Supposing I said I could build something as intricate and precise as you could but using standard tools.
Would that make me the better engineer or you?
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iFixit Says Apple's Self Service Repair Program is Great Step, But Has a Catch
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Would that make me the better engineer or you?
True, but then phones looked like this too "back in the day". I'd rather pay apple care than the chiropractor for my eventual hip issues from carrying that brick around all day even though I could open that thing with a simple t6 bit and a butter knife. Still, the choice to fix it yourself or not is a good thing.
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No, but allowing self repair means that third-party repair shops can provide that service for you instead of you being tied to the whims of the phone's manufacturer. You don't have to do the repair yourself if you don't want to.
Exactly that.
I really think that the companies being quiet on right to repair know it's going to mean they can reject a lot of warranty claims and push the responsibility for a warranty on to the end user.
If you ever see any of my early complaints about RTR then you will see me stating that we should have much better warranties, statutory buy back and recycling schemes, fixed price repairs for all consumer good sold. That is the only way we get the best outcome for the customer and for the environment. RTR isn't anywhere near there.
Pretty sure the chewing gum wrapper and duct tape contingent should sit down and shut up at this point. Too many arm chair engineers here who’ve fixed a hair dryer and think they’re Sir James Dyson, but they’re really Rube Goldberg.
The best engineer would deliver the product in budget, on time and with the desired quality. Then work back to what tooling was required to support the market.
This is what Apple are doing. That's what I would do too.
I feel like all the PC hobbyist PCMR people think everything should be designed like a desktop PC and that’s just not how the world works, for better or worse. So it ends up being the lowest common denominator squeaky wheels who really aren’t helping anyone out and that wasn’t really their intention anyways. It was just to be squeaky wheels. Awful lot of people complaining but not a lot of solutions from those same people.
That's actually the first thing that I thought when I heard this.
I'd hope that as they take a reserve a deposit on your card for the toolkit that they inspect it when it comes back and then charge for replacement drivers which have been knackered.
You do understand that anything beyond the rock that Grog used to bonk his dinner over the head some 10,000 years ago is considered a custom specialty tool?
I hope that they at some point pony up and do indeed release schematics for board level repairs. They again claim those are only possible in their factory environment but in the end there are a ton of independent repair shops that can and will do board level repair on iPhones and Macs. The fact that the program is extremely limited means this is more of PR stunt and a bid for preventing a real right to repair law that would force them to do this.
As a longtime iFixit customer I’m so glad they are around to keep Apple honest, and us better informed, on this issue. Let’s give Apple the gratitude it deserves for making this change, at long last, but not be lulled into complacency — these warnings about so-called System Configuration are warranted and can’t be ignored.
Ow yes there is a catch, iFixit does not get a piece of the pie ??
As someone who has had an iPhone wrecked by third-party repair, I'm deeply skeptical of the complaints by third-party repair businesses. Verified parts-to-the-phone seems like a terrific idea to me, not that I would still be using that old iPhone today ??
Now all the options are there for replacing parts that typically break more often
Choose wisely by your repair skill set, how far you are from an Apple Store or authorized repair and if you would rather have Applecare+
Most importantly keep in mind that if you damage (while repairing) a part that Apple doesn’t currently sell for self-fix it could be expensive
Choose wisely by your repair skill set, how far you are from an Apple Store or authorized repair and if you would rather have Applecare+
Most importantly keep in mind that if you damage (while repairing) a part that Apple doesn’t currently sell for self-fix it could be expensive
Spot on.
I am personally fine with them associated serial numbers with the device. That seems pretty logical to me tbh. If you eventually later brought it in for repair later, they should be able to figure out what happened to it?
This self-repair system seems like an unexpectedly good response. I just checked online. If I want to replace the battery in my iPhone 12 Pro, the whole kit is $71 and after trade in of the old part, about $25 is refunded. If I were feeling very bored I might do that, but honestly at $70 for an out of warranty in store repair I feel like that is easier as my time is more worthwhile. I expected them to price gouge on the repair kits.
The right to repair movement is a good one, but this from iFixit just seems like them being salty and self-serving.
Personally though, I maintain that for the most part, this issue is a lot more nuanced than the internet makes it out to be. I feel like this store is a good step towards making the two major issues people have (screens and batteries) more accessible to repair, which is great, because even if a screen break is your fault it shouldn't be so obscenely expensive to fix, and the ability to extend the lifespan of your $1000 phone another 2 years for $45 is well worth it. However, speaking more broadly about modern consumer electronics, I don't find user customizability/modding to be a valid reason for right to repair.
- If you simply make the smart decision to get at least 16 gb of RAM on a modern computer, you should be fine for the life of the computer. It's not like 2008 where your MacBook comes with 2 or 4 GB of RAM and by 2012 or 2013 advancements in software render 2 or 4 GB of RAM unusable. If you are the average user (read: not a YouTuber) and you got an iMac with 16 gb of RAM in 2017, it should still be not just usable but plenty fine today.
- Again, back in the day, your first generation unibody aluminum MacBook loses a bunch of battery life and goes from 4 hours to 1.5 hours, that's a huge deal and it makes sense for it to be replaceable. Now, if your battery degrades a little bit over time, it is going from say 11 hours to 8 hours and it's not as significant an impediment in your day to day life.
I think the actual longevity of their products is actually improving quite dramatically without even the need for replacement. In 3 years of owning an iPhone X it never once felt slow. A 2018 iPad Pro is still massive overkill for iPadOS and buttery smooth with 120hz Promotion 4 years later, and will probably remain that way for another few years. Many people can use a 7 year old MacBook Pro without issue, eg I know many people that got a MacBook Pro for college and used it throughout college and professional school. Especially now with Apple Silicon, where performance is egregiously overkill at every price point and very efficient, I foresee no reason, for example, for my M1 Pro MBP to be replaced until the end of this decade.
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Two things here.
1. iFixIt doesn’t care about your right to repair, they only care about their (non-existent) “right” to make money off of your right to repair. It’s all about money, and convincing you that your rights are being infringed is their way of doing it. Apple cut iFixIt out of the equation by requiring the serial numbers to be recorded, which means no $$$ for iFixIt. What do they do? Accuse Apple of being hostile. They say it’s towards users, but no, it’s towards iFixIt’s bottom line. Who, aside from the skilled tech enthusiast or person with too much time on their hands, is going to want to repair their own device? It’s complicated, requires extreme precision and messing it up could cause additional expenses. Your average person doesn’t care to try and iFixIt knows this. They know their market consists of vocal right to repair activists who will kick and scream as loud as iFixIt will. For the people in the back, I’ll repeat, your average person (aka not someone reading a tech blog) probably has no interest in right to repair.
2. Having said that, we’re left with the advanced users and iFixIt. They’ve kicked and screamed for years to be able to repair their own devices and Apple finally allows it, but even then, that’s still not good enough. Problem is, they’re making demands from a tech company who is KNOWN to be against customization and repair. I’m not saying don’t ever ask for things, but damn, know who you’re dealing with.
Apple is absolutely right about their users. They’re picky, they don’t know what they want and even after all those “wants” are met, the efforts still are not good enough. You have to wonder why Apple rarely, if ever, gives in; this is why.
The best part about this is not only did Apple do the right thing, but they cut out iFixIt for being disingenuous about their right to repair demands being “for the people” when it was just for their pocketbook, just like Apple did with the Epic/Fornite lawsuit.
1. iFixIt doesn’t care about your right to repair, they only care about their (non-existent) “right” to make money off of your right to repair. It’s all about money, and convincing you that your rights are being infringed is their way of doing it. Apple cut iFixIt out of the equation by requiring the serial numbers to be recorded, which means no $$$ for iFixIt. What do they do? Accuse Apple of being hostile. They say it’s towards users, but no, it’s towards iFixIt’s bottom line. Who, aside from the skilled tech enthusiast or person with too much time on their hands, is going to want to repair their own device? It’s complicated, requires extreme precision and messing it up could cause additional expenses. Your average person doesn’t care to try and iFixIt knows this. They know their market consists of vocal right to repair activists who will kick and scream as loud as iFixIt will. For the people in the back, I’ll repeat, your average person (aka not someone reading a tech blog) probably has no interest in right to repair.
2. Having said that, we’re left with the advanced users and iFixIt. They’ve kicked and screamed for years to be able to repair their own devices and Apple finally allows it, but even then, that’s still not good enough. Problem is, they’re making demands from a tech company who is KNOWN to be against customization and repair. I’m not saying don’t ever ask for things, but damn, know who you’re dealing with.
Apple is absolutely right about their users. They’re picky, they don’t know what they want and even after all those “wants” are met, the efforts still are not good enough. You have to wonder why Apple rarely, if ever, gives in; this is why.
The best part about this is not only did Apple do the right thing, but they cut out iFixIt for being disingenuous about their right to repair demands being “for the people” when it was just for their pocketbook, just like Apple did with the Epic/Fornite lawsuit.
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Honestly, if i were gonna repair my Apple devices, i would rather take my devices to Apple or somewhere Apple Authorized (like Best Buy for example like i did with my first iPod Touch last year which seem to be defective, i was lucky my iPod was replaced for free since it was under warranty)
I kinda don't like going third-party unless its an absolute last resort.
I kinda don't like going third-party unless its an absolute last resort.
They absolutely do think that way, and it'd be funny if they weren't so damned smug about it. That's the crowd who Linus Sebastian panders to... why are people in such a hurry to make Mac's more like Windows PC's, and iPhones more like Android phones, when PC's and Androids already exist and are readily available for purchase?
Apple is just covering their bases before the new law drops. They are not doing this out of their own good heart. They can only push it as far as they can until the government finally has to step in and force their hand. Doing this the final hours aint going to win any points for some people. Only w/ Apple fans.
Third party repair has always been an absolute last resort. Right to repair has nothing to do with warrantied repairs. It is specifically about non-warrantied repairs. Either repairs for damage caused by something that isn't covered under warranty (like liquid damage - which is one of the most common reasons for an in-warranty device to be denied warranty service), or for repairs on devices where the warranty has expired. If all probable causes of damage was covered under warranty, and authorized service centers were available everywhere, there would be no need for third-party repair at all.
"Buy AppleCare" as some people are advocating is not a complete solution. AppleCare is an extended warranty, nothing more. It still covers only certain types of repairs for certain types of damage, and it is a relatively costly form of insurance.