Not too long ago, I went to the Apple store to get my MacBook Pro looked at for a faulty key and degraded trackpad. As I had a Genius diagnose the issue, the screen brightness of my iPhone 7 had dropped nearly completely.
While it was true that the glass of the screen had cracked due to a fall, the phone had operated just fine for many months since. The Genius told me it was likely a display issue while I told him it's much more likely a software issue. The Genius gave me the unfortunate advice of restarting the phone by holding down the power button and the lower volume button. The phone restarted, with the Apple logo in full brightness but would turn black when it came to logging in. Pity, since my password is too long to type it in without visual aide.
The Genius told me that to repair the display was $200+. I scoffed at the price and told him it's not the display, and it was unacceptable as I planned on buying the iPhone 12 next month. The manager came by and made it clear there's no room to budge on the price. I resigned and left the device with them.
When I was called in to pick up my phone, they told me that replacing the display did not work, so now my option was either to upgrade or to buy another iPhone 7 for $400+. I told them that's unacceptable and that it's clear it's not the hardware. I told them I am immersed in their ecosystem and I would easily spent another $2000 this year and to cut me a break. They told me, take it or leave it.
I took the phone back and started making my way home. Descending into the metro, I walked past an ill-lit part of the platform. I looked at my phone again and realized I could faintly make out the log in screen. I typed in my password, logged in, went to control center and raised the brightness back up. Perfect. Now, even if I lower the brightness to its lowest setting, it works as normal.
Not only is Apple's moves to cut out 3rd party repairs egregious, their own solutions and staff are rife with incompetence and their offer to you once you've immersed yourself into their ecosystem is, "Money now or go away".
I am not buying the iPhone 12 and my next machine will run Linux.
I moved from apple to android a few years ago, hoping the grass would be greener. I hoped I was leaving behind a locked in ecosystem with hard to repair devices for a more open ecosystem where competition would improve quality.
Android is a fat mess, with flagship phones from premium manufacturers being incompatible with various OS features, and devices from different manufacturers being incompatible in ways that never happened in the iOS ecosystem.
If you want a full blown "Android" experience, you end up buying all google devices, and in my experience google support are as bad if not worse than Apple. I have a pixel 3 phone from Google that is still under manufacturers warranty. The power button seems to have gotten stuck, and maybe once or twice a day it gets stuck in a reboot loop, and in that process the phone gets _hot_ and ends up running the battery to 0. It's happened when I'm driving too.
Google's advice has been a factory reset, or a replacement device for $300. They claim I must have dropped it, or otherwise mistreated it and as far as they're concerned that's that.
So here I am, 2 years later with a $700 android phone, contemplating an iPhone 12 because the situation is no different on the other side...
The Android ecosystem is great for low cost devices. I have a 5 year old Samsung that still serves me great for what I need it: quick web searches, mapping and Waze, communication etc. The screen is cracked in 200 pieces, I literally stepped on it on multiple occasions, the power button has fallen off but I figured I don't really need it anyway except the rare cases where I leave it to discharge completely. Otherwise the phone is still going strong and has acceptable battery life.
Best 150$ I ever spent, I was going to replace it this year for sheer embarrassment of using such a piece of junk, and then the coronavirus happened and I don't need to physically meet any of my tech-judgmental peers.
My experience mirrors your somewhat. I bought a refurb Galaxy S5 back in 2015, and have been using it since.
Today, when shopping for devices at a comparable price, their specs are usually worse than S5, a phone that's 6 years old at this point.
Many of the new budget phones today come with 2GB RAM (Laughable), and a less than 1080p screen (Usually some weird resolution like 1520x720?). For me to get the same performance/screen quality as the S5, I would now have to spend around $400-500, not $225 like I did 5 years ago. Mid range now seems to mean $500-700 phones, an amount that wouldn't be out of place for a desktop PC, and way more than I'm willing to spend on a phone.
What was it about tech getting cheaper again? Doesn't hold in my experience.
My experience has been the complete opposite of yours and I’ve discovered cheap Android phones are torture to use. I would prefer to have my testicles removed via Slap Chop than use a 5 year old trash-droid or simply use a five year old iOS device.
The Apple ecosystem is great in my experience for used devices if you don't mind that. My like now iPhoneSE (old model) was £100 off eBay, works great. The macbook is 7 years old, pretty good - some plastic iffy. Both still run the latest software, are fast etc.
Not sure what is going on with your power button, but if it's outside warranty repair $300 for a replacement device is pretty good.
On my fifth Android handset, I have really not found the incompatibility you point out to be an issue. Sure, some companies, like Samsung, try to offer some exclusive features. Just avoid them.
I have to use an iPhone for work, there are a lot of critical annoyances, like how poorly cursor selection works, and then some apps don't support the space bar cursor. Everyday things like changing settings are so much nicer in Android.
My 3 year old Pixel 2 has been a fantastic daily handset, absolutely no complaints, before that my Note 2 was also excellent, though I was glad to get away from Samsung's attempts at exclusive features (the Pixel is "pure Android", albeit with some self-contained on-device "AI" features that are actually useful).
Although there are a lot of cheap Android devices to choose from that can drag down the brand reputation, I would really push back against the suggestion Androids are exclusively "cheap" in the pejorative sense. Most are Just Fine at least. Apple is generally much more conservative in rolling out features, and offers less configuration options, so I guess it's a safer choice, but if Apple weren't such a status symbol I think most people would be more than happy with the lower cost (3a, 4a) Pixel line.
About your first paragraph - No, that's absolutely shit. My friend was one of the first to buy a Pixel 4 in the UK, and unfortunately dropped it and broke the screen. He contacted Google for a repair, and their response literally was that they don't repair Pixel phones, but they can sell him a new one at a slightly(by about £100) discounted price as a "good will gesture". That's absolutely unacceptable . Imagine if a car manufacturer sold you a car and then just didn't offer a repair option for out of warranty issues.
That's surprising, but there are many third party options to get it repaired. You can even DIY for $115 including required tools.
I know someone whose iPhone XR glass back broke after a year (they had a super robust case), Apple's response was it was not cost effective to repair. Ultimately devices designed to be repaired is the best answer (and maybe not have glass backs?), but I don't think there's that much difference in many cases here.
We'll I'm claiming that my pixel 3 is _in_ warranty, and google are claiming £300 for a replacement (not $300 sorry, that was a typo). The phone is less than two years old, but I don't know what recourse I have.
> Sure, some companies, like Samsung, try to offer some exclusive features. Just avoid them.
If your advice is to ignore the largest manufacturer and manufacturers of the most high end devices, that says a lot about the state of the ecosystem. Samsung and huawei have both had massive incompatiblies with other devices and android products - work profiles, pay, fit being my examples.
> Although there are a lot of cheap Android devices to choose from that can drag down the brand reputation, I would really push back against the suggestion Androids are exclusively "cheap" in the pejorative sense
I never claimed they were cheap. My experience is with flagship devices and premium manufacturers, who in many cases are the same price as apple - a galaxy s20 is £900, a oneplus 8 is £800.
Vendor discretion whether something is in warranty is a pain point, I've seen people bitten from all vendors. If they don't respond to pressure (for example, finding other people with the same problem for a united voice), it might be a minor problem. If you don't want to take it apart yourself (don't blame you) you could find a local authorized dealer who could hopefully fix it for not much money. I wish they would just offer hardware like this on a subscription.
I don't mean to avoid Samsung (or any other Android) devices altogether, just don't use anything that takes away your portability within the Android ecosystem (which, granted, has various lines in the sand when you rely on Google, outside going no-identity, which is impossible on iPhone). It was easy enough to do when I had my Note2, there are many people within user communities who care about things like this and make sure it's possible without much effort; for example by putting pressure on vendors to enable choice for what apps are used for what purposes. In my experience, Samsung offers its own App Store, I just ignored it, I used Google's calendar instead of Samsung's default enhanced one, etc.
There are some cases, per your examples, where there's a distinct branch in what's supported. Samsung and Huawei are really competitors to Apple more than Google in this case. I can only say that like repairability is the best answer to some questions, interoperability is the best answer to others. Being locked in to any ecosystem, especially over time as our digital lives become linked to health and wealth, is bad for everyone.
My last comment, about "cheap" perceptions, was intended for another comment in the thread, sorry about the confusion.
Yep it's awful, and something that is only solved by stricter warranty enforcement's. My (anecdotal) experience with apple warranties is the opposite - replacement device shipped that day and the courier picked up my broken one at the same time. Of course, I'm sure this was a one off, but it definitely left me feeling better.
Understand re; samsung, but as a consumer I don't want to spend weeks researching compatibility between all of the devices I own/plan on purchasing. Another example; I bought a sony bravia TV which runs android TV. Android tv advertised that it supports dvr recording features. Except sony force you to use another third party app "youvirw" which they ship an outdated version of which doesn't work with androids flavor of live recording.
Unfortunately this is rife across the android world; watches incompatible with payments, stock launchers that are incompatible with android OS features, the list goes on and on. And the issue is that all of these are sold as "android" devices, and it's not until you're knee deep in the ecosystem that you realise that it's all just lipstick on a pig.
Mt experience with the manufacturer-alternative apps is that in some cases their existence stops the alternative from working correctly (samsung knox vs android work profiles, fitbit pay vs google pay, huawei photos vs google photos),which just sucks. And you can only know about these issues if you research the compatibility of every app you want to use with your planned device...
And understand re; cheap devices, the comment thread is deep here!
I have a bad habit of constantly editing my replies (I think it helps me to think of how other people would read it after I've saved it). I tried to address your point about too much competition within Android in a later edit; that basically Android is a world unto itself, with multiple major players trying to distinguish themselves.
While Google tries to address this by centralizing everything to their services app (which is a nice Open Source solution since it can be swapped; we'll see what happens with Huawei), some vendors still want to claim their turf. I thought that has been getting better, but for the past few years I've found it best to buy Google's version of whichever product, and have been very happy with them (perhaps since I've become more conservative, the crazy pace of innovation lives on in the mainstream Android world, with Apple waiting to see what's sticks before they include it).
I don't "blame" people for buying iPhone, it's certainly a safe choice, but even though I'm not that demanding I just find iPhones to be too limiting (that is partially a Raskin vs Englebart thing). Oh yeah, and Google's on-device AI features are actually useful. However, in the long run Apple is developing a vast closed world akin to a monopoly that will create problems (and if I hear that cheesy default ring tone again or see another film/tv person pull out an Apple device which are the minority in use, I'm going to lose it).
Neither are Apple handsets, though it's true Apple has been good about providing them for around five years. In both cases, it remains to be seen what updates will be available longer term, people expect most major providers to provide security updates past the guaranteed period.
Also worth mentioning, after three years most people who purchased a new handset will have upgraded. If they spend $400 on each handset, their long term expenditure will be lower, and they'll always have an up to date handset (the early cheap Androids were pretty bad, but a decent smartphone is a commodity these days, the main thing more money buys is better image capture, though Pixel kind of defies that for now). The hardware is probably still good, except maybe the battery, which becomes cost ineffective to replace (in this sense, the company that provides the most easily serviceable devices wins, which I heartily endorse). At that point, many Androids can have a third party OS installed for new features. Not so with Apple.
I also had google refuse to repair a Pixel 3 under warranty, claiming it must be drop damage. I had every pixel before and, while the hardware was full of issues, google was always willing to fix them. It was this instance of them refusing to honor their warranty that finally pushed me from buying any more Pixel phones. While I’ve had no fewer hardware issues on apple devices (my 2017 mbp has had nearly everything but the case replaced for defects), at least apple honored their warranty.
I can’t believe that after 5 google phones/tablets they were willing to lose a customer over a minor hardware problem.
The question is, do any of us actually need the flagship devices? The android phones I’ve bought for family members on the budget end of the spectrum seem to last just as long as the flagships and have decent enough feature sets for pretty much everything from what I can see. Granted none of us play a lot of games and we are more of the holiday snaps than artists when it comes to photos.
I damaged the charging port on my android phone. I paid 20 euros plus shipping for a new bottom module and used the screw driver provided by the manufacturer to open the phone and replace it. If you care about repairable phones... Buy a repairable phone, instead of a "flagship".
Ah yes, blaming the customer for making an uninformed choice when the information about whether my choice is informed or not isn't available.
If repairability was top of my list, I'd be using 4-5 year old device that's proven repairable. Silly me, I tried to be "reliable" and choose a samsung - you know the largest manufacturer of Android phones, and when that didn't work out for me I tried Google - the people who make the software. If your advice to people is to avoid all of the premier manufacturers, I think that shows that the ecosystem has major problems, no?
> If your advice to people is to avoid all of the premier manufacturers, I think that shows that the ecosystem has major problems, no?
I've seen you try to make this point everywhere in the thread and I can't for the life of me even understand what you mean by this.
As a developer, I often reach for open source libraries, tools and platforms before any "premium" offerings (databases are far from the only examples, but they are an obvious one: to wit, Postgres vs Oracle or SQL server), and the OSS options are also the ones I suggest when I'm asked.
In another example, my current laptop is from a niche manufacturer instead of by Dell or Apple.
So, yeah, I don't understand what you mean by this question. Then again you also say that repairability is not high in your priority list while TFA is explicitly about that so I don't actually understand the general point you're trying to make in this discussion.
It's probably faux pas to mention it in the current environment but my Huawei has easily been the best phone I've ever owned, it's nearly 2 years old and as good as the day I bought it.
Yep, my partner has a P20 and I'm much happier using that than my pixel 3. Unfortunately they don't do google services on their new devices which my employer mandates on their devices for 2fa, so my choices are carry two smartphones, or don't use huawei. Similarly my bank(s) don't support huawei phones last time I checked.
I bought a Huawei and while I am overall happy about the phone I am sad that the bootloader is locked. They used to hand out unlock codes but not anymore.
It feels like I do not really own the phone now. I am completely at Huaweis mercy in regards to updates.
I will not buy a phone with a locked bootloader again.
My galaxy s10( which was the flagship device at the time) seemed to have an issue with spurious edge taps from holding the phone. Samsung claimed it wasn't a problem, and the workaround online was to use a different keyboard. Except no keyboards other than Samsung's own work with samsung knox, and because samsung knox was preinstalled, I couldn't use the "work profile" feature in the version of Android that was installed.
Fitbit claimed to be fully android compatible, except when I contacted support it turns out they support fitbit pay, not Android pay, which isn't the same thing. And it doesn't work when used with Samsung Pay.
> Pure Android you don't even require Google, you can buy Android one mobile.
If your advice to people is to avoid the largest manufacturerd of premium handsets, don't you think that says a lot about the state of the ecosystem?
Not speaking in support of Apple here, but just like any other manufacturer, their support quality varies with location. I was in Singapore, took my broken screen Macbook Pro for repair and I was quoted something that costed half the price of the machine for the replacement as they mentioned the motherboard also had to be replaced for some reason.
That very month, I had to fly to India for some work and I decided to ask a local authorized Apple service outlet. The guy changed the display for me at no charge. The machine was out of warranty by atleast a year at that point. But still, Apple honored that warranty.
Six months later, I got a blue tint on my display and the guy did another replacement free of cost because the replacement display he gave me was faulty.
I spent $0.
Many Apple service outlets are pretty good, especially in Asia - Singapore has some good outlets too apart from the one I went to, HK, China all have very knowledgeable people running these outlets too.
Here's another one - I currently own a Samsung S10 phone. One of the speakers became bleak and service center A refused to honor the warranty because the phone had "water damage". It is an IP68 water proof rated phone. How the fuck can it have water damage? Especially when the phone is working just fine, except for the top speaker being bleak.
Service center B did the job of speaker replacement in under 2 hours.
This is the reality. My point is, service centers are like any other business, some people are knowledgeable, some people are spiteful, some people are stupid.
So how do you figure out which ones are good and bad? My simple rule of thumb is ask around your extended family, usually they will know someone who they can refer you to. Referral based jobs are the best, since there is an element of personal touch involved.
If not, scan for google reviews of the place to find the ratio of positive and negative reviews. Read the negative reviews especially as its a good indicator of the center's competence.
In my experience Apple still has the most haggle-free support experience and offers full replacements often and quite willingly, but whether you land on a no-questions-asked-replacement issue is luck-based.
A few years ago I had an iPhone whose mute switch would flip off on its own after 1.5 years of use. Went to an Apple Store in U.S. Northeast, described the issue in a sentence, handed it over, and five seconds later the bro told me I was getting a full replacement, which was in my hands three minutes later.
Then, in early 2019, my iPad Pro was having this occasional touch-not-registering issue, which to this day I’m not sure if it’s software or hardware. It also had a tiny tiny strip of dead pixels tucked in a corner, which was only noticeable when using a video player. I brought it into the Apple Store, this time somewhere in Asia, mainly for the touch issue, but casually mentioned the dead pixels since I was already there. Ended up getting a full replacement, and the lady told me it was lucky that this minor display issue was present, otherwise it would be hard to fix and basically impossible to get a replacement for that hard to reproduce and hard to diagnose touch issue.
I've had a good experience with Apple Singapore (Wheelock Place) as well. I was even able to get a loaner iPhone 6 for a week when I gave my OG SE in for repair due to a display issue causing the screen to slightly pop out of its frame. Quite understandably (but somewhat to my dismay), they wouldn't give me a loaner iPhone 8 instead.
1) Hardware problem with the light sensor that was fixed when they swapped the display (might be built in and therefore replaced too, or maybe the crack was obscuring it?)
2) After the hardware problem was fixed, they didn’t think to check the brightness, or forgot to do part of the procedure.
My guess is that the boot process ignores the light sensor and just sets full brightness, much like your fans going to full tilt (or at least a safe default) on your PC when you first boot.
Not defending apple here btw - but I don’t think it was purely a software issue at the beginning.
Yes, or they broke something themselves and replaced it, or fixed a loose cable without realising. There are so many possibilities but trying to get a shop worker to agree that it’s a software bug is going to be tough. My experience with these sort of things is that companies will generally do the opposite - make you do software resets for things that are obviously hardware issues.
I had the same issue with iPhone 7 this August. I ended up letting the battery deplete leaving it for some time and then recharging it and that helped. I couldnt brighten the screen :( because of the Apple logo being at full Brightness i was also positive its software not hardware
I had the same issue with the Macbook Pro battery. The laptop is just a couple months beyond the 1-year warranty and Apple did not recognize it as their fault.
Needless to say, I'm happy now with Archlinux despite it took a while to set the whole thing up. I don't think I'll be buying any more Apple laptops but for phones, I don't think Android is doing any better.
Not sure when this happened, but many credit cards offer an additional year of warranty protection if you purchase electronics on them. I had a $750 motherboard replacement reimbursed on a MacBook recently when it was 2 months out of warranty. Worth looking into!
Honestly the bit that kills me is being thoroughly buggered for cash. And that is being forced down your neck even more regularly these days, particularly on the back of failures.
When it came to upgrade time this year I skipped buying a mid-range iMac, built a hefty Ryzen desktop instead and had enough spare change to buy a Lenovo T495s.
It’s phone upgrade time in January. I don’t know which way to turn yet.
I got the Xiaomi 9T Pro (variant of the K20 Pro) when it was released, it's one of the very few phones that fulfill my criteria for a phone that would last a long time
* Repairable (modular design, pull-tabs for battery)
* Good build quality (JerryRigEverything approved)
* Rootable
* Stable software, with long term vendor software updates
* Active community for ROMs (if the vendor stops supporting the phone)
* 3.5mm jack (with an excellent DAC)
* Relatively compact
* Flat screen, no notch/holepunch. Curved screens are more fragile and are more expensive to replace.
* Good battery life
* Spare parts available (e.g. main camera for $15 shipped)
* Cheap
* Decent processor, RAM and storage
There are some downsides, so not for everyone:
* Comes with bloatware, some of it can only be disabled with root
* Rooting is a pain
* Spare parts in China, so might take a while to arrive
* Launcher is not great, but can be easily replaced
* Camera is not best in class
Interestingly, I had a very similar issue with my Pixel 3 in the past. The display was just black and it did not responded (I thought). Restarting it displayed the Google logo and then went black again. I was outside at the time, on a sunny day. I thought about this possibility of low brightness setting, but it was so dark that I could really not see anything (even when covering it with hands, getting in a dark corner somewhere), so I thought it must be some other problem. Later when I was back home, in a dark room, I noticed that I could barely see it again. Then just setting the display brightness higher again fixed it.
I'm still not sure though if the brightness was just at the minimal level, and that is just too low outside to see anything, or if it was even lower than usual, similarly as you describe.
I repaired 2 of my MacBooks during the last couple of years - one had a butterfly keyboard issue and another had a swallen battery. Both times it took 1-2 days and both times their support was amazing. The best part of it - both times I did not pay a cent for the repairs, it was all known issues. In the swallen battery case they replaced a keyboard and the touchpad module as well, and the laptop was not even under warranty anymore.
I guess my case is a bit different from yours, but I was very satisfied with their technical competence as well. I suppose it depends on the country in the end, in my case it was Singapore.
The iPhone 7 is a mess. I had the same issue with my screen, and now the iPhone's camera has stopped working, only a few months past Apple's warranty (I bought the phone recently). I go in to the "Genius Bar", and they tell me it's a $150 repair. I brought up that the issue had only started 2 months out of warranty and that I could buy a new iPhone 7 on eBay for $200. No budge, they offered me a $100 trade-in value for an iPhone 11.
$100 trade-in value and they want to charge me $150 for repairs??? What?
I am going to iFixIt as the issue seems common, it's just a ribbon that is attached weakly that pops off of the attachment. The camera is still working.
The right speaker on my 2016 MacBook Pro blew out recently, and is the third time a speaker has blown out. Every time a speaker blew out, it was preceded by the exact same sequence of events: I open the lid of the computer, the machine starts making buzzing sounds as a notification sound starts playing, and one of the speakers blows out.
Note that Apple engineered the hardware so that the speakers are glued to the top case, so replacing either speaker entails replacing the whole top case, which includes the left and right speakers, the keyboard, the trackpad and the battery. An out-of-warranty top case replacement for the 2016 MacBook Pro costs $600.
My machine was now out of warranty, but the same exact thing happened just a little over three months prior and Apple did a repair by replacing the top case. I called to see if Apple would be willing to extend the 90-day warranty for repaired parts just a bit.
The call was transferred to a supervisor. The supervisor told me that it was the left speaker that was blown out last time, and it was the right speaker that was blown out this time, so they considered this to be a completely separate incident and there was no 90-day coverage at all for the right speaker to begin with. I would have to spend $600 to get this fixed, and the supervisor would not budge on the price, either.
I am infuriated because even though they replaced the top case, which, to emphasize, includes all of the parts glued to it - the left and right speakers, as well as the keyboard, the trackpad, and the battery, they do not consider the right speaker to be a component in the same part as the left speaker. Even more infuriating is how Apple glues parts to the case so they can charge exorbitant amounts of money for out-of-warranty repairs.
It also allows their staff to suggest braindead quick-fix solutions equivalent to "pay to replace the whole thing or go away," without actually diagnosing the real problem. I say this because the fact that a speaker blowing out was always preceded by the exact same sequence of events suggests to me that something else may be faulty, but the Apple technicians have never bothered to diagnose what the real problem was.
I am also immersed in Apple's ecosystem and I was ready to trade this computer in and buy a new 16-inch MacBook Pro this year once a new one comes out, given the myriads of issues I've had with my machine (it has also needed three display replacements and one keyboard replacement). I was also ready to buy the new iPad Air.
Now I've decided I won't buy the new iPad Air, and my next computer will likely not run macOS.
I understand and am sympathetic with your experience, but note that Apple targets the part of the market which is affluent and also ready to spend money. That's why they can turn a profit for so few units sold vs the rest of the market which sells phones that have far more "bang for the buck". If you own apple shares in any reasonable quantity, the increases of this year alone should reward you for it 3 times over.
I have gotten pretty comfortable fixing stuff myself. I almost want to stock replacement everything for my ‘16 SE. I don’t break it much, and I’ve got some razor’s edge stories. Super cheap, come with all the tools. Done screen w/ full sensor transfer, battery.
I’m with parent on the price point thing, and no doubt if aftermarket goes away then hackers will too. I keep a separate work phone anyway, employers have never had a problem issuing one if I need to be reachable. iPhone from employer, bunnie or something for me.
Did they still make you pay for the $200 for the screen?
I wish I could get a phone with plain Linux but I don't think that my carrier (Comcast Mobile) supports any of them. I once used an unsupported phone, and the 4G would work for only a few minutes after a reboot (so it probably is an artificial problem).
This seems curious, any unlocked phone regardless of OS should work on any network. Tech support should be able to help you with connection issues, and if not, I would try a different carrier.
Apple's choice of "buggy behavior without notification" over interoperability of parts with a permanent "non-Apple part" notice is a clear signal of intent. This is not a security issue - this is locking out 3rd party repair in a way that sows doubt in people who attempt these repairs (with "buggy" behavior present after replacement).
I feel like it’s exactly the opposite - buggy behavior is very anti apple, having a phone say “this part is unauthorized” is very clear and tells you that apple is invalidating 3rd party repairs, vs adding something that requires tuning/training via a software tool and fails sorta later. I feel like locking out 3rd party camera repairs via buggy behaviors is very...roundabout.
If you had a pirated copy of Autodesk 3D Studio (before MAX, for DOS), everything would work and appear normal. But eventually, the geometry of your models would become corrupted -- subtly at first, then with continued use each model would become a spiky mess, like a fruit fly with an unfortunate hedgehog gene mutation.
IHVs and ISVs can have subtle ways of punishing you for using their products in a manner not explicitly authorized. If you do not like the terms, do not buy the product.
Because, legally, they are pretty similar - both are a breach of EULA, both are not an expected use. I would wager that in the not too distant future, legislation and social attitudes will view repairing damaged electronics as theft. Right to repair will ironically likely be the mechanism through which this happens - mfgs are using it to create closed ecosystems with no participants - see apples programme for independent repair shops getting “genuine” parts - it’s so onerous that unless something has changed, recently, they have literally not one taker, meaning every indy repair shop is now theoretically breaking the law. They just have to tighten the noose a little more, and it’s job done.
First, piracy is not a breach of EULA, it's copyright infringement, which are entirely different beasts. Second, breaching the EULA of a hardware product might be breaking the law in the US, but in the EU, hardware products cannot be bound by contracts. You buy a good, not a service, so no EULA can apply. I think even in the US, it depends on the state you're in...
So, no, legally, they have almost nothing in common.
If you pirated it, you were never offered the EULA. There's no implied acceptance there. Otherwise you'd have a license and they'd be violating it to break the program!
It does somewhat amuse me to see the degree to which people rationalise Apple's ongoing, consistent control freakery with excuses and justifications. Every time a story like this comes up the amount of people defending what they do really shocks me.
I used to work for Imagination Technologies, whose GPU all Apple mobile devices are based upon. I was at the company when Apple announced that they would no longer require IMG and would be using their own entirely independently developed GPU (knocking 75% off the share value of the company and effectively bankrupting them).
Looking from the inside of the story, the degree to which people both here on HN and in the media at large including, amazingly, the BBC, a state-funded UK news organisation took Apple's side of the issue when they were very clearly talking complete nonsense shocked me.
Apple simply relied on the fact that a. they'd poached a ton of top people at IMG b. IMG could not afford to battle the decision in court (an aside - IMG and Apple have quietly signed a deal for IP again recently - hardly suggesting that Apple have gone entirely independent of IMG). We could get into the fact that the 'independent' GPU was bug-for-bug identical to IMG HW, or documentation for it literally referenced PowerVR enums but I don't want to dwell too much on that.
My point is that Apple have for years taken an approach of trying to vertically integrate EVERYTHING and gain independent control of EVERYTHING. Many suppliers went the way of IMG, and this lack of repairability is in my opinion simply the latest episode of Apple not wanting anybody else whatsoever involved in their products.
The trend continues with Apple moving to all-ARM chips (we'll see what happens with ARM IP, nvidia can fight longer in court so perhaps Apple will leave that alone) and will, in my opinion, continue in all areas for all of their products.
Whether you think it's right or wrong it surprises me that people seem to lose sight of or deny this ongoing trend.
I agree with you but it doesn’t shock me at all, Apple knows very well what kind of users they are targeting and do enough to excite them every year with new toys.
For a while they had taken the lead on many fronts but they seem to have lost that advantage due to their prevailing goal that isn’t likely to change anytime soon and for which they are doing better than anyone: money.
I am not enamored with the alternative either and would avoid google’s tentacles even with more vehemence so the only thing i’m hoping for is an opensource phone os that isn’t controlled by any corp. I’m looking at the PinePhone which is very promising for a linux phone but they still need to catch up with the competition. If we all supported these types of initiatives we’d have what we really want even sooner.
I think the story isn't the end of the repairable iPhone. It's about the end of the consumer (or consumer segment) who cares enough to vote with their dollars for repairability more than new functionality and price.
We are all free to vote with our money what we want. We collectively choose not to, on average.
Actually I think most users would vote for a more reliable device over a repairable one. If using more glue means getting the phone wet is less likely to damage it or stops it breaking when dropped then that's a good tradoff. The fact my aging phone is still getting updates is more important than being able to replace the camera.
I tend to buy my devices second hand so knowing it's difficult for a repairer to use sub standard parts is also good.
I realize we're talking about voting with dollars here but it's also possible that consumers could literally vote on (or push their representative to draft) legislation to address the issue. I'm not up-to-date on the John Deere right-to-repair litigation but seems like the concept is the same.
The first step of the process is to not buy anything apple recognizing there hardly ever was a company more hostile to user freedom both on software and hardware side.
Google and giving up your privacy? You might be happy with that but I’m already “voting with my feet” on that matter.
There are some independent Linux based offerings now but they’re immature and going that way would mean loosing support of some third party apps that I currently need.
No manufacturer is offering a perfect or even good enough product right now. You end up compromising on something.
Currently: a Google-free AOSP-based distribution on one of the hundreds of supported devices.
In the future, hopefully: a free software mobile platform compatible with a range of hardware.
Google-free Android is a thing, I've been using it for about 10 years now. I do not have a Google account, there is no 'Gapps' (Google Apps) on my devices, I do not use the 'Play Store' (which is a bit of a silly name for people who speak Dutch where the word 'Play' sounds like a Dutch slang term for toilet, 'plee'), I don't use Google Search directly (it is one of the engines used in my own Searx instance, next to DDG, Bing, Yahoo etc.), no Gmail (I host my own mail), no Google Docs (or whatever it is called today, Libreoffice Online works just fine for me, hosted on my own server), etc.
Just try it for a change instead of giving up and giving either Apple or Google their pound of flesh. There is too much disinformation on the subject of mobile freedom, too much 'party politics'. There is a world outside of Apple and Google, why not give it a try instead of assuming it doesn't exist?
>Specifically things it's stuff for firmware updates on stuff like Shimano Di2 or other hardware devices.
As someone who dabbles in alternative mobile OSes, it's always frustrating to me when more and more products require using Apple/Google services for basic functionality. I try to avoid buying devices like that whenever possible, because they just lock me into those ecosystems.
The Amazon app store is an option, for things that are available there. It's not everything, but it feels like there's a decent selection there.
(Warning: possibly against some part of the Play Store ToS and Google is notoriously opaque regarding enforcement. Use caution.)
That, unlike e.g. the Play Store, should be installable normally as any other Android app even on compatibility layers like Anbox. This probably isn't super polished yet, but I know there's work being done on using Anbox for Linux phones and it seems to work: https://social.librem.one/@dos/105119691527269967
But yeah, personally I'm planning on 1) keeping an older phone around for the things that absolutely need it and 2) avoiding things that absolutely need it as much as possible.
I mostly use LineageOS (formerly Cyanogenmod) as a starting point, sometimes with a few customisations but often just straight off the 'net.
As to app stores, I use F-Droid and Aurora Store (an alternative front end to the Play Store) for those few proprietary apps (mostly the Swedish BankID electronic ID app) I need to have access to. Aurora Store works with anonymous Google accounts, you do not need - and are advised not to use - a real Google account for this.
I use MicroG (free software implementation of the Google Services Framework) on a few devices but mostly just do without it.
I think you have to acknowledge that you're part of a very specialized user group, and that your goals and requirements are very different from the general population.
Is Apple to sell phones to you, or to the general population? Answer is obvious, isn't it?
For the general population, making a tightly controlled (and simple) hardware and software environment makes more things possible -- overall -- to the users than absolute freedom does. It's a paradox -- by controlling things, they set the market for this product loose.
You can see how it is a hard thing to manage to, and leads to users like you being unhappy. Linux gives incredible freedom to users, yet has very little market penetration.
Not everyone wants to be able to side load apps, tweak their battery charging settings, and have their phone die because they did something wrong to it.
Absolutely -- go push other companies to make an alternative. Or even better, go investigate how to build a phone and its software, in a way that gives you all the control and repairability you want.
Maybe you'll find that it's harder than you think (as well to turn a profit) and there may be reasons why things are the way they are?
Maybe you can’t, and that’s fine, but for most people the superior user experience delivered by that walled garden is more appealing than any alternative.
I’m not defending Apple’s user-hostile practices, I’m just saying that if this situation is going to change by people voting with their wallets, it’ll be because of changes to things that matter to the masses, and not the (totally legitimate) philosophical concerns of technology enthusiasts.
You vote every time you choose to buy a product from company X or one of their competitors instead.
Remember back when Apple made phones with smaller screens? They took notice when millions of consumers were buying Samsung/whatever devices instead with a key reason given being 'bigger screen'. Apple then started producing devices with bigger screens.
> We are all free to vote with our money what we want. We collectively choose not to, on average.
While I agree with this on principle, to me it looks like it gives the collective us an agency which I would argue isn't really there in that not enough people consider it as a factor.
I think that many people don't really care. As another commenter said, people seem to care more about "specs" (like in the commenter's example with people preferring Samsung phones because of the bigger screens) and about having the latest phone.
This makes me wonder what percentage of people actually have to repair their phones, and of those, how many would have opted to do it themselves with off-brand components.
While I understand the philosophical concerns around repairability and mostly like my laptops to be repairable, I also get the feeling that for phones it only now may become important, if at all, because of their usable life.
My previous phone was a Galaxy S5, with a user replaceable battery. A new Samsung battery from a reputable store (not Amazon) costed 50-60 €. A battery replacement for the iphone costs 70 € at an authorised shop (I'm in Paris, France). I know I could have used an "alternative brand" battery in the GS5, but after a terrible experience with such a battery for a camera, I wouldn't go through that again.
Now I understand that this or that model may have design issues which would have random components fail prematurely. But I doubt that replacing the component with an off-brand one would be that great. I'd consider that model a lemon and avoid it. Even if it would be simple, I'd hate to have to replace my phone's [x] every two weeks.
We live within many systems where what the majority wants determines what we get. Some things, if you can't build up enough support, you either live with or create your own environment where it is possible.
If I live in a neighborhood where it takes 7/10 households to vote to improve the paved road, or install fiber internet, if only 3 of them want it, we're not getting any of those things. I can move to a different neighborhood, or pay for my own solution.
I think this assumes a level of savvy in the average smartphone customer (aka the entire world)... Most people don't understand "repairability" in the context of less complicated systems (their cars, refrigerators, etc.). They can't vote for what they don't understand.
This can be seen in product faults that remain fixed for many years in other consumer products. (see Samsung washing machines, GM ignition systems, etc.) Folks don't know how to evaluate design considerations at this level, I think this supports robust right-to-repair regulation as a counter-veiling force.
I am actually a little puzzled by this, and maybe you can explain the position.
Suppose that there is a consumer market for something, and people have shown their preferences, and are actually demonstrating that they actually don't want something (issue, feature, functionality).
Are you saying that regulators should come in and force rules that satisfy the desires of say, 5% of users (if even that), to the detriment of the rest?
Who are they to contradict the choices of the rest of the people? I mean, this is not like carbon regulation or pollution where someone's individual action has a negative shared cost on everyone else. What principle are we to apply then? There are tons of other 5% issues too -- which ones will be put into regulation?
I think it's important to differentiate when your desire for something is personal and you want a company to do something despite others not caring about it, versus when there is actually harm being done and needs to be regulated.
I hate to repeat my self but this articles keep piling up.
Vote with your money first, then if you have a way search legislative measures. They will never stop to search a way to profit more. This is just a beginning. Fully closed macs are coming. I don't care anymore for iPhones, my professional problem is with apple desktops and laptops. If we follow Apple logic in near future I will have to Jailbreak my personal computer that costs arm and a leg and cannot do 3rd party repairs on it. I am filling now very good about the decision to invest in multi platform software and avoid mac only apps. On a phone side someone suggested Fairphone (https://www.fairphone.com/en/) as an alternative. I can see a lot a value in this proposition, after rooting and removing Google crap/spyware.
There aren’t many (if any) realistic options. It basically boils down to Apple, Android or some extremely niche third party special phone (Fairphone etc.) which are mostly Android anyway. So either you pay Apple for premium hardware and software quality but loose out on repairability. Or you get Android which is a potential or actual privacy nightmare. Or you get an obscure other phone which is less supported and usually not as good value for money.
The only thing that can really fix these problems is proper regulation. That’s the only language these companies understand.
I have mixed feelings about this. I can see the need for security but at same time I can see why the big companies love to pursue "security", it gives them an incredible opportunity to exert even more control.
I think image is the important thing. The one time I bought a used iPhone from a shop (reputable one), I received a device sold as "refurbished as new" with a clearly subpar third party display (protruding, wrong colors). Had I not known how the phone is supposed to look like I wouldn't have a great opinion of Apple's build quality.
Now, Apple does have authorized and official repair shops. Clearly they don't have enough of them and they treat them quite poorly too. When I called one that I needed replacement AirPods Pro (already with a ticket from apple), they told me the wait time is 3 weeks because they can only source 1 part per week (and the two earpieces and the box are counted separately).
Apple is fine if you live in a country with Apple stores, but outside of that it's a big risk.
Stop buying Apple while you still can. It will not be long before you will not be able to install unsigned apps on your arm MacBook. Apple will have complete control of what you can and can not do which in effect gives a government full control of your device. It is extremely dangerous for democracy.
Security is hard but can be achieved to a reasonable degree without a complete lock down.
If Apple starts to loose market share other will stop copying these horrific practices.
Since no one else seems to be doing so, I’ll do devil’s advocate: this is a really good idea. The last thing I want with an expensive phone is to give it in for repair and find it’s been stripped for parts and replaced with low quality knockoffs. Apple doing this makes me more confident giving it in for repair, because I know that when I get my phone back all the parts in it are still real.
There are enough horror stories out there of cars and computers having their parts removed or replaced with older / cheaper ones when in the shop - if an article had been posted about this we’d all be asking why Apple didn’t do a crypto verification of all system components on boot.
Apple effectively disallowed repair even if a shop uses genuine parts from another identical phone. The only thing you can now be confident in is that nobody will be able to fix your phone.
Just need to look at display replacement prices, with cracked displays being the most frequent damages (aka Spiderman app). Where these used to be around 60-80 EUR for iPhone 6 (third-party replacement parts), for the X and newer it's basically approaching the price of a new device. Samsung phones, or any other modern Android phone, are just as uneconomically to repair. It seems the only thing to stop the trend for extremely expensive throw-away phones is consumer-/eco-friendly legislation.
There are more options. Sometimes the vendor offers extended warranty, like AppleCare. Also, some creditcards offer additional insurance, up to two years. And finally if you reall want the ultimate in repairability, there are phones like the FairPhone, or the Librem or the PinePhone.
It’s tricky in some cases, but consumer electronics are actually pretty easy because most of the harm done is during manufacture (Apple estimates that more than 75% of an iPhone’s emissions come from manufacture). You could either expect Apple to pay for the externalities at production, or mandate that they’re required to accept back all dead Apple electronics and recycle them at a specific standard.
Even assuming that CO2 is the only relevant externality here (and not, say, electronic waste, mining runoff, chemicals used during manufacturing...), we don't have accurate models that can tell you a dollar cost per ton CO2. Estimates I've seen range from "climate change is not real" to 600 Euros.
On the other hand you only have to disassemble an iPhone and check the availability of replacement parts to see whether it's repairable or not. It's easy to say exactly what damage can be repaired and what not. Very little room for discussion.
But as consumer devices become miniaturized and waterproofed, these kinds of advances come into natural tension with ease of repair. They are also the keys of somebody's data kingdom, and external repair shops bring in some risk.
The short version is that Apple (a) does not let those stores order components in bulk, which means 2+ week turnaround on a repair that an independent store can do in 15 minutes, and (b) limits those stores to screens and batteries for iPhones. You can’t fix iPads, can’t fix Macs, can’t fix anything other than these two components.
> But the main camera module is not a security component.
I wonder if this is related to the fact that iOS now shows an indicator light when the camera is active? If your phone ended up with a modified camera, perhaps it could spy on you without you knowing.
I can't be the only one not shedding a single tear for the five 65-year-old tech retirees who have the time on their hands to perform manual repairs on their consumer devices.
While it was true that the glass of the screen had cracked due to a fall, the phone had operated just fine for many months since. The Genius told me it was likely a display issue while I told him it's much more likely a software issue. The Genius gave me the unfortunate advice of restarting the phone by holding down the power button and the lower volume button. The phone restarted, with the Apple logo in full brightness but would turn black when it came to logging in. Pity, since my password is too long to type it in without visual aide.
The Genius told me that to repair the display was $200+. I scoffed at the price and told him it's not the display, and it was unacceptable as I planned on buying the iPhone 12 next month. The manager came by and made it clear there's no room to budge on the price. I resigned and left the device with them.
When I was called in to pick up my phone, they told me that replacing the display did not work, so now my option was either to upgrade or to buy another iPhone 7 for $400+. I told them that's unacceptable and that it's clear it's not the hardware. I told them I am immersed in their ecosystem and I would easily spent another $2000 this year and to cut me a break. They told me, take it or leave it.
I took the phone back and started making my way home. Descending into the metro, I walked past an ill-lit part of the platform. I looked at my phone again and realized I could faintly make out the log in screen. I typed in my password, logged in, went to control center and raised the brightness back up. Perfect. Now, even if I lower the brightness to its lowest setting, it works as normal.
Not only is Apple's moves to cut out 3rd party repairs egregious, their own solutions and staff are rife with incompetence and their offer to you once you've immersed yourself into their ecosystem is, "Money now or go away".
I am not buying the iPhone 12 and my next machine will run Linux.