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It should be my choice as the consumer to ask an independent repair person to install a cheaper or refurbished part in my device. I think it's great that Apple warns users that a new part was installed and whether it's a genuine Apple part of not. But it should be my right to accept that risk and move on. I don't give the most minuscule damn about how Apple having to deal with "broad hardware quality and compatibility". Let the trillion dollar company figure that out.

> An older laptop is quite often not worth to fix with genuine parts (that are expensive in part due to quality control)

A huge lie. Older macs would usually be worth the fix with genuine parts, which don't exist because of greed. If parts were expensive because of quality control, Apple products would cost 10x more. If Apple gets regulated to provide parts for non-exorbitant prices, their devices wouldn't necessarily have to change price.

> It should be my choice as the consumer to ask an independent repair person to install a cheaper or refurbished part in my device.

it’s already your choice right now. it’s just that the device won’t work without the correct part. as it should be.

> But it should be my right to accept that risk and move on.

That's the problematic part. Even as (or maybe because of, at this point I do not really know) somewhat knowledgeable in hardware I am not sure I can confidently enumerate the risk beforehand.

If I go to a cheap third party repair shop to replace my computer/phone screen I kind of expect there to be some compromise in quality. However, I usually have no what quality level will I get. Will the screen be as bright and sharp as in manufacturer's store or is it going to be invisible in sunlight with constant color smudge like screens from early 00s? I have no idea and have to prepare for worst.

The same with battery. I know that at manufacturer claims 10 hours of use, my actual use squeezes 6-8 hours. What am I going to get with an off-brand battery? I can live with 6, it's cheaper, I could probably stomach 5 hours if the price difference is severe, but I am not willing to compromise down to 4.

If my phone's EMEA radio dies I can maybe have have it replaced with NA one. Generally, it will work. Some channels/frequencies will be unavailable and therefore my battery life and coverage will suffer. How much? Again, I have no idea.

So while I wholeheartedly agree that it should be my right to accept the risk and make a compromise, I know that in quite a lot of cases I either lack expertise/experience/knowledge to make an informed decision, or there is simply not enough information provided to make that decision. Sadly, "the market" will not solve that, because cheaper products are quite often sold by hiding the deficiencies

When you go shopping for the cheapest sushi, you should expect worms. Same with repair. That's the market solution. Fuck around and find out. If you check the review history beforehand and maybe talk to different shops, you'll get a repair that's most likely still much cheaper than oem and that you are satisfied with.

>Will the screen be as bright and sharp?

When I had mine replaced with aftermarket one, I asked about that and they showed me a phone with a screen of supposedly comparable quality and even offered an option to come in later and check the phone mid-repair for a 15€ fee. (That was a fee to let you back up data off of the phone if you didn't want to go trough with the repair)

>What am I going to get with an off-brand battery?

Many shops will offer warranty so that if the capacity degrades quickly they will replace it for you.

> When you go shopping for the cheapest sushi, you should expect worms.

No, I prefer paying a government taxes so they can hire restaurant inspectors who work to ensure the probability of being sold food with worms approaches 0%, regardless of how much the food costs.

I have no interest in keeping track of the price of sushi. My main concern is knowing the product being sold meets a very high probability of meeting a certain minimum standard, such as not being infested with parasites. Otherwise, I just opt out of the market and make my food at home.

Existing laws apply to repair shops as well - warranty is just as legally binding as anywhere else and they can't sell you dangerous part like say exploding battery. That's the certain minimum.

You are claiming that people will always pick the cheapest repair but that's not the case in any other market. Similarly as you are not always picking the cheapest food. Even if health inspectors do their work flawlessly, (wishful thinking,) there are more factors to consider besides price so you check the reviews and there is correlation between quality and price.

Being the devil’s advocate: how do we help the Earth more, by mandating genuine parts so that second- or even third-hand apple devices can fulfill their whole lifespan with a general guarantee on the buyer’s end that they get what they pay for, or by being able to replace non-genuine parts, putting the whole second-hand market a much larger luck/trust factor?

I would argue that having these devices live for close to 10 years in someone else’s pocket, even if a potential repair was a bit more expensive is more important.

Whichever option makes the most people keep their devices for the longest would be preferred, but we simply don't have this data because virtually no manufacturer provides parts. If repairs are so expensive that people avoid them, you have failed to help Earth. If repairs are so shitty because the parts are bad, so people end up having to buy more parts or just never repair again, you also failed. Ideal scenario, manufacturers being forced to provide all parts at close to cost plus distribution, the Fairphone way (or better). If non repairable phones are still deemed necessary because repairable ones are too expensive, then we also need a repairability score on all devices like in France.

> I would argue that having these devices live for close to 10 years in someone else’s pocket, even if a potential repair was a bit more expensive is more important.

I didn't understand the point you were trying to make. Why would my phone go to someone else's pocket?

Apple’s repairs and parts are literally so cheap that repairmen like Rossman complain they can’t compete if they’re forced to use genuine parts.

Which means they’re really making the money on sales of non-genuine parts.

> I don't give the most minuscule damn about how Apple having to deal with "broad hardware quality and compatibility". Let the trillion dollar company figure that out.

You say this but then when your knockoff part uses a driver from a different older phone that gets pulled from an iOS release, you’ll be filing a lawsuit about how apple “deliberately” broke your property.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/02/18/ios-9-2-1-error-53-update/

Like are you just demanding that apple support third party components with ongoing software development or you’ll sue? Because that’s literally what already happened.

People have this “buy the cheapest sushi, get worms” mindset when they’re being toughguy internet libertarians but when it’s their own personal loss they absolutely start looking to make it someone else’s problem. Bioshock was so right.

That’s a massive brand image problem on top of the financial risk posed, a rational actor certainly might choose to opt out of that broad support model and it’s their market right to choose to choose to opt out of that. But that’s where we get into the “socialism/regulatory protections for me, markets for thee” thing.

Just like with the sideloading and the protections that provides against "third-party stores" using that as a dodge for app review/violating user privacies - for a lot of android users it's not enough that they just win in the marketplace of ideas, they have to actually outlaw and ban any competing business models that they don't like. Again, bioshock nailed it so perfectly - the market is awesome until it picks a solution you don't like/that doesn't make you a profit.

Its not about "genuine" parts. Apple blocks "genuine" brand new parts taken off of brand new same model unit. Its about blocking all repairs not going thru Apple, its all about control and %.

US law doesnt recognize such a thing as "genuine" part. Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act spells it out pretty well

"it is illegal for a manufacturer to void a warranty or _deny coverage_ if a customer has a repair or maintenance performed by an independent repair shop or using a third-party replacement part"

I don’t want my phone stolen and disassembled for profit. If you steal my phone, it better be as worthless as a rock to you.

Stolen phones, even iPhones, already are disassembled for profit. Right to repair wouldn’t change anything in that regard.

That argument is moot, all disassembled iphones are as worthless as a rock, even if they are not stolen.

If you have two broken iphones in your house, you can't make a working one with them.

I believe you’re talking about different things.

Apple still honors warranty if you have third party components.

Even outside of warranty, they’ll repair it. A family member of mine cheaped out and got a mall screen replacement on their phone. Turned out to be terrible but Apple still honored a repair claim on it.

Your quote doesn’t really pertain to the serialization imho. They can still notify you of illegitimate parts as long as they don’t deny you service based on that.

If Apple doesn't want crap parts being used by repair shops they should sell the parts in the open market, regardless of the shop being in a "repair program", like every car manufacturer does

It's that simple.

It’s actually not. You can be sure that there will be manufacturers out there who will skimp on quality to make some money at a lower price, and repair shops will buy that stuff to grow their margins.

There are plenty of things (e.g. phone cases) that are sold on the open market, but they still get knocked off, and those knockoffs sell because they are cheap.

> there will be manufacturers out there who will skimp on quality to make some money at a lower price, and repair shops will buy that stuff to grow their margins.

This exists already. Apple is denying the consumer to purchase a legitimate Apple part to fix the issue unless they take it to an "Apple authorized repair shop"

This is just completely untrue (definitely in the US): https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair

I’ll accept that this doesn’t cover all devices in the last seven years, but it does cover recent devices.

Cool, I think this is a recent development, but still, seems to be only for the end user

> like every car manufacturer does

I don't know a single car manufacturer which denies genuine parts with custom fake software errors.

Car manufacturers make very few "parts" themselves. Gearboxes, as an example, are often designed and manufactured by companies like ZF[0] or Valeo[1]. They also sell these to the public at (usually significantly) elevated costs. I'm sure this could be done for specific Apple parts, but like the car manufacturers, Apple will want some control over the parts they design.

[0] https://www.zf.com/ [1] https://www.valeo.com

Exactly. So why can I go into an auto parts shop and buy the original Ford Spark Plug set for my model (which of course is made by an OEM) but not an Apple repair part?

> A deliberately stretched example. Apple laptops are claimed to not need camera privacy shutter, because the recording light is hardware controlled,

Hardware controlled is either a physycal switch or a hardware circuitry linked to the start of streaming from the camera which is difficult to implement (you need to decode the stream in hw).

So i really think that Apple is lying here.

Why not just connect the LED to the same rail that powers the camera?

Hardware controlled could just as well be a LED which turns on when the entire (or relevant part of) camera module is powered on. Power-saving wise it would also make sense to have the whole thing on always.

> or a hardware circuitry linked to the start of streaming from the camera which is difficult to implement (you need to decode the stream in hw).

Why would you need to decode the stream in hw? Simply attach an LED to power-good signal of signal buffer and you are good to go. As long as the data stream is open, the LED is on. It's not even intern level, it's student level circuitry.

Something that is fabulously easy and cheap to implement and would cause massive backlash if found to be otherwise? It would almost be more effort to not do it the authentic way.

I still don't understand how the recording light negates the need for a privacy shutter. I don't care if i know when the camera is on, as the camera could be turned on without my consent or just before I'm ready.

Unrelated, but isn‘t this false?

> A deliberately stretched example. Apple laptops are claimed to not need camera privacy shutter, because the recording light is hardware controlled, so the user always knows when the camera is recording.

Don’t Apple devices have the ability to take photos of thieves stealing the device? Surely the camera indicator won‘t turn on in such a case, right?

I could be completely wrong.

I have never heard of such a thing and honestly it would be pretty impractical in case of, say, a macbook which has quite limited view of its surroundings (e.g. you close it).

What apple (and samsung, etc) does is not let the thief actually power off the device without a password, so until the battery lasts it can share its location via some way to the owner.