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> If you send your computer/phone to Apple for repair you may get back different physical hardware. I happen to be in the midst of a repair with Apple right n

by hilux 2y ago

> If you send your computer/phone to Apple for repair you may get back different physical hardware. I happen to be in the midst of a repair with Apple right now. And for me, the idea that they might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, is a big plus. As I think it would be for almost everyone. Aside from the occasional sticker, I don't have any custom hardware mods to my phone or laptop, and nor do 99.99% of people. Can Apple please every single tech nerd 100% of the time? No. Those people should stick to Linux, so that they can have a terrible usability experience ALL the time, but feel more "in control," or something.

onepointsixC 2y ago
What makes you think it would be a new one as opposed to a refurbished used one.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  If the parts show no signs of wear and tear, what is the difference? Theseus' iPhone.
  - schmidtleonard 2y ago
    I've seen a few Rossman streams with officially "refurbished" macbooks that were absolutely foul inside. Boards that looked like they had been left on a preheater over lunch, rubber wedges to "cure" a cracked joint, all sorts of awful shit. The leaked stories from the sweatshop that did the work were 100% consistent with the awful quality. Admittedly this was a few years ago. Has apple mended their ways or are they still on the "used car salesman" grindset?
    - sgerenser 2y ago
      Are these Apple refurbished, or bought from a third party like Best Buy or Amazon? I’ve bought plenty of Apple refurbished products (directly from Apple) over the years and they always look like new (including 100% battery health). Third parties and resellers though I’m convinced just call their returns/open box units that appear to be in decent condition “refurbished.”
  - umbra07 2y ago
    It makes me uncomfortable. No particular rational reason, I just don't like it.
    - ddingus 2y ago
      Thanks. That is fair. Your truth, and I respect that.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    The problem is no-fault-found returns. You have a phone with a real, but subtle fault. Something not caught by the normal set of tests. You return it for repair, get sent a new one, they replace the battery in your old one and put into stock as 'reconditioned'. My phone is perfect, save for a worn out battery. I send it in for battery replacement, they send me yours. Now I've swapped my perfect phone for your faulty phone - and paid $70 to do so.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  What makes you think it would be a new one as opposed to a refurbished used one. Because Apple got sued for doing that once, and people including myself are in line to get checks from it.
  - bimguy 2y ago
    It would depend on a countries consumer laws. I used to work for AASP's in Australia and they definitely used refurished phones for replacements and refurished parts for the Mac repairs. Not everyone who uses this site lives in America...
    - TheNorthman 2y ago
      It's also the rule in the EU.
- hilux 2y ago
  > What makes you think it would be a new one Did I say it would be a "new one"?
  - serf 2y ago
    Yes, unless this was edited later on. > 'might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, ' unless you just want to argue about the semantics and differences between 'aging', 'newer' , and 'new'.
    - hilux 2y ago
      You think the difference between "newer than ... aging phone" and "NEW" is "semantics"??? HN really has turned into reddit.
      - robotresearcher 2y ago
        Reddit-style pedantry time! Semantics is literally the meaning of things. So, yes the difference between those phrases is semantics. But your use of 'semantics' meant something subtly different. Ain't language weird?
makeitdouble 2y ago
It could help to compare to other makers for a minute: if you need to repair your Surface Pro, you can easily remove the SSD from the tray, send your machine and stick it back when it comes repaired (new or not) And most laptops at this point have removable/exchangeable storage. Except for Apple.
- traceroute66 2y ago
  > remove the SSD from the tray, send your machine and stick it back when it comes repaired Apple has full-disk encryption backed by the secure enclave so its not by-passable. Sure their standard question-set asks you for your password when you submit it for repair. But you don't have to give it to them. They will happily repair your machine without it because they can boot their hardware-test suite off an external device.
  - okasaki 2y ago
    So why the hell do they ask for it then.
    - traceroute66 2y ago
      > So why the hell do they ask for it then. I suppose so they can do a boot test post-repair or something like that. I have only used their repair process like twice in my life and both times I've just automatically said "no" and didn't bother asking the question. :) With Apple FDE, you get nowhere without the password. The boot process doesn't pass go. Which catches people out when they reboot a headless Mac, the password comes before, not after boot even if the GUI experience makes you feel otherwise.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    I get your point, but we can also agree "send us your data, we can't access it anyway, right ?" is a completely different proposition from physically removing the data. In particular if a flaw was to be revealed on the secure enclave or encryption, it would be too late to act on it after the machines have been sent in for years. To be clear, I'm reacting on the "Apple is privacy focused" part. I wouldn't care if they snoop my bank statements on disk, but as a system I see them as behind what other players are doing in the market.
serf 2y ago
>And for me, the idea that they might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, is a big plus. As I think it would be for almost everyone. except that isn't generally how factory repairs are handled. I don't know about Apple specifically, but other groups (Samsung, Microsoft, Lenovo) will happily swap your unit with a factory refurbished or warranty-repaired unit as long as it was sufficiently qualified before hand -- so the 'replaced with a newer unit' concept might be fantasy.
linguae 2y ago
Why not both? Why can’t we have a good usability experience AND control? In fact, we used to have that via the Mac hardware and software of the 1990s and 2000s, as well as NeXT’s software and hardware. There was a time when Apple’s hardware was user-serviceable; I fondly remember my 2006 MacBook, with easily-upgradable RAM and storage. I also remember a time when Mac OS X didn’t have notarization and when the App Store didn’t exist. I would gladly use a patched version of Snow Leopard or even Tiger running on my Framework 13 if this were an option and if a modern web browser were available.
- nextos 2y ago
  NeXT was great and Mac OS X was also nice and had a lovely indie and boutique app ecosystem during the mid-to-late 2000s. Sadly, iOS stole the focus. However, the OP argues Linux usability is bad, which I think is an outdated POV. It really depends on your setup and usecases. For many development usecases, Linux is superior to macOS. I run NixOS on a plain X11 environment with a browser, an editor and a terminal. It's really boring. For my favorite development stacks, everything works. Flakes make workflow easy to reproduce, and it's also easy to make dramatic setup changes at OS level thanks to declarativeness and immutability.
  - tap-snap-or-nap 2y ago
    The world has moved on from desktop environments to multi-device integration like Watch, Phone, AirTags, Speakers, TV and in that way Linux usability is certainly worse than MacOS.
    - ddingus 2y ago
      Oh sort of. That is for sure a thing, but not THE thing. I would argue people are being tugged in that direction more than it being simply better. You can bet when people start to get to work building things --all sorts of things, not just software, they find out pretty quickly just how important a simple desktop running on a general purpose computer really is!
  - hilux 2y ago
nkmskdmfodf 2y ago
> And for me, the idea that they might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, is a big plus. It's called a warranty and not at all exclusive to apple whatsoever? > Those people should stick to Linux, so that they can have a terrible usability experience ALL the time, but feel more "in control," or something. Maybe you should stick to reading and not commenting, if this is the best you can do.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by hilux 2y ago

onepointsixC 2y ago

What makes you think it would be a new one as opposed to a refurbished used one.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
If the parts show no signs of wear and tear, what is the difference? Theseus' iPhone.
- schmidtleonard 2y ago
  I've seen a few Rossman streams with officially "refurbished" macbooks that were absolutely foul inside. Boards that looked like they had been left on a preheater over lunch, rubber wedges to "cure" a cracked joint, all sorts of awful shit. The leaked stories from the sweatshop that did the work were 100% consistent with the awful quality. Admittedly this was a few years ago. Has apple mended their ways or are they still on the "used car salesman" grindset?
  - sgerenser 2y ago
    Are these Apple refurbished, or bought from a third party like Best Buy or Amazon? I’ve bought plenty of Apple refurbished products (directly from Apple) over the years and they always look like new (including 100% battery health). Third parties and resellers though I’m convinced just call their returns/open box units that appear to be in decent condition “refurbished.”
- umbra07 2y ago
  It makes me uncomfortable. No particular rational reason, I just don't like it.
  - ddingus 2y ago
    Thanks. That is fair. Your truth, and I respect that.
- michaelt 2y ago
  The problem is no-fault-found returns. You have a phone with a real, but subtle fault. Something not caught by the normal set of tests. You return it for repair, get sent a new one, they replace the battery in your old one and put into stock as 'reconditioned'. My phone is perfect, save for a worn out battery. I send it in for battery replacement, they send me yours. Now I've swapped my perfect phone for your faulty phone - and paid $70 to do so.
reaperducer 2y ago
What makes you think it would be a new one as opposed to a refurbished used one. Because Apple got sued for doing that once, and people including myself are in line to get checks from it.
- bimguy 2y ago
  It would depend on a countries consumer laws. I used to work for AASP's in Australia and they definitely used refurished phones for replacements and refurished parts for the Mac repairs. Not everyone who uses this site lives in America...
  - TheNorthman 2y ago
    It's also the rule in the EU.
hilux 2y ago
> What makes you think it would be a new one Did I say it would be a "new one"?
- serf 2y ago
  Yes, unless this was edited later on. > 'might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, ' unless you just want to argue about the semantics and differences between 'aging', 'newer' , and 'new'.
  - hilux 2y ago
    You think the difference between "newer than ... aging phone" and "NEW" is "semantics"??? HN really has turned into reddit.
    - robotresearcher 2y ago
      Reddit-style pedantry time! Semantics is literally the meaning of things. So, yes the difference between those phrases is semantics. But your use of 'semantics' meant something subtly different. Ain't language weird?

makeitdouble 2y ago

It could help to compare to other makers for a minute: if you need to repair your Surface Pro, you can easily remove the SSD from the tray, send your machine and stick it back when it comes repaired (new or not) And most laptops at this point have removable/exchangeable storage. Except for Apple.

traceroute66 2y ago
> remove the SSD from the tray, send your machine and stick it back when it comes repaired Apple has full-disk encryption backed by the secure enclave so its not by-passable. Sure their standard question-set asks you for your password when you submit it for repair. But you don't have to give it to them. They will happily repair your machine without it because they can boot their hardware-test suite off an external device.
- okasaki 2y ago
  So why the hell do they ask for it then.
  - traceroute66 2y ago
    > So why the hell do they ask for it then. I suppose so they can do a boot test post-repair or something like that. I have only used their repair process like twice in my life and both times I've just automatically said "no" and didn't bother asking the question. :) With Apple FDE, you get nowhere without the password. The boot process doesn't pass go. Which catches people out when they reboot a headless Mac, the password comes before, not after boot even if the GUI experience makes you feel otherwise.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  I get your point, but we can also agree "send us your data, we can't access it anyway, right ?" is a completely different proposition from physically removing the data. In particular if a flaw was to be revealed on the secure enclave or encryption, it would be too late to act on it after the machines have been sent in for years. To be clear, I'm reacting on the "Apple is privacy focused" part. I wouldn't care if they snoop my bank statements on disk, but as a system I see them as behind what other players are doing in the market.

serf 2y ago

>And for me, the idea that they might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, is a big plus. As I think it would be for almost everyone. except that isn't generally how factory repairs are handled. I don't know about Apple specifically, but other groups (Samsung, Microsoft, Lenovo) will happily swap your unit with a factory refurbished or warranty-repaired unit as long as it was sufficiently qualified before hand -- so the 'replaced with a newer unit' concept might be fantasy.

linguae 2y ago

Why not both? Why can’t we have a good usability experience AND control? In fact, we used to have that via the Mac hardware and software of the 1990s and 2000s, as well as NeXT’s software and hardware. There was a time when Apple’s hardware was user-serviceable; I fondly remember my 2006 MacBook, with easily-upgradable RAM and storage. I also remember a time when Mac OS X didn’t have notarization and when the App Store didn’t exist. I would gladly use a patched version of Snow Leopard or even Tiger running on my Framework 13 if this were an option and if a modern web browser were available.

nextos 2y ago
NeXT was great and Mac OS X was also nice and had a lovely indie and boutique app ecosystem during the mid-to-late 2000s. Sadly, iOS stole the focus. However, the OP argues Linux usability is bad, which I think is an outdated POV. It really depends on your setup and usecases. For many development usecases, Linux is superior to macOS. I run NixOS on a plain X11 environment with a browser, an editor and a terminal. It's really boring. For my favorite development stacks, everything works. Flakes make workflow easy to reproduce, and it's also easy to make dramatic setup changes at OS level thanks to declarativeness and immutability.
- tap-snap-or-nap 2y ago
  The world has moved on from desktop environments to multi-device integration like Watch, Phone, AirTags, Speakers, TV and in that way Linux usability is certainly worse than MacOS.
  - ddingus 2y ago
    Oh sort of. That is for sure a thing, but not THE thing. I would argue people are being tugged in that direction more than it being simply better. You can bet when people start to get to work building things --all sorts of things, not just software, they find out pretty quickly just how important a simple desktop running on a general purpose computer really is!
- hilux 2y ago

nkmskdmfodf 2y ago

> And for me, the idea that they might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, is a big plus. It's called a warranty and not at all exclusive to apple whatsoever? > Those people should stick to Linux, so that they can have a terrible usability experience ALL the time, but feel more "in control," or something. Maybe you should stick to reading and not commenting, if this is the best you can do.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]