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Comment by 0_gravitas | Hacker News Reader

Because having an established company program that fixes these issues is the last thing apple wants, their main goal is to upsell to the newest product when an old one breaks, hence all the fun planned obsolescence stuff. Why else do you think they make all their products notoriously difficult to repair?

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Ah, the planned obsolescence argument. It used to be invoked all the time with software (updates are making it slower) but Apple just released software updates to fix GPS on several older iPads.

Maybe, they are focusing on other things like thinness and light weight which results in making gadgets less repairable instead of a big planned conspiracy.

Of course I'm sure that's the only reason why they use special proprietary screws that you can't normally find anywhere else (along with the special screwdrivers themselves) because if there's a shortage of anything, it's small screws that can be used in the production of electronics. Let's not pretend that apple is interested in keeping older (and by older I mean not the current newest) machines alive any longer then their decaying, conveniently irreplaceable, battery lasts.

When apple starts making a show of actually putting up not-intentionally-cryptic schematics and supplying the market with the parts necessary to repair their dying machines (batteries would be a good start) I might loosen my tinfoil hat, but you'll have to forgive me for the time being...

I'm pretty sure those are because they dislike it when people who aren't their employees repair them, because they dislike getting blamed when someone else messes up a repair job and blames them for it.

It's the same reason most companies try to prevent third parties from repairing their products. 100% "I don't want to stake my reputation on someone else's repair job".

And yet if they want people who are their employees to repair them, why do third parties like Rossman get any business? Clearly he and people like him are providing some service that apple isn't, that service so far mainly looks like repairing apple products that apple doesn't seem to want to for one reason or another. I like that "I dont want to stake my reputation on someone else's repair job" also comes with "I want my reputation to mean you will possibly just never actually receive a repair job". Also, that reasoning wouldn't explain things like, oh I dont know, Thinkpads? I've never heard complaints and issues with them like i do apple, especially when it comes to the quality of the machine itself, and they are famously modular and repairable.

I didn't say it was a _good_ reason, or that all companies make it hard for people to repair their products.

I'm just saying that if a company _does_ make it hard to repair their products, and you sat in on the meeting where that decision was made, you're going to hear "I'm tired of people trying to repair our products and screwing it up".

I mean, it's no accident they're making every effort to make Mac hardware as unrepairable as possible by third parties. And it's not because they want to repair the things themselves.

Right. It's the upsell.

MBP with water damage to the battery charging circuitry. Battery is fine. Laptop is fine on AC power.

Let's see how much it'll cost... maybe $300ish? Labor, parts?

Nope. "That will be $899. Maybe we should talk about getting you into a new MBP instead?"

> Maybe, they are focusing on other things like thinness and light weight which results in making gadgets less repairable instead of a big planned conspiracy.

... And suing customers like crazy to support a less repairable product strategy.

I recently had to buy Quickbooks 2019 because 2016 would no longer let me import my bank transactions.

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