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Comment by Throw8394045 | Hacker News Reader

They don't do recalls even on modern hardware. But soldering hacks are no longer possible, all parts are serialized.

Louis Rossmann made many videos on this.

What are you talking about? Capacitor technology hasn't changed substantially in decades, and it's just as possible to change caps with a soldering iron now as it was 20 years ago. I have no idea what you mean by "serialized".

not capacitors, but more advanced components, like the camera, have serial numbers embedded in them, and the serial number needs to match, otherwise it won't accept the component. Components off a stolen device are put on a list and won't work in admirer another phone, so stolen phones aren't even worth anything for parts, driving down the market for stolen phones. It also makes the job of repair shops harder, which is collateral damage in Apple's eyes, but is very much material for anyone running a repair shop.

I see. Yes, that is a big problem for component swapping. I was just thinking of electronics with old/faulty caps; those will still be repairable.

Doesn’t Apple offer a way to re-pair components if they are genuine and not stolen (unregistered from the previous AppleId)?

and Apple will very happily charge you for that privilege

TBH for such a critical piece of our modern lives, I would be more than fine to pay extra to be 100% sure I am getting original parts, put in professionally and in secure manner re my personal data. I wish ie Samsung had such service where I live.

We anyway talk about expensive premium phones to start with, so relatively expensive after-warranty service is not shocking.

This may actually eventually sway me into apple camp. This and what seems like much better theft discouragement.

I don't. Such mechanisms also disqualify 3rd party replacements. It is just a wasteful solution. Not that any smartphone would qualify as decent here.

But as a customer it will overall be more expensive for you.

There are things in life where amount paid is far from top priority, and phone is one these days. With sums we talk about, I just don't care anymore, and Samsung I have now is even more expensive and more wasteful.

Re wastefulness - a decent laptop causes 10x more pollution to manufacture than phone. Desktop PC 10x that. TVs. Cars. Clothing. Phones are very much down a very long line of higher priority targets for eco friendly approach.

I personally don't care much about $ but many probably are. I care that the manufacturers don't work with user orientation in mind and instead take advantage of them. I don't want to be a customer here. Replacement parts are possible and we maybe need regulation on that front to reduce waste. I doesn't matter if other devices are worse.

Other example have a longer shelf life or are at least repairable without being tied to a manufacturer. Notebooks have similar problems and the critique can be transferred here in a similar way. I see synergies in possible rules here of course.

3rd party replacements should be allowed but the firmware should allow me to check if any third party replacements have been made. I’d like to know when buying second hand phone if it has genuine parts. Third part replacements are usually of much worse quality (I tried that many times e.g. with third party toners for HP and every single time they turned out to be a waste of money).

The only reason this is an issue for repair shops is they can't sell you recycled stolen parts at bottom of market prices for a sky high mark up. On top of that the "non genuine parts", some of which really are utterly dire, show up in the OS as being not genuine parts. Buying genuine parts, which are available from Apple, eats into the margins. There is very little honour in the repair market, despite the makeup applied to it by a couple of prominent youtubers and organisations.

The amount of horror stories I've seen over the years from independent repairers is just terrible. Just last year a friend had a screen hot snotted back on their Galaxy.

> they can't sell you recycled stolen parts at bottom of market prices for a sky high mark up

What represents a more efficient economy. The one where broken phones get reused for parts or the one where you have to throw them away?

The economy that isn't backed with criminal activity and loss for customers.

> The only reason this is an issue for repair shops is they can't sell you recycled stolen parts at bottom of market prices for a sky high mark up.

This is just incredibly dishonest framing and completely ignoring what the right to repair and third party repair shop issue is all about.

> Buying genuine parts, which are available from Apple,

It is not a margin problem, it is an availability problem. Apple does not allow third party repair shops to stock common parts, such as batteries or displays for popular iPhones. This is only possible when providing the devices serial numbers. This effectively prevents third party repair shops from competing with Apple or Apple authorized service providers because they have artificially inflated lead times.

Becoming Apple authorized isn't an option for actual repair shops because that would effectively disallow them from doing actual repairs when possible, rather than playing Dr. Part Swap. Everything what Apple does in the repair space essentially boils down to them doing everything they can to avoid having competition in the repair space.

> eats into the margins

Replacing a 45ct voltage regulator on a mainboard is cheaper than replacing the entire mainboard with everything soldered on is cheaper, but doesn't allow for very nice margins.

> There is very little honour in the repair market

There is very little honour in any market. Honour does not get rewarded nowadays, people are in <insert market> to make money, if you're lucky they still take a little pride in their work. If a repair shop offers good service or not should be up to the consumer to determine, not up to Apple (or any electriconics manufacturer that employs the same tactics).

> makeup applied to it by a couple of prominent youtubers and organisations.

That is called marketing, that's what Apple does also pretty good. They're also lying when they say they are environmentally conscious while they also have their genius bar employees recommend an entirely new screen assembly on a MacBook just because a backlight cable came loose.

> The amount of horror stories I've seen over the years from independent repairers is just terrible. J

The amount of horror stories I have experienced with Apple is no joke either. Apple is always taking the sledgehammer approach with their repairs. I've had the pleasure myself to deal with Apple repairs once for my old 2019 MBP. It wouldn't take a charge anymore, went to the Genius Bar and received a quote for a new mainboard costing well over 1000 EUR. Being familiar with some of the more technical videos of Rossmann etc, I found one electronics repair store that actually does board level stuff and got it fixed for a fraction of the price (iirc it was ~200 EUR).

Even if Apple has room for improvement here, I think it’s still worth it to try to curb the market for stolen parts, because that’s going to exist even if Apple sold spare parts in bulk at-cost simply because there exist unscrupulous repair shops that have no qualms with charging you OEM part prices while using gray market parts that cost a fraction as much on eBay, Aliexpress, etc.

For instance, maybe Apple could supply parts in bulk to repair shops but require registration of those parts prior to usage. The repaired iPhone would function regardless but loudly alert the user that unregistered parts were used to repair it. Gray market parts naturally aren’t going to be able to be registered (either due to serial not existing in their system or having been parted out from stolen devices), and thus the user is given some level of assurance that they’re not paid for questionable repair services.

If you think Apple's part pairing policy has anything to do with consumer benefit, I have a bridge in Arizona to sell you.

It is not about stolen phones, it is about monetization of customer services. If stealing phones was legal, job description for procurement/purchase departments would look differently as well.

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