s own stores use. It makes no sense for a consumer to buy or rent these tools from Apple, but a repair shop? $1,200 is a bargain to say you’re using the exact same tooling as Apple.
- ynniv 4y ago
  this program seems like a great deal for repair shops Which AFAICT is what Right to Repair is about anyway.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  >but does it really need to be for a one-off home repair? Again: cue the "Apple provided me with second-class tools that are NOT the ones they used in store and I broke my iPhone" story. Manufacturers can't possibly satisfy "right to repair" if every single person gets to decide how they want to do the repair, how much compromise they're prepared to take in terms of likely outcome and so on.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Apple can trivially comply with Right To Repair by just selling parts, documentation and any software needed to pair new parts. They don't have to provide tools, just like car manufacturers don't provide tools when you buy parts. This repair programme is purely a PR move to maliciously (attempt) to comply with Right to Repair and try to prevent actual regulation all while putting the spotlight on how complicated, dangerous and time-consuming repair to discourage people from ever trying it.
earthbee 4y ago
Or they and other phone manufacturers could just stop building phones that are purposefully difficult to disassemble or repair.
- iosjunkie 4y ago
  Or consumers could stop buying phones that can’t be easily disassembled or repaired.
  - innocenat 4y ago
    If only thing were that easy.
  - vaylian 4y ago
    Consumers don't know any better. Someone has to explain the problem to them first.
    - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      Ah, the old "let me tell you what you want" ... arrogant much?
      - bowsamic 4y ago
        More like "let me tell you what I want" lol
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    Modern smartphones have a lot of constraints to deal with and still meet consumer demand. People want large displays, all day battery life, no slow downs, fast wireless, and the phone needs to fit in a normal pocket. Oh and the phone should be durable against drops and immersion in water. A large display, fast processor/GPU, and wireless are all battery hungry components. These require a large battery to not only supply enough amperage but have enough capacity to last more than a few minutes. Batteries heat up when charging and when discharging. Things that heat up need to expand. The electronic components also heat up with usage further complicating the thermals. Vents and fans are untenable in something held in one hand or put in a pocket. The total envelope of the phone is constrained by human hands and pockets. The modern "sealed" smartphone design exists because it satisfies those constraints. Non-removable batteries can have much thinner outer packaging than removable ones. They don't need to resist drops and punctures and still get underwriting certification. Glued components don't tend to wiggle themselves loose after years of thermal exercise. Glue with more seamless casings increase water resistance and overall durability. Glue also allows for smaller contact surfaces than are possible with screws giving more volume to internal components. A phone that is easy to disassemble will be much less durable than one that's sealed. In the common case where internal access is never required, the durable phone will be superior to the easy to disassemble one. User serviceable batteries need thicker more durable envelopes which means lower power density than fixed batteries. Most consumers do not want the easily repaired phone. It's going to require a lot of performance and ergonomic trade offs over the sealed flagship phones. Even if people went for repairable phones en masse it's not like they would stay out of landfills. Even if screws over glue halved the effort to replace a broken screen the component cost wouldn't change. So a repair might be a few tens percent cheaper to perform. Even passing the savings on to a customer, it's still likely someone with a broken screen or whatever phone-ending damage would just buy a new phone.
honkdaddy 4y ago
I ran an iOS sales and repairs service for years, eventually stopping around the iPhone X era. I had decent third-party tools, but despite being careful, I'd still break peoples' devices on rare occasion and have to eat the cost. The adhesive they use to bind the screen to the body has gotten consistently tougher over the years, to the point where there really isn't a reliable way for someone to do it correctly on their first try without specialized tech like this. You WILL underestimate the amount of heat required and either crack your screen or break your tool when trying to pry them apart. It's incredibly frustrating and delicate work if you're just using a heat gun and a screwdriver. If they shipped him a "warming sock" and some kludgers like iFixit used to do, I'm sure a quarter of the people who attempt the repair would end up breaking their device and the whole program would be a failure. Unless they ditch the adhesive and return to the iPhone 4/4S design of a back-cover which slides off easily, I actually think the 70lbs of equipment might be their best path forward.
- newsclues 4y ago
  Yeah, I will pay more for a device that is designed to be repaired.
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    ... and when there's enough of you for this to represent an actual, realistic target market you will then find someone who will sell you one. Personally, my perspective on this is that it's a lot like the kind of complaining that gets a lot of play in the motoring press about the disappearance of the manual transmission (like Car and Driver's "Save the Manuals" thing). Lots of people will claim they would like the choice, but virtually no-one actually buys them when they're available on mainstream models.
    - Jiejeing 4y ago
      > ... and when there's enough of you for this to represent an actual, realistic target market you will then find someone who will sell you one. Probably not, considering the very high cost of entry in the target market, it is unlikely to be offset by the marginal amount of additional money people are ready to invest into such devices. Markets don't produce goods out of nothing. Especially if that person specifically wants an iphone for whatever (objective or subjective) reason, the market cannot deliver that.
ornornor 4y ago
You have to admit that requiring 79 lbs of equipment, a 1200$ deposit, and so much effort just to swap a friggin’ battery is a tad overkill and exactly what is wrong with the current state of self repairs. Never mind the DRM on the battery so that the phone won’t recognize even a genuine battery as genuine without involving the 3PL to marry the parts together… It shouldn’t be so complicated. If it makes the phone one mm thicker but you can swap the battery easily without requiring all this equipment, why aren’t we there yet? I can (with a bit of a stretch) understand why they would not accept just any OEM part, but making extra difficult to even use an Apple bruine battery with the rest of the Apple hardware, that’s also very unnecessarily self repair hostile.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > You have to admit that requiring 79 lbs of equipment, a 1200$ deposit, and so much effort just to swap a friggin’ battery is a tad overkill You know people were swapping batteries long before this was available, right? And that you don’t have to rent the official factory tools? Apple did a great thing by providing this option at a loss to themselves. The fact that people are rushing to criticize the move suggests more that people like to find reasons to complain about everything. It’s surreal to read HN threads where people are floating ideas about making laws to prevent companies from designing better hardware products just because they want to replace batteries with a screwdriver. I guarantee if you put a screwdriver-repairable phone and a modern iPhone in front of average consumers, 99% or more would choose the modern iPhone without a second question. The obsession with easy battery replacement seems limited to a very narrow set of people while the rest of the population has moved on to appreciate the benefits of modern sealed phones such as impressive resistance to water damage.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    What people want is a low cost third party shop to replace batteries
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      People have had that for years (including a sub-$100 device to copy the TrueTone ID for the screen and battery info for the battery). Every small mall I can think of had a kiosk that would do it in an hour while you shopped. (Eastern MA, US.) I’m just a consumer and have replaced 3 iPhone batteries myself and am doing a 4th later today.
Nextgrid 4y ago
The problem is that Apple intentionally insists that this is the only way to do a repair to scare people away from it - and the media seems to be lapping it up pretty well and spreading it - I wish the article called out their BS right away. If I had a full-time repair operation going, I'd probably get those tools too. But for a single repair, I can open one with a hair dryer and 20 bucks of iFixit tools faster than it takes to unpack all that kit.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > The problem is that Apple intentionally insists that this is the only way to do a repair to scare people away from it As they should. If Apple had instead shipped batteries with instructions for pure DIY repair, we’d be reading an article about “I tried to replace my iPhone battery but I destroyed my iPhone in the process” And if Apple redesigned the iPhone to be bigger so it could have a separate battery compartment with screw and a big old gasket so users could swap batteries, we’d be reading an article titled “Apple ruins new iPhone design for a feature you don’t need” Apple did a great thing with this program. That fact that journalists and HN commenters are getting worked up into a frenzy to complain about it is disappointing. It’s also telling they many people here haven’t worked on car repairs in detail. It’s standard practice for manufacturers to cite specific manufacturer tools as required in the repair manual and want you to pay hundreds or thousands to buy them. And it’s standard practice for DIYers to improvise around it (at their own risk) or purchase cheaper aftermarket custom tools. It would be great news if they offered subsidized tool rental programs like Apple for the repairs. This whole article and the rage around it is beyond silly.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    > If Apple had instead shipped batteries with instructions for pure DIY repair, we’d be reading an article about “I tried to replace my iPhone battery but I destroyed my iPhone in the process” Is that happening with cars? Because you can trivially walk up to any dealership and buy brake parts. > It’s standard practice for manufacturers to cite specific manufacturer tools Normal, cross-manufacturer tools (aka wrenches, sockets, etc) will get you 90% of the way there, and kludgy, one-off hacks with what you have on hand will usually get you the last 10%. The main problem with regards to Apple and the right to repair is parts availability and intentional restrictions against repair such as part serialization where it still needs Apple to be in the loop to "pair" the part to the new device. Nobody was complaining about the lack of a specific machine to open their iPhone - that problem has been solved already long ago.
0daystock 4y ago
Of course they can win, by designing hardware with replaceable components. This is something my 20 year old Thinkpad has figured out, and many other user-friendly products before it.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Here’s the video showing how to disassemble a modern Thinkpad to replace the battery. You might notice that it looks a fair bit like the video to replace the battery on a modern phone: https://youtu.be/lpMGVM8lPTU&t=1m10s https://youtu.be/lpMGVM8lPTU&t=1m10s (Also interesting that it doesn't appear that Lenovo even sells the battery [though several 3rd party suppliers do]: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/d/compatibilityfinder?accessory=Chargers%20%26%20Batteries&accessoryName=Chargers%2C%20Batteries%20%26%20Charging%20Carts&subseries=22TP2X1X1C9&machineType= https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/d/compatibilityfinder?accessory... )
  - 0daystock 4y ago
    Modern Thinkpads have succumbed to the same trend, sadly. My new X1 Carbon has soldered-on, non-replaceable RAM - gotta hate it.
MereInterest 4y ago
Apple has a very easy way to win here. If they take repairability into account while designing phones, such that repairs can be made using commonly available tools, then this entire situation can be avoided. This is especially the case for parts that have predictable degradation over time, such as batteries. If Apple backs itself into a corner, it doesn't get to complain about having no longer having reasonable options remaining.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  If it was this simple, the other manufacturers would be doing this. But it is not this simple. If the device can open easily using basic tools, it can’t be thin, light and waterproof. But anyway, I didn’t hear Apple ‘complaining about having no longer having reasonable options remaining’. I heard you complaining about Apple providing the tools and parts required to repair their phones.
  - mym1990 4y ago
    For all the stupid things that apple does to their devices, they can surely find a way to remove a cover. The truth is that almost every phone manufacturer would rather your phone reach end of life so that you can take a mini loan for another one.
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      You sound like one of those people complaining about the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, while you are also demanding Apple distorts the fabric of reality so they can create devices that meet your demands. Because without that, you can’t build a device with an easy way to remove its cover, while also making it thin, light and waterproof (and cheap, preferably). If ‘almost every manufacturer’ is in some kind of conspiracy of manufactured obsolescence, that implies there are ones that are not. So go buy one of their phones. But chances are they are heavy, bulky and not waterproof.
      - mym1990 4y ago
mizzao 4y ago
That box of tools reminds me of the engineering teardown of the Juicero: https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/ https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/
Teever 4y ago
Sympathy for Apple or not, the issue is that this proposed solution by Apple obviously isn't scalable. So if the solution the problem isn't scalable, is it really a solution? And if Apple, a company renowned for their uncanny ability to identify novel, game-changing solutions to problems produces this as their 'solution' can you honestly say that they gave it their all on this one? Apple can't win here if they don't try.
- nneonneo 4y ago
  They’ll get to find out if it’s scalable with this iteration of their repair program. It’s quite likely that only a small fraction of people will be interested in self-service repair, but if that assumption turns out to be false Apple would have to design another iteration of the process to improve accessibility.
paxcoder 4y ago
pcmoney 4y ago
Its the verge, its a joke now. They have one article lately and its “tech company bad”. They basically pander to people who want to think they know about tech but aren’t in tech and likely couldn’t make it in tech. Feels like a bunch of bitterness and copium. I just ignore them now but miss their old good tech coverage.
dudeinjapan 4y ago
Totally agree. If Apple is paying to ship everything and the kitchen sink both ways, then cool! I have repaired of my iPhones for myself, friends, and family with the dinky $50 kits you can get on Amazon, and man I'd love to have the "one-armed bandit" shown in the article. (Imagine the look of horror on my dad's face when after sealing up his iPhone and testing it I said "Wow, I actually managed not to brick it this time!") For better or worse, Apple clearly didn't design the iPhone with consumer repairability in mind. We can debate to what degree this is intentional evil vs. design/cost necessity, but at least its cool that they're shipping their repair workbench as bulk as it may be.
raverbashing 4y ago
Completely agree They got two suitcases of top of the line tools for iPhone repair. Make use of it
kurupt213 4y ago
I think apple did win, and the author is manufacturing outrage. Apple loaned him a professional setup to repair his phone. That is completely in line with the Apple customer experience, and gives insight into why they resisted home repair so long. Apple doesn’t take shortcuts on their hardware. They have a design/experience expectation. Flimsy tools, eyeballing alignment, cheap 3rd party replacement parts. These are all things that significantly increase the likely of degraded quality/experience after a layperson’s self repair. I think there’s a healthy medium somewhere, but for now, apple expects home repair to done at the same level of service they would do. I’d rather error on the side of quality and robustness myself.
Stevvo 4y ago
Did you even read the article? The author doesn't complaint about the tools other than the $1200 you will loose if you don't return them within 7 days. Your comment comes across as more disingenuous.
phpisthebest 4y ago
>>Apple can’t win here They could by providing open access to parts and tools to independent shops The "Self Repair" seems to be designed to still be purposely hostile to repair while still "allowing" repair so they can claim they are satisfying the "letter of the law" when it comes to Right to Repair legalization that is going to be passed in many jurisdictions, they are getting out ahead of this right now. Instead of just allowing a Repair shop to order up 10 Screens, and 10 batteries, owners have to register their repair, then "activate" the repair with Apple, all while using these expensive and time consuming tools that most people will simply not want to do. IMO this is not Apple changing their tune on repairability, this is Apple being passive aggressive in the face of Right to Repair
perryizgr8 4y ago
> Apple can’t win here. They can, very easily. Just don't be hostile to your users when designing the phone. Look at Nokia circa 2005.
mrcartmeneses 4y ago
There’s also very little chance that those tools cost only $1200. If they were knockoffs from China then maybe, but just the two pelican cases can cost as much as that depending on the model
- thenthenthen 4y ago
  Uh these machines come straight from shenzhen
  - 99_00 4y ago
    But they are not knockoffs.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
I view this differently. This article is documenting a process people are surely curious about. But the costly deposit and multiple heavy pelican cases of supplies show just how deep the hole Apple has dug for themselves really is. Apple is so anti-repair they have no provisions for a reasonable at home process. You must realize that a $1200 deposit alone means this process is out of reach of many people. Meanwhile I recently pulled all my old smartphones from a storage bin and the rear cover pops right off, revealing a battery which comes out with no effort. There’s even an affordance for your finger nail to catch the edge of the rectangular cell. Obviously newer phones are waterproof and arguably more durable, but Apple has gone so far towards a factory sealed design as to require absurd equipment to do a proper job. What this all makes me wonder is: what would this all be like if Apple had never dismissed user replaceable batteries? If they had just as many years of engineering behind a removable back cover as they do with high resolution screens and custom processors? How many billions have they spent on this and that improvement, and what would the phone look like today if some of that had gone to making a phone not destined for the landfill? To me, the size and cost of their DIY repair kit is a monument to how far from repair Apple has strayed. Fortunately I suspect that if they stick with user serviceable batteries, the process will be a whole lot simpler once they’ve really put some engineering effort in to it.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  You have a storage bin holding old smartphones with readily replaceable batteries. That suggests to me that readily replaceable batteries isn't anywhere near the entire story in terms of keeping phones out the landfill (or in your case, a storage bin).
  - salawat 4y ago
    You are correct. without datasheets, you have no way to even approach reprogramming a computer system. Those datasheets, schemata, and documentation are some of the closest, most tightly held trade secrets in the tech world. Increasingly, the world has gotten away from "sell thing to owner to own" to "sell hook for revenue extraction from User". part of which has also increasingly been "be the unofficial or unnoticed arm of power by keeping inconvenient things hard to acquire as determined by the parties in power". Say... industrial equipment without backdoors. Until I can load my own firmware/microcode, it ain't mine yet. I'd love to have a cobbled together group of heterogenous computing devices just for the novelty.
hatware 4y ago
> Does he actually want to repair his phone? It doesn’t seem like it. Does Apple really want to support right to repair? Or is this some baked-in-irony workaround that lets them legally _say_ they allow anyone to repair their phones, while offering what is the least consumer centric service I have ever seen from a company of this caliber. I think you missed the point of the article, which is to show how ridiculous this process is on the whole.
cycomanic 4y ago
I would have somewhat agree with you except for the point that you have to give apple freaking remote access to the phone because the replacement battery shows up as nongenuine. That right there tells me that apple is trying to make the process as painful as possible.
Animats 4y ago
By the way. The tools this guy used are common, dead-common in China. Go to any repair mall in Shenzhen and you’ll see hundreds of these. This is an issue with hobbyist electronics projects in the US. The US hobbyist market is still using 1970s packaging technology - 0.10 inch pin spacing, solderless proto boards, and through-hole parts. I designed a hobbyist board that was all surface mount. Smallest parts were 0.5mm pitch. Although a few people built it, I got a lot of complaints. Surface mount is beyond most American hobbyists. Even though 0.10 inch through-hole is obsolete commercially, and modern parts come in surface mount only. That said, Apple's aesthetic inherently makes things hard to open. Glass on both sides and minimal bezel is what Apple fans pay for. It forces a heat and suction disassembly process, which requires proper tooling to do right.
- Sirened 4y ago
  This was quite a wakeup call for me too. I was always into hobby electronics but a couple of years ago I got into multicopters. A _lot_ of parts were these tiny SMDs. I remember having to figure out how to attach FETs and even (once) a little BGA microprocessor. It was a very steep learning curve and nobody else in the hobby scene here had really done anything with it, so it was a lot of trial and error. Industry has moved on, there are so many things now that are practically out of reach for hobbyists nowadays :/
  - Animats 4y ago
    nobody else in the hobby scene here had really done anything with it Sparkfun has tutorials.[1] There are surface mount practice kits, where you get a little board and a bunch of dud parts to practice on. It's not all that hard, but it takes practice. It takes a while to get skill with tweezers under a microscope. Cheap USB microscopes are very useful. Figure on ruining a few of those cheap practice kits. It's not rocket science, but to do consistently good assembly you need the right tools and some reasonable hand tool skills. [1] https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/category/2 https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/category/2
    - Sirened 4y ago
gambiting 4y ago
I completely disagree with you. I think the author is right - requiring people to put a $1200 deposit down to rent some tools and sending them 40kg of stuff just to replace the battery is insane and clearly done to discourage repairs, the fact that you have to call their specialists to validate the battery at the end is just a cherry on top of this rotten cake - it's just done to stave off legislators ruling that apple must make their hardware more repairable. It's a token effort at best.
- thetinguy 4y ago
  You can buy just the battery and supply your own equipment (or do it by hand).
- leokennis 4y ago
  If you read the article, the 40kg of equipment are clearly needed to do the repair. So now you’re demanding Apple ships you a light bundle of small tools that do the same as that 40kg of tools or otherwise it’s just a “token effort”? Or you want Apple to design a phone that you could safely repair using only a few small tools? That’s fine too. In that case I’ll just sit here waiting for all the bitching from HN about their new repairable iPhone that is prone to water damage, has shit battery life and creaks when you hold it.
  - pas 4y ago
    > bitching from HN about their new repairable iPhone that is prone to water damage, has shit battery life and creaks when you hold it. it's not like we did not have those already :D bendgate! antennagate! (you're holding it wrong!) and so on. it seems what repairability is about is using standard parts (screws, batteries), allowing people to buy parts, and allowing people to use the thing in a less than perfect way (eg. with an aftermarket standard part) of course it's not just Apple that doesn't want this. nobody who is in the business of selling their own hardware wants this, because it would decrease their sales. and as other comments pointed out right to repair is not repairability.
lovich 4y ago
Are they dead common for consumers? I wouldn’t be surprised that business owner tooling they needed to run, that’s outside the budget for most consumers
- wfhordie 4y ago
  Yes, dead common for consumers, but consumers don’t really buy them because there are places that do the repairs so cheaply everywhere.
zouhair 4y ago
> Apple can’t win here. This assumes iPhones just happen to be the way they are. The need of this extravagant display is because of how iPhones were engineered in the first place. They were engineered to be hard to repair, that's the whole point. Apple and any other company need to stop making products that are hard to repair, they need to be forced to do so otherwise they will most likely never do it willingly.
- wfhordie 4y ago
  >They were engineered to be hard to repair, that's the whole point. This doesn’t make sense for two reasons. (1)Apple is on the hook to repair iPhones under AppleCare+ warranties. This means “engineering for hard to repair” goes against their own interests. (2) The fellows in Shenzhen, Guangzho, Shanghai, and Hong Kong have no problem repairing all kinds of damage to iPhones for <$20 USD. So if Apple is designing these to be difficult to repair it they are doing a terrible job.
ksec 4y ago
>Apple can’t win here I would argue in their views they did. Apple did the calculation and understand people who actually want to repair their phone are not even a rounding error in their ~1.1B Active iPhone users. Showcasing their Professional Tools to the press, making it sound difficult is precisely how the public could justify the $69 Battery swap. And this article did precisely that. Right to Repair folks might view this as bad press for Apple. I think Apple's PR knew exactly what they are getting into.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

Furthermore, according to Apple technicians, these are the actual tools they have always used every day in Apple stores, but the author is framing it as though Apple went out of their way to make difficult tools for consumers - by giving them exactly what they were asking for, the actual tools. The author complains that after renting the tools and buying the battery, it’s more expensive than having Apple do it. So? Is Apple supposed to ship $1200 in tools to you for free without a hold (incentivizing theft), or sell parts for cheaper than they sell them to their own stores (the prices are the same as to their stores and service providers)? Repairing anything is expensive if you don’t have the tools or don’t want to buy the tools and reuse them. iFixIt should (frankly) denounce the article as it will almost certainly be used by Apple in a future court case to argue that Right To Repair activists are “extreme.”

Nextgrid 4y ago
> by giving them exactly what they were asking for, the actual tools. When it comes to Apple devices, the "tools" that DIY repairmen want are the schematics, software to provision new parts (ideally there wouldn't be a need for this to begin with) and proprietary parts that can't be bought elsewhere. When it comes to opening the phones, there's nothing particularly complex about this and third-parties have figured it out already, all the way down to the proprietary screwdrivers.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Right, but that’s not what the author of the article is complaining about. Instead, the author is complaining about the (shockingly reasonable and probably a loss leader) tool rental cost, complains about the part cost (even though it is the same cost service providers pay, and the author does not mention the ~$25 recycling refund to deliberately make it look worse than it is). Apple is totally going to use this in a future court case to argue Right to Repair people will never be satisfied unless the tools fit in a pocket, had free shipping and returns, the part is 50% off, and there are no credit card holds on the tools. (The authors comparison to how car rentals don’t require a full value hold is absurd because a thing called Car Rental Insurance exists.) The author wouldn’t be happy with anything else.

dwighttk 4y ago

I especially liked the line mocking the instruction to have sand available if the battery catches on fire. That’s a good idea.

Moto7451 4y ago
Yeah. Anyone who spends long enough at an RC car track will witness a battery fire. When I used to race it was ripe with people saving money by buying cheap chargers and batteries, charging things too fast, running motors that pulled too much current for the support hardware, and failing to balance cells. Thankfully sand will save you! The car is usually roasted though.

zenexer 4y ago

At least some of these tools are name brand. For example, the torque screwdrivers are Wera Kraftform Micro ESD pre-set torque screwdrivers. Apple sells them cheaper than anyone else, as far as I can tell—which is quite curious. Surely if you ordered them in bulk you could beat Apple’s prices, but you can’t order a single set of the same screwdrivers for less than what Apple is charging. I’m also told this is the exact same brand Apple itself uses in their stores. There’s an alternative, though: head to Home Depot and buy and adjustable torque screwdriver for $60. It’ll have the same 10% tolerance rating. It won’t be ESD-safe—but does it really need to be for a one-off home repair? You could find something even cheaper on AliExpress, I’m sure. Curiously, this program seems like a great deal for repair shops: for a bit over a thousand dollars, they can get the same tooling that Apple’s own stores use. It makes no sense for a consumer to buy or rent these tools from Apple, but a repair shop? $1,200 is a bargain to say you’re using the exact same tooling as Apple.

ynniv 4y ago
this program seems like a great deal for repair shops Which AFAICT is what Right to Repair is about anyway.
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
>but does it really need to be for a one-off home repair? Again: cue the "Apple provided me with second-class tools that are NOT the ones they used in store and I broke my iPhone" story. Manufacturers can't possibly satisfy "right to repair" if every single person gets to decide how they want to do the repair, how much compromise they're prepared to take in terms of likely outcome and so on.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Apple can trivially comply with Right To Repair by just selling parts, documentation and any software needed to pair new parts. They don't have to provide tools, just like car manufacturers don't provide tools when you buy parts. This repair programme is purely a PR move to maliciously (attempt) to comply with Right to Repair and try to prevent actual regulation all while putting the spotlight on how complicated, dangerous and time-consuming repair to discourage people from ever trying it.

earthbee 4y ago

Or they and other phone manufacturers could just stop building phones that are purposefully difficult to disassemble or repair.

iosjunkie 4y ago
Or consumers could stop buying phones that can’t be easily disassembled or repaired.
- innocenat 4y ago
  If only thing were that easy.
- vaylian 4y ago
  Consumers don't know any better. Someone has to explain the problem to them first.
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    Ah, the old "let me tell you what you want" ... arrogant much?
    - bowsamic 4y ago
      More like "let me tell you what I want" lol
- giantrobot 4y ago
  Modern smartphones have a lot of constraints to deal with and still meet consumer demand. People want large displays, all day battery life, no slow downs, fast wireless, and the phone needs to fit in a normal pocket. Oh and the phone should be durable against drops and immersion in water. A large display, fast processor/GPU, and wireless are all battery hungry components. These require a large battery to not only supply enough amperage but have enough capacity to last more than a few minutes. Batteries heat up when charging and when discharging. Things that heat up need to expand. The electronic components also heat up with usage further complicating the thermals. Vents and fans are untenable in something held in one hand or put in a pocket. The total envelope of the phone is constrained by human hands and pockets. The modern "sealed" smartphone design exists because it satisfies those constraints. Non-removable batteries can have much thinner outer packaging than removable ones. They don't need to resist drops and punctures and still get underwriting certification. Glued components don't tend to wiggle themselves loose after years of thermal exercise. Glue with more seamless casings increase water resistance and overall durability. Glue also allows for smaller contact surfaces than are possible with screws giving more volume to internal components. A phone that is easy to disassemble will be much less durable than one that's sealed. In the common case where internal access is never required, the durable phone will be superior to the easy to disassemble one. User serviceable batteries need thicker more durable envelopes which means lower power density than fixed batteries. Most consumers do not want the easily repaired phone. It's going to require a lot of performance and ergonomic trade offs over the sealed flagship phones. Even if people went for repairable phones en masse it's not like they would stay out of landfills. Even if screws over glue halved the effort to replace a broken screen the component cost wouldn't change. So a repair might be a few tens percent cheaper to perform. Even passing the savings on to a customer, it's still likely someone with a broken screen or whatever phone-ending damage would just buy a new phone.

honkdaddy 4y ago

I ran an iOS sales and repairs service for years, eventually stopping around the iPhone X era. I had decent third-party tools, but despite being careful, I'd still break peoples' devices on rare occasion and have to eat the cost. The adhesive they use to bind the screen to the body has gotten consistently tougher over the years, to the point where there really isn't a reliable way for someone to do it correctly on their first try without specialized tech like this. You WILL underestimate the amount of heat required and either crack your screen or break your tool when trying to pry them apart. It's incredibly frustrating and delicate work if you're just using a heat gun and a screwdriver. If they shipped him a "warming sock" and some kludgers like iFixit used to do, I'm sure a quarter of the people who attempt the repair would end up breaking their device and the whole program would be a failure. Unless they ditch the adhesive and return to the iPhone 4/4S design of a back-cover which slides off easily, I actually think the 70lbs of equipment might be their best path forward.

newsclues 4y ago
Yeah, I will pay more for a device that is designed to be repaired.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  ... and when there's enough of you for this to represent an actual, realistic target market you will then find someone who will sell you one. Personally, my perspective on this is that it's a lot like the kind of complaining that gets a lot of play in the motoring press about the disappearance of the manual transmission (like Car and Driver's "Save the Manuals" thing). Lots of people will claim they would like the choice, but virtually no-one actually buys them when they're available on mainstream models.
  - Jiejeing 4y ago
    > ... and when there's enough of you for this to represent an actual, realistic target market you will then find someone who will sell you one. Probably not, considering the very high cost of entry in the target market, it is unlikely to be offset by the marginal amount of additional money people are ready to invest into such devices. Markets don't produce goods out of nothing. Especially if that person specifically wants an iphone for whatever (objective or subjective) reason, the market cannot deliver that.

ornornor 4y ago

You have to admit that requiring 79 lbs of equipment, a 1200$ deposit, and so much effort just to swap a friggin’ battery is a tad overkill and exactly what is wrong with the current state of self repairs. Never mind the DRM on the battery so that the phone won’t recognize even a genuine battery as genuine without involving the 3PL to marry the parts together… It shouldn’t be so complicated. If it makes the phone one mm thicker but you can swap the battery easily without requiring all this equipment, why aren’t we there yet? I can (with a bit of a stretch) understand why they would not accept just any OEM part, but making extra difficult to even use an Apple bruine battery with the rest of the Apple hardware, that’s also very unnecessarily self repair hostile.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> You have to admit that requiring 79 lbs of equipment, a 1200$ deposit, and so much effort just to swap a friggin’ battery is a tad overkill You know people were swapping batteries long before this was available, right? And that you don’t have to rent the official factory tools? Apple did a great thing by providing this option at a loss to themselves. The fact that people are rushing to criticize the move suggests more that people like to find reasons to complain about everything. It’s surreal to read HN threads where people are floating ideas about making laws to prevent companies from designing better hardware products just because they want to replace batteries with a screwdriver. I guarantee if you put a screwdriver-repairable phone and a modern iPhone in front of average consumers, 99% or more would choose the modern iPhone without a second question. The obsession with easy battery replacement seems limited to a very narrow set of people while the rest of the population has moved on to appreciate the benefits of modern sealed phones such as impressive resistance to water damage.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  What people want is a low cost third party shop to replace batteries
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    People have had that for years (including a sub-$100 device to copy the TrueTone ID for the screen and battery info for the battery). Every small mall I can think of had a kiosk that would do it in an hour while you shopped. (Eastern MA, US.) I’m just a consumer and have replaced 3 iPhone batteries myself and am doing a 4th later today.

Nextgrid 4y ago

The problem is that Apple intentionally insists that this is the only way to do a repair to scare people away from it - and the media seems to be lapping it up pretty well and spreading it - I wish the article called out their BS right away. If I had a full-time repair operation going, I'd probably get those tools too. But for a single repair, I can open one with a hair dryer and 20 bucks of iFixit tools faster than it takes to unpack all that kit.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> The problem is that Apple intentionally insists that this is the only way to do a repair to scare people away from it As they should. If Apple had instead shipped batteries with instructions for pure DIY repair, we’d be reading an article about “I tried to replace my iPhone battery but I destroyed my iPhone in the process” And if Apple redesigned the iPhone to be bigger so it could have a separate battery compartment with screw and a big old gasket so users could swap batteries, we’d be reading an article titled “Apple ruins new iPhone design for a feature you don’t need” Apple did a great thing with this program. That fact that journalists and HN commenters are getting worked up into a frenzy to complain about it is disappointing. It’s also telling they many people here haven’t worked on car repairs in detail. It’s standard practice for manufacturers to cite specific manufacturer tools as required in the repair manual and want you to pay hundreds or thousands to buy them. And it’s standard practice for DIYers to improvise around it (at their own risk) or purchase cheaper aftermarket custom tools. It would be great news if they offered subsidized tool rental programs like Apple for the repairs. This whole article and the rage around it is beyond silly.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > If Apple had instead shipped batteries with instructions for pure DIY repair, we’d be reading an article about “I tried to replace my iPhone battery but I destroyed my iPhone in the process” Is that happening with cars? Because you can trivially walk up to any dealership and buy brake parts. > It’s standard practice for manufacturers to cite specific manufacturer tools Normal, cross-manufacturer tools (aka wrenches, sockets, etc) will get you 90% of the way there, and kludgy, one-off hacks with what you have on hand will usually get you the last 10%. The main problem with regards to Apple and the right to repair is parts availability and intentional restrictions against repair such as part serialization where it still needs Apple to be in the loop to "pair" the part to the new device. Nobody was complaining about the lack of a specific machine to open their iPhone - that problem has been solved already long ago.

0daystock 4y ago

Of course they can win, by designing hardware with replaceable components. This is something my 20 year old Thinkpad has figured out, and many other user-friendly products before it.

sokoloff 4y ago
Here’s the video showing how to disassemble a modern Thinkpad to replace the battery. You might notice that it looks a fair bit like the video to replace the battery on a modern phone: https://youtu.be/lpMGVM8lPTU&t=1m10s https://youtu.be/lpMGVM8lPTU&t=1m10s (Also interesting that it doesn't appear that Lenovo even sells the battery [though several 3rd party suppliers do]: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/d/compatibilityfinder?accessory=Chargers%20%26%20Batteries&accessoryName=Chargers%2C%20Batteries%20%26%20Charging%20Carts&subseries=22TP2X1X1C9&machineType= https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/d/compatibilityfinder?accessory... )
- 0daystock 4y ago
  Modern Thinkpads have succumbed to the same trend, sadly. My new X1 Carbon has soldered-on, non-replaceable RAM - gotta hate it.

MereInterest 4y ago

Apple has a very easy way to win here. If they take repairability into account while designing phones, such that repairs can be made using commonly available tools, then this entire situation can be avoided. This is especially the case for parts that have predictable degradation over time, such as batteries. If Apple backs itself into a corner, it doesn't get to complain about having no longer having reasonable options remaining.

tinus_hn 4y ago
If it was this simple, the other manufacturers would be doing this. But it is not this simple. If the device can open easily using basic tools, it can’t be thin, light and waterproof. But anyway, I didn’t hear Apple ‘complaining about having no longer having reasonable options remaining’. I heard you complaining about Apple providing the tools and parts required to repair their phones.
- mym1990 4y ago
  For all the stupid things that apple does to their devices, they can surely find a way to remove a cover. The truth is that almost every phone manufacturer would rather your phone reach end of life so that you can take a mini loan for another one.
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    You sound like one of those people complaining about the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, while you are also demanding Apple distorts the fabric of reality so they can create devices that meet your demands. Because without that, you can’t build a device with an easy way to remove its cover, while also making it thin, light and waterproof (and cheap, preferably). If ‘almost every manufacturer’ is in some kind of conspiracy of manufactured obsolescence, that implies there are ones that are not. So go buy one of their phones. But chances are they are heavy, bulky and not waterproof.
    - mym1990 4y ago

mizzao 4y ago

That box of tools reminds me of the engineering teardown of the Juicero: https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/ https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/

Teever 4y ago

Sympathy for Apple or not, the issue is that this proposed solution by Apple obviously isn't scalable. So if the solution the problem isn't scalable, is it really a solution? And if Apple, a company renowned for their uncanny ability to identify novel, game-changing solutions to problems produces this as their 'solution' can you honestly say that they gave it their all on this one? Apple can't win here if they don't try.

nneonneo 4y ago
They’ll get to find out if it’s scalable with this iteration of their repair program. It’s quite likely that only a small fraction of people will be interested in self-service repair, but if that assumption turns out to be false Apple would have to design another iteration of the process to improve accessibility.

paxcoder 4y ago

pcmoney 4y ago

Its the verge, its a joke now. They have one article lately and its “tech company bad”. They basically pander to people who want to think they know about tech but aren’t in tech and likely couldn’t make it in tech. Feels like a bunch of bitterness and copium. I just ignore them now but miss their old good tech coverage.

dudeinjapan 4y ago

Totally agree. If Apple is paying to ship everything and the kitchen sink both ways, then cool! I have repaired of my iPhones for myself, friends, and family with the dinky $50 kits you can get on Amazon, and man I'd love to have the "one-armed bandit" shown in the article. (Imagine the look of horror on my dad's face when after sealing up his iPhone and testing it I said "Wow, I actually managed not to brick it this time!") For better or worse, Apple clearly didn't design the iPhone with consumer repairability in mind. We can debate to what degree this is intentional evil vs. design/cost necessity, but at least its cool that they're shipping their repair workbench as bulk as it may be.

raverbashing 4y ago

Completely agree They got two suitcases of top of the line tools for iPhone repair. Make use of it

kurupt213 4y ago

I think apple did win, and the author is manufacturing outrage. Apple loaned him a professional setup to repair his phone. That is completely in line with the Apple customer experience, and gives insight into why they resisted home repair so long. Apple doesn’t take shortcuts on their hardware. They have a design/experience expectation. Flimsy tools, eyeballing alignment, cheap 3rd party replacement parts. These are all things that significantly increase the likely of degraded quality/experience after a layperson’s self repair. I think there’s a healthy medium somewhere, but for now, apple expects home repair to done at the same level of service they would do. I’d rather error on the side of quality and robustness myself.

Stevvo 4y ago

Did you even read the article? The author doesn't complaint about the tools other than the $1200 you will loose if you don't return them within 7 days. Your comment comes across as more disingenuous.

phpisthebest 4y ago

>>Apple can’t win here They could by providing open access to parts and tools to independent shops The "Self Repair" seems to be designed to still be purposely hostile to repair while still "allowing" repair so they can claim they are satisfying the "letter of the law" when it comes to Right to Repair legalization that is going to be passed in many jurisdictions, they are getting out ahead of this right now. Instead of just allowing a Repair shop to order up 10 Screens, and 10 batteries, owners have to register their repair, then "activate" the repair with Apple, all while using these expensive and time consuming tools that most people will simply not want to do. IMO this is not Apple changing their tune on repairability, this is Apple being passive aggressive in the face of Right to Repair

perryizgr8 4y ago

> Apple can’t win here. They can, very easily. Just don't be hostile to your users when designing the phone. Look at Nokia circa 2005.

mrcartmeneses 4y ago

There’s also very little chance that those tools cost only $1200. If they were knockoffs from China then maybe, but just the two pelican cases can cost as much as that depending on the model

thenthenthen 4y ago
Uh these machines come straight from shenzhen
- 99_00 4y ago
  But they are not knockoffs.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

I view this differently. This article is documenting a process people are surely curious about. But the costly deposit and multiple heavy pelican cases of supplies show just how deep the hole Apple has dug for themselves really is. Apple is so anti-repair they have no provisions for a reasonable at home process. You must realize that a $1200 deposit alone means this process is out of reach of many people. Meanwhile I recently pulled all my old smartphones from a storage bin and the rear cover pops right off, revealing a battery which comes out with no effort. There’s even an affordance for your finger nail to catch the edge of the rectangular cell. Obviously newer phones are waterproof and arguably more durable, but Apple has gone so far towards a factory sealed design as to require absurd equipment to do a proper job. What this all makes me wonder is: what would this all be like if Apple had never dismissed user replaceable batteries? If they had just as many years of engineering behind a removable back cover as they do with high resolution screens and custom processors? How many billions have they spent on this and that improvement, and what would the phone look like today if some of that had gone to making a phone not destined for the landfill? To me, the size and cost of their DIY repair kit is a monument to how far from repair Apple has strayed. Fortunately I suspect that if they stick with user serviceable batteries, the process will be a whole lot simpler once they’ve really put some engineering effort in to it.

sokoloff 4y ago
You have a storage bin holding old smartphones with readily replaceable batteries. That suggests to me that readily replaceable batteries isn't anywhere near the entire story in terms of keeping phones out the landfill (or in your case, a storage bin).
- salawat 4y ago
  You are correct. without datasheets, you have no way to even approach reprogramming a computer system. Those datasheets, schemata, and documentation are some of the closest, most tightly held trade secrets in the tech world. Increasingly, the world has gotten away from "sell thing to owner to own" to "sell hook for revenue extraction from User". part of which has also increasingly been "be the unofficial or unnoticed arm of power by keeping inconvenient things hard to acquire as determined by the parties in power". Say... industrial equipment without backdoors. Until I can load my own firmware/microcode, it ain't mine yet. I'd love to have a cobbled together group of heterogenous computing devices just for the novelty.

hatware 4y ago

> Does he actually want to repair his phone? It doesn’t seem like it. Does Apple really want to support right to repair? Or is this some baked-in-irony workaround that lets them legally _say_ they allow anyone to repair their phones, while offering what is the least consumer centric service I have ever seen from a company of this caliber. I think you missed the point of the article, which is to show how ridiculous this process is on the whole.

cycomanic 4y ago

I would have somewhat agree with you except for the point that you have to give apple freaking remote access to the phone because the replacement battery shows up as nongenuine. That right there tells me that apple is trying to make the process as painful as possible.

Animats 4y ago

By the way. The tools this guy used are common, dead-common in China. Go to any repair mall in Shenzhen and you’ll see hundreds of these. This is an issue with hobbyist electronics projects in the US. The US hobbyist market is still using 1970s packaging technology - 0.10 inch pin spacing, solderless proto boards, and through-hole parts. I designed a hobbyist board that was all surface mount. Smallest parts were 0.5mm pitch. Although a few people built it, I got a lot of complaints. Surface mount is beyond most American hobbyists. Even though 0.10 inch through-hole is obsolete commercially, and modern parts come in surface mount only. That said, Apple's aesthetic inherently makes things hard to open. Glass on both sides and minimal bezel is what Apple fans pay for. It forces a heat and suction disassembly process, which requires proper tooling to do right.

Sirened 4y ago
This was quite a wakeup call for me too. I was always into hobby electronics but a couple of years ago I got into multicopters. A _lot_ of parts were these tiny SMDs. I remember having to figure out how to attach FETs and even (once) a little BGA microprocessor. It was a very steep learning curve and nobody else in the hobby scene here had really done anything with it, so it was a lot of trial and error. Industry has moved on, there are so many things now that are practically out of reach for hobbyists nowadays :/
- Animats 4y ago
  nobody else in the hobby scene here had really done anything with it Sparkfun has tutorials.[1] There are surface mount practice kits, where you get a little board and a bunch of dud parts to practice on. It's not all that hard, but it takes practice. It takes a while to get skill with tweezers under a microscope. Cheap USB microscopes are very useful. Figure on ruining a few of those cheap practice kits. It's not rocket science, but to do consistently good assembly you need the right tools and some reasonable hand tool skills. [1] https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/category/2 https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/category/2
  - Sirened 4y ago

gambiting 4y ago

I completely disagree with you. I think the author is right - requiring people to put a $1200 deposit down to rent some tools and sending them 40kg of stuff just to replace the battery is insane and clearly done to discourage repairs, the fact that you have to call their specialists to validate the battery at the end is just a cherry on top of this rotten cake - it's just done to stave off legislators ruling that apple must make their hardware more repairable. It's a token effort at best.

thetinguy 4y ago
You can buy just the battery and supply your own equipment (or do it by hand).
leokennis 4y ago
If you read the article, the 40kg of equipment are clearly needed to do the repair. So now you’re demanding Apple ships you a light bundle of small tools that do the same as that 40kg of tools or otherwise it’s just a “token effort”? Or you want Apple to design a phone that you could safely repair using only a few small tools? That’s fine too. In that case I’ll just sit here waiting for all the bitching from HN about their new repairable iPhone that is prone to water damage, has shit battery life and creaks when you hold it.
- pas 4y ago
  > bitching from HN about their new repairable iPhone that is prone to water damage, has shit battery life and creaks when you hold it. it's not like we did not have those already :D bendgate! antennagate! (you're holding it wrong!) and so on. it seems what repairability is about is using standard parts (screws, batteries), allowing people to buy parts, and allowing people to use the thing in a less than perfect way (eg. with an aftermarket standard part) of course it's not just Apple that doesn't want this. nobody who is in the business of selling their own hardware wants this, because it would decrease their sales. and as other comments pointed out right to repair is not repairability.

lovich 4y ago

Are they dead common for consumers? I wouldn’t be surprised that business owner tooling they needed to run, that’s outside the budget for most consumers

wfhordie 4y ago
Yes, dead common for consumers, but consumers don’t really buy them because there are places that do the repairs so cheaply everywhere.

zouhair 4y ago

> Apple can’t win here. This assumes iPhones just happen to be the way they are. The need of this extravagant display is because of how iPhones were engineered in the first place. They were engineered to be hard to repair, that's the whole point. Apple and any other company need to stop making products that are hard to repair, they need to be forced to do so otherwise they will most likely never do it willingly.

wfhordie 4y ago
>They were engineered to be hard to repair, that's the whole point. This doesn’t make sense for two reasons. (1)Apple is on the hook to repair iPhones under AppleCare+ warranties. This means “engineering for hard to repair” goes against their own interests. (2) The fellows in Shenzhen, Guangzho, Shanghai, and Hong Kong have no problem repairing all kinds of damage to iPhones for <$20 USD. So if Apple is designing these to be difficult to repair it they are doing a terrible job.

ksec 4y ago

>Apple can’t win here I would argue in their views they did. Apple did the calculation and understand people who actually want to repair their phone are not even a rounding error in their ~1.1B Active iPhone users. Showcasing their Professional Tools to the press, making it sound difficult is precisely how the public could justify the $69 Battery swap. And this article did precisely that. Right to Repair folks might view this as bad press for Apple. I think Apple's PR knew exactly what they are getting into.