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Comment by klabb3 | Hacker News Reader

Following the right to repair movement, Apple seems to only be providing coarse-granular self-repair, meaning that a large amount of small issues need expensive fixes. For instance, display cable broken due to normal wear -> replace entire display assembly @ ~50% of MSRP on an older model. Apple themselves are often doing the same thing when repairing in-house, replacing larger components and charging a premium. And why wouldn't they? Sure, they lose a bit to independent repair shops, but they win massively by having people buy new instead.

In other words, democratizing the Apple-grade repairs is not enough, we need individual components to be replaceable, like with a car. Apple quite literally HUNT anyone selling those right now.

This new stunt is an amazingly smart way of confusing legislators for a few years. It's even confusing tech enthusiasts. But apple is very much against proper repairability (like a car), no matter who does it.

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>Apple quite literally HUNT anyone selling those right now.

This is just objectively not true. Apple only goes after people claiming to sell OEM parts because that's a trademark issue. You can sell 3rd party parts without any issues and Apple can't do anything about it.

That's what they seem to be talking about. If you want to buy replacement ICs from Texas Instruments, you can't. Apple won't let you order the parts from them, entirely because they want to monopolize the Macbook repair pipeline. Your only choice is buying sketchy third-party components, or risking damage by removing a similar part off a donor board. This is entirely a side effect of Apple's control over their supply chain, and it's 100% a conscious decision. The only word suitable for describing it is 'petty', but that seems to be the crux of most of Apple's business decisions recently.

Texas Instruments doesn't make those IC's available because the design is custom to Apple. TI is just manufacturing them. They're Apple parts so repair centers and customers need to go through Apple to get them. There's no incentive for anyone, Apple or otherwise, to allow people to buy parts directly from their vendor.

> They're Apple parts so repair centers and customers need to go through Apple to get them

By that logic, Apple also has no reason to offer Self Service Repair for their Macbooks.

Edit: FYI, self-service repair isn't through Apple at all. It's been outsourced to a different company, same as they did with iPhone repairs.

You seem to have an issue with how logic works. Self-Service Repair is through Apple.

It's actually this little Westchester, PA company. Here is their website that apple links in their press release:

https://selfservicerepair.com/about-us

SPOT is fulfilling the requests but they're still through Apple. It is an officially supported means of getting parts, manuals, and tools from Apple. It's not through a third-party.

The OP's complaint was that people can't go to Texas Instruments and get parts. That's not the same and what I was pointing out.

> But apple is very much against proper repairability (like a car), no matter who does it.

Cars are extremely hard to repair for an increasing number of tasks.

A lot of wear items on cars have been hard to repair for a long time. If we're judging "right to repair" by how easy it is to replace, say, a clutch on a front-wheel-drive car, I think computers are already ahead.

Nod. I should've said how cars used to be. I used the analogy because it's a familiar mental model, worked well even for safety critical heavy machinery, and is the obvious way things should be.

Sure, we should just go back in time to when we had carburetors and simple fuses instead of CAN bus etc. Who needs modern tech in our cars (or computers).

Sometimes the whole right to repair movement seems to be populated with luddites who just want to live with 1980's technology so they can enjoy turning a wrench.

Maybe some. But a lot of the right to repair movement is just fighting companies like Apple or John Deere actively preventing tinkers and 3rd party repairers from fixing devices they supposedly own.

Apple preventing computer repair folks from sharing blueprints and hardware locking some components are two examples.

More like 60s and 70s for me, IMHO the height of the era ;-)

There's a definite sense of pride and ownership in being able to understand and work on your own car. Sadly, that's all been replaced with subservience to the corporatocracy and the accompanying erosion of the concept of ownership.

Good news, if you think your display cable is the issue, you can now get it for $5 through Apple's self service repair. Same for the audio board's cable, the track pad/keyboard cable and the antennas (with varying prices). Separate IO and audio boards are had for <$50. Heck the entire M1 air logic board can be had for $370 now (assuming you return your old board). Other than literally sending schematics off for cloners to produce their own boards, I'm not sure what people could actually want done differently here for a "Self Service" repair program.

> if you think your display cable is the issue, you can now get it for $5 through Apple's self service repair

Are you referring to flexgate, ie MBP 2016-2017? Those are fused with the display assembly. Even if I had one, I'd basically need a lab to extend it, even independent shops usually don't do that repair.

I wonder if they're afraid of losing the market to platforms like Frame.work.

Doubtful. It'll be a while until Framework operates at a scale that even makes a blip on Apple's bottom line. Legislation could have a large and immediate impact on Apple.

(I say this as a happy Framework laptop owner)

I think, like most people here, you are overestimating the demand for self-service.

Most people are far too busy these days to be trying to fix their own device.

And as someone who tried to fix a MacBook it requires a level of care, skill and confidence that is a step beyond most people.

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