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It's not about tinkering. People want the option to have their stuff repaired without getting scammed. It's well known that Apple techs will scam people in repl

It's not about tinkering. People want the option to have their stuff repaired without getting scammed. It's well known that Apple techs will scam people in replacing whole motherboards rather than fix the small circuit issue at fault. Same thing for John Deer equipment that requires payment for specialized techs to come out. On the other hand with most cars, you can take it to a mechanic who can diagnose the issue, and order the respective part.

FireBeyond 3y ago
Or outright replace the computer. My MBA had a damaged charging circuit. Battery was fine. Computer ran fine on AC, passed their diagnostics. Just couldn't deliver a charge to the battery. I expected $2-300 after parts and labor. "Looks like that will probably run you $950. How about we talk about getting you into a new Mac instead?" No. It got repurposed into a DAW for my stepdaughter.
- gregjor 3y ago
  Apple won’t fix that kind of thing. They don’t have the facilities or people and it wouldn’t make economic sense to them. But you can find independent repair shops. I had that exact problem on an MBA and found a guy in Bangkok who just does Apple repairs. $15.
  - inamberclad 3y ago
    If an independent repair man a la Louis Rossman can make a living doing component level repair on macs, then I'd expect the margin to be good enough that the original company could do it as well. However, the economic sense to Apple is about selling new products, and an actual repair program would cut into product sales.
    - gregjor 3y ago
      I can make a good living writing custom code, but I can’t scale my business for various reasons. Lots of things can turn a good profit at small scale but not work out at Apple scale. Best Buy got into the service and repair business at scale when they bought GeekSquad. It kind of flopped for them. And you can find no end of complaints about incompetent service and even scams from Best Buy.
      - whyagaintango 3y ago
        For your previous comment. Do I assume you are a genX? - one can give tons of reasons for non-repairable devices but the planet has only so much resources. Eventually Apple will enter the group of terrible companies like exxon/BP. Sure Tim Cook will be having the billions but if more companies like tesla is following apple's strategy if vertical integration Either govts will interfere Or Planet is trashed. - TV, phones have always been repairable. Even recently some one posted repairing a sony Trinitron. - even if apple doesnot want to do the repair of a chip, capacitor they can make them available - or not sue if 3rd party does it - Louis rossman can replace a failed charging chip from an old logic/mother board. He/others like ifixit only tell apple to supply it or allow others to manufacture.
        gregjor 3y ago
        You have my age off, by at least a decade. I worked for Apple in 1988-91 if that gives a clue. And I was around 30 at the time. I don’t disagree about big companies trashing the environment with disposable goods. I keep my electronics for a long time. I don’t own a car. I try to consume very little. Individual efforts don’t make enough difference, though. Enough people have to vote with their wallets to stop predatory and wasteful companies. The realities of why Apple does what they do seem easily explained with simple economics, without invoking conspiracies. Sony stopped making Triniton TVs and monitors in the early 2000s. How many of those do you suppose ended up in landfills? Someone repairing one today describes a hobbyist or tinkerer. Sony didn’t intend or support end-users repairing their TVs. Try doing that with a modern flat screen. Individuals can and do fix and upgrade consumer electronics, but they represent a negligible percentage of the consumer base.
        whyagaintango 3y ago
        Trinitron was an example. A lot of tv are repaired and sold in East europe, Asia. It is negligible because repair is difficult.
        helf 3y ago
        [dead]
  - justinclift 3y ago
    > ... and it wouldn’t make economic sense to them. That sounds pretty likely for the current state of things. As a thought experiment though, if (say) Tim Cook got out of bed one day and said "Right, lets figure out how to make this work...", then I'm pretty sure they'd be able to do it. Economically I mean. So, I think the problem is more their lack of interest ("making it work") than anything else.
- happymellon 3y ago
  Apple replaced my wife's iMac rather than replace the power supply. Though they would only replace it with an i5, rather than the i7 that was in it "because the next gen i5 was better than the i7". I should have just replaced the power supply myself rather than than let her get scammed like that.
  - callalex 3y ago
    By what metric was your older i7 better than a newer i5 other than “7 is bigger than 5”?
    - happymellon 3y ago
      By the metric that the system was slower to use? 2012 iMac had the i7 2600 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600+@+3.40GHz&id=1 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600+... 2013 iMac had the i5 3470 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-3470+@+3.20GHz https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-3470+... It was noticeable enough in Photoshop that the system ran 30% or so slower.
gregjor 3y ago
It makes no economic sense to Apple to replace components on a robot-soldered board. Not a scam, just the realities of manufacturing. Almost everything we buy has the same issue. Consumers prefer paying less. AppleCare available too. I’ve had auto mechanics try to scam me. Never Apple. John Deere isn’t selling common consumer products. Pretty bad comparisons. Try comparing to Samsung or Lenovo or Microsoft (Surface).
- dotnet00 3y ago
  It makes no economic sense to Apple to replace components because it's more profitable to sell an entire part. The proof is in those parts being repairable for far less from third parties (when Apple does not needlessly lock the part down or when third parties have discovered a workaround).
  - gregjor 3y ago
    That’s my point. Apple sells luxury consumer electronics and they make spectacular profits. They aren’t a public service. We can debate the ethics of that, I’m just stating the economic reality to refute the idea that some conspiracy is at work. Try getting a Louis Vuitton bag repaired. Same thing. Self-repair doesn’t intersect their market.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      Apple however has far more consequences to consumers in doing so, as it isn't actually a luxury brand, it's nearly half the entire American smartphone market and a significant portion of the laptop market. As a result, selling expensive devices and making repairs expensive and wasteful has a much larger overall impact on consumers as a whole than the same for Louis Vuitton bags. I'm not seeing how this isn't them conspiring to make repair difficult. Even just plainly accepting your reasoning, they perceive themselves as a luxury brand, thus they conspire to make repairs exceptionally difficult because they think that somehow contributes to their luxuriousness.
      - 3y ago

FireBeyond 3y ago

Or outright replace the computer. My MBA had a damaged charging circuit. Battery was fine. Computer ran fine on AC, passed their diagnostics. Just couldn't deliver a charge to the battery. I expected $2-300 after parts and labor. "Looks like that will probably run you $950. How about we talk about getting you into a new Mac instead?" No. It got repurposed into a DAW for my stepdaughter.

gregjor 3y ago
Apple won’t fix that kind of thing. They don’t have the facilities or people and it wouldn’t make economic sense to them. But you can find independent repair shops. I had that exact problem on an MBA and found a guy in Bangkok who just does Apple repairs. $15.
- inamberclad 3y ago
  If an independent repair man a la Louis Rossman can make a living doing component level repair on macs, then I'd expect the margin to be good enough that the original company could do it as well. However, the economic sense to Apple is about selling new products, and an actual repair program would cut into product sales.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    I can make a good living writing custom code, but I can’t scale my business for various reasons. Lots of things can turn a good profit at small scale but not work out at Apple scale. Best Buy got into the service and repair business at scale when they bought GeekSquad. It kind of flopped for them. And you can find no end of complaints about incompetent service and even scams from Best Buy.
    - whyagaintango 3y ago
      For your previous comment. Do I assume you are a genX? - one can give tons of reasons for non-repairable devices but the planet has only so much resources. Eventually Apple will enter the group of terrible companies like exxon/BP. Sure Tim Cook will be having the billions but if more companies like tesla is following apple's strategy if vertical integration Either govts will interfere Or Planet is trashed. - TV, phones have always been repairable. Even recently some one posted repairing a sony Trinitron. - even if apple doesnot want to do the repair of a chip, capacitor they can make them available - or not sue if 3rd party does it - Louis rossman can replace a failed charging chip from an old logic/mother board. He/others like ifixit only tell apple to supply it or allow others to manufacture.
      - gregjor 3y ago
        You have my age off, by at least a decade. I worked for Apple in 1988-91 if that gives a clue. And I was around 30 at the time. I don’t disagree about big companies trashing the environment with disposable goods. I keep my electronics for a long time. I don’t own a car. I try to consume very little. Individual efforts don’t make enough difference, though. Enough people have to vote with their wallets to stop predatory and wasteful companies. The realities of why Apple does what they do seem easily explained with simple economics, without invoking conspiracies. Sony stopped making Triniton TVs and monitors in the early 2000s. How many of those do you suppose ended up in landfills? Someone repairing one today describes a hobbyist or tinkerer. Sony didn’t intend or support end-users repairing their TVs. Try doing that with a modern flat screen. Individuals can and do fix and upgrade consumer electronics, but they represent a negligible percentage of the consumer base.
        whyagaintango 3y ago
        Trinitron was an example. A lot of tv are repaired and sold in East europe, Asia. It is negligible because repair is difficult.
        helf 3y ago
        [dead]
- justinclift 3y ago
  > ... and it wouldn’t make economic sense to them. That sounds pretty likely for the current state of things. As a thought experiment though, if (say) Tim Cook got out of bed one day and said "Right, lets figure out how to make this work...", then I'm pretty sure they'd be able to do it. Economically I mean. So, I think the problem is more their lack of interest ("making it work") than anything else.
happymellon 3y ago
Apple replaced my wife's iMac rather than replace the power supply. Though they would only replace it with an i5, rather than the i7 that was in it "because the next gen i5 was better than the i7". I should have just replaced the power supply myself rather than than let her get scammed like that.
- callalex 3y ago
  By what metric was your older i7 better than a newer i5 other than “7 is bigger than 5”?
  - happymellon 3y ago
    By the metric that the system was slower to use? 2012 iMac had the i7 2600 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600+@+3.40GHz&id=1 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600+... 2013 iMac had the i5 3470 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-3470+@+3.20GHz https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-3470+... It was noticeable enough in Photoshop that the system ran 30% or so slower.

gregjor 3y ago

It makes no economic sense to Apple to replace components on a robot-soldered board. Not a scam, just the realities of manufacturing. Almost everything we buy has the same issue. Consumers prefer paying less. AppleCare available too. I’ve had auto mechanics try to scam me. Never Apple. John Deere isn’t selling common consumer products. Pretty bad comparisons. Try comparing to Samsung or Lenovo or Microsoft (Surface).

dotnet00 3y ago
It makes no economic sense to Apple to replace components because it's more profitable to sell an entire part. The proof is in those parts being repairable for far less from third parties (when Apple does not needlessly lock the part down or when third parties have discovered a workaround).
- gregjor 3y ago
  That’s my point. Apple sells luxury consumer electronics and they make spectacular profits. They aren’t a public service. We can debate the ethics of that, I’m just stating the economic reality to refute the idea that some conspiracy is at work. Try getting a Louis Vuitton bag repaired. Same thing. Self-repair doesn’t intersect their market.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    Apple however has far more consequences to consumers in doing so, as it isn't actually a luxury brand, it's nearly half the entire American smartphone market and a significant portion of the laptop market. As a result, selling expensive devices and making repairs expensive and wasteful has a much larger overall impact on consumers as a whole than the same for Louis Vuitton bags. I'm not seeing how this isn't them conspiring to make repair difficult. Even just plainly accepting your reasoning, they perceive themselves as a luxury brand, thus they conspire to make repairs exceptionally difficult because they think that somehow contributes to their luxuriousness.
    - 3y ago