Apple on Right to Repair: We Want Customers to Be Confident Their Products Will Be 'Repaired Safely and Correctly'

[LordVic]

Apple's rejection of 'right to repair' shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

this is the same company afterall who refused to replace batteries on devices that "passed" their incomplete tests, even if the user was willing to pay. All to drive people to "new" purchases instead.

Tim Cook's Avarice knows no bounds.

if I buy a piece of hardware. I OWN that piece of hardware. I have the right to do anything I want to it, EVEN if that renders the device an expensive paperweight. Apple has no right to dictate to me who or where I can get a device repaired, nor do they as a corporation have the right to dictate to me whether or not I can repair, dismantle or even blend their product if I so chose.

willingly with-holding parts to repair, or rejecting 3rd party repairs for any device I legally own is anti-consume and soley intended to drive business to an exclusive vendor.

And companies that behave in such a manner don't get more of my money.
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This may not be the AASP's fault. I've seen reports of Apple preventing them from stocking up on certain parts.

It does depend on the repair though. Even Apple can't do the less-common ones in-store.

From my undersetanding what we've seen in a few AASP's is that Apple doesn't let certain parts be stocked at all. The AASPs must order them directly from Apple, ONLY upon receipt of a malfunctioning part. This means that even AASP's cannot provide short time turn arounds for many products as they still must wait on Apple to approve the repair and send replacement.

was watching one of those Louis Rossman videos in which he was showcasing that there was a common failure on certain Apple logic boards in their laptops. The chips in question are proprietary and only purchasable from Apple. The manufacturer of the chips will not sell those chips to anyone else. The chips are about $5, and don't really feature anything tremendously out of the ordinary in functionality, only that Apple designed the logic board in such a way that ONLY that chip would work there.

When he orders spare motherboards for chip scraps, All the mothersboards shipped to him have had those specific chips cut off the board before apple sends them. This means that each time he had to replace that single chip, He has had to per request, go to Apple to get a new specific chip. Turning a repair that might take him an hour into several days long wait.

 

[redheeler]

I would have to agree with Tim on this. Nobody wants bad repairs to happen and the more problems being caused.

Sometimes it's better just to trust Apple because I believe they'll do better than a lot of other "experts" who try to fix Apple products.

The only thing Tim can do is lower the price of repairs. So if someone goes in with a water spill, they can help them out without charging too much.

It's the high prices, in part, that make customers want the right to repair I think.

Competition from independent repair shops could persuade Apple to lower their prices. Otherwise it isn't going to happen because Apple knows they effectively have a monopoly on most repairs of their products. (Yes, AASPs exist but are tightly controlled, and Apple can simply refuse to sell parts to them with no penalties.)

The exception to the monopoly is some common repairs like shattered screen glass on iPhones. Many people aren't willing to spend $150 on an iPhone 6s worth less than that as a whole, and cheaper third-party options do exist. The problem is that you'll typically be getting a cheap knock-off part instead of a genuine Apple one, because Apple refuses to sell the genuine parts to non-AASPs. This is a much worse scenario than a genuine Apple part installed by a non-Apple technician.

 

[LordVic]

Apple should really be getting ahead of this rather than being seen to be dragged kicking and screaming to it. There's a strong environmental argument to make repairs as freely and cheaply available as possible to keep kit running rather than it being ending up in landfill. Far better a product continues to be used than is recycled.

Simply put. Apple will not support right to repair because a lot of their current repair/warranty is based around exclusively locking you into them or their paid support shops for repairs. Supporting right to repair legislation would directly cost Apple revenue.

When you open up a Macbook, iPad or iPhone, everything is glued and soldered together these days. There's a very good chance a shoddy repair of one part could damage other parts.

Yes. But as a buyer, I reserve the right to take that risk should I deem warranted.

 

[Hieveryone]

Competition from independent repair shops could persuade Apple to lower their prices. Otherwise it isn't going to happen because Apple knows they effectively have a monopoly on most repairs of their products. (Yes, AASPs exist but are tightly controlled, and Apple can simply refuse to sell parts to them with no penalties.)

The exception to the monopoly is some common repairs like shattered screen glass on iPhones. Many people aren't willing to spend $150 on an iPhone 6s worth less than that as a whole, and cheaper third-party options do exist. The problem is that you'll typically be getting a cheap knock-off part instead of a genuine Apple one, because Apple refuses to sell the genuine parts to non-AASPs. This is a much worse scenario than a genuine Apple part installed by a non-Apple technician.

Yeah I mean I don’t know of any AASPs in my area. My point is the people wouldn’t be asking for right repair as much, possibly, if repairs weren’t so expensive.

 

[mikethemartian]

ROFLMHWPCAO

Let me tell you a story.

My dad took his car in to his preferred dealership for a brake fluid flush.

He asked me to replace the rotors and pads.

When you replace brake pads, they're thicker than the old ones, so you end up pushing the caliper pistons back, pushing brake fluid back into the master cylinder reservoir.

The fluid was dark.

No, in case you're wondering, that shouldn't happen on a supposedly freshly (days ago) flushed brake system.*

So, the dealership, that you are assuming would be more trustworthy/competent than say... me ... failed.

My dad called to complain, and was told that it would take up to three flushes for the fluid to not be dark.

That, is pure and total ... BS.

I ordered some Castrol SRF and did it myself. Guess what? The fluid is clear.

What you are proposing above, is nonsense.


*Yes, typically one would flush the system *after* replacing the pads. My father and I couldn't get our schedulesand the dealer appointment schedule to work in a way that allowed that before he was going on a trip, so he had attempted to get the system flushed days before I performed the rotor and pad replacement. On the flip side, had we waited until after I replaced the pads for him to go the the dealer for service, we may have never known that the car still had old fluid in the system instead of new.

I was surprised to find out about ten years ago that an authorized Honda dealership wasn’t required by American Honda to follow its service guidelines. A lot of dealers offer flush services for automatic transmissions. I had one done and then later when I had transmission problems (which turned out to be from a different cause) I came across a Honda tech bulletin that told dealers not to flush automatic transmissions. When I asked an American Honda customer relations person about it they told me if I had any issues to take it up with the dealer as they were not required to follow the Honda guidelines. I had always assumed before then that when you took your car into the dealer they were required to follow manufacturer standards.

 

[gavroche]

My counter to this is to point at cars.... Which are protected by Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act passed in 1975. Simple fact is to void a warrenty it is on the manufacture to prove that the changes were the direct cause of the failure. They are not required to warranty repairs done by non authorized but they are required to prove the non authorized was the direct cause of another failure.
Also they are required to supply the tools and parts for repairs.

How would you feel if you could only take your cars to dealerships for any repairs or any maintenance. You were not allowed to them yourself. If you think dealerships prices are high now imagine what they would be if they had no competition.

So you think what makes a good policy for cars (which can't just easily be shipped to the manufacturer or authorized dealer all the time) should be the same exact policy for everything? You cannot envision and differences and distinctions that can exist?

 

[BGPL]

Does Apple actually think people are buying their explanations for greediness? It's nothing short of insulting to say Apple cares about my devices working well. I'm trained in electronics repair, probably 10x more than the 18 year old sitting in the back of the Apple store. Give me access to OEM digitizers and let me worry about my own device.

 

[Khedron]

Apple broke a customer's laptop, gave it back pretending nothing happened and denied all responsibility

 

[Anarchy99]

How do you keep a secure enclave secured, if everyone can physically access it?

EASILY


look at whats the deal with SMCs, they are encrypted, the code is not available, attempting to clone one corrupts the original.
no one has ever successfully cloned one to our knowledge.

so the only way to fix a hardware SMC issue is to find a donor logic board of the same generation/model and swap them.

T2 is worse because its encrypted code but also married to other hashed info making it specific to that laptop so swaps similar to SMC's dont work.

so how could apple if they wanted to solve this either:

1) make a portal online for techs to supply the serial# and other hashable requirements and then apple could sell/ship a T2 chip tied to that device.

2) they could sell blank T2's that are write once and a programmer so tech could do it themselves


3) they could remove the marriage requirement so if you use a unpaired T2 so you loose apple pay/secure enclave but dont turn the entire computer into a paperweight.


etc.

 

[Khedron]

I have a iPhone 7 Plus which I wiped with alcohol wipes and the alcohol magically slipped inside the screen and now I have a dead brick. Repairing it cost nearly or close to the price of a new iPhone 7 Plus sold under discount here.
Why is it so expensive?!

So you think "might as well buy a new iPhone then"

 

[kazmac]

So much for bring environmentally green.

Now bringing in the green? Of course.

 

[Khedron]

Here at Apple, we want to make sure that no one, not even us, can repair your computer. That way, we can make sure that you have to buy a new one every time it fails. Because believe us, it will fail. The battery, the GPU, the screen cable, the keyboard, the screen coating... yep, all of that will fail, maybe even several times a year. We might cover it under warranty if you're lucky, but trust us, eventually, you'll be out of luck.

You know what happens when a single key on the keyboard stops working? You buy a new one. No, not a new keyboard. A new computer. And you know what happens when the battery swells up inside your computer? Well, you know it! You buy a new computer. Want to get data off your dead logic board? Nope, buy a new computer.

So lately we've been putting this magical chip inside every computer we make, called the T2 chip. We love it! You know what it does, besides constantly crashing? It makes repairing your computer impossible. You see, every T2 chip is unique. You can't just replace them. We don't sell them. You can't make them. Only we can sell them, but we don't. Because, seriously, just buy a new computer. They're only like the price of a car anyway.

"You can buy a new computer every year for less than the price of a Starbucks a day" -- Tim Cook

 

[Juicy Box]

When you open up a Macbook, iPad or iPhone, everything is glued and soldered together these days. There's a very good chance a shoddy repair of one part could damage other parts.

Why this may all be true, this alone doesn't mean that a warranty should be voided just because work was done by the user to address an unrelated problem. Now, if a warranty claim was made to fix something the user broke while trying to fix something else, then that is a different story.

Also, maybe certain things shouldn't be glued and soldered as much as they are.

 

[Khedron]

When you open up a Macbook, iPad or iPhone, everything is glued and soldered together these days. There's a very good chance a shoddy repair of one part could damage other parts.

When a terrorist takes hostages there's a very good chance a shoddy rescue of one person could hurt other people... so best just change the law to give them whatever they want?

 

[mikethemartian]

As far as I know car manufacturers are not requires to publish their factory service manuals to the public. Most do sell parts, to anyone who wants to pay for them (or at least to authorized repair shops) and there's a thriving 3rd party parts and repair market.

I don't see how your comparison to Apple is any different: Apple declines to provide take-apart and service manuals to the public, sells parts to authorized repair shops and there's a thriving 3rd party parts and repair market.
in both cases, 3rd party repair doesn't necessarily void any warranty coverage, but the 3rd party parts themselves and any damaged cause by them or in the process of a non-authorized repair installing such parts are not covered failures under Apple's warranty.

I don’t know if they were legally required to but I was able to purchase the official Honda service manuals for my Accord from a company called Helm which sells official OEM manuals for several auto manufacturers. I think the thing that’s hard to get from, at least, Honda are service bulletins and computer codes.

 

[farmboy]

If they are designed for repairability, this shouldn't happen.

Really? First of all, "repairability" to what level of intricacy? Circuit boards, individual transistors, whatever components you can see with the naked eye? Then it becomes "whatever's convenient" to repair.

Repairability has absolutely nothing to do with reliability. In fact a case can be made for just the opposite.

 

[0989382]

Apple broke a customer's laptop, gave it back pretending nothing happened and denied all responsibility

He's truly the biggest downer on YouTube

 

[farmboy]

Then the case would immediately be thrown out as Apple would not be the responsible party. The place that did the repairs would be.

So easy to say....so difficult to establish actual legal liability.

 

[gaximus]

Can you imagine if you couldn't even do an oil change on your own care because GM has proprietary bolts that prevent access to your vehicles mechanics. And the only option was to take it to the authorized dealer who tells you "yeah we can change the oil but you're out of warranty so it'll run you about 1,200 but really a new engine is 2,500 so you should just get that" This is essentially what apple does

Then I wouldn't buy a GM. It would be my decision to not buy it, it would hurt their sales, and they would change their policy. But it should be GM's right to do so. If Apple wants to do the same, then it should be allowed. There is no need for government intervention in the free market.

 

[Khedron]

If you tolerate this next we'll have...

McDonalds on Right to Cook: We Want Customers to Be Confident Their Food Will Be Prepared Safely and Healthily

Uber on Right to Walk: We Want Customers to Be Confident Their Journey Will Be Completed Safely and Quickly

Amazon on Right to Shop: We Want Customers to Be Confident Their Purchases Will Be Delivered Safely and Cheaply

...

 

[Dirtfarmer]

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/9mlkha/apple_quotes_customer_1200_to_fix_one_bent_pin_on/

LOL

 

[nvmls]

Ah ok Timmy, thats why you guys solder everything now.. thank god you are looking after us, who'd have thought.

 

[blucable]

Apple just wants to have full control of the product throughout its whole life-cycle. I knew apple was vicious and greedy but this is extremism already.

 

[apolloa]

LOL, Rossman is a freakin tool. An Apple issue is amplified to Armageddon levels with him. I’d actually prefer to watch the other “Notorious Lou” over Rossman.

I couldn’t agree anymore.. he’s a total idiot, I did sub to him for a bit but his insistence pure hatred for Apple, way way way way way worst then anything I’ve said, gets incredibly tiresome and I stopped watching his videos as literally every single one just slanders Apple! I obviously un-subbed from him.
He even posted a video when he streamed himself for some court case with Apple and the lawyer even started by commenting on his constant criticism of Apple!

Now as for snazzy tech labs,he’s an awesome guy and only criticises when it’s valid, he’s buying the new Mac Pro and still uses his iMac Pro.

 

[Khedron]

Then I wouldn't buy a GM. It would be my decision to not buy it, it would hurt their sales, and they would change their policy. But it should be GM's right to do so. If Apple wants to do the same, then it should be allowed. There is no need for government intervention in the free market.

Presumably your libertarianism also extends to the government not intervening by protecting Apple's patents and copyrights, so 3rd party repairers can just buy parts without being sued by Apple? Problem solved that way too.