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Comment by w458cmau | Hacker News Reader

Do you think though that this is Apple actively trying to reduce your ability to repair, or is it that they pursue other goals and the ability to repair is waaay down on the list?

I would assume, from experience in large corporations, that it is the latter.

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Do you think though that this is Apple actively trying to reduce your ability to repair, or is it that they pursue other goals and the ability to repair is waaay down on the list?

Another vote for intentional.

By the time you 1. add sw to detect repairs as mentioned elsewhere 2. don't use standard screws like posi or torx 3. make the screws similar but make sure one is longer and will short circuit the device if you put it in the wrong place (IIRC)

- then it is intentional.

It's intentional.

They do not provide schematics to anyone outside of Apple and FOXCONN. They only provide diagnostics tools to "authorised repair shops" (which actually don't repair devices). They provide no information to repair shops on where they might be able to buy replacement chips (aside from searching the chip name on AliExpress). It's not as though they don't know how to repair devices, there is mountains of evidence that Apple gives refurbished devices (the boards they provide clearly are not new) even though they call them "re-manufactured" whatever that means.

The most glaring thing is that there are instances where third-party repair shops have figured out why a defect was occurring before Apple did (the graphics card fiascos were shown to be caused by a heat-sensitive tantalum capacitor used near the graphics chip that is damaged due to thermal stress). We know Apple didn't know why the boards were failing because they would give customers refurbished boards that would fail a few months later because they didn't fix the issue. Not to mention that Apple doesn't tell its customers about recalls of their products (which happens almost every year) which is actually illegal in Australia.

You might say all of the above is laziness, but once you have a company which specifically writes software to detect whether an "unauthorised repair" has taken place[1] then I consider them to be malicious. They've also threatened to sue repair shops, and are constantly attacking third-party repair shops (the term "unauthorised" comes from them and is not a term used in any other repair industry).

If you compare this to how other companies operate, this is completely at-odds with the entire industry when it comes to repairability. Microsoft is trying to copy Apple (in all of their negatives) but the rest of the industry doesn't work that way. You can get schematics for other consumer laptops or electronics equipment. In the automotive industry there are laws that make sure that schematics, tools, and parts are available for any third-party repair shop.

tl;dr: Apple is intentionally trying to gain a monopoly on the repairs of their devices.

[1]: https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/apple-busted-m...

As far as I know, no manufacturer supplies laptop circuit diagrams to outside parties, except Panasonic for the Toughbook series. All the other schematics out there are leaks. Automotive manufacturers only supply wiring diagrams of the body wiring harnesses. The only electronic assemblies in cars you can get a circuit diagram for are radios; ECU internals are jealously guarded. Even in the consumer electronics industry, manufacturers don't tell you how to buy parts through components distribution. They either sell you the parts at humongous markup or direct you to their authorized parts dealers who buy them from the product manufacturer, not the component manufacturer, again at huge markup. Most of the chips in a laptop aren't available through components distribution at all because the distys would never be able to sell enough pieces to justify a minimum order from the chip maker.

Everybody has excuses.

http://classiccomputers.info/down/Commodore/Amiga/Amiga_A500...

Ugh. This makes me so sad. I was very close to buying a Fairphone 2 or something for its repairability, but I ended up getting a recent Samsung model anyway because it beats the crap out of everything else in almost all categories – especially ones I value highly, like nonexistent shutter lag, weather sealing, battery life and such.

But they're also very anti-tinker, from what I understand. The more I read about stuff like this, the more I'm thinking about rooting my phone just because I want to be in control. I hate handing over my security and system maintenance to a large corporation who barely has my interests in mind. However, rooting a recent Samsung phone is a one-way operation and they can detect it and refuse service under warranty in some jurisdictions. I don't know what to do!

Wait until warranty is expired or you have saved enough to replace it.

Next time: consider buying second hand if that is an option where you live. Should give you more options wrt 3rd party sw alternatives.

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