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Comment by hirephone | Hacker News Reader

This is just the beginning.

High prices and resale values have spawned a substantial and apparently growing 3rd party repair and refurbishment market for Apple mobile devices. Beyond the dodgy corner unlock shops, multiple national chains have sprung up over the last 2 years where I live that advertise heavily on broadcast TV.

Apple clearly sees this as money left on the table and they're concerned about the emergence of a comprehensive parallel supply chain for repair parts. Bricking end-user devices is one of the few levers they've got to try and shut down this industry, since there's no way to effectively identify and pursue the upstream suppliers in mainland China.

Sucks for the users, though. I wonder if Apple will still be selling devices at all in 5 years, or if they'll only rent them out for €25/$25/£25 per month. Ultimately that'll probably be the only way to get the control they want.

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Broken 5s screen - took it to a local repair shop in town. He indicated that they just replace the whole screen unit - takes about 8-10 minutes. He shared some numbers too.

The conversation was from last... sep I think, and he was referring to a change a few months back. They had been able to buy the whole screen units for around $25-$30/piece, and his shop (owned a few) bought a lot of them - always kept a lot in stock. Earlier in 2015, he said, Apple started putting the screws on their parts suppliers, requiring them to destroy any overages or extras that didn't pass QA. This overage supply was where he and others would get their replacement parts.

He said that almost overnight, the prices on those screens went to $40 or more. They had a several month supply, but were already having to replenish at the higher price point.

So... Apple knowing about "third party repair" stuff, isn't all that new, but they seem to be taking more steps to actively prevent competition here. :/

re: "renting" - they'll probably still sell them, but all but force an icloud-style service for storage (probably still be selling 16g models when they provide 16mp cameras, and use up 6g for the OS). That or perhaps they'll just buy a carrier and you can be paying them $100/month for voice/data service directly, on top of $700 for a device.

People buy a high-end watch, like a Rolex. They can repair it if they have then knowledge. The problem is Rolex, and 99 percent of watch manufactures won't sell your, or your Watch Repair person the parts.

You need to send the watch to the factory for service, at factory prices.

So, when you buy a Rolex, your are actually leasing it? You don't truely own it, if you can't get the parts to fix it?

It's just another way to make money.

I didn't think Apple would irritate their customers at this particular point in time?

And yes, I too believe, "This is just the beginning."

Actually a majority of the watches, besides Rolex, in the <$5000 range use standard unmodified Swiss ETA movements, which can be repaired by any competent watchmaker. Very few watches in this price range use in-house movements.

http://watchguy.co.uk/swatch-group-parts-policy/

Thanks - that's really unfortunate!

I think IPhone owners intend their device to last longer than the typical Android. Making it harder to repair could undermine that. Apple need to make users believe that an IPhone is not just a disposable thing that lasts for 1 year in order to justify the high price.

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