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Comment by bradfa | Hacker News Reader

They have to start somewhere. This is somewhere. Sure, they could do better, but if this turns into just a thing that they do for all new phones they release then it'll be great. Hopefully they will keep having availability of parts and tools even after software and security updates end for given devices.

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This is a bad-faith attempt to try and prevent right-to-repair legislation that's slowly making its way through various legislatures, just like their BS "independent repair provider programme".

I don't understand how Apple starting to do exactly what the "right to repair" people appear to be asking for is in bad faith or in any way trying to prevent it. Can you clarify?

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.

Well my problem is that knowing Apple's (and the tech industry in general) bad faith regarding repair (and any kind of "ownership" users might gain on their devices), I don't think this is a "beginning".

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).

I used to live in a major Texas city that refused to implement a bus service. After several years of criticism, they decided to finally trial a bus service. They setup bus stops around the city to gather data and determine if this would be a service residents would use. Several bus stop started to appear about 2 miles from my home basically on a main parkway next to an open field. There were no bus stops next to the largest shopping mall in the community, nor in or around any of the growing suburbs that were forming during this time. Of course their trial failed because of lack of demand. They used this lack of demand to justify shutting down the service within a year of starting it.

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.

If Apple sells any parts for any phone for any reason without unjustifiable markups to anyone without requiring registration of phone serial number (mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180032 ) or any other random unnecessary requirements whose only purpose is to get in the way of there being a market for parts, well then and only then will I believe that Apple actually is trying to support right to repair. If they're not doing that, then I'm only lead to believe that they are putting this up to deflect criticism and continue their hold on the parts market.

Apple takes a >50% margin on everything else they sell, why should parts be any different?

I understand a large margin on the device itself because that includes various software licenses and IP. Auxiliary parts that can't be used to rebuild a full device (as the mainboard is missing) shouldn't carry that markup as you've already paid for those licenses when you originally bought the device.

Yes, but that depends on if the licensing fees are per board or per device. And even if your contract says “per device”, you could still be taken to court by the IP owner.

You seem to be putting words in my mouth. Maybe you think I said that a 50% margin is unjustifiable? Well I'm not sure what to say other than please read my post again and note that I did not.

Not being different, as in the spare parts having the same margin as the full device, is good enough. In the past they've had some very big and unreasonable markups on replacement parts.

There is a little dance that Apple has done a dozen times. It starts with "Apple supports independent repair*!" and ends with terms of the asterisk that completely preclude independent repair. Not in a half-assed way, either, but in a carefully crafted airtight trap. Grandparent post might be jumping the gun, but Apple has shot this gun so many times and hit the RtR crowd so many times that I have a very hard time blaming them for jumping.

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.

Because many people who say they support the right to repair just hate big corporations and want to see them forced to do things that hurt them.

That they are not producing old parts is not in itself an indication of bad faith. Manufacturing more after having stopped would be prohibitively expensive. We have to wait until they fail to create enough spares for the current models to support this program in order to draw this conclusion.

They provide repair services for products 5 years after they stop selling them, which will by law be extended to 7 years for products after 2020. They clearly have the parts. See https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201624

They have such a large volume of sales that they would be able to very accurately estimate the number of parts they need in order to fulfill their warranty obligations and paid repairs. Their inventory of old parts would presumably be earmarked for that purpose, without significant leftovers.

I don't believe they've stopped manufacturing the parts (or ran out of stock) since they're still able to "repair" those devices out of warranty at a huge premium.

I mean they even have tool kits that you can rent that come with everything to make the repair (since some tools are very custom like the battery or display press). That doesn't seem very bad-faith of them. Not sure why anyone expected them to release parts and repair guides for every device in the span of five months. They also have to get the logistics sorted out to enable people to order individual parts. These devices were released before the program was announced, so it is not surprising that they may be hard to repair or have limited self-repairable parts when they weren't designed with that in mind. Apple certainly does have an incentive to keep them difficult to repair, so I'm not saying that will change - but they haven't gotten a chance yet.

At least for the repair guides, it's something they must already have internally (in fact some have leaked in the past) so releasing them should be trivial.

Don't care, I wouldn't take my device to a third party anyways. Secondly after owning an iPhone for over a decade not once have I needed a repair.

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...

> I wouldn't take my device to a third party anyways

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?

I'll never do a repair on my phone, my time is too valuable to be futzing around with things I don't truly understand. You most certainly do not need a new battery after a year, my kids are playing with an iphone 4 as a toy. I'm also not the one upset that apple is providing parts, great. It just seems like nothing is ever good enough or everything is done in bad faith and I just don't see the world through that kind of myopic or dystopian lens.

You have a ten year old iPhone, and you never replaced the battery?

My daughter uses my wife's old iPhone 4 as her "phone" (it's not allowed to connect to our wifi nor does it have a SIM card or active mobile phone plan). The battery isn't super robust but it still works well enough to be a kids toy to play with for taking pictures and making little movies and listening to music. Original 10 year old battery.

I’m a moderately heavy user. I find I have to replace the battery every three years or so. Right now, mine is down to 70%.

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.

>They have to start somewhere. This is somewhere.

Did you unironically re-phrase the politician's syllogism as a positive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

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