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Comment by hmaarrfk | Hacker News Reader

I think the notion that "An apple product cannot be repaired" is also an internet spread cliche.

I found that it was pretty easy to replace the battery and screen of the last few cellphones I've owned. Ironically, it was much easier (and cheaper) to find the necessary parts to repair the apple ones than the cheapo android phones which often cost as much as the aftermarket parts.

If you consider the cost of specialized labour needed to diagnose the problem, then repairing quickly becomes unaffordable for a $300-$1000 purchase. This bill will not stop that.

Appliances are physically larger, and therefore are much more difficult to dispose of, ship, and get into place. So if you compare the cost of repair, to the shipping and disposal cost, they probably become equivalent. Goodluck getting a fridge out of your house without damaging the walls for cheap.

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I've never had luck repairing Apple products. I've destroyed ribbon cable connectors on an iPad and an iPhone. Without microsoldering skills and equipment that's a hopeless situation.

I had a third party fail to repair the "touch disease" problem on an iPhone 6.

Anything I've fixed that involved replacing glue strips or removing little splintery bits of broken glass left the device in dodgy shape. Things don't quite fit right, they make squeaking and cracking sounds when you touch them. Aluminum enclosures seem to get gouges and scratches in the process, even when using soft plastic spudgers to separate and scrape things off.

You can never be certain of the waterproofing after you've messed with something.

These are thin, tiny devices that are half put together by machines, half by people that do this for hours and hours day after day with specialized tools - and even they don't get it right all the time.

They're not toasters. I think the days where a normal person can fix this stuff are ending if not already long gone.

On an iPhone 5S I have replaced both a cracked screen and an old battery.

The replacement battery was ~$7 USD including shipping, while the replacement screen (all-in-one digitizer/glass/screen assembly) was ~$15.50 USD including shipping.

The special screwdrivers/suction cups/spudgers/etc required to perform the procedure were included with the parts.

The swap process was relatively straightforward & lots of high quality photos/videos detail the entire procedure. Numerous guides are freely posted all over the internet.

Getting parts for a cheap Android device, however, proved more expensive than the cost of replacing the device (ignoring labor costs). The market is so fragmented it seems harder for an efficient parts supply chain to develop organically, let alone the knowledge/repair guides to effectively use those parts.

I mostly agree with you, indeed Apple devices are by far the easiest to repair (or get repaired) because guides and parts are richly available, and in absolute numbers they are always the most sold phone (hence why you can find a repair shop for your iPhone 6S in a yiffy, but your Xiaomi Mi5 will lead to headscratches.)

However, since the iPhone 6 Apple has taken to adhering the battery to the case with insanely strong adhesive tape, which means you have to take out the logic board and heat the device to get the battery loose. It’s not impossible, but it certainly docks some points from the repairability score.

We just upgraded our Apple 6 to Pixel 2, due to it having some Network Not Found issues. Tried all tricks available on internet, but none worked. Eventually asked Apple and they aggreed to replace it with similar phone given we pay $300. I said, why buy again the same phone which probably have some hardware issue which apple is not agree to resolve. As ppl know, they are having the same issue with higher version. I asked the customer representative, and they mentione, hold the phone. If they get enough complaints, they might look into it and offer a free repair. I think most of the users of old phone might have upgraded to new one and so i am guessing not enough ppl will compain and all those phones will go to waste.

YMMV, I've ruined an iPhone5 trying to replace the screen. It's doable, but you have to have a steady hand and a lot of patience.

When I replaced an iPhone5c screen, the notion of selling the glass+LCD was still new. We used a hot gun to delaminate the cracked screen from the glass, then UV cured epoxy to glue the screen back (don't ask me why we had a UV gun). That was a pain.

Now, the glass + digitizer + LCD (or OLED) are sold as one piece. Sure you are "paying for a LCD/OLED" that "isn't broken", but the cost still comes down under $100 (typically) and saves probably 2 hours of labor.

Often the problem with many modern electronics is not doing the repair itself, but getting the thing back together again or getting it back in to working order, because quite often these devices are not designed to be repairable by the consumer.

Witness the widespread use of "security screws", epoxy on chips, cases which can not be opened without breaking them, and explicit warnings that opening the device would void your warranty.

There's also the ever greater miniaturization of components and the ever greater increase in density of parts inside a case. The former often requires microscopes and other specialized equipment to service them, and the latter results in parts not fitting back in the case after you've completed your repair.

It gets even worse when software is involved, where the user is usually at the mercy of the manufacturer to come up with a software update (if they even ever choose to do so) or require some specialized equipment and authorization to even attempt to do their own repair (as is the case with modern automobiles which have so many computers in them).

I've also replaced the charging port on an iPhone; the whole process is quite simple, specially now with YouTube.

I hired an independent repair guy to come to my house to fix my iphone charging port -- they don't have offices, they make house calls -- and I was totally embarrassed that the problem was belly button lint. He was nice and only charged me $20!

It's all about volume. iPhone has volume, so you can get all kinds of accessories and inexpensive repairs for it.

Agreed. I part out old MacBooks.

Because Apple controls the design of all the parts, the number of screws is low and you only need 1 or 2 sizes to do the whole job.

And with a small product count ecosystem, you’ll never sit on your parts for a while.

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