How to Fix Everything: Spending a few days at iFixit | Hacker News Reader

How to Fix Everything: Spending a few days at iFixit

motherboard.vice.com

81 pointsjkoebler46 comments

The appliance industry has it figured out. The parts are so discrete and they control the finite supply. Not worth counterfeiting/cloning, because there are too many models/factors. In fact, they won't make replacement parts for pieces they know will last longer than the warranty.

Serviceman Jim can find a belt/board for your 1987 washing machine and have it delivered in 2 hours for $90.

Serviceman Jim says to scrap that 2015 washing machine and buy the 2016 model. The company knows about that recurring problem that every household with that model has, but they're not recalling it.

HVAC unit, fridges, dishwashers, washing machine, dryer, vacuums, etc. I recall there being small businesses with overflowing stock for repair parts for all of these items. Its so much easier to just throw away the item and replace it. Its the age of recyclable electronics, and I can't wait to get an 'iPhone7t multiplied.'

It just saddens me in the age of 'we need more STEM.'

I understand where the author is coming from. It is traditional to repair your broken things somehow. It is a bit ingrained in our mentality. BUT.

What moral right does he have to claim that Apple SHOULD make their products fixable? Who are these people to tell Apple (or any other company) if they have to include a technical manual or not? I'm with him when he's against Apple attacking people who try to repair their devices but there is no real reason Apple has to support repairing beyond their own offering. From a moral point of view the technical manual and ease of repairing might just be features, that are arguably more or less valuable, and Apple owes nothing.

After all I don't ship my code together with a manual on how to fix bugs...

Note: I don't like Apple, just wanted to add some reasonableness.

Considering the massive environmental cost of making these electronic devices I think it is absolutely in the consumer, the manufacturer and society's interests to ensure the products are not made more difficult to repair than they need to be.

There are significant externalities behind every iPhone most of which are borne by manufacturing and recycling plants in India and China. The more a manufacturer can do to ensure their product stays out of landfill and in use the better off we all will be.

But what if Apple's method of "ensuring the product stays out of the landfill" is build quality? What if that build quality is inversely proportional to repairability? I've had both iDevices and Android based devices and in my experience the iDevices last much longer. Anecdote, YMMV, etc.

We are still required to give Apple the benefit of the doubt in case they made a trade-off between repairability and quality and not attack without proof.

Furthermore if we leave the realm of "moral" and "not moral" Apple is not required to keep in mind society's interests in mind by anything except law and any discussion in that direction should not refer to companies but to government (which, ok, may not be that effective). Even then, most complaints don't give much consideration to the environmental impact as a first-order issue and leave it as a two-liner before the conclusion.

Apple is not required to keep society's interests in mind, that is true. But we are allowed to alert our fellow citizens about the fact that the company at best doesn't care and at worst is obstructing what may be in our best interests. I'm not suggesting in the piece that Apple is evil—I'm suggesting that the company is worth questioning on these arguably important issues it has either ignored or purposefully made worse.

"Apple is not required to keep society's interests in mind, that is true"

Maybe they should be?

Make sure you let the rest of the Global 500 and their shareholders know.

Apple certainly isn't alone in this.

If we back up for a bit and think why corporations exist in the first place, why society allows and facilitates rather than criminalizes corporate endeavors, it becomes clear the idea is that they fulfill a useful social function. And that function is the development, production and distribution of goods and services.

But they have to operate within a framework of rules which ensure (to some extent) they fulfill these functions without impacting society negatively (excessively so at least) and that their net benefit to society is a plus. These rules change from time to time.

There isn't a reason that long term externalized costs should be allowed to be pushed onto society as a whole in the interests of these entities realizing short term profits. That happens far too often and will be the death of capitalism as we know it if left unchecked. We as a society should demand better. Unfortunately, government all too often isn't the solution to the problem and the cures it provides are sometimes worse than what was attempting to be cured. But we need to keep the proper role of corporations in mind and demand a level of accountability. Not doing so leads to a very bad place.

Software is licensed, not sold, so its quite different to a physical device that is sold.

Of course the comparison was very far. Suppose though that I'm a contractor selling my work and as a result the software is my employer's. Even if he owns all of it usually I'm not required to provide such a manual. Even if I did that would come as a (big in this case) extra.

"If you don't like it, don't buy it" doesn't seem to exist any more.. everyone's entitled to everything being how they want the world to work

> "If you don't like it, don't buy it" doesn't seem to exist any more.

Indeed, it doesn't exist anymore. It disappeared at the time when (almost) all the consumer electronics manufacturers stopped producing fixable things.

> What moral right does he have to claim that Apple SHOULD make their products fixable?

I don't understand what you mean, exactly. I would say that he has no moral right to demand that a law be passed forcing Apple to make their products fixable, or to include a manual, or whatever. But he has every moral right to tell Apple what he thinks they SHOULD do — just as they have the moral right to listen or not.

Point taken. On the other hand OP is talking as if Apple is doing a capital crime instead of a business/feature decision which is at least misleading.

I think his concern is mainly for developing countries and our environment in general, and a respect for the devices (saying that if you recycle a phone, the good plastic will be mixed in and forever become a lower grade).... I think it's more of preserving things instead of throwing things away and it's a frustration that apple (and others) who seem to care about the environment are making things worse in favor of ease of manufacturing....

/rant

I've got a samsung 1900x1200 monitor that died on me recently (smelled a popped capacitor) and I'm not giving up on it until I fix it :)

LCDs are often super easy to fix! Do it! The common failure modes are usually backlight or backlight driver failure, and power supply failure. The backlight driver can usually be replaced wholesale, the backlights themselves can easily be replaced, and the PSU often fails because of bad capacitors releasing their magic smoke. I've fixed many LCDs because of bad capacitors! You just want to make sure that the capacitor failed because it was old and not because something else shorted it out (i.e. there isn't some other issue).

I live in the third world country and I know what you mean. But I strongly disagree with forcing companies to design for repairability. Companies should be free to design their product like they want.

Environmental issues should be analyzed and discussed besides that.

There is still the EPEAT thing though.

> What moral right does he have to claim that Apple SHOULD make their products fixable?

If you are purchasing a product, you then own it, and should have the ability to fix it. If you're not allowed to fix it, then you don't really own it. There's no problem with self-repairs voiding warranties, but apart from that, locking a user out of a device that they own is a moral stance that should be actively defended, not considered default.

> What moral right does he have to claim that Apple SHOULD make their products fixable? Who are these people to tell Apple (or any other company) if they have to include a technical manual or not?

If Apple sells hardware instead of lending it, Apple should make it possible to repair it when it breaks. Apple's products are too expensive to treat them as disposable equipment.

Apple should also make it possible to use alternative OS on their hardware, too (because they're selling the hardware; consumers should be able to do as they please with it), but that's another matter.

And yes, the same applies to other electronics manufacturers.

In contrast to the fancy Apple screws in the article, the Fairphone 2 is the first iFixit reviewed phone to get 10/10 for ease of repair.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Fairphone+2+Teardown/52523

I hadn't heard of it. But I looked it up: €529.38 and impressive specs. This thing looks downright competitive. And dual-SIM‽ That seems pretty uncommon, but probably nice to have.

On a related note, anyone have any personal experience with iFixit's tech repair kit? I'm looking to gift a set of electronic repair tools for the holidays.

No experience with the ifixit stuff, but my set of 'small weird bits' is from wiha, and it includes a bunch of tiny pentalobe bits, one of which fit the screws on the bottom of a friend's apple laptop. I personally really like Wera, xcelite and wiha for my screwdrivers/bit drivers.

Or, to be more specific, I like wiha for tiny bits, wera for regular 1/4" bits and ratchets, and xcelite for fixed screwdrivers. The Xcelite XPE102 is my favorite screwdriver, and the tool I use the most often.

I have an iphone 5 that needs repairing, so I will soon be able to report back on how well the wiha works for that.

Now, I personally like nice tools the way some people like nice watches, so if the difference in price between the cheap tools and the good tools is significant to you and you don't use the tools often, you probably want to ignore my advice.

I don't think I can recommend the Wiha 75999[1] toolset highly enough - excellent quality and not overly expensive.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000H7MWEI

Here's a link to a wera fixed screwdriver. It looks nice! It's £7.93.

http://uk.farnell.com/wera/355-pz1-x-80/screwdriver-pozi-no-...

My favourite was the Ergo Bahco. £8.11

http://uk.farnell.com/ergo-bahco/be-8810/screwdriver-pozi-no...

They're not the best quality but also not the worst. I feel like they're a little overpriced, but have bundled in a few unique bits which you don't typically find in toolkits (since they aren't technically tools, like the spudger, suction cups, and heat gun). iFixIt tools are one of these things you should buy on sale, the $80 "Pro Tech Toolkit" is a joke (even $50 seems high).

Unfortunately for iFixIt if you look around on Amazon you can find a lot of third parties that have copied various iFixIt sets almost 1:1 and are charging less than half the price for them. Even for more bespoke items like the spudgers.

You're better off buying high quality screwdrivers (e.g. wiha brand) and then adding the unique iFixIt additions, rather than buying the iFixIt set and getting really mediocre screwdrivers.

I have their "54 Bit Driver Kit". They are well made and enough for me as I only use then to repair my own home electronics. Not sure they would last much on a pro repair shop.

They don't last in a pro shop. We have about five sets right now at my shop and have gone through more. Of those sets more than half of the phillips head bits are chipped and broken. Anything marked J0* or PH0* is particularly fragile. The material doesn't feel anything like the tool steel that my auto repair tools are made of. The iFixit bits feel light and flimsy.

+1 for Wiha. No experience with Wiha's competitors like Wera but I can't see myself ever going back to cheap precision screwdrivers.

Also, I'm not a fan of removable bits.. I always end up losing the bits, spending time trying to figure out what size the bit is..

I have this set and also bought a magnetizer/demagnetizer http://www.amazon.com/Wiha-26199-Slotted-Phillips-Screwdrive...

I've got the pro tech toolkit, and it's worth it for the case it comes in alone. The plastic case with all the little bits is clamshelled together magnetically, and then sticks to the roll with additional magnets.

I don't have much experience with industrial-level toolkits, but the convenience factor on ifixit's kit is off the charts. A worthy gift, imo.

Hi, I wrote this article. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

The most troubling part of this is that Apple staff accompany ICE on raids.

It reminds me of the time the Gizmodo guy got a visit from the Feds after doing the article about the iPhone 4 prototype that they purchased from the bar (or the guy who found it at the bar, or whatever). Apple staff accompanied the cops then, too.

What other property owners get to ride along on federal investigations when there is a suspected case of theft?

It smacks of special privileges and private-government integration. This is not how competition is supposed to work.

I don't think that Apple makes a lot of money from repairs, as claimed by this (rather silly) article. It's more a case that iPhones, MacBooks, etc are designed and manufactured for thinness, irregular battery shapes, etc, so that they don't lend themselves well to end user repair. There are many other device options out there for people who don't like this approach.

Apple makes (or saves) at least $1 billion on repairing iPhones. They changed the interior design of the iPhone 6 vs the 5s to make it much more repairable. They are thinking about this

Do you think that Apple routinely replaces factory defective iPhones with brand-new iPhones? Doubtful - generally most companies replace with B-stock, i.e. returns that passed all of their incoming quality checks.

Chances are, if your electronics were replaced by the original company, they went to someone else first.

So, if repairability is important to you, stop using Apple. Vote with your feet. Thinkpads are a great alternative for laptops - similarly priced, specc'd, and robust, and they come with (downloadable and free) extensive hardware maintenance manuals with step-by-step guides and numerous exploded diagrams.

"ThinkPhone" isn't being used...

I found these two: http://www.androidauthority.com/lenovo-think-phone-187548/ and http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%...

Too bad that Lenovo can't be trusted, given their fsckup with CA certificates and how they handled the situation.

being in the auto parts industry this type of article strikes home. it is amazing the lengths manufacturers will go to prevent you from repairing stuff you own.

I am still waiting for the day the only way to obtain an iphone or similar will be lease. As in, you never buy it, you only lease it.

You can do that today... it's not the only way but I'd imagine it's pretty common: http://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program

Fun nugget: the ifixit HQ has a car repair shop on-site, with lift, for employees to DIY their car repairs. They're seriously all-in on diy.

"though it's mostly middle-aged white men" - that wasn't necessary there

>vice.com

I didnt dwell on this point but I think it's important to point out to the reader who was there. Very few women, almost no people of color. This is a tech culture piece. It matters. As I said, didn't dwell on it but worth mentioning.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com