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IFixit: Self Repair Program makes M1 MacBooks less repairable
- msoad 4y agoApple has to do this. Imagine if the repair kit was not up to the standards they had. Lawsuits will be filed the day the release those kits. iFixit and similar companies can offer cheaper alternatives because they are not Apple.
- falcolas 4y agoThis isn't about the cost of the repair kit, it's about the cost of the replacement item, which includes many pieces which are not the battery.
- rgoulter 4y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32550717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32550717 Apple expands Self Service Repair to Mac notebooks (apple.com), 482 comments.
- tarentel 4y agoNo it doesn't. Ya, it's a 162 page manual and a huge pain and likely not worth it but the program doesn't make it less repairable. It was designed in such a way that makes repairing it a pain in the ass. Having the tooling and manual to do the repair doesn't make it less repairable. This headline makes no sense.
- falcolas 4y ago162 pages indicates that the item was not made to be repaired or replaced. 162 pages indicates that you're going to have to work around Apple's repair-hostile design to do a repair.
- tarentel 4y agoI definitely agree with you there. But the headline says it makes it "less repairable." If your car manufacturers changes all the bolts on your tires to use specialized tools and require you to read a book to understand it that makes your car less repairable. If they provide those tools and manual that doesn't make your car less repairable than it already was. My point is the title of this makes no sense.
- falcolas 4y agoTitles rarely do. And sadly, if you want to thrive by producing content, you need to juice up the title a little. Yeah, I hate it too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng But on topic, Apple's official stance, as provided by this repair manual, is that replacing a battery requires you to replace vast portions of the final product. Car analogy time: Got bad seals on your block? Send us the engine; who knows what kind of damage those bad seals have done. Oh, and only we, your car manufacturer can get you the tools and an authorized engine replacement. Can the battery be replaced without the assembly? iFixit says yes. Is this how Apple does it? Sure, but it's generating a lot of cost and waste. They can write both of. Can you?
- dkonofalski 4y agoThe article and manual everyone is talking about explicitly say that the top case situation is temporary and that Apple will offer battery-only parts in the future. Stop making mountains out of molehills. They're attempting to cover as many repairs with the same parts as possible. This is a supply chain issue not an intentional requirement to force people to replace parts that don't need replacement.
- tpmoney 4y agoThe keyboard and upper case enclosure doesn’t constitute “vast portions of the final product” to me. That still leaves the display, logic board, audio board, io board, fans, track pad, lower enclosure and all the misc parts like antennas, hinges etc. Should it be possible to replace just the battery and not need to replace the entire top case with it? Sure. And for some of their laptops you can (like the MBA) and for the others they say they will be providing separate versions in the future. But we should be clear here that you’re not replacing “vast portions” of the laptop even if you did it now. You have to remove those items to replace the component, but remove and reinstall is not replace.
- woojoo666 4y agoThe actual ifixit article title is "Apple’s Self-Repair Program Manages to Make MacBooks Seem Less Repairable". The "seem" here is important, and was excluded in the 9to5mac article title
- mikece 4y agoFeedback from iFixit is nice and all, but has Louis Rossmann weighed in on this topic yet? All feedback prior to Louis getting loose on YouTube is just the opening act. UPDATE: Louis Rossmann has published his opinion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32581896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32581896 (TL;DR: 90% useless for him but an improvement from 100% useless like Apple's previous program)
- dillutedfixer 4y agoI've had my 16" MBP since early April and I only have 30 cycles on the battery. At my usage rate, I charge this thing about once or twice a week on average. At this rate, the battery is going to last longer than any laptop battery I've ever owned. And then when it finally degrades to the point that I need to replace it, I would happily pay $199 to Apple for a new one rather than save a few dollars and do it myself. Plus I'd rather have someone to blame other than myself if it f's up.
- rahkiin 4y agoMy battery severely degraded without the cycles. I had 150 cycles after 4 years with 78% capacity. I am now at 239 cycles at 64% capacity.
- alphabettsy 4y agoThe older batteries were rated for 500 cycles so that doesn’t seem unusual.
- memco 4y agoI have a disassembled laptop in my garage after a failed attempt to replace the battery on my 8 year old MacBook. Apple no longer offers repairs nor is there anyone else in the area I could find to do it. I replaced my wife’s (10 year old) battery a few months prior to attempting mine: hers required a few screws and was done in about 5 minutes. Mine required disassembling the whole computer dissolving the adhesive on the old battery and replacing then reassembling. If you’re going to plan on having apple fix your battery do it 5 or 6 years from now regardless of the condition and then pray you have some repair option when Apple stops providing support.
- anonymouse008 4y agoThe audacity is sky high. Just check the attention to detail and care put into these manuals. The gradient blue arrows are masked by glass and alter in arrow opacities to make abundantly clear how the device is supposed to react to the force applied. You all should have been there in the original iPhone days. I apologize to my early customers as to achieve anything close to a 'repair' meant losing a few back clips and figuring things out as you went. iFixit is under existential threat, and it shows.
- falcolas 4y agoYes, providing well detailed manuals on how to work around Apple's hostility to repairing is a good thing. A $500 replacement part to replace a battery is not a good thing. I'd also say that your average end user is probably still going to be breaking tabs. Applying proper force requires physical calibration; calibration takes practice.
- dewey 4y ago> I'd also say that your average end user is probably still going to be breaking tabs The average end user is not going to do the repair themselves.
- falcolas 4y agoWhich is a relatively new phenomenon when it comes to batteries. It's only been a handful of year since I could swap them out with a couple of latches.
- tempnow987 4y agoWhat a stupid take as is increasingly the case with ifixit. How does adding manuals and parts make something LESS repairable? At worst you are no better off than you started. And for all the crap apple gets for things like their batteries, I used to do fleet battery stuff on dell machines using a third party providers and the rate at which these machines BURNED through batteries was insane. THis was a while back, and not sure if it was the chargers, or how they were used (plugged in a lot of deep drained a lot), but for whatever reason apple's battery management tech really seems to get some life out of their batteries. Also, once they started validating batteries so ifixit type places couldn't drop bad batteries into phones, a lot of the trouble there went away as well. Anyways, a screen replacement under apple care is $29. I'll report back how "terrible" the process is (first time in years that I've broken my screen).
- ericmay 4y agoPretty soon they'll be against right-to-repair legislation. Just watch.
- TehCorwiz 4y agoIf you read the article you'd see that Apple will not sell you a battery. They will ONLY sell you a "Top case with battery and keyboard" which requires removing every single part of the laptop in order to replace. This is more invasive, more expensive, and less approachable from a repair standpoint if you go with their process.
- kemayo 4y agoThat doesn't make the laptop less repairable than it was before they launched this program, though, which is what the headline claims. It's less repairable than a hypothetical version of the repair program which sells you just the component you need to replace, sure, but you can still perform any-and-all actions that you'd have taken to replace a battery before Apple's official program existed.
- dkonofalski 4y ago>If you read the article you'd see that Apple will not sell you a battery. YET. The manual and the article itself acknowledge that this repair is only possible with a top case replacement and that battery-only parts will be available soon.
- lisper 4y agoThis is a clickjack link. The original is here: https://www.ifixit.com/News/64072/apples-self-repair-program-manages-to-make-macbooks-seem-less-repairable https://www.ifixit.com/News/64072/apples-self-repair-program...
- tarentel 4y agoThis is a slightly better headline than the one they changed it to which makes no sense.
- lisper 4y agoHuh??? All three headlines (the original iFixit, the 9to5Mac clickjack, and the HN version) are essentially identical: iFixit: Self Repair Program actually makes M1 MacBooks less repairable (9to5Mac) IFixit: Self Repair Program makes M1 MacBooks less repairable (HN) Apple’s Self-Repair Program Manages to Make MacBooks Seem Less Repairable (iFixit)
- bombcar 4y agoThe lack of "seem" changes the title entirely. Anyone anyone who has read "official repair manuals" knows that they're always more detailed and have more steps than you actually need to perform, because they cover every possible situation and assume you have perfect tools and training and are following all possible safety protocols. I remember reading the Chilton manual for my car vs the factory repair manual, and the Chilton would mention "the repair manual says to remove the front bumper, but with a bit of a squeeze and some care, you can do the replacement without that step" kind of thing all the time.
- kemayo 4y agoThere's also iFixit's <title>, "Apple Seems to Make MacBooks Less Repairable"... which is an entirely different implication from their heading. The former implies an absolute less-repairable state, the latter implies Apple's making repairs more intimidating.
- rocket_surgeron 4y ago>This time, along with the manuals, Apple is presenting DIY repairers with a excruciating gauntlet of hurdles: read 162 pages of documentation without getting intimidated I read the PDF. https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2083/en_US/macbookair-M1-2020-07300298A-repair.pdf https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2083/en_US/mac... It seems highly likely to me that anyone claiming this document is intimidating either has not read it or is lying for some reason. In many respects, the Apple document is vastly superior to the iFixit guides. An example of that is that the Apple guide has more descriptive language to ensure that the user feels the correct sensations when performing a step. Here's the iFixit guide for replacing the antenna module: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Late+2020+Antenna+Bar+Replacement/142553 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Late+2020+A... iFixit: Pivot the spudger against the hinge to pry up the end of the antenna bar. Apple: Gently slide the flat end of the black stick below one of the four screw holes (1) to loosen the antenna module from the tape on the top case. Then rotate the black stick until you feel a click (2). Apple's instructions also include steps to perform if an action isn't "easy": iFixit: The antenna bar is secured with some adhesive and may require some force to dislodge. Apple: If the antenna module doesn’t release from the tape, slowly and gently slide the black stick under the module to loosen it.
- suetoniusp91 4y agoWhy in every story about Apple are their contrarian head burying. No other company would get this amount of support for finally after 20 years allowing a supposed owner of the product to change the battery
- scarface74 4y agoOr you could just let Apple do it for $129.
- mmastrac 4y agoApple: If the adhesive strip breaks, attempt to retrieve the rest of the strip with ESD-safe tweezers. If you can’t retrieve the rest of the strip, replace the top case Jesus. This is not what I'd consider "repairable". And that's not the only place in the manual where Apple just says "toss the whole top case out".
- oefrha 4y ago> Our 14″ MacBook Pro battery replacement guide is 26 steps. That might not seem like a very speedy guide, but the Surface Pro 6 is twice that long, and iPad guides can be upwards of a hundred steps. In the scheme of things, 26 steps is pretty good. Imagine our surprise when we found that Apple’s official MacBook Pro battery replacement method clocks in at 162 pages. 162 pages is the entire damn manual[1], not just battery replacement, and the manual is very detailed, what is one step in the iFixit guide (which often includes multiple images in a carousel) could be multiple pages in the manual. While it’s not great that Apple deems the battery a non-removable part of the top case, this complaint about complexity is misleading FUD. Disclosure: I’ve made quite a few purchases at iFixit over the years. [1] https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2085/en_US/macbookpro-14-2021-07300326A-repair.pdf https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2085/en_US/mac...
- pzo 4y agoin your linked PDF the process of removing battery is explained in 2 slide that links to dozen (literally) other steps below: ``` Bottom case • Battery management unit flex cable • Lid angle sensor • Trackpad and trackpad flex cable • Vent/antenna module • Logic board • Display hinge covers • Display • Audio board • Fans • MagSafe 3 board • USB-C boards • Touch ID board Remove the following parts before you begin: • No tools are required for this procedure. Tools ``` The reassembly is just 1 slide that tells links to dozen (literally) links below: ``` Reassembly • Touch ID board • USB-C boards • MagSafe 3 board • Fans • Audio board • Display • Display hinge covers • Logic board • Vent/antenna module • Trackpad and trackpad flex cable • Lid angle sensor • Battery management unit flex cable • Bottom case ``` I wouldn't say that removing dozen of components to just remove battery (something) is user friendly.
- mminer237 4y agoYou'll note that at the beginning of the three-page battery section, it says that you must have already removed every other part from the other 159 pages. The battery section is basically just "whatever's left doesn't come apart, so replace all that for a new battery". I think saying it takes a 162-page manual is fair.
- andix 4y agoJust don't buy products where you can't replace the battery with a reasonable effort. I replaced multiple iPhone batteries, it was always possible in less then 30 minutes with just simple tools. I opened up multiple laptops (mostly HP and Lenovo), no problem to replace things there either. People still replace their devices, because the battery is weak. This is stupid, just replace the battery and use it for another 1, 2 or more years.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pdntspa 4y agoYeah, 162 pages because the repair guide is extremely detailed and we are working with heavily miniaturized parts
- pilgrimfff 4y agoApple's self repair program exists for one reason - to mitigate regulatory scrutiny. They have no incentive to make it effective.
- srvmshr 4y agoI glanced through the manual linked in answers elsewhere. The Apple manual is very detailed and lays out the risks you could potentially get into - and thats a good thing. At this point, iFixit criticism looks more like a rant. FWIW, Apple must be going through this process - its not like they have shortcuts they arent willing to part with.
- fzfaa 4y agoAny screenshot?
- mensetmanusman 4y ago162 pages to replace the one degradable component. Apple sets the environment back by making this a hurdle, but it definitely helps their shareholders.
- cyral 4y agoIt's the repair manual for the entire machine, not just the battery.
- msgilligan 4y agoThe iFixIt headline is actually "Apple’s Self-Repair Program Manages to Make MacBooks Seem Less Repairable". The word _seem_ is important here. 9to5Mac should change their headline accordingly and so Hacker News should maybe change the link.
- shuntress 4y agoApple's self-repair program is very obviously malicious compliance. Every rational person will tell you that shipping rented hardware back-and-forth with strict exchange of exactly one broken part for exactly one new part individually for every repair is a bad idea. Parts and equipment need to be available for purchase with no strings attached so they can be stocked on shelves in repair shops.
- immmmmm 4y agoafter watching Louis for almost a year when i couldn't sleep, reparability requires: 1) parts that aren't glued together (or riveted like the butterfly keyboard) 2) schematics of the boards 3) parts (including individual MB components) available bonus) not routing 48V backlight supply lines at 0.1mm of LDVS CPU lines.