6 ms·

A small community of unofficial Apple technicians in Cuba

162 points by donohoe 3y ago

ggm 3y ago
Since this kind of trade embargo is so lax, it can only be assumed to be formally a part of the foreign policy strategic goal: create sufficient internal backpressure to liberalise the market, that it makes sense for the Cuban government to give in. I wonder if it works? There is no specific "only apple" in this. So, all the anti-cuban government info is available via VPN from other places, via the local copy wikipedia &c. It would work on Android. There might be "I trust apple more, I trust icloud more to protect my secrecy" or "Less spyware risk" maybe. At this point, I would think that being part of a combine which collects old apple gear (actually, almost any ICT gear), puts it in a container, and ships to Havana would work fine. I doubt every US government body wants that so you'd be placed in the position of evading ITAR regulations or some equivalent. You would think that much the same happens in Syria, Libya, Iran, you-name-it: equipment beyond end-of-life in the developed west winds up either in the waste stream or part of a container delivered via various paths into these economies for the value it has, mending other things or being mended itself.
- nxobject 3y ago
  Another classic example of used products given new life in an organized matter: a lot of used cars end up in Africa.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    I slowly hitchhiked from Europe to West Africa in 2007 and from Western Sahara on, my drivers were all French people driving some old car down to sell for a little quick cash. But already by that time Senegal had said enough already, and so drivers had to head for Mali or Burkina Faso instead. I wonder if the violence in those countries in recent years has put a damper on the used car trade, or if they too banned such informal imports.
    - ggm 3y ago
      ABC news here in Australia has a story about Tonga drowning in 30,000 broken used cars, which has motivated an intervention to get a local crushing plant working so the metals can be sent back to Japan for recycling, and to get productive land back into use. Small pacific island economies are the end of the road in every sense. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-09-19/how-tonga-plans-to-recycle-its-mountain-of-scrap-cars/102614772 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-09-19/how-tonga-pla... Africa has different problems. Friends had to leave a Morris Minor van in the desert, there were no UK conforming spare parts, if they'd driven a french car or truck almost anything would have worked because metric. That was a few decades ago but they said the landscape was littered with broken cromwell, challenger and other tanks, from the desert campaigns. The rate of rain is low enough these metal hulks last many decades.
      - repiret 3y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37565385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37565385 One of the solutions proposed there is to set the import duty high enough to fund disposal of (at least) one car.
      - Scoundreller 3y ago
        I'm surprised removing scrap metal is that complicated/expensive. Tonga has a container port, and I'm guessing they tend to receive full containers and send back out empties. Some places find ways to take advantage of this, e.g. Canada exports most of it's bean/pulse crop in bags to Asia in containers instead of bulk carriers. Wasn't that long ago we did the same with scrap metal (maybe still do). Certainly a crusher/cuber helps maximize density, but a torch or other cutting tools can go a long way to save space. And you're mainly paying for weight anyway as the empty is a sunk cost.
    - toyg 3y ago
      > drivers were all French people driving some old car down The peugeotard way is basically a tradition stretching back to the '60s; for many, it's just an excuse to have an epic road trip. I remember reading about it in the '90s in an excellent Italian book, Vado verso il Capo - 13.000 km attraverso l'Africa (Feltrinelli, 1996) by Sergio Ramazzotti.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  Everybody’s enjoying Cuba for travel and accomodations except the US, and as usual in the US we only get the extreme perspective of whoever was a loser in their home country. Comfortable people don’t go out of their way to come here. It really skews our perspective, the Cuban government doesn’t need to give in to anything. The article is about a German resident just chilling in Cuba, and picking up an iPhone in Miami on a weekend bender. Nobody cares about the US’ political machinations so that Florida votes swing in the desired direction, the rest of the world gives Cuba enough commerce and doesnt think anything of it.
  - refurb 3y ago
    Ironic how Cuba used to be a authoritarian country where Americans went to party. Now it's an authoritarian country where everyone but Americans go to party.
    - 54r4rf 3y ago
      You got exclusivity on Puerto Rico on the other hand. That didn't get free after the invasion.
      - ggm 3y ago
        FEMA struggling to spend the money to get back on top from Hurricane Ian. If I was Boricuas I'd feel very "are we 2nd class citizens again?" about this.
        yieldcrv 3y ago
        “again” aside from it being trendy to say equality and espouse those values, what about PR’s status suggests the residents would be anything other than a 2nd class of citizen under the United States?
        anon291 3y ago
        Puerto Rico keeps getting asked if they want to be a state and keeps saying no.
- miguelazo 3y ago
  There is nothing lax about the trade embargo. Tell that to the people who can’t get food and medicine. This stuff gets in because there’s still lots of travel and people are clever. > create sufficient internal backpressure to liberalise the market, that it makes sense for the Cuban government to give in. I wonder if it works? After more than 50 years, I think the answer is that it doesn’t work. And the US sanctions are illegal under international law, aside from being cruel and counterproductive.
  - 0xDEF 3y ago
    >There is nothing lax about the trade embargo. Tell that to the people who can’t get food and medicine. Cubans have all the food and medicine they need because China, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the rest of the world still trades with them. The US and Israel are the only countries that have imposed a (very lax) trade ban on Cuba.
    - Synaesthesia 3y ago
      It's a very extreme embargo, affecting all US companies or all companies that are connected to the US which is an enormous amount of them. It's difficult for a European or foreign company to do business with Cuba because they could end up being sanctioned by the US.
      - 0xDEF 3y ago
        Does that really happen? Has there been any incident of European companies being sanctioned by the US because they traded with Cuba? Here is a Danish article about more Danish and European companies operating in Cuba because they expect a Vietnam/China-like economic boom: https://politiken.dk/oekonomi/gloekonomi/art5577587/Virksomheder-vil-erobre-Cuba https://politiken.dk/oekonomi/gloekonomi/art5577587/Virksomh... Denmark is a NATO country and the US is our main export partner. We wouldn't be trading with Cuba if it put our relationship with the US at risk.
        Maken 3y ago
a2tech 3y ago
Our old exchange student from Turkmenistan insisted that there was an Apple store in a couple of malls in Ashgabat, but I showed her that Apple doesn't officially sell anything in TM. She sent me some pictures and it was a complete clone of the official Apple store. Down to outfits, displays, the whole thing. Selling brand new, smuggled in, iPhones/iPads/etc. It was wild.
- radicaldreamer 3y ago
  This was the case in China too until Apple heavily expanded there. There were many knockoff Apple Stores with slightly lower quality outfitting. Here's an "Apple Store" in Iran: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-tehran-iran-16th-oct-2014-two-iranian-vaghaye-gostar-fars-vgf-companys-74453693.html https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-tehran-iran-16th-oct-2014-...
  - pertymcpert 3y ago
    There are still tons of fake apple stores in China. They're also in prominent places that you'd expect Apple to open, not in small side streets etc.
    - oefrha 3y ago
      Apple has lots of authorized resellers. Apple’s official site has a locator: https://locate.apple.com/sales https://locate.apple.com/sales or https://locate.apple.com/cn/zh/sales https://locate.apple.com/cn/zh/sales. Not being an official Apple Store doesn’t mean it’s fake, especially if it’s in a prominent mall or something.
      - pertymcpert 3y ago
        I'm very well aware what they are. Authorized resellers are not supposed to look like real Apple stores. If you see an "Apple Store" that looks real but isn't an official Apple Store then it's fake, or its an authorized reseller that if Apple finds out about them will lose their status as a reseller.
throe37848 3y ago
Apple service network is not so great, good reason not to travel with Macbooks. DigitalNomad subreddit is full of horror stories and international flights to get machine fixed. PC has removable SSD and many cheap options to buy new machine.
- _chu1 3y ago
  This isn't even really a hateful comment about just making fun of Apple, why is this hidden?
miki123211 3y ago
> To accomplish this, they use free websites like TextNow +1 to TextNow here, if you need a free phone number in the US and you don't actually live there, they're the way to go (or were a few years ago at least.)

162 points by donohoe 3y ago

ggm 3y ago

Since this kind of trade embargo is so lax, it can only be assumed to be formally a part of the foreign policy strategic goal: create sufficient internal backpressure to liberalise the market, that it makes sense for the Cuban government to give in. I wonder if it works? There is no specific "only apple" in this. So, all the anti-cuban government info is available via VPN from other places, via the local copy wikipedia &c. It would work on Android. There might be "I trust apple more, I trust icloud more to protect my secrecy" or "Less spyware risk" maybe. At this point, I would think that being part of a combine which collects old apple gear (actually, almost any ICT gear), puts it in a container, and ships to Havana would work fine. I doubt every US government body wants that so you'd be placed in the position of evading ITAR regulations or some equivalent. You would think that much the same happens in Syria, Libya, Iran, you-name-it: equipment beyond end-of-life in the developed west winds up either in the waste stream or part of a container delivered via various paths into these economies for the value it has, mending other things or being mended itself.

nxobject 3y ago
Another classic example of used products given new life in an organized matter: a lot of used cars end up in Africa.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  I slowly hitchhiked from Europe to West Africa in 2007 and from Western Sahara on, my drivers were all French people driving some old car down to sell for a little quick cash. But already by that time Senegal had said enough already, and so drivers had to head for Mali or Burkina Faso instead. I wonder if the violence in those countries in recent years has put a damper on the used car trade, or if they too banned such informal imports.
  - ggm 3y ago
    ABC news here in Australia has a story about Tonga drowning in 30,000 broken used cars, which has motivated an intervention to get a local crushing plant working so the metals can be sent back to Japan for recycling, and to get productive land back into use. Small pacific island economies are the end of the road in every sense. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-09-19/how-tonga-plans-to-recycle-its-mountain-of-scrap-cars/102614772 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-09-19/how-tonga-pla... Africa has different problems. Friends had to leave a Morris Minor van in the desert, there were no UK conforming spare parts, if they'd driven a french car or truck almost anything would have worked because metric. That was a few decades ago but they said the landscape was littered with broken cromwell, challenger and other tanks, from the desert campaigns. The rate of rain is low enough these metal hulks last many decades.
    - repiret 3y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37565385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37565385 One of the solutions proposed there is to set the import duty high enough to fund disposal of (at least) one car.
    - Scoundreller 3y ago
      I'm surprised removing scrap metal is that complicated/expensive. Tonga has a container port, and I'm guessing they tend to receive full containers and send back out empties. Some places find ways to take advantage of this, e.g. Canada exports most of it's bean/pulse crop in bags to Asia in containers instead of bulk carriers. Wasn't that long ago we did the same with scrap metal (maybe still do). Certainly a crusher/cuber helps maximize density, but a torch or other cutting tools can go a long way to save space. And you're mainly paying for weight anyway as the empty is a sunk cost.
  - toyg 3y ago
    > drivers were all French people driving some old car down The peugeotard way is basically a tradition stretching back to the '60s; for many, it's just an excuse to have an epic road trip. I remember reading about it in the '90s in an excellent Italian book, Vado verso il Capo - 13.000 km attraverso l'Africa (Feltrinelli, 1996) by Sergio Ramazzotti.
yieldcrv 3y ago
Everybody’s enjoying Cuba for travel and accomodations except the US, and as usual in the US we only get the extreme perspective of whoever was a loser in their home country. Comfortable people don’t go out of their way to come here. It really skews our perspective, the Cuban government doesn’t need to give in to anything. The article is about a German resident just chilling in Cuba, and picking up an iPhone in Miami on a weekend bender. Nobody cares about the US’ political machinations so that Florida votes swing in the desired direction, the rest of the world gives Cuba enough commerce and doesnt think anything of it.
- refurb 3y ago
  Ironic how Cuba used to be a authoritarian country where Americans went to party. Now it's an authoritarian country where everyone but Americans go to party.
  - 54r4rf 3y ago
    You got exclusivity on Puerto Rico on the other hand. That didn't get free after the invasion.
    - ggm 3y ago
      FEMA struggling to spend the money to get back on top from Hurricane Ian. If I was Boricuas I'd feel very "are we 2nd class citizens again?" about this.
      - yieldcrv 3y ago
        “again” aside from it being trendy to say equality and espouse those values, what about PR’s status suggests the residents would be anything other than a 2nd class of citizen under the United States?
        anon291 3y ago
        Puerto Rico keeps getting asked if they want to be a state and keeps saying no.
miguelazo 3y ago
There is nothing lax about the trade embargo. Tell that to the people who can’t get food and medicine. This stuff gets in because there’s still lots of travel and people are clever. > create sufficient internal backpressure to liberalise the market, that it makes sense for the Cuban government to give in. I wonder if it works? After more than 50 years, I think the answer is that it doesn’t work. And the US sanctions are illegal under international law, aside from being cruel and counterproductive.
- 0xDEF 3y ago
  >There is nothing lax about the trade embargo. Tell that to the people who can’t get food and medicine. Cubans have all the food and medicine they need because China, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the rest of the world still trades with them. The US and Israel are the only countries that have imposed a (very lax) trade ban on Cuba.
  - Synaesthesia 3y ago
    It's a very extreme embargo, affecting all US companies or all companies that are connected to the US which is an enormous amount of them. It's difficult for a European or foreign company to do business with Cuba because they could end up being sanctioned by the US.
    - 0xDEF 3y ago
      Does that really happen? Has there been any incident of European companies being sanctioned by the US because they traded with Cuba? Here is a Danish article about more Danish and European companies operating in Cuba because they expect a Vietnam/China-like economic boom: https://politiken.dk/oekonomi/gloekonomi/art5577587/Virksomheder-vil-erobre-Cuba https://politiken.dk/oekonomi/gloekonomi/art5577587/Virksomh... Denmark is a NATO country and the US is our main export partner. We wouldn't be trading with Cuba if it put our relationship with the US at risk.
      - Maken 3y ago

a2tech 3y ago

Our old exchange student from Turkmenistan insisted that there was an Apple store in a couple of malls in Ashgabat, but I showed her that Apple doesn't officially sell anything in TM. She sent me some pictures and it was a complete clone of the official Apple store. Down to outfits, displays, the whole thing. Selling brand new, smuggled in, iPhones/iPads/etc. It was wild.

radicaldreamer 3y ago
This was the case in China too until Apple heavily expanded there. There were many knockoff Apple Stores with slightly lower quality outfitting. Here's an "Apple Store" in Iran: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-tehran-iran-16th-oct-2014-two-iranian-vaghaye-gostar-fars-vgf-companys-74453693.html https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-tehran-iran-16th-oct-2014-...
- pertymcpert 3y ago
  There are still tons of fake apple stores in China. They're also in prominent places that you'd expect Apple to open, not in small side streets etc.
  - oefrha 3y ago
    Apple has lots of authorized resellers. Apple’s official site has a locator: https://locate.apple.com/sales https://locate.apple.com/sales or https://locate.apple.com/cn/zh/sales https://locate.apple.com/cn/zh/sales. Not being an official Apple Store doesn’t mean it’s fake, especially if it’s in a prominent mall or something.
    - pertymcpert 3y ago
      I'm very well aware what they are. Authorized resellers are not supposed to look like real Apple stores. If you see an "Apple Store" that looks real but isn't an official Apple Store then it's fake, or its an authorized reseller that if Apple finds out about them will lose their status as a reseller.

throe37848 3y ago

Apple service network is not so great, good reason not to travel with Macbooks. DigitalNomad subreddit is full of horror stories and international flights to get machine fixed. PC has removable SSD and many cheap options to buy new machine.

_chu1 3y ago
This isn't even really a hateful comment about just making fun of Apple, why is this hidden?

miki123211 3y ago

> To accomplish this, they use free websites like TextNow +1 to TextNow here, if you need a free phone number in the US and you don't actually live there, they're the way to go (or were a few years ago at least.)