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As far as I know, they ship a whole package of tools to customers who would like to repair their equipment. They also made the latest iPhone models easier to di

As far as I know, they ship a whole package of tools to customers who would like to repair their equipment. They also made the latest iPhone models easier to disassemble. What do you think they should have done in order to comply benevolently?

dns_snek 3y ago
A non-exhaustive list: - They don't allow repair shops to freely order parts, each part must be ordered on-demand, requiring repair shops to pass their customers' personal information to Apple. This adds significant delay to repairs which makes 3rd parties an unappealing option - They implement digital pairing between parts that require Apple's authorization, which is inaccessible to third party repair shops. In practice this means that you could buy 2 identical brand new iPhones from the Apple store, and they wouldn't work when you swapped their screens. - They restrict Apple authorized repair shops from performing many useful repairs, I'm not completely up to date on the exact list, but you can watch videos from Louis Rossmann or read materials from other educators on the topic - They gaslight users asking about data recovery options on their own forum, claiming that any repair shop which offers to recover data is scamming them, and ban actual experts who correct them to say that data recovery is possible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV4_mLw2BGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV4_mLw2BGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrILfIE9IB4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrILfIE9IB4
- blashyrk 3y ago
  And, of course, all this is done under the guise of "security" or "protecting privacy" and the users are cheering for it. You never know when a 3rd party company is going to place a digital time bomb _somehow_ by putting a screen from iPhone A into iPhone B! Better let Apple fix it. Oh, the margins? What margins? It's not margins, it's the price of SECURITY!
- laserlight 3y ago
  Thank you. All of these sound valid criticisms to me.
  - kjreact 3y ago
    Don’t be too quick to accept these criticisms. You have to compare to competitors in the industry to get a clearer picture. Looking at screen repairs for Samsung Galaxy phones the same security issues arise and there are complaints about Samsung blocking third party repairs due to security concerns. So are both Apple and Samsung just being greedy or is there more to the issue at hand? I’m inclined to believe a company unless they’ve demonstrated that I cannot trust them.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > You have to compare to competitors in the industry to get a clearer picture. This tells you nothing. They each have the same incentives. They want you to pay a premium to the manufacturer for repairs, because they're the manufacturer, and because that causes more devices to be uneconomical to repair and so more people have to buy new ones.
    - laserlight 3y ago
      I agree. I give Apple more benefit of the doubt than other tech giants. I see many knee-jerk reactions to what Apple does --- in my opinion --- rightfully. After all, many of these decisions are trade-offs, such as reusing parts from another iPhone being a measure against theft. I thanked the previous user I replied to because they were able to go beyond knee-jerk reactions and highlight issues in which Apple is pushing too hard on the trade-off scale.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > After all, many of these decisions are trade-offs, such as reusing parts from another iPhone being a measure against theft. This is their stated justification, but it doesn't hold water. The device could refuse to accept a part if the part is from a device that has been reported stolen but they have it refusing to accept a part from a device that hasn't been stolen.
        laserlight 3y ago

dns_snek 3y ago

A non-exhaustive list: - They don't allow repair shops to freely order parts, each part must be ordered on-demand, requiring repair shops to pass their customers' personal information to Apple. This adds significant delay to repairs which makes 3rd parties an unappealing option - They implement digital pairing between parts that require Apple's authorization, which is inaccessible to third party repair shops. In practice this means that you could buy 2 identical brand new iPhones from the Apple store, and they wouldn't work when you swapped their screens. - They restrict Apple authorized repair shops from performing many useful repairs, I'm not completely up to date on the exact list, but you can watch videos from Louis Rossmann or read materials from other educators on the topic - They gaslight users asking about data recovery options on their own forum, claiming that any repair shop which offers to recover data is scamming them, and ban actual experts who correct them to say that data recovery is possible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV4_mLw2BGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV4_mLw2BGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrILfIE9IB4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrILfIE9IB4

blashyrk 3y ago
And, of course, all this is done under the guise of "security" or "protecting privacy" and the users are cheering for it. You never know when a 3rd party company is going to place a digital time bomb _somehow_ by putting a screen from iPhone A into iPhone B! Better let Apple fix it. Oh, the margins? What margins? It's not margins, it's the price of SECURITY!
laserlight 3y ago
Thank you. All of these sound valid criticisms to me.
- kjreact 3y ago
  Don’t be too quick to accept these criticisms. You have to compare to competitors in the industry to get a clearer picture. Looking at screen repairs for Samsung Galaxy phones the same security issues arise and there are complaints about Samsung blocking third party repairs due to security concerns. So are both Apple and Samsung just being greedy or is there more to the issue at hand? I’m inclined to believe a company unless they’ve demonstrated that I cannot trust them.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > You have to compare to competitors in the industry to get a clearer picture. This tells you nothing. They each have the same incentives. They want you to pay a premium to the manufacturer for repairs, because they're the manufacturer, and because that causes more devices to be uneconomical to repair and so more people have to buy new ones.
  - laserlight 3y ago
    I agree. I give Apple more benefit of the doubt than other tech giants. I see many knee-jerk reactions to what Apple does --- in my opinion --- rightfully. After all, many of these decisions are trade-offs, such as reusing parts from another iPhone being a measure against theft. I thanked the previous user I replied to because they were able to go beyond knee-jerk reactions and highlight issues in which Apple is pushing too hard on the trade-off scale.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > After all, many of these decisions are trade-offs, such as reusing parts from another iPhone being a measure against theft. This is their stated justification, but it doesn't hold water. The device could refuse to accept a part if the part is from a device that has been reported stolen but they have it refusing to accept a part from a device that hasn't been stolen.
      - laserlight 3y ago