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> "everything is becoming sleeker, smaller, more sealed together and more difficult to open" Except, this isn't true, in my experience. At least not with Apple

> "everything is becoming sleeker, smaller, more sealed together and more difficult to open" Except, this isn't true, in my experience. At least not with Apple iOS devices. Quite the opposite. Apple is starting to offer repair services for their iOS line, particularly phones, and their devices haven't gotten harder to open up and repair, they've gotten easier. The iPad 2 is notoriously one of the hardest, repairable iOS devices to dig into. The iPad iterations after the iPad 2 are much, much easier. The iPhone 5 take just a few minutes to replace the screen. Source: I worked for one of the largest iOS device repair companies.

sigmar 13y ago
It is pretty hard to look at the use of proprietary pentalobe screws in all apple hardware and not come to the conclusion that they are actively discouraging DIY repairs
r0h1n 13y ago
Since I don't have any first hand experience of having repaired iDevices, I'll go by iFixit's scores. Let's take the current+last generation of their repairability scores for the iPhone and iPad (10/10 being the most repairable): iPhone 5s: 6/10 iPhone 5: 7/10 iPad Air: 2/10 iPad 4: 2/10 Based on these I can't see how Apple's devices are getting easier to open or repair?
- randomdrake 13y ago
  That's quite interesting. I don't know what iFixit uses for their scoring system, so I couldn't comment on their findings. I left the company as repairs for the 5s and newer iPads were just becoming more popular. It's possible that they were getting better up to the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 and have started to decline since. Repairing devices and offering repairs for screen replacements and such, in-store, is fairly new for Apple. I wouldn't be surprised if they were on their way towards making repairs easier but realized they were making it a bit too easy and went back on it. The 5 was so easy to open up and repair compared to the 4s and the 3 compared to the 2 was night and day. So, maybe it was just a temporary blip on the radar and there wasn't a trend at all. Or, there was a trend and it was intentionally reversed. But it at least seemed to be the direction things were headed. Either way: I updated my original comment to include "in my experience" if they really have gotten worse again.

sigmar 13y ago

It is pretty hard to look at the use of proprietary pentalobe screws in all apple hardware and not come to the conclusion that they are actively discouraging DIY repairs

r0h1n 13y ago

Since I don't have any first hand experience of having repaired iDevices, I'll go by iFixit's scores. Let's take the current+last generation of their repairability scores for the iPhone and iPad (10/10 being the most repairable): iPhone 5s: 6/10 iPhone 5: 7/10 iPad Air: 2/10 iPad 4: 2/10 Based on these I can't see how Apple's devices are getting easier to open or repair?

randomdrake 13y ago
That's quite interesting. I don't know what iFixit uses for their scoring system, so I couldn't comment on their findings. I left the company as repairs for the 5s and newer iPads were just becoming more popular. It's possible that they were getting better up to the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 and have started to decline since. Repairing devices and offering repairs for screen replacements and such, in-store, is fairly new for Apple. I wouldn't be surprised if they were on their way towards making repairs easier but realized they were making it a bit too easy and went back on it. The 5 was so easy to open up and repair compared to the 4s and the 3 compared to the 2 was night and day. So, maybe it was just a temporary blip on the radar and there wasn't a trend at all. Or, there was a trend and it was intentionally reversed. But it at least seemed to be the direction things were headed. Either way: I updated my original comment to include "in my experience" if they really have gotten worse again.