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The moment Linus decided to take apart his iMac was the moment he chose to take on the additional risk and bear the ensuing consequences.

Do you think it is a reasonable action to refuse service to a customer willing to pay to have the item repaired? It just seems batty that they won't take his money to fix the stupid thing and be done with it.
 
Do you think it is a reasonable action to refuse service to a customer willing to pay to have the item repaired? It just seems batty that they won't take his money to fix the stupid thing and be done with it.

In this particular case — where he pretty much trashed the entire computer because he needs a motherboard, power supply, and display — I don’t have a problem with Apple’s reaction. I don’t know what the costs of the parts is, but I based on what I remember from some posts of MacBook Pro prices I think 75% of the price of the unit might be a safe, albeit potentially low number. I’ve seen some logic board replacements that seemed in the "just buy a new computer" range.

If it was just the display, I think Apple would replace it. But the combination of killing those 3 parts puts us in a position I can see a repair place just saying it’s time to get a new computer.
 
Do you think it is a reasonable action to refuse service to a customer willing to pay to have the item repaired? It just seems batty that they won't take his money to fix the stupid thing and be done with it.

Yes. A company should be able to choose their business as long as it isn't discrimination.
 
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The watchmakers might be differentiated by one thing. I don't know much about them, so correct me if this isn't true. But I don't know if luxury watch companies sell refurbished or repaired watches to consumers. For example, if I buy a Rolex that breaks within the warranty period, and they give me a replacement Rolex - is the replacement "new" or is it "refurbished"? And in either case, what happens to my broken Rolex? Is it scrapped and recycled, or is it repaired and refurbished? As far as I know, these companies don't really refurbish products. The products are either always new, or if not new, they are marketed as used or clearly something other than new; there is new-equivalent like Apple does with refurbished. Thus, I don't think watch makers would be or should be under any obligation to provide service or replacement parts if they themselves don't want to make the repairs.

No, in the watch world nothing is refurbished or replaced. They are repaired or rather overhauled. As soon as the protective stickers are removed it is no longer really considered new or unworn but rather mint condition. Let’s say that you just bought a new Rolex and after a few days it’s running very fast or slow or there is a foreign speck on the dial that somehow was able to get in there, they would simply service the watch under warranty. They would never replace the watch with a new one like Apple would do with a computer. These are expensive things are built to last several lifetimes and nothing is thrown away with the exception of worn movement parts. If the bracelets are stretched and worn, they will replace it and keep the old one but the price is steep. Over $2k for a SS bracelet and around $10k+ for solid 18kt gold or platinum. They definitely send them back to Switzerland. I’m guessing that they either melt them or repair them for VIP clients and auction houses who have very valuable vintage watches but might be missing the original bracelet or some other part. They unfortunately do not repair stretched bracelets for regular customers. This requires disassembling the entire thing and replacing all of the pins and screws which requires careful drilling and welding. Independent watchmakers can do it though for a reasonable price: $180 SS,$250 two tone and around $1k for gold. The only problem is waiting. Well known guys like Michael Young might take 2 months since they have a lot of business.

As for used watches, some sell pre-owned watches and some don’t. It depends on the boutique. The strongest performing brands as far as value retention or appreciation is concerned are Patek Philippe, Rolex and Audemars Piguet in that order. Everything else depreciates heavily no matter if it retailed for the same or more. They are serviced before resale if necessary and will be offered with some kind of warranty. However the majority of used watches are bought and sold by independent jewelers or what is called the grey market. They also sell brand new watches at a discount or premium if the case of models that are impossible to get for retail. In this case neither Rolex or any company honor the warranty for these watches but these dealers usually warranty the movement for a year. All of these watches are so well built that the warranty is really useless. The chances of something going wrong in 2-5 years are very small.
 
I don't understand how anyone can take apple's side here. Once you purchase something it's yours to do with as you please. Just because he voided the warranty doesn't mean he should be SOL if he wants to repair it. He ADMITS it's his fault that it's broken, therefor it's out of warranty. He does not dispute this. He simply wants Apple to repair it (for a fee) or to have apple ship the parts to him or a third party shop (again for a fee). This is absolutely reasonable to expect. I don't think companies should be able to refuse replacement parts for devices they sell. You should be able to repair things you purchase EVEN if you break them.

Did it occur to you that perhaps Apple does repair such cases just not for this guy. But for some reason refused this youtuber in particular ?

Mercedes could refuse to repair your car if had taken the engine apart. But they make money off it and would just sell u a new one. Apple has a diff. mind set. Mess with our stuff even though we tell u not to and you're on you're own.

Next time this particular Youtuber will just link to iFixit.com !
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Do you think it is a reasonable action to refuse service to a customer willing to pay to have the item repaired? It just seems batty that they won't take his money to fix the stupid thing and be done with it.
They do want his money. Just more of it. Instead of bothering with earning for a new display they can earn a whole new iMac. Not repairing his iMac Pro will force him to buy a new one :)
 
So, in this particular case, I don't have a problem with Apple's response. I mean, the guy field stripped the thing down to bare metal. I have no problem with Apple looking at an iMac Pro that was put back together and told up front that I need a new Power Supply, Display, and Motherboard (which is pretty much everything but the case) and Apple going, "nope. Not going near this one. Good luck."

I'm not sure what is up with the AASP. The cert is available, and if the parts were hard to get, they could at least backorder them. Maybe the AASP doesn't want to go near it either.

I don't think anyone would want to touch it. And certainly not warrant the repair, given the potential for undetected latent ESD failures.
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Do you think it is a reasonable action to refuse service to a customer willing to pay to have the item repaired? It just seems batty that they won't take his money to fix the stupid thing and be done with it.

Apple, or anybody else, would be crazy to take that on - especially if the company warranted the repair.
 
Your government must love you.

Making it difficult to verify is a valid reason to do so.

Apple products are as secure as it gets for pre-built stuff due to the OS and their own chip designs like the T2 and 338S00268 in this case. This is the truth. Mac users make up around 10% of all PCs in use. I would be much more concerned with PC OEMS and individual components for a custom build. Even their routers are less likely to be vulnerable than stuff from Linksys and Netgear or anything else Best Buy sells.
 
Apple could have easily avoided a PR problem by simply pricing the repair greater than the cost of replacement.
They did. The parts alone are $5,200.

For some reason, the you tuber doesn’t mention that. But he’s willing pay for the repairs—as if not paying for them is an option—with a “blank check”.

Cue the Internet outrage from the you tuber’s fans regarding the one-sided click-bait video. Kudos to him for figuring out how to monetize this.
 
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you didn't read or watch did you?

Yes, Linus broke his own damn device. This is not a point of contention of this thread. Yes he did so and voided his warranty. Also not the point of contention

the point of the video and the point of contention of this thread is the ease of access to repair and parts for repairs. Lets forget this is Linus who is notorious for ripping apart computers, and put yourself in his shoes.

you're cleaing your desk. You somehow through fluke knock your $5,000 computer off onto the floor and the display shatters. You take it to Apple and they tell you "you did this and voided your warranty".. but you really want your computer fixed, because you spent a lot of money on it in the first place.

You offer to pay for those repairs... They tell you no
You offer to pay for parts to make the repairs yourself... They Tell you no.

what this evidences, despite Linus' own obsession for destruction, is that there's a very real possibility that Apple will refuse service to devices and refuse parts for those devices at their own discretion. As a regular user of their products, this should be a bit of an anxiety producing discovery, because while Linus' case was extreme, how many others with less extreme cases were also refused / turned away, or in some cases only left with the option of buying a new device?

Apple is allowed to do this. But as a consumer, I want to know how good their "repair shops" are before I buy, just in case "**** hits the fan". This is one case that would sour me on Apple's support, considering back when I bought my computer from them, They were notorious for having top end support. Apple's current support reminds me of Dell during the dark days.

Gee it turns out he’s full of it. Many people actually looked into the facts and we have yet another attention-seeking brat lying to everybody.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/04/20/sebastian-imac-pro

 
You and I have a different standard of what “accidentally” entails.

There’s a reason why insurance premiums are linked to benchmarks such as age and overall fitness. Of course no one purposely sets out to fall ill, but our habits and life choices may naturally predispose is to certain outcomes.

I guess a more accurate way of phrasing this is - by choosing to remove the display, you are directly increasing your chances that something might happen to it. Yes, you didn’t set out to deliberately break the screen, but you dramatically increased the risk that something would happen to it as a result of your actions, and that’s something that wasn’t factored into calculating the cost of AppleCare.

AppleCare for desktops is likely as cheap as it is because Apple assumes that desktop is largely going to be sitting on your desk. You aren’t going to be moving it around, dropping it or spilling water on it, much less cracking it open to access the internals. Treated carefully, the chances of something happening to it is fairly low and the cheap warranty reflects this.

The moment Linus decided to take apart his iMac was the moment he chose to take on the additional risk and bear the ensuing consequences.

At least according to the email that Linus displayed, the reason it was not repaired was the lack of parts. The Apple store could not order them. The authorized dealer could not order them. It wasn't a warranty repair request.

I don't disagree that you take a chance opening your iMac Pro, but that wasn't the issue.

As far as the definition of accident... intent makes all the difference. They may have been stupid but they didn't intend to break it. Should they get a warranty repair? No. According to LTT, they didn't try.
 
The Apple store refused the repair. It’s not that they couldn’t get parts. They just sent him to an AASP.

Watch around 3:05 mark of the video. They explicitly state the reason Apple refused to fix it was because "Apple HQ refused to send them the parts they ordered." They sent them to an AASP because they couldn't get the parts themselves.

I have no idea of the reasoning behind it since it doesn't go into more detail.
 
It seems that nobody actually watched the video and understands what the story is...

The main point is that Apple refused to ship the replacement parts to an authorized third-party reseller because working on the iMac Pro requires a special certification that doesn't even exist yet, and it sounds like no repair instructions have been written either. Assuming this is actually true, that's quite unimpressive of Apple to release a product that they themselves don't even know how to fix.

Even more impressive if you read the story...

"However, Apple's internal iMac Pro Service Readiness Guide obtained by MacRumors states that ATLAS online training and learning resources for servicing the iMac Pro have been available in English since December."

So, I don't get why you claim the certification, which is not special but device-specific, like most repair training programs, was not available... Or do you only watch videos?
 
Wrong. No legal obligation to do so in the US, the UK, or anywhere else for that matter.
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Wrong again. To consumers, Dell will only sell you user-serviceable parts. On most models, this is limited to RAM, SSDS/HDDS and a couple of other minor bits.
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It's not the screen and reassembly. It's the screen, logic board (and ergo, GPU, etc too), power supply, potentially RAM and other bits which may have been fried/damaged.

So then Apple repair techs would test and give quotes on other components.
 
Do you think it is a reasonable action to refuse service to a customer willing to pay to have the item repaired? It just seems batty that they won't take his money to fix the stupid thing and be done with it.

Yes, especially if it would be cheaper to just get a new iMac Pro instead, and when repairing the device would put it back under warranty and potentially open yourself to more problems down the road if the iMac proceeds to malfunction due to some problem that was detected at this time.

I think that Apple could have been more upfront about this, but I don’t think they were wrong to refuse him service. If anything, ask yourself - why would Apple say no to free money if they were really in it for the profits?
 
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People keep using the car analogy. I know if I have any kind of serious accident with my car right now, my insurance company will not repair the car because the cost of repairs will certainly be more than the book value of the car.

Ever priced the cost of a car by the part? With the logic board, display, and power supply up for replacement (at a minimum) I wouldn't be surprised if the repair costs were greater than the that of a new system. Like a totaled car, it's probably a totaled system; it makes no economic sense to repair it. Linus knows this.
 
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Watch around 3:05 mark of the video. They explicitly state the reason Apple refused to fix it was because "Apple HQ refused to send them the parts they ordered." They sent them to an AASP because they couldn't get the parts themselves.

I have no idea of the reasoning behind it since it doesn't go into more detail.
Apple HQ may well have refused to send the parts they ordered because they cost $5,200, which exceeds the cost of a replacement unit.
 
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Watch around 3:05 mark of the video

2;05 (I’m not in a place to listen to the audio again at 3:05) is the form letter from Apple just declining the repair. The later email they show I think is Apple telling them their options if the AASP can’t get thr parts. I’ll listen again when I get home.
 
Apple products are as secure as it gets for pre-built stuff due to the OS and their own chip designs like the T2 and 338S00268 in this case. This is the truth. Mac users make up around 10% of all PCs in use. I would be much more concerned with PC OEMS and individual components for a custom build. Even their routers are less likely to be vulnerable than stuff from Linksys and Netgear or anything else Best Buy sells.

It is possible to be concerned about all of them.
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I know if I have any kind of serious accident with my car right now, my insurance company will not repair the car because the cost of repairs will certainly be more than the book value of the car.

That's not the car analogy. The question isn't about the insurance company. It's about the repair shop. The repair shop would likely be fine replacing every single part and charging you more than a new car.
 
This **** is a professional grade Apple hater. He’s bashed them so much he’s like trump,and his small hands. Overcompensating for something.

Not worth the clicks he’s just giggling at all the people watching his crap
 
Right to repair.

Think about it, what if your car manufacturer refused to sell you parts for a car you recently bought?

This is similar BS to Tesla not selling parts.

I don't understand how you can support such BS from manufacturers as consumers.

Louis Rossman is awesome.
 
This clown is a fraud, trying to monetize his YouTube channel and raising costs for everyone.
 
This **** is a professional grade Apple hater. He’s bashed them so much he’s like trump,and his small hands. Overcompensating for something.

Not worth the clicks he’s just giggling at all the people watching his crap

Having followed his channel, I won’t say he is a Apple hater. However, his first few videos were indeed cringeworthy because it was painfully obvious that he didn’t understand Apple products and was trying to review them through a PC lens.

Like he covers the iMac Pro and the main thing he focuses on is its higher Ethernet speed (which is evidently a big deal for him but I was like ...whatever). Or when he sealed up the MacBook with plasticine and placed it in water to show how water cooling could improve its performance. Fun to watch, but kinda pointless because who the hell uses their Apple products like that?

And when he used the MacBook to run windows and proceeded to complain about the poor battery life, a little bit of me just died inside.

I would say that he’s doing all this more for the views and the clicks than any personal agenda, but it also means that you are not really going to be getting anything useful out of his videos either.
 
What you aren't allowing for is that first you need to know which parts to replace. Even Apple Stores don't have access to board schematics and they certainly don't have the expertise to make use of them anyway.
Some of these parts are a massive PITA to swap out. Its easy to damage one when you know what you're doing.
Those are the people Apple has to legislate for.

I agree that there are ham-fisted 200kg gorillas out there. But (with the exception of softening the display adhesive and removing the glass), disassembling an iMac Pro is considerably easier than disassembling a dashboard.

I'm also not insinuating that Apple store techs perform board-level repairs - in these situations they could simply swap the logic board. Anyone who has played with Lego and not broken it could, IMO, repair these machines. But regardless, for technicians who are familiar with disassembling integrated devices like these, replacing all the internal components of an iMac Pro is a walk in the park. The only difficult part of the iMac pro IMO is the glass display - everything else is pretty straightforward (not having disassembled one myself, but I have disassembled non-pro iMacs).

Also, just because a bunch of people are ham fisted and can't repair their own devices, it's very easy for Apple to identify these botched repairs visually, and explain to the customer that their repair will be more complicated as a result. There is absolutely zero need to attempt to block right to repair legislation because some people can't remove a logic board without cutting their face off.
 
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