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As someone who has repaired Apple devices over the years, swearing under my breath each time they put new hurdles in the way, it is so refreshing to see a full

As someone who has repaired Apple devices over the years, swearing under my breath each time they put new hurdles in the way, it is so refreshing to see a full repair manual for my relatively new phone [0]. Lots of negativity in the comments but it is so relieving to see Apple change course and lift the curtain. Also adding to the anecdotes with my own: I have never needed a case for my phones or computers, and have barely even scratched the shell. I go on adventures for a good portion of the year and still manage to keep it intact, so i scratch my head when people say they break easily or that they always shatter their screen, it really seems to go beyond accidental damage and stray into carelessness. [0] https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2074/en_US/iphone-13-pro-07300324A-repair.pdf https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2074/en_US/iph...

soared 4y ago
Some people fumble things in their hands, it’s not carelessness. Just differences between people, hand eye coordination, etc.
- paulmd 4y ago
  anecdotally there are two kinds of people, the people who break their phone twice a year and the people who break one maybe every 10 years. It'd be really interesting to see a probability distribution function of failure rates.
  - srk_hn 4y ago
    That's really not a fair comparison. There are plenty of people who are elderly or dealing with disc injuries where they are prone to losing their grip or slipping a phone when moving about, picking it out of their pocket, etc. While you may be in good health, it's important to remember not everyone is the same and some people are dealing with a variety of issues.
    - pythonaut_16 4y ago
      Parent comment seems more focused on the probability/distribution than in the reasons why. The anecdote seems true from my experience as well; people tend to either break their phones often or very rarely/not at all. Of course it could be that you are far more likely to take notice of someone breaking their phone if it happens often.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      A lot of perfectly healthy teens and twentysomethings break two phones a year.
    - theshrike79 4y ago
      I've seen WAY more school kids and teens with cracked screens than elderly people.
  - r00fus 4y ago
    Anecdote - my wife went through 3 iPhone screens in the course of 18 months due to dropped phones (6, 8, 8) but then she got a plus-sized iPhone and an otter box case and hasn't broken one in years.
    - paulmd 4y ago
      yup I think the "uses a case vs doesn't use a case" is a strong factor here. I've always used otterbox cases and never broken a phone - I've actually broken one of the otterbox cases, but never the phone itself. And the one ipad I've broken, I broke one time when I took it out of a case for a bit and ended up taking a few weeks to put it back in...
      - r00fus 4y ago
        She had cases on her older phones but they were the sheer/transparent kind. Honestly though I think size made a difference. The non-plus felt right for her but it was just more "droppable" for her hands.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    Yup. I got my first smartphone in 2010. In those 12 years, I've only cracked a single one, and there were extenuating circumstances. It was my Droid Turbo, which was known for having a shatter-proof screen. One of the things that helped achieve its durability was that the bezel actually had a lip around the screen, so if it got dropped, then the screen glass never took the impact. That changed once the battery had reached nearly 4 years of age and had started to swell, pushing the screen outside the bezel. Dropped it onto concrete and it got one crack across it. I replaced it with a Pixel 3, and then later a Pixel 6 Pro. I put cases on them, but they're thin TPU, and I use them mostly for being able to have a better grip, since the trend for phones now is a slick glass back which offers zero grip in your hand. I might just opt for a pop-socket on my next phone. To be honest, I rolled my eyes at them at first, but I realized it was just cynicism for hating popular things. They're actually quite nice for using your phone one-handed, and almost a must-have considering how big phones have gotten.
  - themadturk 4y ago
    I got my first smartphone in 2011. I got my first iPhone in 2016. I bought an iPhone XR in the fall of 2019, and got a glass screen protector with it, mainly because by then Apple had those nice jigs that let the staff put it on in about three minutes perfectly. In January 2021, my phone fell about a foot from my pocket, landed screen-down on the driveway. A chip in the glass screen protector eventually (about three months) turned into a crack. I went to Apple and had another screen protector turned on. That's the only time I've come close to damaging a smartphone or tablet screen.
- Tronno 4y ago
  The glass back of my phone was smashed by a grocery store turnstile without ever leaving my pocket. Assigning user error all the time is a mistake - sometimes the product is just fragile.
  - themadturk 4y ago
    These glass-backed phones are the main reason I used a case. Besides, the things are just plain slippery!
- fortylove 4y ago
  Yes, this. I have two kids and am always juggling different things. I have dry hands that are crusted from manual labor. They don't have the same kind of grip that they used to have. Between those two factors, I drop my phone at least once a week.
fezfight 4y ago
Those negative comments are from the types of people who helped push the governments of the world to force Apple to do this.
CivBase 4y ago
I'd have an easier time feeling relieved if the limited parts selection and prices weren't obviously calculated to make self-repair extremely undesirable. Not to mention you can't order a part until you've registered with Apple - ensuring third parties can't sock up on parts for quick in-store repairs. Parts availability and pricing wouldn't be so much of a problem if Apple would stop getting in the way of third parties replacing broken parts with with genuine OEM parts from donor devices, selling those parts themselves, and sharing schematics for component-level repairs. The vitality of the classic car community is an excellent example of how valuable the used parts market is to independent repair. It's a start and Apple deserves credit for taking a few steps in the right direction. But the limitations of this program highlight how it is obviously nothing more than ammunition for their lobbying efforts against the right-to-repair movement.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  I mostly agree with your post, with one exception: Apple doesn't deserve any credit for doing this, since they only did it because the EU made them.
JohnGB 4y ago
It's not as if Apple didn't do everything they could to not do this. They were forced kicking and screaming by the EU to do this, and now they are trying to take credit for doing it.
- jbuhbjlnjbn 4y ago
  Let Apple embrace this forced change. Let them squeeze as much money as they can out of doing the right thing. This is no time to be petty, it's win-win.
  - fezfight 4y ago
    It's not the right thing if its prohibitively expensive and inaccessible. The right thing is doing it without the inflated costs and expensive leased equipment. The right thing is not building your product in such a way as to require specialised equipment in the first place. This is effectively malicious compliance.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      > The right thing is not building your product in such a way as to require specialised equipment in the first place. A product like this would not be popular because it would be thicker, heavier, and have worse specs.
      - fezfight 4y ago
        Since we've seen it done elsewhere, you'd need to probably show or at least explain where/how it can't be done for Apple.
      - munk-a 4y ago
        I think it's a tall order to argue that worse performance is a necessary requirement of repairability and height and weight are constantly obsessed over but very few people I've met actually care about it (and a fair number like the Mac interface but would be happy to trade height for keyboard improvements).
boppo1 4y ago
> I go on adventures for a good portion of the year and still manage to keep it intact, so i scratch my head when people say they break easily or that they always shatter their screen, it really seems to go beyond accidental damage and stray into carelessness. How often/ how much alcohol do you drink?
throwaway894345 4y ago
My wife set her iphone6 down on the floor next to her seat at a party once, and then stepped on it with a stiletto (or some other thin-healed high-heal shoe, idk women's fashion). I'm still not sure if it was an accident or if she wanted an excuse to upgrade. :/
shard 4y ago
Children may be one of the cause of the breakage. It's not always been possible to keep my phone out of their hands, and for young children, they don't have fully developed motor skills yet, and drop things often. Even with a case, they managed to find the exact angle to drop the phone to crack the screen. I'm considering whether to get a full coverage case including screen cover to protect the phone from every possible drop angle, just so I don't have to worry about this anymore.
userbinator 4y ago
When you said "full repair manual" I was expecting something much more interesting, e.g. with schematics and boardviews which I bet many un-authorized repair shops already have, but after taking a look, I'd say it's only better than nothing. It looks more like a very detailed parts-swapping guide, probably the internal training material they already had, with additional lawyer-motivated warnings/disclaimers added. ...and installing the battery requires a special tool? It reminds me of German engineering, or some parody thereof.

soared 4y ago

Some people fumble things in their hands, it’s not carelessness. Just differences between people, hand eye coordination, etc.

paulmd 4y ago
anecdotally there are two kinds of people, the people who break their phone twice a year and the people who break one maybe every 10 years. It'd be really interesting to see a probability distribution function of failure rates.
- srk_hn 4y ago
  That's really not a fair comparison. There are plenty of people who are elderly or dealing with disc injuries where they are prone to losing their grip or slipping a phone when moving about, picking it out of their pocket, etc. While you may be in good health, it's important to remember not everyone is the same and some people are dealing with a variety of issues.
  - pythonaut_16 4y ago
    Parent comment seems more focused on the probability/distribution than in the reasons why. The anecdote seems true from my experience as well; people tend to either break their phones often or very rarely/not at all. Of course it could be that you are far more likely to take notice of someone breaking their phone if it happens often.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    A lot of perfectly healthy teens and twentysomethings break two phones a year.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    I've seen WAY more school kids and teens with cracked screens than elderly people.
- r00fus 4y ago
  Anecdote - my wife went through 3 iPhone screens in the course of 18 months due to dropped phones (6, 8, 8) but then she got a plus-sized iPhone and an otter box case and hasn't broken one in years.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    yup I think the "uses a case vs doesn't use a case" is a strong factor here. I've always used otterbox cases and never broken a phone - I've actually broken one of the otterbox cases, but never the phone itself. And the one ipad I've broken, I broke one time when I took it out of a case for a bit and ended up taking a few weeks to put it back in...
    - r00fus 4y ago
      She had cases on her older phones but they were the sheer/transparent kind. Honestly though I think size made a difference. The non-plus felt right for her but it was just more "droppable" for her hands.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  Yup. I got my first smartphone in 2010. In those 12 years, I've only cracked a single one, and there were extenuating circumstances. It was my Droid Turbo, which was known for having a shatter-proof screen. One of the things that helped achieve its durability was that the bezel actually had a lip around the screen, so if it got dropped, then the screen glass never took the impact. That changed once the battery had reached nearly 4 years of age and had started to swell, pushing the screen outside the bezel. Dropped it onto concrete and it got one crack across it. I replaced it with a Pixel 3, and then later a Pixel 6 Pro. I put cases on them, but they're thin TPU, and I use them mostly for being able to have a better grip, since the trend for phones now is a slick glass back which offers zero grip in your hand. I might just opt for a pop-socket on my next phone. To be honest, I rolled my eyes at them at first, but I realized it was just cynicism for hating popular things. They're actually quite nice for using your phone one-handed, and almost a must-have considering how big phones have gotten.
- themadturk 4y ago
  I got my first smartphone in 2011. I got my first iPhone in 2016. I bought an iPhone XR in the fall of 2019, and got a glass screen protector with it, mainly because by then Apple had those nice jigs that let the staff put it on in about three minutes perfectly. In January 2021, my phone fell about a foot from my pocket, landed screen-down on the driveway. A chip in the glass screen protector eventually (about three months) turned into a crack. I went to Apple and had another screen protector turned on. That's the only time I've come close to damaging a smartphone or tablet screen.
Tronno 4y ago
The glass back of my phone was smashed by a grocery store turnstile without ever leaving my pocket. Assigning user error all the time is a mistake - sometimes the product is just fragile.
- themadturk 4y ago
  These glass-backed phones are the main reason I used a case. Besides, the things are just plain slippery!
fortylove 4y ago
Yes, this. I have two kids and am always juggling different things. I have dry hands that are crusted from manual labor. They don't have the same kind of grip that they used to have. Between those two factors, I drop my phone at least once a week.

fezfight 4y ago

Those negative comments are from the types of people who helped push the governments of the world to force Apple to do this.

CivBase 4y ago

I'd have an easier time feeling relieved if the limited parts selection and prices weren't obviously calculated to make self-repair extremely undesirable. Not to mention you can't order a part until you've registered with Apple - ensuring third parties can't sock up on parts for quick in-store repairs. Parts availability and pricing wouldn't be so much of a problem if Apple would stop getting in the way of third parties replacing broken parts with with genuine OEM parts from donor devices, selling those parts themselves, and sharing schematics for component-level repairs. The vitality of the classic car community is an excellent example of how valuable the used parts market is to independent repair. It's a start and Apple deserves credit for taking a few steps in the right direction. But the limitations of this program highlight how it is obviously nothing more than ammunition for their lobbying efforts against the right-to-repair movement.

josephcsible 4y ago
I mostly agree with your post, with one exception: Apple doesn't deserve any credit for doing this, since they only did it because the EU made them.

JohnGB 4y ago

It's not as if Apple didn't do everything they could to not do this. They were forced kicking and screaming by the EU to do this, and now they are trying to take credit for doing it.

jbuhbjlnjbn 4y ago
Let Apple embrace this forced change. Let them squeeze as much money as they can out of doing the right thing. This is no time to be petty, it's win-win.
- fezfight 4y ago
  It's not the right thing if its prohibitively expensive and inaccessible. The right thing is doing it without the inflated costs and expensive leased equipment. The right thing is not building your product in such a way as to require specialised equipment in the first place. This is effectively malicious compliance.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    > The right thing is not building your product in such a way as to require specialised equipment in the first place. A product like this would not be popular because it would be thicker, heavier, and have worse specs.
    - fezfight 4y ago
      Since we've seen it done elsewhere, you'd need to probably show or at least explain where/how it can't be done for Apple.
    - munk-a 4y ago
      I think it's a tall order to argue that worse performance is a necessary requirement of repairability and height and weight are constantly obsessed over but very few people I've met actually care about it (and a fair number like the Mac interface but would be happy to trade height for keyboard improvements).

boppo1 4y ago

> I go on adventures for a good portion of the year and still manage to keep it intact, so i scratch my head when people say they break easily or that they always shatter their screen, it really seems to go beyond accidental damage and stray into carelessness. How often/ how much alcohol do you drink?

throwaway894345 4y ago

My wife set her iphone6 down on the floor next to her seat at a party once, and then stepped on it with a stiletto (or some other thin-healed high-heal shoe, idk women's fashion). I'm still not sure if it was an accident or if she wanted an excuse to upgrade. :/

shard 4y ago

Children may be one of the cause of the breakage. It's not always been possible to keep my phone out of their hands, and for young children, they don't have fully developed motor skills yet, and drop things often. Even with a case, they managed to find the exact angle to drop the phone to crack the screen. I'm considering whether to get a full coverage case including screen cover to protect the phone from every possible drop angle, just so I don't have to worry about this anymore.

userbinator 4y ago

When you said "full repair manual" I was expecting something much more interesting, e.g. with schematics and boardviews which I bet many un-authorized repair shops already have, but after taking a look, I'd say it's only better than nothing. It looks more like a very detailed parts-swapping guide, probably the internal training material they already had, with additional lawyer-motivated warnings/disclaimers added. ...and installing the battery requires a special tool? It reminds me of German engineering, or some parody thereof.