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>Here’s hoping governments regulate laptop manufacturers to actually make repairable machines in the future. No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairab

>Here’s hoping governments regulate laptop manufacturers to actually make repairable machines in the future. No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one. They exist. Others have already mentioned Framework, but there are other options that aren't that far down the spectrum either. One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other. I say this as a framework owner who would never buy something as irreparable as a macbook. Regulation is not the answer here.

wvenable 6mo ago
> No, this is a bad solution. You didn't say why this is a bad solution. The government mandates that cars get safer every year and fatalities are down 78% from the 1960s. Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit. > One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. It seems like the Macbook Neo has a lot of those properties as well for a very inexpensive device that is extremely easy to repair.
- internet2000 6mo ago
  > It seems like the Macbook Neo has a lot of those properties as well for a very inexpensive device that is extremely easy to repair. It's slightly worse, slightly more flex, thicker and heavier vs an Air in spite of having a smaller battery and more empty space. It's all trade offs. If you want repairable, please buy a Framework or Lenovo. Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer.
  - wvenable 6mo ago
    > Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer. Again, why not? It's not mandating design, just minimal standards for repairability that should be obvious. If Framework and Lenovo can do it and Apple can do it on a $600 laptop, why can't everyone do it?
    - leetbulb 6mo ago
      Agreed. > why can't everyone do it What everyone is missing: Because other manufactures do not have to; the profit margins are too good to give a shit, and they allow some pretty fierce competition within the target demographic: <soapbox> Sadly, the general public still just wants the cheapest option to consume their bullshit content, even if it needs to be replaced a year from now after their cat walks on it and causes critical damage. The MacBook Neo is brilliant in that Apple takes a share of this market with a premium and affordable product that is basically just their previous generation phone, with the expensive bits likely sourced from their exchange program or surplus supply. Products that at some point the same people would've loved to have, but couldn't afford. Now repurposed with a larger screen, sporting the envied Apple logo, at an affordable price, and targeting that same demographic as the hot new thing, just one generation later. I have a feeling we'll see this pattern continue, and it's genius. Minimizing waste, maximizing profits, and giving the consumers what they want, while maintaining a gap between low-end and high-end -- people that spend $$$$ still want to feel special, of course. Don't get me wrong, the Neo is great, especially for us hackers, but it is absolutely not meant for us in any way. What is in our favor: it does, at the very least, raise the bar for these other manufactures that product absolute garbage. </soapbox> Someone needs to be a reference as to what is feasible in order for a standard to be established. Apple, Framework, and I guess Lenovo are the ones doing this these days. RIP the others.
  - free_bip 6mo ago
    Oh no, my laptop is 2mm thicker than a different laptop. Won't someone think of the 2mm?
    - VogonPoetry 6mo ago
      That 2mm uses at least (2*335 + 2*235) * 2mm * 1mm = 2,280 mm^3 more material for the case. (a wall thickness of 1mm)
      - stavros 6mo ago
        I don't understand your math. The 1mm (the wall) was there already, so why is it being counted here? Plus, multiplying by 1 doesn't do anything? Also, the 2mm extra won't be solid plastic (they'll be solid air, since that's why we're adding the extra thickness, for the room. If anything, the extra material for the case would be the perimeter length times the perimeter wall width times the height.
        Arcuru 6mo ago
        > If anything, the extra material for the case would be the perimeter length times the perimeter wall width times the height That's what they did? Perimeter length = 2*335mm + 2*235mm Wall height diff = 2mm Wall width = 1mm (2*335 + 2*235) * 2mm * 1mm = 2,280 mm^3
        stavros 6mo ago
        Ah, thanks, I think what happened was that the asterisks were turned into italics and confused me. I think the message was edited to clarify.
        VogonPoetry 6mo ago
        The post was fixed about 30 seconds after making it - due to the *s being interpreted as italics. It is a shame there isn't a preview button when composing posts.
  - lelanthran 6mo ago
    > Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer. ??? What makes this "backseat"? When it comes to consumer products, legislation is often the only answer in most cases. What makes this case different? Why should there be an exception carved out for laptops?
  - cpt_sobel 6mo ago
    > Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer. But it _could_ save us from Lenovo or Dell or any other company copying Apple's design practices (and the latter largely already has), while, as another poster mentioned, not mandating design per se, but rather just setting minimum standards.
  - PunchyHamster 6mo ago
    > Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer. You can still legislate parts availability and availability of docs. You can legislate parts pairing or outright ban it There is plenty that can be done, just need competent lawmakers
- bloppe 6mo ago
  Car safety is a bad counterexample because the risk is otherwise often externalized i.e. your car can easily hurt a total stranger whereas the consequences of your choice in laptop are strictly personal. And as GP stated, regulating this sort of thing would definitely force a particular trade-off on everyone. A lot of people would be pissed to have MacBooks with worse "build quality" even if they were more reparable. Having a choice is better.
  - gambiting 6mo ago
    >> your car can easily hurt a total stranger whereas the consequences of your choice in laptop are strictly personal. You know that safety for pedestrians is also a very tightly regulated car safety category, right? Obviously, there's not much that can be done if you get hit by a car going 70mph, but the fact that most people should survive a 30mph impact with a modern car is mostly thanks to regulations requiring crumple zones specifically designed to protect pedestrians in a collision. And yeah, there are huge trade offs - I imagine people would generally prefer a car that doesn't need incredibly expensive repairs after a minor collision because everything at the front just crumpled, but then they would be guaranteed to cut off legs of any person hit - it's a trade off.
    - bucephalos 6mo ago
      Not in the US. Specific pedestrian safety features are not included in cars sold there due to lack of regulation. FMVSS was planning a regulation modelled after ECE R127, then the administration changed and no progress since...
      - gambiting 6mo ago
        Well yes, which is why most American cars are not approved for sale over here.
      - 1718627440 6mo ago
        Lack of regulation resulting in worse outcomes is also a data point for regulation being able to solve problems.
- jdpedrie 6mo ago
  > The government mandates that cars get safer every year and fatalities are down 78% from the 1960s. Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit. On some metrics. On affordability, new cars are considerably more expensive. Whether that's a worthwhile tradeoff is beside the point. The GP's point is that there's no free lunch, and your example doesn't address that.
  - wvenable 6mo ago
    I never said the lunch was free only that it should be nutritious.
    - dingaling 6mo ago
      Amd for the diner, new cars are much less nutritious due to the regulation. They're like some sort of bland protein-shake lunch.
      - catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
        My father thinks all cars look the same now. Do you mean that? For my part, cars are more comfortable (bar all controls in a touch panel and ever more propietary software) and fuel efficient
      - wvenable 6mo ago
        No, they are more nutritious just like that bland protein-shake is. All those cool hot-rods from the 70s will crush you to death easily while wasting more gas to do it.
- an0malous 6mo ago
  > You didn't say why this is a bad solution. The fear is that regulations ossify industries and that's why heavily regulated industries like healthcare, education, and transportation have seen basically no innovation in 50 years. If you mandate that all electronic devices must have USB-C cables, how can anyone invent something better than a USB-C cable? And for what, so people don't have to have multiple cables? That's not even in the top 100 problems that a government body as large as the EU should be concerned about. > Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit. Healthcare, education, transportation, and housing would all be counterexamples depending on how you want to frame "benefit." > It seems like the Macbook Neo has a lot of those properties as well for a very inexpensive device that is extremely easy to repair. This is counter to your point, no one regulated that Apple make the MacBook Neo easy to repair. Apple is incentivized to follow the market.
  - Tade0 6mo ago
    > If you mandate that all electronic devices must have USB-C cables, how can anyone invent something better than a USB-C cable? That already happened with Micro USB. The EU initially mandated that manufacturers agree on a standard socket, because the absolute zoo of charging ports back then was counter-productive and only generated e-waste. Ultimately they agreed to use Micro USB, but obviously that's not what's used today. These regulations are not just dumped on the manufacturers - there's a period of consultation and a grace period to implement them. If something actually better came up, you'd eventually see it mandated.
    - spaqin 6mo ago
      > If something actually better came up, you'd eventually see it mandated. While I generally am quite content with that particular mandate and it does more good than bad, I would have to disagree on this. Something better doesn't come from nowhere - hell, USB itself has gone through a long and arduous path until it came to the (messy) standard it is today. This is essentially banning any other standard to grow and be improved upon with feedback and iteration.
      - 6mo ago
- matt-attack 6mo ago
  Do you have a reference for the neo being easy to repair? Is this regarding the keyboard? Or the whole thing?
  - huxley 6mo ago
    The keyboard is probably the hardest bit but even then it’s more just some tedium rather than difficulty. https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-repairable-macbook-in-14-years https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
- bzzzt 6mo ago
  The innovations that mattered were seat belts and airbags. After that you have to correct for all the electronic gadgets that also actively distract or make drivers over-confident. Real numbers are not available, but governments keep mandating all kinds of questionable safety features that increase the price of vehicles (and insurance) and reduces competition in the market.
  - swiftcoder 6mo ago
    I'll grant you some of the more recent driver-attention monitoring features, but you'd be hard put to make the case that the blind-spot warning during lane changes, the cross-traffic warning when reversing out of a parking space, and the emergency brake when the car in front of you brakes hard, don't all save lives (and, perhaps more relevantly to the industrial players, collision insurance claims)
    - bzzzt 6mo ago
      Those things could save some lives of course, but it's a small drop. And then there's the issue of people trusting on those safety systems and driving more reckless than before. It also helps not to live in a country where everyone is driving trucks ;)
- PunchyHamster 6mo ago
  > You didn't say why this is a bad solution. The government mandates that cars get safer every year and fatalities are down 78% from the 1960s. Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit. That's widely incorrect. EU mandates some active systems (TC, ABS) and some basic level of physical protection, but majority of gains there have been driven by manufacturers trying to ace eachother in EuroNCAP rating EU makes sure woefully unsafe car can't be sold, sure, but most of the progress here has been manufacturers, and non-car-related road safety improvements.
mrtksn 6mo ago
What if the repairable ones crunch the numbers and find out that Apple got the right idea from business standpoint and the only reason they can't do the same is that their laptops or their brand is not as good? It will mean that if they actually end up making a product that people want that product will not be easy to repair as well.
radley 6mo ago
> If you want a repairable machine, buy one. They exist. Others have already mentioned Framework But that means Windows or Linux, not macOS. There's serious trade-offs that you're dismissing because you personally don't need macOS, but that's not the case for everyone. #hn-bingo
- ThePowerOfFuet 6mo ago
  macOS has slid a long way down the quality ladder over the past ten years.
  - AussieWog93 6mo ago
    In what way? Tahoe's UI SNAFU aside, it seems like it's basically just a more polished version of the older macOS versions from a decade ago.
    - vintagedave 6mo ago
      I run into bugs every day. It wakes, and has a black screen not wallpaper. Change spaces and the focus is wrong for half a second. Login screen is a pain because it collapses all users together. Notifications don’t scroll if they stop scrolling when the cursor is over a gap between them. Something on the system constantly eats disk space, and I think it’s the system updates. If I dock two apps in one space, sometimes one is black. If I zoom out to the Spaces overview it shows fine in the preview though. In the Terminal if I close a tab it can focus an entirely different window. I could go on for hours. It’s a buggy mess these days and I miss Lion and Snow Leopard desperately.
      - nine_k 6mo ago
        Unless these problems only started after an upgrade to Tahoe, I would strongly suspect defective hardware in your case.
        leptons 6mo ago
lucasfin000 6mo ago
The "just buy another one" argument only works if the alternatives are even comparable. For a lot of people, macOS is a hard requirement and not a preference, so telling them just to buy a framework that runs Linux ignores that entirely. Right to repair regulation doesn't force Apple to make a worse product it just requires that the parts and repair information are available.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
jclardy 6mo ago
Interestingly, Apple's newest and cheapest laptop (the Neo) is super repairable. And even the keyboard is finally replaceable without having to replace the entire top case. Hopefully the trend is continued in the next redesigns of the Air and Pro which are due soon.
- Gigachad 6mo ago
  Next year all consumer devices are required to have user replaceable batteries in the EU. Apple has noticeably been making massive design changes on many products to get closer in line with these laws.
throw939484999 6mo ago
Goverment regulates everything including cow farts! Apple can keep their unrepairable macbook. Butc should not be marketed as "green product". It should pay extra as ICE cars, be excluded from educational markets, public institutions etc...
kakacik 6mo ago
What a wildly incorrect comment. You realize its perfectly feasible and fully within apple engineers powers to design trivially repairable notebook (or any other device) while not losing any of those qualities you mention (which are easy to find in expensive competition too)? Don't make those extremely well paid engineers incompetent just because it suits your argument. But vendor lockin mandated by management is way more powerful than powers of engineers, apple ain't immune to this since its accountants and lawyers running the company. I'll give it a benefit of a doubt and won't claim its a PR comment and just a uncritical fanboy one, but its pretty close.
Gigachad 6mo ago
Decades of HN users finger wagging and suggesting FOSS hardware has progressed society nowhere. 12 months from EU mandatory replaceable batteries and products across the industry are being redesigned with repairability, usb-c, and user friendly designs. It’s time to accept regulation actually does work when you have a competent government.
- delbronski 6mo ago
  Yes! We tried leaving tech unregulated and it did not work. We got huge monopolies screwing consumers at every turn. Time to try something new.
- RajT88 6mo ago
  Indeed, government regulation is decried mostly because of all the cases where it got polluted by special interests, instead of following the interests of general consumers. This is how you end up turning a chunk of your food supply into fuel to subsidize crops which aren't all that good at being distilled into fuel in the first place...
  - Gigachad 6mo ago
    This is mostly because Americans keep electing total morons.
    - nine_k 6mo ago
      Not that most other nations do dramatically better, alas.
      - Gigachad 6mo ago
        There's actually few that are this bad. Generally we refer to them as developing countries or war torn.
    - RajT88 6mo ago
      I would actually suggest this is symptomatic of the real problem: money in politics. Elected officials (and some appointed, like SCOTUS) keep changing laws and precedents to allow more and more money in politics. They can't quit all that dark money - without a lot of funding, you don't get elected. Usually the best funded candidate wins. There was an anonymous oped from a congressman some years back which bemoaned the reality - that 60% of their time was dedicated to meeting with donors for reelection campaigns instead of working on real problems.
ajkjk 6mo ago
well it's a good solution in the sense that it would solve the problem and it would be great for all of us.
pvtmert 6mo ago
Here is the thing, replacing something may be hard or easy. But getting the parts (which are already produced and available for the manufacturers for their "added value" repairs) should be as easy as how they are getting them too. Not to mention manuals/instructions. Regulation discussed here is about these too. Also as consumer, I would argue the marketing done by apple is just scammy. They keep praising how much carbon saved or sustainable new machines are. But in fact, a minor issue becomes a massive electronic dump. I also like Macs, I own several of them. Repaired a few. Mostly replacing batteries and keyboards. For example 2014 Macbook Air had a normal battery, no sticky business. Meanwhile 2020-2025 MacBook Air has sticky stuff, making repairs harder. The best part is, 2014 macbook air has 54 Watt/hr battery, 2020-2025 models are 53 watts/hour. The lasting battery gains are coming from Apple silicon efficiency as well as modern BMS. Simply put, regulation is the answer. Apple makes it difficult because they can, and also because it creates revenue. Of repairability was the source of income, you would see 10/10 repairable macbooks with no (significant) tradeoffs. (ie. it could be a few grams heavier for added screws)
danpalmer 6mo ago
> If you want a repairable machine, buy one.... Framework Sure, but Framework doesn't run the OS I want, doesn't run the chip I want, doesn't quite meet the form factor I want. It's not an effective market because I can't pick and choose. The problem here is vertical integration. If you want anything from Apple you have to buy everything from Apple. And the answer to that is: regulation.
- Esophagus4 6mo ago
  Being an effective market doesn’t mean you get everything you want. You’re actually saying: “I want Apple’s software, and I want certain chips, and I want a certain form factor. And if Apple won’t build what I want, I will pass a law to make them build it for me!” Come on man. You will make tradeoffs either way. The answer isn’t: force a company to build what I want them to build.
  - danpalmer 6mo ago
    Well another version of it is: I want to be able to talk to my family, but I don't want to buy an iPhone. The EU rightly regulated that any chat network big enough must open their doors to different platforms. Or I don't want to buy Microsoft Office for my employees but I want to be able to do business with those who do, and thankfully we have relatively open document formats now. The chips argument is contrived, the OS argument less so, but it's all just network effects at some level, and it's important for competition and effective markets that we prevent the largest networks from locking people in and forcing them to make a lot of other unrelated decisions.
    - hypeatei 6mo ago
      > I want to be able to talk to my family, but I don't want to buy an iPhone How were you not able to do this without an iPhone?
      - danpalmer 6mo ago
        iMessage being a closed ecosystem. Apple finally added RCS support, but only after regulatory pressure. To not recognise this as a limitation is to be wilfully blind to network effects. The "green bubbles" issue was a huge issue in the US. Similarly, WhatsApp not being open is a huge problem in forcing people onto Meta's platforms.
henry2023 6mo ago
you seem to assume that markets regulate themselves. This is a common fallacy. Good regulation is fundamental in any working society.
- grumpyprole 6mo ago
  Yes, the belief that markets self regulate, was proved incorrect by the 2008 financial crisis.
socalgal2 6mo ago
100% agree. If you don’t like that Apple products are expensive to repair, don’t buy them or suck it up I came to terms with it, mostly. I buy AppleCare. I’ve had my screen on my M1 Mac replaced twice. I agree with the sentiment tho. I had the rubber foot come off the bottom of a MacBook Pro, Apple wanted $350 to replace that $1 part. I found other solutions
- Esophagus4 6mo ago
  > If you don’t like that Apple products are expensive to repair, don’t buy them or suck it up Yea exactly. This is why I switched from Apple to Framework. I like MacOS better than Linux, but it was worth the hardware trade off for me.
GreenVulpine 6mo ago
No. This is a bad solution. You can't blame consumers for not making the right choice when there's a sea of irreparable junk and a few niche repairable options on the market. Reparability should be the default expectation.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 6mo ago
Yeah we can keep saying that, but thanks to the EU we have everybody with shared chargers. Thanks to the EU, the nintendo switch has a replaceable battery. Thanks to the EU, we have USB-C on iPhone. I'm sorry but your argument conflicts with reality at this point: regulation works better for expectations on hardware.
tencentshill 6mo ago
The Macbook Neo is just as high-quality as any other Apple product. Apple has some of the most brilliant engineers in the industry, they can absolutely design a repairable device to their own standards.
- leptons 6mo ago
  >Apple has some of the most brilliant engineers in the industry, Did they fire the guy who designed the magic mouse? What about the one who designed the iPhone 4 antenna? Are they still working there? The butterfly keyboard? The class action Apple lost over the Macbook 2011 design flaws? Should I go on?
  - FabHK 6mo ago
    iPhone 4 was a tempest in a teapot. But yeah, the circular mouse and the butterfly keyboard... Having said that, it seems obvious that there is a tradeoff between repairability, price, and compactness. And Apple offers devices on different points on that triangle.
  - saagarjha 6mo ago
    Yes, they did actually fire the guy who did the iPhone 4 antenna. The butterfly keyboard guy is now working with OpenAI apparently.
ActorNightly 6mo ago
>One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Lol what. Nothing about apple design is a sacrifice to repairability. The only reason they make it hard to repair is because when your Mac breaks, you go buy another one. Can't afford it? Then you are not "classy" enough to own a Mac. I swear, there must be some epidemic where Mac fans are losing their marbles even more so today.
28304283409234 6mo ago
Your individual choice will not make systemic changes.
userbinator 6mo ago
Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other. Thinkpads are a counterexample.
CharlieDigital 6mo ago
> No, this is a bad solution. This is a great solution. See: EU and normalization on USB-C for power delivery and wider market effect. Yes, market was heading in this direction, but EU legislation brought it over the line.
throwaway85825 6mo ago
The MacBook neo keyboard is replaceable with a sticker and a bunch of screws. This was always possible. Apple just doesnt care.
- 10729287 6mo ago
  Bunch of screws : 41.
  - g947o 6mo ago
    If you have done some repairs, you would know that is nothing. And you would rather have screws than glue or plastic clips, the more the better.
    - 10729287 6mo ago
      [dead]
  - throwaway85825 6mo ago
    The people that complain about the number of screws are very counter productive. The important thing is that repair is possible at all without permanent damage. Framework and some of the 'repair optimized' designs seem to assume that the device is going to be repaired daily and that it needs to be as easy as possible.
    - StingyJelly 6mo ago
      The bar should be higher than "Better than glue". While repair is possible, the number of screws with many different screw types still make it needlessly time consuming / expensive.
      - throwaway85825 6mo ago
        The ease of repair only needs to be in proportion to the likelihood of needing repair and frequency of occurrence.
reeredfdfdf 6mo ago
I believe in this case regulation would work just fine. My old Macbook Pro from 2012 was just as solid and high quality as the newest models, but much more repairable. It's possible to create repairable devices without compromising much in other areas.
999900000999 6mo ago
This was my first thought too. Not everything you personally dislike needs to be illegal. MacBooks are great as long as you have the money. OP could keep looking for 3rd party repairs, etc.
- streetfighter64 6mo ago
  > Not everything you personally dislike needs to be illegal. I'm having a hard time seeing why making stuff more difficult to repair just so that people are incentivized to throw it away and buy a new one, should not be illegal. If not for the anti-customer attitude, at least for the amount of waste and environmental destruction it results in.
  - defrost 6mo ago
    You might be interested in the vast world of public policy. There's more to the world than banned / not banned. In this instance, people might want a sensible pragmatic government to levy against companies that have high numbers of items ending up in eWaste processing (or discarded in fly tipping) and offer reductions to companies that invest in eWaste processing and collection. There are also legitimate total lifetime cost of item models that suggest clean, fast, simple manufacturing that leads to a product hard to deconstruct might actually be "cheaper" in time, resources, and energy across a large consumer population than a functionally equivalent item designed to be "unbuilt" and rebuilt (ie repaired).
    - streetfighter64 6mo ago
      > clean, fast, simple manufacturing that leads to a product hard to deconstruct This seems like a total fantasy. Do you actually have any examples of non-repairability making the process cheaper? Sure there are lots of economical incentives to making stuff that you use until it breaks and then throw away, but that's just because the cost of e.g. mining metals or taking care of e-waste are externalized, due to using unethical labor in third world countries. If the "large consumer population" of the west actually had to bear the real cost of the electronics they produce, things would be vastly different.
skywhopper 6mo ago
Regulation is the only reasonable answer to this sort of problem. The specific suggestion may not be the best possible regulation, but we have several hundred years of proof that individual market-based action cannot solve what is basically an insurance problem.
bluegatty 6mo ago
"No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one." Fair to push back ... but your assertion implies one of the greater fallacies of free markets. Free markets don't magically work like that. When there are only a handful of participants in any given market, they don't provide all the options as we would like. It's 100% true that Apple makes some 'good tradeoffs' for build quality - but it's also 100% true that they make tradeoffs for vendor lockin. Lightning connectors are great examples of that. The answer may be regulation. It depends, and it has to be careful. While it's a very 'iffy' situation with respect to keyboards, if we move the conversation to 'batteries' you can see how we might want regs that enable some way for consumers to mechanically replace batteries - and definitely 3rd party repair - and plausibly enable standard 3rd party batteries. These companies have incredibly monopoly and monopoly power, they reason their margins are so high is partly because of demand, but also because of 'market power' which can significantly distort innovation (think apps on iPhone, totally captured market etc). Unfortunately it's never so easy as 'always regulate or always not'.
wolvoleo 6mo ago
> No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one. It's a good solution. Even if you don't want to repair your meachine, it would be worth more on the second-hand market meaning less ewaste for society in general. > One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other. The neo gets pretty glossy build quality reviews and is one of the most repairable macs in decades.
- fuzzfactor 6mo ago
  Before Apple ever came along, failure to engineer in all kinds of extreme repairability was a recognized hallmark of unsuitability for mission-critical applications. Widely distributed repair manuals were of course table-stakes too. Woz was well-aware of this from HP's legendary performance at the time. It's just not easy to stay on the most correct path when there are so many shiny distractions. Now the Neo sounds like a step in the right direction. >one of the most repairable macs in decades. With the Neo they could be jumping right back on the right path from a distance. Which is an improvement but it does also show they could have been doing it the entire time if they had the serious commitment to mission-critical users. The only real way for it to be a game-changer is if they actually change their game :)
  - wolvoleo 6mo ago
    They will change their game in some ways, or they'll have to stop selling in the EU. I'm sure the Neo was engineered for this. Apple really hate re-engineering mac cases. Even the plastic macbook that had a huge design flaw (the cracking topcase because of the screen bezel spacers crushing it), had this flaw for 4 years until they finally fixed it, and that was not really to fix the problem but because they wanted to do a glossy new design. For some reason they preferred fixing the topicase over and over for free instead of just fixing the problem. And it wouldn't have needed much. All that would have been needed was to modify the screen bezel: Make the plastic spacers either a lot wider (to spread out the pressure) or of a softer material. It's pretty insane they didn't even bother to redesign such a simple plastic part. I had mine replaced 3 times over the 6 years I used it. Sometimes with some complaints as I had replaced the LCD with a matte panel (the plastic macbook used an atrocious quality ultra-reflecting TN screen with shit viewing angles). But they always did it for free after some pressure. So I can imagine they wanted to be ahead of the game this time because the EU will set a deadline and they hate doing redesigns. I can't fathom why they hate doing that so much though. I worked in manufacturing too and we did small tweaks periodically, every 2-3 months or so there'd be a minor hardware revision to take comments from QA into account or to optimize for pricing & availability of components. Usually not the kind of redesign an untrained eye actually would notice. But Apple somehow just hates it.
mrob 6mo ago
Consumer choice only works when there's a free market. Computer systems are encumbered by copyright and patent monopolies, so there's no free market. I can't buy a third-party Macbook. Because these monopolies are granted by the state it's reasonable for the state to correct any market failures they cause with regulation.
mexicocitinluez 6mo ago
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mentalgear 6mo ago
I was hoping with the new Replaceable Battery Law from the EU entering this summer, all (i)Phones and tablets were to become easily repairable / battery swap-able. I was super disappointed learning recently, when considering why the new iPads weren't build to be easily open-able like the new Macbook Neo, that there's a pretty big loophole the lobby got in: if you can proof your battery lasts for 1000 cycles with 80% capacity remaining, you can exempt yourself and still seal the device in a user not-openable fashion. (btw: people claiming that it has to be this way because of "waterproof": just no. Devices have existed before the whole glue sealing non-sense Apple introduced and exist now that are equally waterproof without glueing it all together to keep user's from the hardware. And even if you think it is that, it still wouldn't make sense to glue laptops and desktop pcs together who don't even claim to be waterproof) At least there is a bright side: The EU Repairability Law is still pushing companies to make their devices more repairable - by demanding that professional repair must be possible from independent professionals and tech manufacturers must also provide repair parts for x years.
dahcryn 6mo ago
also, let's not conflate easy to repair with cheap to repair. The macbook is quite easy to repair, it's just insanely expensive because they made the choice that, for user experience, they attach the keyboard to the machines body. You can have ease of repair and build quality, but then you give up portability I guess (bulky and heavy). And also cost goes up
nandomrumber 6mo ago
No. You are wrong. There are Apple laptops, and other devices, that were relatively easy to service and were lauded for their build quality.
yokoprime 6mo ago
this is such a classic american reply. "vote with your wallet" and "the market decides". thing is most people don't care, don't complain or are not in a situation where they can "vote with their wallet". truth is, some regulation must exist to nudge companies is the right direction. a good example of this is e.g disposable vapes, people love them for some reason, but they are extremely wasteful.
- 9rx 6mo ago
  Trouble is that regulation isn't imposed by an omnipotent deity in the sky. In a democracy, regulation must come from the very same people who you say don't care, don't complain, and aren't willing to change their habits. Given that you say the people don't care, aren't willing to change, and perhaps even prefer the status quo, regulation isn't going to magically appear.
ryanmcbride 6mo ago
I'd like to know what planet you live on where a single time over the last 50 years a company has done one solitary thing that was good for the consumer without having the gun of regulation against their head.
jollyllama 6mo ago
> One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other. You're making an oversimplification. You could make a heavier, thicker device with those same qualities that was repairable.
mcv 6mo ago
Unibody Macbooks had excellent build quality (except for their vulnerability to spilled drinks), but were very repairable. I don't see how build quality and repairability have to be opposites.
hliyan 6mo ago
I assume you consider this a bad solution because the free market would always converge on the right solution(s), including reparable machines. However, if all participants (in this case manufacturers) in a market conclude that: (1) product B has a lower profit margin than product A, and (2) product B is superior enough to eventually become the dominant variant and (3) the market size is fairly static and (4) the first mover on product B is unlikely to maintain a lead for very long, then all participants would choose to suppess product B, even without having to resort to collusion. Not only that, if the manufacturers consider regulation to be a market in its own right, i.e. it is available for purchase (which it de facto is in countries where lobbying is legal), then market forces will also drive regulation away from product B. To me, this explains why some products peak in build quality sometime after innovation plateaus, and the continue to diminish over time (usually measured in decades). Some household appliances have already reached this stage. For Apple products, this phenomenon may still be in the future.
zackmorris 6mo ago
MostlyStable, are you a deregulation zealot? By extension, are you also an antitrust enforcement denier? Also by extension, do you understand the term late-stage capitalism? Because if you truly believe that regulation isn't necessary, then you are either ok with, or unaware that, unregulated capitalism ends in monopoly (or duopoly to keep up appearances). A free market only has a chance of existing under regulation, otherwise it's immediately gamed to maximize profit, which leads to runaway wealth inequality (the antithesis of a free market). In other words, a €730 ($835) top case replacement is only allowed to exist because your worship of deregulation prevents the very competition that you yearn for. I don't normally word my comments this strongly, but we seem to have lost our BS detectors since yours is the top comment. Remember that it's ok to change your mind. So I'm not criticizing you, but the mindset that's allowing fundamental mistakes to not only go unchallenged, but be celebrated.
- renewiltord 6mo ago
  Lol I think watching the entirety of the EU run on shitty plastic laptops that are government approved would really top the British fight against heatwaves by smearing yoghurt on their windows. I think I’d really enjoy this. Yes, please do this.
- piekvorst 6mo ago
  s/zealot/advocate/ s/denier/opponent/ s/late-stage capitalism/socialist propaganda/ If you're asking genuinely: 1. It's wrong to assume beforehand that the other party is irrational. 2. To refute the other side, you have to engage with their strongest argument. This is an intellectual issue, and no intellectual issue could be resolved by dismissal.
Melatonic 6mo ago
Then why do newer Apple devices have significantly better repairability vs older ones ? The build quality has gone down?
tracker1 6mo ago
+1 here... Lenovo business laptops have a history of being particularly good at being user repairable. I'm probably going to go with Framework myself whenever I do upgrade. Still using an M1 air, which suites my day to day needs, I don't develop on it, as I can remote to my desktop from anywhere.

wvenable 6mo ago

> No, this is a bad solution. You didn't say why this is a bad solution. The government mandates that cars get safer every year and fatalities are down 78% from the 1960s. Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit. > One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. It seems like the Macbook Neo has a lot of those properties as well for a very inexpensive device that is extremely easy to repair.

internet2000 6mo ago
> It seems like the Macbook Neo has a lot of those properties as well for a very inexpensive device that is extremely easy to repair. It's slightly worse, slightly more flex, thicker and heavier vs an Air in spite of having a smaller battery and more empty space. It's all trade offs. If you want repairable, please buy a Framework or Lenovo. Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer.
- wvenable 6mo ago
  > Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer. Again, why not? It's not mandating design, just minimal standards for repairability that should be obvious. If Framework and Lenovo can do it and Apple can do it on a $600 laptop, why can't everyone do it?
  - leetbulb 6mo ago
    Agreed. > why can't everyone do it What everyone is missing: Because other manufactures do not have to; the profit margins are too good to give a shit, and they allow some pretty fierce competition within the target demographic: <soapbox> Sadly, the general public still just wants the cheapest option to consume their bullshit content, even if it needs to be replaced a year from now after their cat walks on it and causes critical damage. The MacBook Neo is brilliant in that Apple takes a share of this market with a premium and affordable product that is basically just their previous generation phone, with the expensive bits likely sourced from their exchange program or surplus supply. Products that at some point the same people would've loved to have, but couldn't afford. Now repurposed with a larger screen, sporting the envied Apple logo, at an affordable price, and targeting that same demographic as the hot new thing, just one generation later. I have a feeling we'll see this pattern continue, and it's genius. Minimizing waste, maximizing profits, and giving the consumers what they want, while maintaining a gap between low-end and high-end -- people that spend $$$$ still want to feel special, of course. Don't get me wrong, the Neo is great, especially for us hackers, but it is absolutely not meant for us in any way. What is in our favor: it does, at the very least, raise the bar for these other manufactures that product absolute garbage. </soapbox> Someone needs to be a reference as to what is feasible in order for a standard to be established. Apple, Framework, and I guess Lenovo are the ones doing this these days. RIP the others.
- free_bip 6mo ago
  Oh no, my laptop is 2mm thicker than a different laptop. Won't someone think of the 2mm?
  - VogonPoetry 6mo ago
    That 2mm uses at least (2*335 + 2*235) * 2mm * 1mm = 2,280 mm^3 more material for the case. (a wall thickness of 1mm)
    - stavros 6mo ago
      I don't understand your math. The 1mm (the wall) was there already, so why is it being counted here? Plus, multiplying by 1 doesn't do anything? Also, the 2mm extra won't be solid plastic (they'll be solid air, since that's why we're adding the extra thickness, for the room. If anything, the extra material for the case would be the perimeter length times the perimeter wall width times the height.
      - Arcuru 6mo ago
        > If anything, the extra material for the case would be the perimeter length times the perimeter wall width times the height That's what they did? Perimeter length = 2*335mm + 2*235mm Wall height diff = 2mm Wall width = 1mm (2*335 + 2*235) * 2mm * 1mm = 2,280 mm^3
        stavros 6mo ago
        Ah, thanks, I think what happened was that the asterisks were turned into italics and confused me. I think the message was edited to clarify.
        VogonPoetry 6mo ago
        The post was fixed about 30 seconds after making it - due to the *s being interpreted as italics. It is a shame there isn't a preview button when composing posts.
- lelanthran 6mo ago
  > Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer. ??? What makes this "backseat"? When it comes to consumer products, legislation is often the only answer in most cases. What makes this case different? Why should there be an exception carved out for laptops?
- cpt_sobel 6mo ago
  > Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer. But it _could_ save us from Lenovo or Dell or any other company copying Apple's design practices (and the latter largely already has), while, as another poster mentioned, not mandating design per se, but rather just setting minimum standards.
- PunchyHamster 6mo ago
  > Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer. You can still legislate parts availability and availability of docs. You can legislate parts pairing or outright ban it There is plenty that can be done, just need competent lawmakers
bloppe 6mo ago
Car safety is a bad counterexample because the risk is otherwise often externalized i.e. your car can easily hurt a total stranger whereas the consequences of your choice in laptop are strictly personal. And as GP stated, regulating this sort of thing would definitely force a particular trade-off on everyone. A lot of people would be pissed to have MacBooks with worse "build quality" even if they were more reparable. Having a choice is better.
- gambiting 6mo ago
  >> your car can easily hurt a total stranger whereas the consequences of your choice in laptop are strictly personal. You know that safety for pedestrians is also a very tightly regulated car safety category, right? Obviously, there's not much that can be done if you get hit by a car going 70mph, but the fact that most people should survive a 30mph impact with a modern car is mostly thanks to regulations requiring crumple zones specifically designed to protect pedestrians in a collision. And yeah, there are huge trade offs - I imagine people would generally prefer a car that doesn't need incredibly expensive repairs after a minor collision because everything at the front just crumpled, but then they would be guaranteed to cut off legs of any person hit - it's a trade off.
  - bucephalos 6mo ago
    Not in the US. Specific pedestrian safety features are not included in cars sold there due to lack of regulation. FMVSS was planning a regulation modelled after ECE R127, then the administration changed and no progress since...
    - gambiting 6mo ago
      Well yes, which is why most American cars are not approved for sale over here.
    - 1718627440 6mo ago
      Lack of regulation resulting in worse outcomes is also a data point for regulation being able to solve problems.
jdpedrie 6mo ago
> The government mandates that cars get safer every year and fatalities are down 78% from the 1960s. Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit. On some metrics. On affordability, new cars are considerably more expensive. Whether that's a worthwhile tradeoff is beside the point. The GP's point is that there's no free lunch, and your example doesn't address that.
- wvenable 6mo ago
  I never said the lunch was free only that it should be nutritious.
  - dingaling 6mo ago
    Amd for the diner, new cars are much less nutritious due to the regulation. They're like some sort of bland protein-shake lunch.
    - catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
      My father thinks all cars look the same now. Do you mean that? For my part, cars are more comfortable (bar all controls in a touch panel and ever more propietary software) and fuel efficient
    - wvenable 6mo ago
      No, they are more nutritious just like that bland protein-shake is. All those cool hot-rods from the 70s will crush you to death easily while wasting more gas to do it.
an0malous 6mo ago
> You didn't say why this is a bad solution. The fear is that regulations ossify industries and that's why heavily regulated industries like healthcare, education, and transportation have seen basically no innovation in 50 years. If you mandate that all electronic devices must have USB-C cables, how can anyone invent something better than a USB-C cable? And for what, so people don't have to have multiple cables? That's not even in the top 100 problems that a government body as large as the EU should be concerned about. > Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit. Healthcare, education, transportation, and housing would all be counterexamples depending on how you want to frame "benefit." > It seems like the Macbook Neo has a lot of those properties as well for a very inexpensive device that is extremely easy to repair. This is counter to your point, no one regulated that Apple make the MacBook Neo easy to repair. Apple is incentivized to follow the market.
- Tade0 6mo ago
  > If you mandate that all electronic devices must have USB-C cables, how can anyone invent something better than a USB-C cable? That already happened with Micro USB. The EU initially mandated that manufacturers agree on a standard socket, because the absolute zoo of charging ports back then was counter-productive and only generated e-waste. Ultimately they agreed to use Micro USB, but obviously that's not what's used today. These regulations are not just dumped on the manufacturers - there's a period of consultation and a grace period to implement them. If something actually better came up, you'd eventually see it mandated.
  - spaqin 6mo ago
    > If something actually better came up, you'd eventually see it mandated. While I generally am quite content with that particular mandate and it does more good than bad, I would have to disagree on this. Something better doesn't come from nowhere - hell, USB itself has gone through a long and arduous path until it came to the (messy) standard it is today. This is essentially banning any other standard to grow and be improved upon with feedback and iteration.
    - 6mo ago
matt-attack 6mo ago
Do you have a reference for the neo being easy to repair? Is this regarding the keyboard? Or the whole thing?
- huxley 6mo ago
  The keyboard is probably the hardest bit but even then it’s more just some tedium rather than difficulty. https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-repairable-macbook-in-14-years https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
bzzzt 6mo ago
The innovations that mattered were seat belts and airbags. After that you have to correct for all the electronic gadgets that also actively distract or make drivers over-confident. Real numbers are not available, but governments keep mandating all kinds of questionable safety features that increase the price of vehicles (and insurance) and reduces competition in the market.
- swiftcoder 6mo ago
  I'll grant you some of the more recent driver-attention monitoring features, but you'd be hard put to make the case that the blind-spot warning during lane changes, the cross-traffic warning when reversing out of a parking space, and the emergency brake when the car in front of you brakes hard, don't all save lives (and, perhaps more relevantly to the industrial players, collision insurance claims)
  - bzzzt 6mo ago
    Those things could save some lives of course, but it's a small drop. And then there's the issue of people trusting on those safety systems and driving more reckless than before. It also helps not to live in a country where everyone is driving trucks ;)
PunchyHamster 6mo ago
> You didn't say why this is a bad solution. The government mandates that cars get safer every year and fatalities are down 78% from the 1960s. Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit. That's widely incorrect. EU mandates some active systems (TC, ABS) and some basic level of physical protection, but majority of gains there have been driven by manufacturers trying to ace eachother in EuroNCAP rating EU makes sure woefully unsafe car can't be sold, sure, but most of the progress here has been manufacturers, and non-car-related road safety improvements.

mrtksn 6mo ago

What if the repairable ones crunch the numbers and find out that Apple got the right idea from business standpoint and the only reason they can't do the same is that their laptops or their brand is not as good? It will mean that if they actually end up making a product that people want that product will not be easy to repair as well.

radley 6mo ago

> If you want a repairable machine, buy one. They exist. Others have already mentioned Framework But that means Windows or Linux, not macOS. There's serious trade-offs that you're dismissing because you personally don't need macOS, but that's not the case for everyone. #hn-bingo

ThePowerOfFuet 6mo ago
macOS has slid a long way down the quality ladder over the past ten years.
- AussieWog93 6mo ago
  In what way? Tahoe's UI SNAFU aside, it seems like it's basically just a more polished version of the older macOS versions from a decade ago.
  - vintagedave 6mo ago
    I run into bugs every day. It wakes, and has a black screen not wallpaper. Change spaces and the focus is wrong for half a second. Login screen is a pain because it collapses all users together. Notifications don’t scroll if they stop scrolling when the cursor is over a gap between them. Something on the system constantly eats disk space, and I think it’s the system updates. If I dock two apps in one space, sometimes one is black. If I zoom out to the Spaces overview it shows fine in the preview though. In the Terminal if I close a tab it can focus an entirely different window. I could go on for hours. It’s a buggy mess these days and I miss Lion and Snow Leopard desperately.
    - nine_k 6mo ago
      Unless these problems only started after an upgrade to Tahoe, I would strongly suspect defective hardware in your case.
      - leptons 6mo ago

lucasfin000 6mo ago

The "just buy another one" argument only works if the alternatives are even comparable. For a lot of people, macOS is a hard requirement and not a preference, so telling them just to buy a framework that runs Linux ignores that entirely. Right to repair regulation doesn't force Apple to make a worse product it just requires that the parts and repair information are available.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

jclardy 6mo ago

Interestingly, Apple's newest and cheapest laptop (the Neo) is super repairable. And even the keyboard is finally replaceable without having to replace the entire top case. Hopefully the trend is continued in the next redesigns of the Air and Pro which are due soon.

Gigachad 6mo ago
Next year all consumer devices are required to have user replaceable batteries in the EU. Apple has noticeably been making massive design changes on many products to get closer in line with these laws.

throw939484999 6mo ago

Goverment regulates everything including cow farts! Apple can keep their unrepairable macbook. Butc should not be marketed as "green product". It should pay extra as ICE cars, be excluded from educational markets, public institutions etc...

kakacik 6mo ago

What a wildly incorrect comment. You realize its perfectly feasible and fully within apple engineers powers to design trivially repairable notebook (or any other device) while not losing any of those qualities you mention (which are easy to find in expensive competition too)? Don't make those extremely well paid engineers incompetent just because it suits your argument. But vendor lockin mandated by management is way more powerful than powers of engineers, apple ain't immune to this since its accountants and lawyers running the company. I'll give it a benefit of a doubt and won't claim its a PR comment and just a uncritical fanboy one, but its pretty close.

Gigachad 6mo ago

Decades of HN users finger wagging and suggesting FOSS hardware has progressed society nowhere. 12 months from EU mandatory replaceable batteries and products across the industry are being redesigned with repairability, usb-c, and user friendly designs. It’s time to accept regulation actually does work when you have a competent government.

delbronski 6mo ago
Yes! We tried leaving tech unregulated and it did not work. We got huge monopolies screwing consumers at every turn. Time to try something new.
RajT88 6mo ago
Indeed, government regulation is decried mostly because of all the cases where it got polluted by special interests, instead of following the interests of general consumers. This is how you end up turning a chunk of your food supply into fuel to subsidize crops which aren't all that good at being distilled into fuel in the first place...
- Gigachad 6mo ago
  This is mostly because Americans keep electing total morons.
  - nine_k 6mo ago
    Not that most other nations do dramatically better, alas.
    - Gigachad 6mo ago
      There's actually few that are this bad. Generally we refer to them as developing countries or war torn.
  - RajT88 6mo ago
    I would actually suggest this is symptomatic of the real problem: money in politics. Elected officials (and some appointed, like SCOTUS) keep changing laws and precedents to allow more and more money in politics. They can't quit all that dark money - without a lot of funding, you don't get elected. Usually the best funded candidate wins. There was an anonymous oped from a congressman some years back which bemoaned the reality - that 60% of their time was dedicated to meeting with donors for reelection campaigns instead of working on real problems.

ajkjk 6mo ago

well it's a good solution in the sense that it would solve the problem and it would be great for all of us.

pvtmert 6mo ago

Here is the thing, replacing something may be hard or easy. But getting the parts (which are already produced and available for the manufacturers for their "added value" repairs) should be as easy as how they are getting them too. Not to mention manuals/instructions. Regulation discussed here is about these too. Also as consumer, I would argue the marketing done by apple is just scammy. They keep praising how much carbon saved or sustainable new machines are. But in fact, a minor issue becomes a massive electronic dump. I also like Macs, I own several of them. Repaired a few. Mostly replacing batteries and keyboards. For example 2014 Macbook Air had a normal battery, no sticky business. Meanwhile 2020-2025 MacBook Air has sticky stuff, making repairs harder. The best part is, 2014 macbook air has 54 Watt/hr battery, 2020-2025 models are 53 watts/hour. The lasting battery gains are coming from Apple silicon efficiency as well as modern BMS. Simply put, regulation is the answer. Apple makes it difficult because they can, and also because it creates revenue. Of repairability was the source of income, you would see 10/10 repairable macbooks with no (significant) tradeoffs. (ie. it could be a few grams heavier for added screws)

danpalmer 6mo ago

> If you want a repairable machine, buy one.... Framework Sure, but Framework doesn't run the OS I want, doesn't run the chip I want, doesn't quite meet the form factor I want. It's not an effective market because I can't pick and choose. The problem here is vertical integration. If you want anything from Apple you have to buy everything from Apple. And the answer to that is: regulation.

Esophagus4 6mo ago
Being an effective market doesn’t mean you get everything you want. You’re actually saying: “I want Apple’s software, and I want certain chips, and I want a certain form factor. And if Apple won’t build what I want, I will pass a law to make them build it for me!” Come on man. You will make tradeoffs either way. The answer isn’t: force a company to build what I want them to build.
- danpalmer 6mo ago
  Well another version of it is: I want to be able to talk to my family, but I don't want to buy an iPhone. The EU rightly regulated that any chat network big enough must open their doors to different platforms. Or I don't want to buy Microsoft Office for my employees but I want to be able to do business with those who do, and thankfully we have relatively open document formats now. The chips argument is contrived, the OS argument less so, but it's all just network effects at some level, and it's important for competition and effective markets that we prevent the largest networks from locking people in and forcing them to make a lot of other unrelated decisions.
  - hypeatei 6mo ago
    > I want to be able to talk to my family, but I don't want to buy an iPhone How were you not able to do this without an iPhone?
    - danpalmer 6mo ago
      iMessage being a closed ecosystem. Apple finally added RCS support, but only after regulatory pressure. To not recognise this as a limitation is to be wilfully blind to network effects. The "green bubbles" issue was a huge issue in the US. Similarly, WhatsApp not being open is a huge problem in forcing people onto Meta's platforms.

henry2023 6mo ago

you seem to assume that markets regulate themselves. This is a common fallacy. Good regulation is fundamental in any working society.

grumpyprole 6mo ago
Yes, the belief that markets self regulate, was proved incorrect by the 2008 financial crisis.

socalgal2 6mo ago

100% agree. If you don’t like that Apple products are expensive to repair, don’t buy them or suck it up I came to terms with it, mostly. I buy AppleCare. I’ve had my screen on my M1 Mac replaced twice. I agree with the sentiment tho. I had the rubber foot come off the bottom of a MacBook Pro, Apple wanted $350 to replace that $1 part. I found other solutions

Esophagus4 6mo ago
> If you don’t like that Apple products are expensive to repair, don’t buy them or suck it up Yea exactly. This is why I switched from Apple to Framework. I like MacOS better than Linux, but it was worth the hardware trade off for me.

GreenVulpine 6mo ago

No. This is a bad solution. You can't blame consumers for not making the right choice when there's a sea of irreparable junk and a few niche repairable options on the market. Reparability should be the default expectation.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 6mo ago

Yeah we can keep saying that, but thanks to the EU we have everybody with shared chargers. Thanks to the EU, the nintendo switch has a replaceable battery. Thanks to the EU, we have USB-C on iPhone. I'm sorry but your argument conflicts with reality at this point: regulation works better for expectations on hardware.

tencentshill 6mo ago

The Macbook Neo is just as high-quality as any other Apple product. Apple has some of the most brilliant engineers in the industry, they can absolutely design a repairable device to their own standards.

leptons 6mo ago
>Apple has some of the most brilliant engineers in the industry, Did they fire the guy who designed the magic mouse? What about the one who designed the iPhone 4 antenna? Are they still working there? The butterfly keyboard? The class action Apple lost over the Macbook 2011 design flaws? Should I go on?
- FabHK 6mo ago
  iPhone 4 was a tempest in a teapot. But yeah, the circular mouse and the butterfly keyboard... Having said that, it seems obvious that there is a tradeoff between repairability, price, and compactness. And Apple offers devices on different points on that triangle.
- saagarjha 6mo ago
  Yes, they did actually fire the guy who did the iPhone 4 antenna. The butterfly keyboard guy is now working with OpenAI apparently.

ActorNightly 6mo ago

>One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Lol what. Nothing about apple design is a sacrifice to repairability. The only reason they make it hard to repair is because when your Mac breaks, you go buy another one. Can't afford it? Then you are not "classy" enough to own a Mac. I swear, there must be some epidemic where Mac fans are losing their marbles even more so today.

28304283409234 6mo ago

Your individual choice will not make systemic changes.

userbinator 6mo ago

Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other. Thinkpads are a counterexample.

CharlieDigital 6mo ago

> No, this is a bad solution. This is a great solution. See: EU and normalization on USB-C for power delivery and wider market effect. Yes, market was heading in this direction, but EU legislation brought it over the line.

throwaway85825 6mo ago

The MacBook neo keyboard is replaceable with a sticker and a bunch of screws. This was always possible. Apple just doesnt care.

10729287 6mo ago
Bunch of screws : 41.
- g947o 6mo ago
  If you have done some repairs, you would know that is nothing. And you would rather have screws than glue or plastic clips, the more the better.
  - 10729287 6mo ago
    [dead]
- throwaway85825 6mo ago
  The people that complain about the number of screws are very counter productive. The important thing is that repair is possible at all without permanent damage. Framework and some of the 'repair optimized' designs seem to assume that the device is going to be repaired daily and that it needs to be as easy as possible.
  - StingyJelly 6mo ago
    The bar should be higher than "Better than glue". While repair is possible, the number of screws with many different screw types still make it needlessly time consuming / expensive.
    - throwaway85825 6mo ago
      The ease of repair only needs to be in proportion to the likelihood of needing repair and frequency of occurrence.

reeredfdfdf 6mo ago

I believe in this case regulation would work just fine. My old Macbook Pro from 2012 was just as solid and high quality as the newest models, but much more repairable. It's possible to create repairable devices without compromising much in other areas.

999900000999 6mo ago

This was my first thought too. Not everything you personally dislike needs to be illegal. MacBooks are great as long as you have the money. OP could keep looking for 3rd party repairs, etc.

streetfighter64 6mo ago
> Not everything you personally dislike needs to be illegal. I'm having a hard time seeing why making stuff more difficult to repair just so that people are incentivized to throw it away and buy a new one, should not be illegal. If not for the anti-customer attitude, at least for the amount of waste and environmental destruction it results in.
- defrost 6mo ago
  You might be interested in the vast world of public policy. There's more to the world than banned / not banned. In this instance, people might want a sensible pragmatic government to levy against companies that have high numbers of items ending up in eWaste processing (or discarded in fly tipping) and offer reductions to companies that invest in eWaste processing and collection. There are also legitimate total lifetime cost of item models that suggest clean, fast, simple manufacturing that leads to a product hard to deconstruct might actually be "cheaper" in time, resources, and energy across a large consumer population than a functionally equivalent item designed to be "unbuilt" and rebuilt (ie repaired).
  - streetfighter64 6mo ago
    > clean, fast, simple manufacturing that leads to a product hard to deconstruct This seems like a total fantasy. Do you actually have any examples of non-repairability making the process cheaper? Sure there are lots of economical incentives to making stuff that you use until it breaks and then throw away, but that's just because the cost of e.g. mining metals or taking care of e-waste are externalized, due to using unethical labor in third world countries. If the "large consumer population" of the west actually had to bear the real cost of the electronics they produce, things would be vastly different.

skywhopper 6mo ago

Regulation is the only reasonable answer to this sort of problem. The specific suggestion may not be the best possible regulation, but we have several hundred years of proof that individual market-based action cannot solve what is basically an insurance problem.

bluegatty 6mo ago

"No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one." Fair to push back ... but your assertion implies one of the greater fallacies of free markets. Free markets don't magically work like that. When there are only a handful of participants in any given market, they don't provide all the options as we would like. It's 100% true that Apple makes some 'good tradeoffs' for build quality - but it's also 100% true that they make tradeoffs for vendor lockin. Lightning connectors are great examples of that. The answer may be regulation. It depends, and it has to be careful. While it's a very 'iffy' situation with respect to keyboards, if we move the conversation to 'batteries' you can see how we might want regs that enable some way for consumers to mechanically replace batteries - and definitely 3rd party repair - and plausibly enable standard 3rd party batteries. These companies have incredibly monopoly and monopoly power, they reason their margins are so high is partly because of demand, but also because of 'market power' which can significantly distort innovation (think apps on iPhone, totally captured market etc). Unfortunately it's never so easy as 'always regulate or always not'.

wolvoleo 6mo ago

> No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one. It's a good solution. Even if you don't want to repair your meachine, it would be worth more on the second-hand market meaning less ewaste for society in general. > One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other. The neo gets pretty glossy build quality reviews and is one of the most repairable macs in decades.

fuzzfactor 6mo ago
Before Apple ever came along, failure to engineer in all kinds of extreme repairability was a recognized hallmark of unsuitability for mission-critical applications. Widely distributed repair manuals were of course table-stakes too. Woz was well-aware of this from HP's legendary performance at the time. It's just not easy to stay on the most correct path when there are so many shiny distractions. Now the Neo sounds like a step in the right direction. >one of the most repairable macs in decades. With the Neo they could be jumping right back on the right path from a distance. Which is an improvement but it does also show they could have been doing it the entire time if they had the serious commitment to mission-critical users. The only real way for it to be a game-changer is if they actually change their game :)
- wolvoleo 6mo ago
  They will change their game in some ways, or they'll have to stop selling in the EU. I'm sure the Neo was engineered for this. Apple really hate re-engineering mac cases. Even the plastic macbook that had a huge design flaw (the cracking topcase because of the screen bezel spacers crushing it), had this flaw for 4 years until they finally fixed it, and that was not really to fix the problem but because they wanted to do a glossy new design. For some reason they preferred fixing the topicase over and over for free instead of just fixing the problem. And it wouldn't have needed much. All that would have been needed was to modify the screen bezel: Make the plastic spacers either a lot wider (to spread out the pressure) or of a softer material. It's pretty insane they didn't even bother to redesign such a simple plastic part. I had mine replaced 3 times over the 6 years I used it. Sometimes with some complaints as I had replaced the LCD with a matte panel (the plastic macbook used an atrocious quality ultra-reflecting TN screen with shit viewing angles). But they always did it for free after some pressure. So I can imagine they wanted to be ahead of the game this time because the EU will set a deadline and they hate doing redesigns. I can't fathom why they hate doing that so much though. I worked in manufacturing too and we did small tweaks periodically, every 2-3 months or so there'd be a minor hardware revision to take comments from QA into account or to optimize for pricing & availability of components. Usually not the kind of redesign an untrained eye actually would notice. But Apple somehow just hates it.

mrob 6mo ago

Consumer choice only works when there's a free market. Computer systems are encumbered by copyright and patent monopolies, so there's no free market. I can't buy a third-party Macbook. Because these monopolies are granted by the state it's reasonable for the state to correct any market failures they cause with regulation.

mexicocitinluez 6mo ago

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mentalgear 6mo ago

I was hoping with the new Replaceable Battery Law from the EU entering this summer, all (i)Phones and tablets were to become easily repairable / battery swap-able. I was super disappointed learning recently, when considering why the new iPads weren't build to be easily open-able like the new Macbook Neo, that there's a pretty big loophole the lobby got in: if you can proof your battery lasts for 1000 cycles with 80% capacity remaining, you can exempt yourself and still seal the device in a user not-openable fashion. (btw: people claiming that it has to be this way because of "waterproof": just no. Devices have existed before the whole glue sealing non-sense Apple introduced and exist now that are equally waterproof without glueing it all together to keep user's from the hardware. And even if you think it is that, it still wouldn't make sense to glue laptops and desktop pcs together who don't even claim to be waterproof) At least there is a bright side: The EU Repairability Law is still pushing companies to make their devices more repairable - by demanding that professional repair must be possible from independent professionals and tech manufacturers must also provide repair parts for x years.

dahcryn 6mo ago

also, let's not conflate easy to repair with cheap to repair. The macbook is quite easy to repair, it's just insanely expensive because they made the choice that, for user experience, they attach the keyboard to the machines body. You can have ease of repair and build quality, but then you give up portability I guess (bulky and heavy). And also cost goes up

nandomrumber 6mo ago

No. You are wrong. There are Apple laptops, and other devices, that were relatively easy to service and were lauded for their build quality.

yokoprime 6mo ago

this is such a classic american reply. "vote with your wallet" and "the market decides". thing is most people don't care, don't complain or are not in a situation where they can "vote with their wallet". truth is, some regulation must exist to nudge companies is the right direction. a good example of this is e.g disposable vapes, people love them for some reason, but they are extremely wasteful.

9rx 6mo ago
Trouble is that regulation isn't imposed by an omnipotent deity in the sky. In a democracy, regulation must come from the very same people who you say don't care, don't complain, and aren't willing to change their habits. Given that you say the people don't care, aren't willing to change, and perhaps even prefer the status quo, regulation isn't going to magically appear.

ryanmcbride 6mo ago

I'd like to know what planet you live on where a single time over the last 50 years a company has done one solitary thing that was good for the consumer without having the gun of regulation against their head.

jollyllama 6mo ago

> One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other. You're making an oversimplification. You could make a heavier, thicker device with those same qualities that was repairable.

mcv 6mo ago

Unibody Macbooks had excellent build quality (except for their vulnerability to spilled drinks), but were very repairable. I don't see how build quality and repairability have to be opposites.

hliyan 6mo ago

I assume you consider this a bad solution because the free market would always converge on the right solution(s), including reparable machines. However, if all participants (in this case manufacturers) in a market conclude that: (1) product B has a lower profit margin than product A, and (2) product B is superior enough to eventually become the dominant variant and (3) the market size is fairly static and (4) the first mover on product B is unlikely to maintain a lead for very long, then all participants would choose to suppess product B, even without having to resort to collusion. Not only that, if the manufacturers consider regulation to be a market in its own right, i.e. it is available for purchase (which it de facto is in countries where lobbying is legal), then market forces will also drive regulation away from product B. To me, this explains why some products peak in build quality sometime after innovation plateaus, and the continue to diminish over time (usually measured in decades). Some household appliances have already reached this stage. For Apple products, this phenomenon may still be in the future.

zackmorris 6mo ago

MostlyStable, are you a deregulation zealot? By extension, are you also an antitrust enforcement denier? Also by extension, do you understand the term late-stage capitalism? Because if you truly believe that regulation isn't necessary, then you are either ok with, or unaware that, unregulated capitalism ends in monopoly (or duopoly to keep up appearances). A free market only has a chance of existing under regulation, otherwise it's immediately gamed to maximize profit, which leads to runaway wealth inequality (the antithesis of a free market). In other words, a €730 ($835) top case replacement is only allowed to exist because your worship of deregulation prevents the very competition that you yearn for. I don't normally word my comments this strongly, but we seem to have lost our BS detectors since yours is the top comment. Remember that it's ok to change your mind. So I'm not criticizing you, but the mindset that's allowing fundamental mistakes to not only go unchallenged, but be celebrated.

renewiltord 6mo ago
Lol I think watching the entirety of the EU run on shitty plastic laptops that are government approved would really top the British fight against heatwaves by smearing yoghurt on their windows. I think I’d really enjoy this. Yes, please do this.
piekvorst 6mo ago
s/zealot/advocate/ s/denier/opponent/ s/late-stage capitalism/socialist propaganda/ If you're asking genuinely: 1. It's wrong to assume beforehand that the other party is irrational. 2. To refute the other side, you have to engage with their strongest argument. This is an intellectual issue, and no intellectual issue could be resolved by dismissal.

Melatonic 6mo ago

Then why do newer Apple devices have significantly better repairability vs older ones ? The build quality has gone down?

tracker1 6mo ago

+1 here... Lenovo business laptops have a history of being particularly good at being user repairable. I'm probably going to go with Framework myself whenever I do upgrade. Still using an M1 air, which suites my day to day needs, I don't develop on it, as I can remote to my desktop from anywhere.