Apple’s Self Service Repair now available
apple.com
apple.com
> Available first for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and soon to be followed by Mac computers featuring M1 chips, Self Service Repair will be available early next year in the US and expand to additional countries throughout 2022.
> The initial phase of the program will focus on the most commonly serviced modules, such as the iPhone display, battery, and camera. The ability for additional repairs will be available later next year.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-...
Wait a few years and then you can see if your cynicism is appropriate if they stop supporting them when they are older.
https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/battery-powe...
Name any other phone manufacturer that offers a better service.
If the "best" company still activity tries to screw customers over (see: planned obsolescence and almost everything apple has done until now, Louis Rossman's YouTube channel etc), then I'm afraid the bar is part of the foundation, it's so underground.
That's not something to be proud of at all.
I think it is mostly silly to accuse apple of planned obsolescence when their hardware functions well (and retains its value) for much longer than the hardware produced by their competitors. It feels to me that paying for one phone 4.5 years ago, and $50 for a battery replacement (all lithium ion batteries degrade over time) that will extend its useful life is a pretty efficient use of money.
While their software support is admirable, their hardware philosophy, design and real-life practice (eg pricing a screen repair almost similar to a new phone) is anything but.
Also, as far as I can tell, screens have stopped breaking at some point? I used to reliably break the screen before the two-year replacement cycle was up. Except for the last two generations, which survived, and not for lack of dropping them.
Where is the planned obsolescence? Apple is supporting their devices longer than any other consumer tech company. How are they actively trying to "screw customers over"?
> yet none of those competitors get dinged for their device lifetimes. It’s complete dislocation from reality.
I literally said that if Apple is the best the rest (the "standard" or bar) is underground. To paraphrase/reiterate: I think other companies are doing an even shittier job.
> It’s complete dislocation from reality.
I must concur.
They are very happy to support your device... as long as their poorly designed hardware doesn't fail (specific example from Louis Rossman's video - at 48V power cable to the display next to the sensitive data lines.)
Apple know cares about customers as long as it doesn't hurt its PR, much like the vast majority of profit-driven companies.
Applecare+ also includes two "accidental damage" incidents per year. So you can throw your 7 year old Macbook out a window or into the ocean twice a year and Apple will repair it.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/applecare-coverage-for-...
I am not an Apple die-hard fanboy. I personally used many Android devices, a Dell XPS 15, and a custom built PC until last year (switched to an iPhone 13 and M1 Air). But Apple is providing longer software and hardware support than any other company right now, and I really don't understand how you can still complain.
It's easy to be pessimistic, but show me any phone manufacturer that offers extended support past 3 years. Hell, even computers hardly will come with more than that as an option.
I looked at it when I bought my first iphone a couple years ago, it was my first "expensive" phone and it was stressful, but the math is solid, even if you use the service once you're only breaking even, and even then you're getting a repair on a phone that has likely depreciated substantially (yes, even apple) so it's a $150 repair on a $400 phone with a worn battery, etc. At some point even if it's not utterly destroyed, it financially just doesn't make sense to throw more money into it. And this is with me buying a relatively expensive high-capacity model that is "more expensive to total", just wouldn't make sense on a base-tier model unless you routinely manhandle them into an early grave.
Haven't done the math on newer models (mine was a couple gens old, got it as an apple refurb) but it does look better for premium ipad models. $200 for the warranty and $49 service fee, vs $700 (!) for replacing an ipad pro 12.1" screen. If you've got a premium 12.1" pro with a TB of storage, that's easily a $1500 device and would be worth repairing and certainly worth taking out the warranty beforehand.
I originally got my (base-model) iPad for $229 back in 2018, and the screen itself is $249 to replace, vs $80 for applecare+ and $49 for the deductible... so you are coming out WAY ahead if you actually need to use it. I cracked a corner of the screen (took it out of the case ONE TIME and of course I drop it...) and it's basically totaled, it's more than I originally paid for it and only $50 short of a new base-model iPad if you get them on sale.
i have no idea about this cable issue, or who Louis Rossman is... I have a thunderbolt cable with data and power running from the display to the notebook. Is the data in danger? FWIW it's transmitting 6016 * 3384 = 20385144 pixels at, I believe, 24 bit color depth and 60H flawlessly.
But mostly I just don't get what this has to do with their service?
There's really no justification as to why I can install the latest version of Windows 10 on a computer from 2006 and everything works smoothly, but if I try to install Android 12 on a device from 2 years ago then everything turns to shit.
Windows 10 isn't "the latest version" anymore, and they've dropped support for a ton of processors (actually, it's worse than that, they've intentionally broken support for a lot of processors).
Some have fTPM that can be manually enabled, and it may or may not work or cause issues (stuttering, etc) without BIOS patches and other stuff that the vendor may not provide for legacy hardware, so even there it's hit or miss, but stuff from the 2006 era doesn't have fTPM at all and you'll have to do the microsoft equivalent of hackintosh.
But yeah Android's support/device lifetime is egregiously bad, I'm not basing my OS on a custom build by some guy named xXxMark69xXx who posts on a web forum. Even Linux has official distributions that are expected to pretty much Just Work without modifications beyond installing some (audited, signed) driver packages, but the Android model means that it's simply not possible to "just install Lineage", you essentially must have someone customize it for each individual model.
Android phones also usually have terrible spare-parts availability, unless you want to buy a wish.com-tier battery that will have half of its advertised capacity out of the box, and pillow up before six months have passed. It simply is not possible to buy quality battery replacements outside of the OEM supply chains (I've pointed this out here on HN as a business opportunity every time the topic comes up) whether it's phone or laptops or anything else. And the OEM supply chains are just not there, despite every opportunity for vendors to "just use standardized parts" like people are saying.
At the end of the day I'm perfectly happy to just pay Apple 50 bucks so that a technician can put a new battery into my 4-year-old phone and I'll know it's OEM tier and that the waterproofing/etc will be done right and that they won't shatter the back and so on. Not the place I want to try and save 20 bucks in my life anymore.
I know this is an odd point of your comment to pick out, but just wanted to share this as I thought the way you did for almost a decade:
Cameron Sino are a really reliable aftermarket battery manufacturer. They're the source that iFixit use, and I've tried some of their products myself too. They make damn near everything, including niche SKUs with custom ICs, and the quality is comparable to OEM stuff (both in terms of initial capacity and longevity).
Thanks, I'll keep them in mind! They might very well be the actual OEM for a lot of those products anyway, somebody has to be making the batteries and it's probably somewhere in China.
I mean, there's a few, especially in specific niches (Wasabi Power is good for camera batteries, etc) but like, if you just buy a "X device replacement battery" off amazon or ebay then you're gonna get something with half the advertised capacity. I replaced my PS3 controller batteries and cycled the batteries a few times with my Triton smart charger, and like, the replacements are still bigger than the originals (750mah vs 570) but they're not the 1500 mah they were advertised as. It's damn frustrating because I'd gladly pay another $10 or $20 a battery for a high-quality one instead of something that fails in 3 months...
Well played! And just for what it's worth, you can get a lot of their products on AliExpress, and at least as of now they're not a big enough brand to be counterfeited.
>A 2015 MacBook can still run the newest OS.
Big freaking deal, a 2003 Athlon 64 machine can still run modern Linux distros. Until Microsoft went scorched earth with Windows 11, computers from 2006 could still run the most recent version of Windows. Apple has the SHORTEST OS support window for desktops and laptops overall. My 2009 Macbook can run Windows 10 21H1 (2021) but can only run up to 10.11 (2015). All of 6 years of OS support from Apple, but 12 from Microsoft and 13 from Linux.
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
I'm running OS 10.13 on a 2008 MacBook right now (officially supports 10.11). Using: http://dosdude1.com/software.html It runs great, beyond 10.13 the OS seems to run slower tho.
It's not necessary at this point, because every App I use still supports 10.11 (including VS code). But knowing I can get several more years out of this Machine is nice.
Also, I did use dosdude's software to hack 10.13 on my 2009 MacBook and it ran like crap and the touchpad driver was total crap.
Apple is still supporting 2015 MacBooks with 4th gen processors.
Again, Apple is supporting their devices longer than anyone else.
Dosdude1's software runs great on this 2008 MacBook. It runs exactly like Apple made it. Touchpad is no different and all gestures work perfectly. Not sure what went wrong in your case.
It's a design decision to use proprietary batteries that are difficult to change by consumers and can't be easily manufactured by third parties. Batteries aren't expensive enough to warrant that kind of service charge.
Many people would be happy with a larger phone, if it meant you could access it a little easier to repair it — or replace the battery, which most people wouldn’t consider a “repair” — yourself.
The HN crowd, sure, but the general population?
I don't think they consider repairability and battery replacement, let alone put it above the device "looking good".
Would it have to become a foot long clown phone to have a removable battery?
https://www.apple.com/iphone-13-pro/specs/
Also the new iphones are waterproof, your old phone was not.
There are ways to protect devices from water without making the whole things unserviceable.
What exactly is your complaint? That they are not as easy to service as your old flip phone? The modern iPhone has more computational power and technology packed into it than a full size desktop computer from 3 years ago. Modern phones are so much more than just a phone and will never be as easy to service as your old flip phone. No tech company will ever satisfy your complaint if that is what you truly desire.
As for waterproofing I have never in my entire life ruined a phone by dropping it into water. I would still prefer removable batteries. It is a good trade-off in my opinion.
I am willing to concede that my opinions might not reflect those of the general public.
I am pretty curious to know if this is true or not. The general HN or r/hardware crowds would be for sure, but I dont actually think the general public would find it a compelling "feature". Most people would probably buy the replacement battery directly from Apple anyway, and if theyre going to do that, I imagine most will just have them replace it too. Plus degradation is fairly minimal now imo, especially within the ~3 year span the average person keeps their phone. I think most people would just prefer to upgrade at that point.
Not to say I dont support user replaceable batteries (I think all phones should have them), I just dont think it actually matters at all to the average user.
"Many people would be happy with a larger phone, if it meant you could access it a little easier to repair it — or replace the battery, which most people wouldn’t consider a “repair” — yourself."
Apple did just that, and you're still not happy. They made the new iphones larger with a bigger battery. They now sell you the parts directly so you can repair it yourself.
They have made it as easy as they can to repair, while still having the device sealed and waterproof.
They literally have done what you are complaining about right now.
Waterproofing is more important to me than a removable battery. Apple will replace the battery for $69 when it is time. And they will still be providing software updates for it in 6 years.
How much is a replacement battery for your non-waterproof phone? How long will it receive software updates? Will you buy a new one when they stop updating it?
I’m honestly curious… has this ever been proven? It’s decent -and common assertion/speculation.
But I’m curious if there has ever been a high level ex engineer, or court document, or something that just states clearly “yes, a primary/convincing motivation to move to internal batteries was because of increased lock in revenue”?
They have an interesting flat-fee for repairs and a four-year warranty, plus official rooting instructions on their forum.
I'm using the Teracube One as my main mobile phone.
It might be an interesting choice if it ran a better OS.
Pretty much all of them back in 2013. You'd just buy a new battery, peel off the back of the shell and plop it in. Didn't need to live in a country with proper manufacturer support, didn't need to go without a phone for a week while they fixed it, just swap 'n' go.
That being said, I mainly did it myself because I like doing this sort of thing and there's no Apple Store near me. I'd also heard of them refusing partial repair when you have a damaged display and I had a crack on the corner.
Edit: Other parts also have a return credit... camera, display, etc.
It'd be awesome if I could head on down to a phone parts store and pick up a couple of components so my phone can live perpetually in repair, but we're not quite that far along yet.
Apple displays and cameras are certainly not something you can buy in bulk on the open market as a device manufacturer.
For phone and computer batteries, it would be kinda nice. After going through ifixit, I've now got a pile of old lithium batteries that I have to figure out how to get rid of.
Home Depot has bins just inside their stores and accept lithium and usually even nicad batteries. Other recycling locators located on the EPA information page: https://www.epa.gov/recycle/used-lithium-ion-batteries
Distributor obligations - All distributors must: Offer free take back on WEEE; Accept WEEE for free from customers supplied with like-for-like products, regardless of whether this is done in store, online or by mail order
(You're Seattle based so not applicable in your circumstances)
[Source https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulations-waste-electrical-and...]
This program–the deposit–is strictly about increasing recycling quotas. They do have a refurb program but they'll actually pay you for hardware that can be used for that.
And your problem with this is what, exactly ?
If you are genuinely repairing something then we're only talking a small window when you will be out of pocket (the time between receiving the part, replacing old one, sending old one back).
Apple do the same thing with iPhone exchanges under Apple Care. They'll send you out a brand new iPhone in advance (to allow you to transfer data etc. as required), but they'll take a deposit. If you don't send your broken iPhone back, they'll keep the deposit. Seems perfectly fair to me.
AFAIK in one way or another, the practice is widespread in the IT industry. For example, I recently replaced a Dell monitor on warranty. They didn't take payment up-front, but they certainly made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that I would be charged if I failed to return the monitor.
In terms of Apple specifically, its basically the way they work with their Authorised Service Providers. If the AASP fails to return parts, then the cost is billed to their company's account with Apple.
The reality is that in the world we live in, these sorts of parts/repair services are subject to fraud and other malicious use. So manufacturers (whether Apple or otherwise) are perfectly entitled to protect themselves.
That's if you look at it on an individual quantity. In volume quantity there may be other considerations at play.
> This is clearly a bad-faith effort to make stocking up on parts impossible and make the entire process more inconvenient than it needs to be.
Give me a break !
For a start, this isn't a "parts stocking" programme, it is a self-repair programe. You obtain relevant parts on a Just-In-Time basis. Jeez !
If you want to stock parts, go become an Apple Authorised Service Provider. You even get a credit account so you don't have to pony up the cash up-front.
Why can't it be both? Most existing "self-repair" programmes (before such things had to have a specific name instead of just "buying parts") such as the ones for cars work just fine on the model of "show up at the dealership, give them a part number & payment card and walk out with your new part". They don't care if you're buying these parts to repair your car now or keep it for later and managed to stay in business for decades just fine.
> You obtain relevant parts on a Just-In-Time basis.
One major advantage of a self-repair programme (as opposed to just doing the repair at Apple or an AASP directly) is that you can work around some of the logistics and make the operation quicker/more efficient.
If you are particularly careless and smash your phone frequently (or your friends do, like in my case) you can keep spares of commonly-broken parts in advance so that the actual repair process is really quick and only involves a couple hours or downtime.
Having to order parts in advance and having to return the old part in a specific timeframe means you need to schedule the entire thing and plan around the logistics of it and it can no longer be a "I have a couple hours to kill tonight, let's make my phone new again" thing, at which point you get back most of the inconveniences of doing an official repair such as scheduling it, waiting for shipping, etc. I suspect this might be the point of these restrictions.
> If you want to stock parts, go become an Apple Authorised Service Provider.
Can I become an AASP if I do one repair a month? If so sign me up!
The Reichmont nonprofit does the same thing. (I love throwing in nonprofit status. I don't know how they get away with that business entity.)
(NCWAA has been fighting for access to parts since the 70's with zero progress.)
Man I hate that. Only reason used devices are a turn off. Battery has 100% capacity, cycle it, nope 60% actually "brand new, OEM".
Write a comment about this, removed, great
This was a bad scam too because a lot of pretty naive folks got suckered in (battery says 100% but phone is dying, must be something wrong with phone)
Maybe, but that's still a problem they created for themselves. Knockoff sellers would never have marketshare (and thus less economies of scale, reducing their cost advantage) if you can buy the genuine thing for a reasonable price as conveniently as you can buy the knockoff.
A lot of third-party/aftermarket parts are used not even because of cost but availability. Amazon offers same or next-day shipping for a lot of these knockoff batteries.
This reminds me of an incident when I needed to replace a lost AirPod - I was ready to pay and yet couldn't just walk into an Apple Store and buy the part. I had to instead set up a "repair" and wait for shipping and then UPS screwed it up twice. It took weeks and hours of annoyance over email/phone for something that should've taken 15 minutes to buy at the Apple Store on my way to the office.
Don't disagree, they should make genuine batteries broadly available.
The idea is that you are buying new or refurbished products to replace broken parts. So you pay a core fee so you return the broken parts so that they can rebuild them and resell them.
This is common for automparts stores because as long as the cast metal parts are not damaged and within spec then there is no reason they can't be rebuilt. Alternators, water pumps, etc.
You are not obligated to return the parts. You can keep them yourself and if that is the case then they just keep the deposit.
You will lose a ton of money trying to buy a 15 year supply of starters and keeping them in a warehouse for 20 years (remember your sales only start once a car is out of warranty/production).
Car parts tend to fail in waves, so all the water pumps from 2012 Volkswagens are going to start coming in - and getting remanufactured - around the same time people are looking for them. You just buy a few from the OEM to bootstrap.
I understood right to repair to be that people want access to parts, tools, and information on how to repair their things. This seems to be the beginning of exactly that. I'm clearly misunderstanding some side of this.
I think this is just a PR piece designed to slow down right to repair legislation efforts that will be left to rot as soon as that objective is achieved, or the experience being so terrible that it's unusable to begin with. In fact, in my case it's already unusable - I keep spares for commonly broken parts for my phone (screen, case, battery & all the seals needed to reassemble) so that I can quickly repair it in a couple hours if I break it. This program would make it impossible as I'd need to ship the old parts back which means I can only order them when I actually need to do the repair and then wait for shipping - it turns a "I have a couple hours this evening, let me fix my phone so it doesn't look like shit" into a thing I have to explicitly schedule.
As of now not only is the selection of parts laughable (where can I buy a genuine new housing or mainboard, or proprietary mainboard components that Apple explicitly prohibits their vendors from selling to the public?) but there's extra BS such as the "system configuration" which has to be done via Apple Support instead of releasing the software or the protocol (so open-source tools can be built) in the open or even making devices be able to perform the configuration directly (new part detected -> a new option appears in Settings to do the initial config).
It may turn out that this program is good, in which case the correct path forward is to codify it into law. Apple should have a seat at the table when deciding terms. However, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should they be allowed to dictate terms, because they have abused that privilege time and time again. Otherwise, the moment the press looks away, they'll bring back the killer asterisks. They've done it before and they'll do it again if we let them.
This is what Apple is doing. Setting a bus stop up next to an open field which will inevitably create data proving their narrative.
A genuine attempt would certainly utilize their own branding. Creating a clear intent to bridge the trust their customers have gained for their brand to this service. Additionally, they would at least attempt to sell parts a lower cost since their own repair service is just a few dollars more.
I think it is fairly clear what their intentions are with this service based on how they are incentivizing it's use.
I feel like the repair issue is manufactured outrage for a problem that doesn't actually exist. Seems like drama is all the rage these days...
Me neither, which is why I want the right to repair to be a thing, so I can get parts just like the third-party I wouldn't use and do the repair myself instead.
> Secondly after owning an iPhone for over a decade not once have I needed a repair.
Beyond actual repair there are consumable parts such as batteries which need replacement after a year or so.
> I feel like the repair issue is manufactured outrage for a problem that doesn't actually exist
It may not exist for you, but does it hurt you or make your situation worse in any way if the repair issue were solved? If not, then why is it a bad thing if some other people (for whom repair is an actual problem) benefit from it?
One of my gripes is that the replacement batteries are not as good as OEM, even when I buy from iFixit. So, I guess I’ll spend $80 and waste the better part of a day (which is the worst part), even though I’ve replaced several iPhone batteries and have all the tools.
Did you unironically re-phrase the politician's syllogism as a positive?
Clearly being done very reluctantly. May be beneficial to those with a habit of dropping phones and smashing their screen, but the real problem is the slightly older phones becoming e-waste due to a degraded battery or parts like buttons wearing out.
(But we've got bigger worries with degraded batteries leading to e-waste, with Chevrolet discontinuing support for a 5yr-old EV (Chevy Spark) setting an example that others seem likely to follow. No battery replacements for your EV! Buy a new one! We're heading for a world where so-called 'green' EVs are barely repairable and thrown on the scrapheap as soon as the battery degrades)
There's plenty of Leaf battery replacement services and parts as far as I can tell. The original Leaf is quite old now in EV-years.
We've accepted a world of throwaway phones/tablets (with a life of maybe 2-5 years). We can't afford to accept that with EVs.
I expect EVs which sell well will have robust 3rd party parts available for the kinds of parts that >95% of owners will ever need to replace, just like today. The EV industry is still extremely young, there will be much money to be made with 3rd party parts and repairs on EVs even if the automakers don't want it to be. I firmly believe that the market will find a way for the popular models.
...and that need replacing every couple years not because they don't work but because we have been disallowed from replacing parts, thus generating e-waste made up of rare earths and toxic metals and at great cost to people.
With the exception that the car doesn't throw error codes and disable the power windows if I use a third-party brake pad.
For the consumer level tractors which are manufactured in a volume which is more similar to automobiles, there appears to be plenty of parts in the market to fix them. Even the consumer level tractor parts with John Deere labels on them seem to just be rebranded cheap commodity parts much of the time.
The Spark is one EV from one manufacturer, introduced ten years ago, and it sold a few thousand units over a couple years. Chevy sells more Bolts in two months than the entire several year long Spark production.
The reason they're no longer selling battery packs is because there was insufficient demand for them. The car sold like shit. It is not "an example others seem likely to follow" like you claim.
Chevy included, given they're warrantying failed Bolt EV batteries and giving them 8 year warranties. Five year old bolts are getting eight-year-warrantied batteries. Weird you didn't cite that.
People have been bleating about "battery-pocalypse" - batteries clogging landfills, failing batteries "totaling" cars, blah blah - since the Prius came out twenty years ago. Still hasn't happened. If you have a Prius and the battery pack throws an error code, there are plenty of businesses offering rebuild services, looks like it's about $1k. They recycle whatever cells are still good, and bad cells are sent out to be recycled for their raw materials.
You either intentionally zeroed in on extreme outside case to push your anti-EV agenda, or you don't know much about hybrids/PHEVs/EVs and you're outside your lane while pushing an anti-EV agenda.
Which is it?
EVs do have real issues limiting mass adoption, though. Even if I could afford a nice one, I couldn't charge it at home (living in an apartment, can't really dangle a power cable down 3 floors).
And as I'm a very-low-mileage driver at the moment, able to WFH, keeping my boring Ford Focus running for a few more years is probably much better for the environment than replacing the entire car.
Did you mean a few hundred thousand units? Wiki says there were 24,459 Chevrolet Sparks sold in the USA last year, plus a similar number of international sales. Total US sales were roughly 285,000 units[0], so that would fit with “a few hundred thousand”.
This article from when it was discontinued says the entire production run was 7400 units.
https://www.thedrive.com/article/7269/chevrolet-ends-spark-e...
This solution is perfect for the PR and avoiding future right to repair lawsuits.
Doing barely enough is what I assume they're going for.
I would imagine they don't know what demand for this will be like, and parts for older devices are probably not in production at this point - so they probably don't have inventory to support a lot more than what they expected to service through their traditional processes.
------------
While not self-service, I'll note they've expanded service lifespans on the Mac side for repair in recent years. They'd previously guaranteed service would be available for 5 years (from end of new production of the model - which could be a while later than you purchased yours. The mid-2012 13" MBP is still less than 5 years from end of production.), but it was a hard cutoff after that. 5 years and 1 month? Nothing.
Now it's up to 7 years if the parts are available (10 years for batteries on some models), and anecdotally we've had a few repaired in that age range without issue.
That direction suggests to me that in the long run you're likely to see similar things on their "self-service repair" side.
Also, if they had them, chances are you would find the parts too expensive. They would either have to keep a production line running for low quantities of products, build a new one specialized for small production runs, or stock parts for years.
Both have significant costs.
For example, let’s suppose they decide to stock parts, and plan perfectly, so that all parts can be sold over a period of 10 years. On average, that’s five years between spending money on producing the part and getting money back on selling it. That likely warrants at least a 25% price increase.
Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a business for offering electronic parts in the long-term (old timer cars are a different case, as many parts can be made almost by hand, and customers are willing to pay good money for them)
I think that's OK, but I think it's immoral to lock down a device to the point where it prevents third parties from producing these parts if they need to.
> A System Configuration step may be required at the end of your repair. System Configuration is a postrepair software tool that completes the repair for genuine Apple parts. The repair manual will indicate if System Configuration is required. You will need to contact the Self Service Repair Store support team by chat or phone to initiate System Configuration.
That way they lock out third party repair shops.
Seems similar to Apple’s trade-in program. The trade-in website is operated by a third-party and (in my experience) notoriously ‘un-Apple’.
"Apple has partnered with CTDI for the SSR store and the fulfillment of related parts and tools. CTDI will utilize its SPOT subsidiary, including SPOT customer service agents, in support of SSR store customers."
It makes sense that Apple would offload this to someone else, but I agree it's a rather jarring experience.
Which is while Apple doesn't like them. If you care about sales, glowing reviews are always better than honest reviews. There are plenty of people willing to praise Apple and so there is no need to cater to objective reviewers.
For every new product there are thousands of reviews for which iFixit is just one. And almost all of those reviews are overwhelmingly objective and honest as you can see for the lacklustre reviews of the Studio Display.
If I were Apple I wouldn't waste any time on iFixit either since they have limited traffic and limited social reach.
Remaining objective is of course possible even with financial ties, but the suspicion is going to taint people’s perception.
On the flip side, it might be possible for a partnership to provide better first-party parts support and more complete sharing of information, but I'm just too jaded to believe it could happen that way.
Partnering with Apple who is against right to repair creates a situation where they might have to choose the money from Apple or their right to repair aspirations.
From Merriam-Webster[0]:
> lobby (v)
> to conduct activities aimed at influencing public officials and especially members of a legislative body on legislation
“Public officials” have another name: politicians.
[0] https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/...
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675180/view/4347665...
They were beyond demanding that everything had to be pixel perfect at all resolutions. Far more then any other client I’ve had.
Was good in that it upped my game, and attention to detail. So I’m grateful for that. But wow was it annoying at the time.
Surprised they let others get away with low quality.
It is certainly still a decision to do that. I would guess that for a launch they actually cared about, especially a consumer-facing one, they either would demand to build the website themselves or demand that CTDI follow some design guides. I can't imagine Apple launching their credit card and saying, "okay, Goldman Sachs, you handle everything about branding. The product page for this credit card doesn't need to have Apple in the URL, and doesn't need to follow Apple branding rules" -- because Apple actually cares about getting the word out about the existence of their card, and they actually care about encouraging people to use it.
I don't necessarily think it's some kind of conspiracy to trick people (see TurboTax's shenanigans), but it does speak a lot to their priorities that they do not care about this site looking good or even official, and that they don't think it's important for it to be a recognizable URL or for it to be obvious that it's an official Apple service. None of those things were apparently important enough to get marketing/branding departments involved in the launch.
That's exactly why it is the way it is.
You do not want a brand associated with the highest quality and seamless integration to be associated with self-repair kits. Even under the best of circumstances, with the best of expertise, one must expect self-repair kits sold to the mass market to fail 5%? 10%? of the time?
looks okay to me.
I'm buying parts, not partying with friends or looking at it for long periods of time. As long as the part buying experience is gucci, then I am okay.
The $49 rental of the tool kit gets you the use of some quite impressive tools and fixtures which are likely to greatly enhance the chance of success for various repairs.
> Some parts have a "core charge" like automotive parts, to ensure you send back the bad ones so they can be remanufactured.
Yes, which is the point. They are offering a compromise for a tiny market (self-repair) in hopes of this distracting from and preventing laws that would benefit the market that actually matters (independent repair).
It's like throwing your underpaid demoralized employees a pizza party so they don't quit, nothing but a damage control gesture that deliberarely doesn't actually help.
They know this makes independent repair uncompetitive, which is why they do it.
But the parts available for the covered products looks good to me -- parts and all the tools needed to install them. And prices are good too.
They've even got some really nice features, like tool kit rental and battery return credits.
Part of the problem with Apple's repair programs is that Apple themselves doesn't want people dinking around with individual electronic components, so they don't let their branded repair centers[0] buy or touch them. This dramatically increases the cost of repair as you have to dispose of a lot of known-good chips purely so that Apple does not have to provide a supply of their proprietary components and does not have to hire skilled labor to solder them onto boards.
People who actually do bother with component level repair are able to frequently undercut Apple on repair cost[1], but have significantly harder time buying the components you need to do this because Apple won't sell chips. As for why, they won't really tell, or if pressed they'll waive their arms around and say "intellectual property" and "innovation". My guess is that they don't want other companies pulling a Strange Parts and building their own iPhones from replacement parts... to which I say, who cares? If you actually do it that way you aren't saving a whole lot of money and all that money is going back to Apple anyway.
Oh, and you can sed s/Apple/any other tech company/g the above paragraphs and still be 100% correct. The whole "what about the innovashun" argument is a cultural toxin that has infected basically every other company that has anything to do with electronics. It's why I don't believe Elon's intentions around Twitter's algorithm for a second[2]. Everyone in tech has been very consistently opposed to anyone other than them touching their stuff, purely because it's "theirs" and not because it actually has a cognizable harm to them.
[0] AASP & IRP members inclusive
[1] Even if we exclude particularly embarrassing cases like when the Genius Bar forgot to check if a backlight cable was installed correctly and recommended a full logic board swap
[2] Tesla is the company that brought Apple-style repair hostility to cars. Elon does not care about "freedom" beyond hearing about it in a meme.
So when right to repair criticism is lobbed at Apple, they can now point at this website.
Then I dug further and saw that the tools include an entire set of color coded force specific torque drivers, all of the proper fixtures disassembly and re-assembly, etc all shipped in a Pelican style case.
IMHO, this squarely puts this type of repair in the hands of the DIY enthusiast. Maybe not cost competitive for fixing a single device but great for doing your own and helping out friends, family, and neighbors for the week you have the kit.
Reading through the comments sections on MacRumors posts pertaining to the toolkit, plenty of people are seemingly very eager to jump to disparaging iFixit, their tools, and any repair store that doesn't have Apple's fancy expensive tools just because they're not doing it "the right way".
Renting the tools is a nice option to have. Torque drivers appear to be priced at obscene level, but not really. Based on handle pattern, these appear to be customized Wera screwdrivers and they cost more to buy direct than through this program from Apple. That just feels like Snapon pricing for specialty tools. By the way, Snapon sells individual torque screwdrivers for $256. Really.
This could be targeted at corporations that have staff to do in-house repairs of their hardware. They will have the option to avoid making a trip to the Apple store and losing custody of their hardware. One of the companies where I work has such a department. They order Lenovo parts and fix the laptops on-site instead of relying on on-site field service from Lenovo.
A big reason why I do my own repairs is because it allows me to optimize the logistics of it by removing the time-sensitive component of shipping; I order common parts & tooling (multiples so I have spares if I fuck up) well in advance of any breakage so that the actual repair no longer depends on the shipping service or my ability to receive packages. Putting the shipping service back in the critical path would negate all those advantages for me, making it no better than just shipping the entire device to Apple/AASP to begin with.
The only major advantage I see here is that the display press would likely guarantee the water-tightness of the repaired phone, though personally I've always just done without and accepted that my device is not watertight, especially considering I don't trust the factory one either after months of heavy use, thermal cycles and minor mechanical shocks & damage.
> This could be targeted at corporations that have staff to do in-house repairs of their hardware.
Hopefully in the future, yes. As it stands though this is unusable for large-scale in-house repair operations as you can't stock parts and have to order them as needed since you need to return the old part in a timely manner.
This is still not enough, but for large companies with strict security policies it is a welcome development. Basically, having ability to achieve factory seal on a display assembly in-house for approximately $1000 in equipment is a huge win.
Similarly, for the tooling, is it actually available to purchase or is it a rental only? If it's a rental they might still retaliate (beyond just keeping your deposit) by banning your account and/or devices and/or denying future "system configuration" on any parts ordered on it to prevent people from "purchasing" the tooling that way.
So I can pay Apple $329 to fix my broken screen, or I can pay ~$311 + shipping to do the repair myself (actually I can't because they're not selling parts for my broken XS Max on this site).
Maybe the only good thing about this is that they're selling equipment that might be valuable for third-party repair shops, like the "heated display removal fixture". Although I'm pretty sure better alternatives exist.
I don’t know about pricing as the store site is not working for me (maybe thousands of anxious people trying to buy parts) but it seems later this year it will be possible to repair computers. The guides are already out there.
Honestly though... what did you expect? Apple said the parts were sold at the exact same prices as their AASPs and their own stores. When you already have the tools, that makes a ~$49 margin for the Store or AASP for a display replacement, a healthy reimbursement of labor and time. Did you expect to save hundreds?
How long does it take to replace a display?
This video shows it being done in 10 minutes with explanation and without any cuts. (This is an XR which is pretty old school but I don't have any positive reason to believe it takes longer with newer displays.)
That's not what we're comparing it to. We're discussing the labor cost to Apple of replacing the screen, and asking whether $50 is a healthy margin for labor and other overheads. The answer is yes, since replacing a screen does not take all that much labor. As much as I hate Apple, the fact a screen can be replaced so quickly supports their claim that the parts themselves are most of the cost of the repair, and justifies their charging as much as they do for the self-service program.
(I mean it could be that they're lying through their teeth and they're making a huge profit but that would be bold. Highly visible companies normally either tell half truths or stay silent, they tend not to make direct, clear lies over an item that has a lot of public scrutiny.)
Seems you missed this part.
Also, I just noticed that the display items have this disclaimer:
> This part requires the System Configuration software tool. After performing the repair, contact us by chat or phone to initiate System Configuration.
So they're not getting rid of that bullshit display serial number system, meaning that even if you buy a genuine display from Apple and perform the repair following Apple's own instructions, your phone will still be in a broken state until you call Apple and ask them to remove the software lock.
You also can't even place an order for a display unless you provide a valid serial number/IMEI.
Then assume all the old phones are shipped to India/Vietnam/Sri Lanka/China where apple pays the smallest achievable wages for laborers to either:
1) swap out the broken displays, mainboards, etc. to produce a working "Refurbished" unit. Who does Apple sell these to? I don't see refurbished phones for sale on their website. Maybe to T-Mobile/etc who do sell some refurbished iPhones.
or
2) Disassemble the unit, throwing out everything except 100% known-good components, which get used for...what? Maybe new iPhones? Would apple ever include refurbished components...probably not. What do they do with all these known good but used components?
Either way, you can imagine that Apple might only be paying $10 or so to ship all these phones in a giant container to Asia and $20 or so for the labor of repair/disassembly. So maybe the "Self Service Part" really is being offered at the same materials price, minus Apple's straight internal labor cost.
I somewhat doubt this, but it's at least plausible.
That used to be very common if not the default (this was my experience too, would always just get a replacement), but these days I believe they actually do a lot of common repairs in stores in a relatively short period of time (screen / back / button / battery replacements), etc.
available through Apple at https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/iphone. I think availability changes frequently, only see iPhone 11 Pro currently but have seen others in the past.
They did the swap out. I was on applecare if that matters.
It was something like $30 which seemed very reasonable. I walked out in maybe 15 minutes? This was a long time ago, and I lived a few blocks from an apple store.
My GF was amazed though (her family was on android) because at the time their approved / store repair options were pretty much nonexistent so they often would tape a screen with a crack etc.
I've gone years now without a cracked screen, so they are definitely tougher than they used to be (I don't always use a case etc).
Note that the core charge might be an attempt to prevent such stocking up.
The only new iPhone that Apple is selling that's not on the repair parts website is the iPhone 11 which is a bit peculiar.
> Available first for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and soon to be followed by Mac computers featuring M1 chips, Self Service Repair will be available early next year in the US and expand to additional countries throughout 2022.
> The initial phase of the program will focus on the most commonly serviced modules, such as the iPhone display, battery, and camera. The ability for additional repairs will be available later next year.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-...
It looks like they made it appear as sketchy as possible.
It's a pretty good take, and points out some key criticisms: lack of parts for common repairs, lack of support for older devices, and, of course, no schematics.
From [1] "[with the GPL the FSF is] reshaping how programs are made in order to give everyone the right to understand, repair, improve, and redistribute the best-quality software on earth"
Better legislation would require timely support for commercial software that is sold for a purpose, with a stated minimum timeframe not unlike a warranty.
This is the country full of people who get angry when China "steals our IP", rather than getting angry that companies were hoarding knowledge from everyone else for profit, or getting angry that China isn't sharing their pirate's booty. Yes, technically, only the agenda of the rich gets passed in the US; but that's mostly because the US has done such a great job of aligning the interests of an enfranchised middle class and rich people that people aren't willing to question copyright at a low enough level to make "software R2R" legislatively viable. We're the country of people who pirate movies and then blame pirates for tanking the sales of those movies.
Anyway, if you want to know what a minimal software R2R bill would look like, it would probably be a copyright exception that allowed distributing unauthorized modifications to software under specific circumstances, probably with the added stipulation that the modifications need to be distributed in a form that cannot be used without a licensed copy of the original software.
That sounds simple enough but you immediately bring on all sorts of related questions if you add such a large gaping hole to the copyright system. Do people who make these fixes get copyright protection, too? In the US, licensed derivative works get a separate copyright that the original author is at risk of infringing upon. Unlicensed derivatives are uncopyrightable; this is why it's legal to pirate fanart[0], because the alternative would be fanworks boxing out the original artist of their own work. If someone fixes software under software R2R, should the original software vendor be allowed to incorporate that fix back into their own work? Should other vendors be able to use that fix and modify it further? Those questions are very critical to answer, and I don't have good answers for them.
FWIW software R2R would also thoroughly break the GPL copyleft, because it relies upon everything I just said about derivative works. The thing is, GPL is also the most friendly software to right-to-repair, specifically because it requires source code disclosure. A badly written software repair exception would not only destroy this, but also give us a repair ecosystem of people with binary-only software patches suing each other for stealing their own work and just recursing back into the same copyright maximalism problem we already have.
[0] Strictly speaking, if you pirate, say, One Piece[1] fanart and sold it on a t-shirt, Shueisha can still sue you. The artist who made the fanart can't - not even if it was Shueisha themselves pirating pirate fanart on t-shirts and selling it.
[1] STOP! 海賊版
I only hope that the 2022 SE display is compatible with the 2020 SE (it appears it should be, at initial glance).
5%: I need to be able to upgrade ram on it
In a year or two Apple will end this minimally visible and confusing website saying not enough people used it (some BS like "less than 0.001% of all iPhone users ever placed an order") and so it is not worth the time and effort. "See? No one cares about repairing their devices. People don't want to own and care for their things anymore!"
If they were Product(RED) screws, it would have made more sense.
The courier is Uber. The drivers routinely cancel deliveries resulting in a mandatory 5-7 day wait for the cancellation to be processed and a refund issued. Apple will not ship a replacement device on the original purchase order; instead, customers must place a new order.
This doesn't help anyone trying to get mileage from their phones.
What kind of equivalent program does Google offer for Pixels?
Much less their support horizons (horrible).
Ignoring the bloatware they ship with of course (not all but many).
> Just admit you hate Apple
I do. I also hate Google (QC issues), Samsung (too many to type out), Motorola/Lenovo (everything from cost cutting to poor updates), Asus (questionable bootloader relocking restrictions), Sony (bootloader unlocking purposely gimping cameras), modern Nokia (no unlocking at all), Microsoft (everything with Nokia/Steve Ballmer)... does that help? I hate everyone to different degrees for different reasons.
Ohh.. btw there's a good bit of suspicion that Apple's efforts are just greenwashing/its right to repair equivalent. Please see Louis Rossman's channel for more info. He makes a living off repairing Apple hardware (mainly Macs).
to put it another way, the cattle are free to graze on grass or grain, so long as they remain to chew the cud on Cooks farm.
We’d all be happier if we just gave up on all our hopes, but I also feel it’s important to keep acknowledging shitty things are still shitty.
It's so tempting to reject practically every large company because of their missteps, but time heals all wounds.
When it comes to phones, the only "true" manufacturer that is repairable and open is fairphone - and they too got mired in controversy over their last phone [2]
With that said, truth is a lot of these cos like locking down their phones, and if you're looking for a Libre-free experience, I'd recommend a Pixel. I myself use a Pixel 5 (it was the last flagship Pixel with an off the shelf chip... Tensor has tons of bugs apparently). The 5a is also out and fairly similar.
My second choice would be Xiaomi, but specifically either their Mi flagships (where there's almost no cost cutting), or Redmi which are very budget and also value for money. I'd highly recommend flashing the Mi-EU ROM if you can, and custom ROMs are fortunately fairly common. Avoid the A series for weird bugs.
Beyond this unfortunately it gets tougher. Older OnePlus were decent but recent phones aren't. Samsungs can be fantastic if you're cool with an ecosystem that's nearly as locked in as Apple's with nowhere as much of adoption.
(Quick edit addition - for laptops Framework is decent but I'd honestly recommend spinning up a cyberdeck/an Intel NUC with a type C powerbank, portable monitor and BT mouse/Keyboard. Not convenient, sure, but unlikely to fail and easy to fix if failed. Commerical laptops that don't have shitty hinges? Maybe ThinkPads, perhaps Dell Latitude and perhaps Panasonic Toughbooks. HP ProBooks can be okay but HP can burn in hell for all I care. I legitimately hate them more than Apple (which isn't an easy task), but that story's for another day.)
If you want to continue this conversation please let me know, I'd recommend another platform (for ease of typing/messaging).
1 - apparently Lenovo at one point realized it was cheaper to RMA ThinkPads than to QC them (as per what I read on r/Thinkpad). What fun (if it's actual, which, given Lenovo, is quite probable).
2 - because they dropped the headphone jack conveniently as the released wireless earbuds. Yes, waterproof headphone jacks are a thing even on budget phones like the 2015 Moto G3 (~$300?)
But given that, I will use them.
After dealing with PC laptops for more than a decade (my first laptop was when I was 19), I finally switched to a MacBook Pro last year and could not be happier. I've had "top" PC products in the past: Razer, X1 Carbon, etc, etc. None even remotely come close in battery life, performance, ease of use, or support.
I switched to Apple phones around 6 years ago, and it's the same story. I still miss my HTC One, but other than that one phone, nothing compares to my iPhone.
Things have changed?
So unless you want something specific (video games, a Windows desktop app, ...), I think they just both work. I'm guessing even Linux on a mac is probably okay (since so many people have the exact same hardware as you...)
To put in context, people probably had the same views around 1994~2000 as Windows was the only platform providing a reasonable GUI, wide hardware support, a vibrant app ecosystem and support from any computer shop at any price point you could wish for.
I still think people hating Microsoft weren’t wrong per se, and we can look at the bright side as well as the shitty side at the same time.
Even having used punch-hole cameras and OLED displays, that handset was just amazing. The way the curved back would melt into your hand, the perfect button placement and incredible speaker setup... that thing felt like a phone from 5 years in the future. The software experience was fairly clean and beat the hell out of Samsung at the time (and arguably, today), and the performance was really solid. The screen was a gorgeous 1080p LCD panel that made comparable iPhone models look like a kid's toy, and both cameras were super competitive for the time. I'm just gushing at this point, but that phone was really something else. If they made a new one with zero changes except a more recent chipset and better storage, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
And who could forget the price? All that for ~400 bones in the US, in 2013? You could even land it cheaper if you bought it on contract with a carrier! They really just don't make them like they used to, even my S10e doesn't quite fill the void.
My observation was simply that Apple gets so much hate that doesn't seem to be good faith criticism. It's just hardcore antifanboyism.
Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/comments/tiihwr/correcte...
Probably almost no fanboys remember this deceptive chart that suggests the M1 is equally powerful as the highest end discrete GPU, while still using 200 Watts less power. But Apple haters like me do.
BTW I'm open to hating on other companies in the same industry, like Google for providing bad service with Google Fi and their smartphone line.
https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/...
I am not an Apple fan and I welcome this self-repair initiative and I think their service manuals are quite nicely written but I worry that this may just be their another PR stunt:
1. many repairs can't be done without their direct assistance: "A System Configuration step may be required at the end of your repair. System Configuration is a postrepair software tool that completes the repair for genuine Apple parts. The repair manual will indicate if System Configuration is required. You will need to contact the Self Service Repair Store support team by chat or phone to initiate System Configuration.". They are not providing this software.
2. nothing said about logic board (yet?) and it is not uncommon that logic board goes bad (and also no component-level repair, especially USB connectors which often go bad but component-level repair is not really something I would expect at this time)
3. older devices not covered so the situation is unchanged for those
Maybe that will improve over time, though.
keep it up, ownership advocates!
This screams "court ordered" to me. The self-service site isn't Apple branded in any way.
Regulation is not exactly equivalent to "positive". It has risky elements, and is almost impossible to undo even if it's very bad.
It may be a win on short term but do you see any parts for Mac machines there? Such a "minimal offer" has the danger of public officials being ignorant enough to fall for Apple's propaganda of "we're offering that here, isn't it enough?". Also, it does not seem to offer the special tools that Apple uses for calibration or pairing of components.
We need comprehensive regulation covering all kinds of technology self-repair, from phones over laptops and computers to cars and trucks. Anyone should be able to perform the same quality and level of repair service that official Apple stores can.
Not yet. But I'm pretty sure they are heading down that path as well. They sell a lot more iPhones so it probably makes sense to go that route first. I disagree with your starting point of really awful cynicism, especially given that Apple has a demonstrated track record (albeit sometimes slow and despite their initial intentions) of doing environmentally friendly things. They don't have to power their operations via renewable energy, or build products made of recycled metals. "Fall for Apple's propaganda"? Sorry I'm not buying the negative case.
Yes Apple does do decent things in operations, but anything involving the consumer facing side has been "only Apple knows best" for decades. Operating systems being locked down? That shit started with Apple, Microsoft and Android only followed suit. Hardware using special screws, no 3.5mm socket, or glue? Peripheral sockets needing MFi chips? Again, Apple pioneered that consumer hostility, and look how they're fighting tooth and nail to keep Lightning instead of switching over to USB-C and offering an USB-C to Lightning adapter utilizing a custom Alt mode to offer backwards compatibility fot old accessories.
The only notable progress originating at Apple was the introduction of USB.
Like why would they do this, if they didn’t want to, and then roll it all back? It would just bring legislation up again. It seems like a lot of work just to “trick you”.
I hope it seems a little less predatory and "worth it" to people now to just pay for an OEM part, installed by a professional, with proper tools on hand. I don't think many people will use this, but I admire the engineering and initiative behind this program.