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Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

> Companies aren't obligated to support me doing this

Where does one draw the line on support? If I jailbreak an iPhone, should I still get Apple customer support for the apps on it, even though they may have been manipulated by some aspect of the jailbreak? (Very real problem, easy to cause crashes in other apps when you mess around with root access) Should I still get a battery replacement within warranty from Apple even though I've used software that runs the battery hotter and faster than it would on average on a non-jailbroken iPhone?

I feel like changing the software shouldn't void your warranty, but I can see arguments against that. I probably fall on the side of losing all software support if you make changes like this, but even then it's not clear cut.

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It's up to the manufacturer to prove that the software modification had a material impact on the issue being covered. Yes that's expensive, yes that's the point.

As you said, this might be a complex one to figure out. I am biased because I tend not to use customer support services (with more of a "figure it out" approach) and am confident I could replace parts myself, though the latter might be harder with parts pairing today.

Can see how people more interested in the software side of things would care about support from [parent company] though. "Lose all support if you bypass our restrictions" is the relatively straightforward approach, but the collateral damage might be quite high. In an ideal world, perhaps the network of third party repair services could take up the slack?

The line is definitely crossed if you jailbreak your phone. It seems pretty clear. Either you're using the device as the manufacturer intended or not. If I take a device rated for 2m of water down scuba diving to 25m, it voids my warranty too.

But that's no the point here, a more similar point is to have the scuba diving manufacturer imposing which body of water you can use the device in.

And if you decide to give the device a try in your own swimming pool or a random spot you'd like to explore, the device won't work and you might be banned from using it elsewhere. Would that make any sense?

Imagine Lenovo refusing to service your ThinkPad because you've compiled your own kernel.

Charging IC has NTC thermistor and battery absolutely must withstand the system running on 100% and then some.

As for battery lifetime, batteries are cheap, unless you glue them to an expensive assembly and force people to replace whole assembly as phone vendors do.

Laptop manufacturers are most definitely not designing their laptops to run at the top of the thermal envelope for 100% of the time, and honestly that's probably the right choice because no one does that – that's what you pay for when you buy high end servers, and the fact these corners are cut is why consumer hardware is so much cheaper.

If you run the software they provide and their guardrails aren't strict enough, that's clearly a warranty case. But if you modify the software to remove their guardrails, it feels reasonable that they can deny a warranty fix.

Overclocking is perhaps a clearer cut version of this – it's a "software change", but can affect the hardware lifespan.

>Laptop manufacturers are most definitely not designing their laptops to run at the top of the thermal envelope for 100% of the time, and honestly that's probably the right choice because no one does that

both claims untrue.

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