Hacker News Reader

Comment by curiousgal | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. You paid a full amount for that device. You can do whatever you want with it. These tactics are ridiculous.

View on HN

Hmmmm.

Step 1: Buy new car

Step 2: Replace engine with something other than OEM.

Step 3: Complain when car's ECU does not run engine.

More like

Step 1: Buy a new car

Step 2: Replace engine with something other than OEM

Step 2.33: Car runs fine

Step 2.66: Manufacturer comes to your house and 'fixes' your ECU while you're asleep

Step 3: Complain when car's ECU does not run engine

So the manufacturer is not allowed to make everyone's ECU better because you decided to replace your engine with an older model?

What if the manufacturer didn’t do this to make everyone’s ECU better, but specifically to discourage users from buying third party parts?

I’m asking hypothetically of course...

You changed the premise. What's being made better? The change being discussed is broken phones. That's not better. Hypothetically, that could be from a change that makes something better. Is there any reason to believe it though?

Fun fact, it'd actually be illegal for Apple to disable devices if it detects a replacement part.

There are anti-trust laws against 'tying agreements', and forcing consumers to only buy components from Apple (due to tie-in) would be violating those laws.

That said, those laws don't say anything about having to interoperate with an inferior part.

So assuming Apple isn't willfully violating anti-trust laws, we can be fairly sure the change was intended to improve some aspect of the touch controller.

Note: There are exceptions if the tying serves a purpose other than maintaining a monopoly (such as the security pairing between the TouchID sensor and FaceID camera).

Step 2.66: Manufacturer pokes you until you let him upgrade...

This seems closer to:

1. But new car

2. Replace broken windshield with something other than OEM

3. Complain when car refuses to start because its computer detected a non OEM windshield.

Most car windshields don't have sensors, microprocessors, driver code, etc.

I had my rain sensing windshield replaced. The insurance company refused to replace with an OEM windshield. The windshield company said it would be fine.

It was not fine. Rain sensing didn't work again for the rest of the time I owned the car.

Sounds like you should reopen the case with the insurance company. Are they allowed to substitute a non-performing part just because it's cheaper?

You can do whatever you want to it! But would you expect an NVidia graphics card to work with AMD drivers? The controller isn't the one the drivers were written for, so it breaks. Not surprising.

But it did work before. This would be like your older NVidia graphics card never working again because of the latest Windows 10 update.

> This would be like your older NVidia graphics card never working again because of the latest Windows 10 update.

Sounds like the early 1990's.

Does Nvidia have an obligation to make AMD graphics cards work if they happened to have worked with some version, at some point in time?

I think this analogy has gone off course a bit. But I do think a manufacturer providing automatic irreversible updates has an obligation to ensure, as best as possible, that the device continues to work with that update. If it worked yesterday, it should work tomorrow, period.

It would be perfectly reasonable to not force updates and allow users to continue with the current version forever if that keeps them running. But it's not reasonable to just break people's functional devices with an unavoidable update.

How would the manufacturer know you were using a non-OEM part, though? As far as they're concerned their parts support so-and-so protocol, so they should be able to use it.

This isn't a black and white issue. Some degree of compromise is needed as neither side is 100% right. What seems reasonable is a degree of resiliency be built in - so if the protocol worked on a subset of features, you don't brick it as you expand to new ones, you merely degrade.

It's not a perfect analogy, but the rules on radio interference with devices spring to mind: you need to cope with some interference and you need to not emit it. This results in a more stable ecosystem, even though you could sensibly argue that if one side is stuck to absolutely, the need for the other wouldn't exist.

They don't and shouldn't. But they should and can detect if a pending update will break your device, or downgrade more gracefully when their software runs on hardware that is missing some expected features that were previously unused.

If you think that, you haven't used a cellphone lately ... You pay full price (actually, probably more then what it should be) and you don't own it...

Another reason not to buy Apple products

...or to buy their insurance plan.

I assume this wasn't intentional (Hanlon's razor).

But even if it wasn't, it's not entirely outrageous to predicate continued software support on some terms. The only problem then would be not making those terms clear up-front.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com