Apple is lobbying Californian lawmakers against 'Right to Repair' bill
theinquirer.net
theinquirer.net
Of the many consumer insults present in this entire topic, this one really shows the ridiculousness of Apple's position.
Isn't security-through-obscurity considered the worst kind of security?
Case: you need to protect a web server. If you can successfully hide/spoof your OS/software fingerprint, an attacker won't know whether your server has vulnerable software. This makes exploit selection extremely difficult.
You can protect an already secure system from 0-day or unknown exploits by hiding whether you're running windows/linux/bsd/whatever with IIS/apache/nginx/traefik/caddy.
Of course this should not be used as an argument to introduce laws that limit the rights of repair shops, users or even security researchers.
Yeah, it's called taxing users for the defects you engineered in the first place. Look at how ridiculous the glued keyboard fiasco was with Apple, which refused to admit any guilt in their design for several years and charged users several hundred bucks for official repairs if they did not subscribe any special warranty.
Nobody should be able to sell devices to millions of people without giving those customers the ability to install their own software. There should be no arbitrary limits such as "you have to plug your device into another device every 7 days just to keep your custom software installed".
2. Who says the vendor should be responsible for damages caused by repairs not done by the vendor? I was responding to someone who said that a repair not done by the vendor should void the warranty. Warranty only covers defects caused by the vendor, thus what they suggested was that vendors should not be liable for defects they themselves caused if someone else has repaired their product.
Just to take one slice of the population as an example, Apple has many gay and trans employees and no doubt users as well, so they are keenly aware of the problems these people can face whether while growing up, or afterwards.
As another example, take a look at the /r/atheism subreddit FAQ about coming out to your family, and read some of the horror stories there. People get disowned, kicked out of their parents homes, physically threatened, and even physically harmed in some cases, just for thinking for themselves.
As another example, in some cultures, honor killings are also a thing.
Users deserve to have their personal devices be secure, even from hostile family or household members.
On the other side is right to repair. I would love to see both sides be satisfied, but I do think the right to repair folks have been too militant in ignoring and dismissing the legitimate concerns Apple has about preserving user privacy.
Then there is the bogus line of argument that Apple is only against right to repair because they are heartless, greedy, profit fiends. But there are plenty of profit opportunities they have forgone, such as gathering personal data to exploit for ad networks, which argue otherwise. So I don't buy it.
Just to address your one cherry-picked hardware item:
>Changing a broken screen does not invalidate any chips on the motherboard afaik..
On some devices (those with fingerprint sensors) there are security implications.
Since you mention battery, that's a big one. When Apple cannot control which batteries get swapped into their devices, their brand is at risk due to fires caused by bad batteries.
You can generalize this point to other components and quality in general. If people swap out third party parts, which some repair shops and end users will do to save money, the products end up looking bad and it damages Apple's reputation, which is valuable to them.
I never seems this argument when you install after market car parts and install the parts yourself or your neighbor or some random car service, if you changed your lightbolb in the car and the engine breaks 1 month later you can't void my engine warranty. When I install a cheap battery, the pone burns and I bring it to warranty then the warranty people can photo the phone, show the problem, show the faulty battery and I am at fault.
If you are concern that evil people are out to get Apple, those evil people have many other ways to do it, there is no good reason to screw 99,99% of your user because some random guy install a cheap battery and then puts a photo and rand on the internet, that does nothing, there was a need for thousands of people to complain about the keyboard issues before most(but not all) of Apple fans believed that Apple could make a mistake(so a few rants won't have any effect).
Please show evidence for the contrary, one isolated incident and Apple got the blame and not the user when in fact the user was at fault.
If I swap the parts myself, I either get the new parts from apple themselves (in which case it IS their fault if something goes wrong or they can blame it on me for wrongly assembling it; e.g. "You were holding it wrong")
If I go to a shop or a friend to get my phone repaired and they replace parts, this would be different. If the device malfunctions I would obviously blame the guy who last fiddled with it first. Look at car repair shops, household appliances etc...
In the case of batteries its even more simple. If its an apple battery, its obviously apples fault if the device catches fire. Because either the battery was bad or the manuals were. If the swap is so terribly difficult that many users will damage the phone while swapping batteries, it's also apples fault, but they will (as usual) deny any claims so no harm done.
If it's a third-party battery, I can't see how the blame would fall to apple.
All in all, the reputation argument is on them. I don't see how e.g. Ford can be blamed for a car where the independently repaired brakes didn't work and caused an accident.
But it is, and your counterpoints do not hold up.
I disagree. I suspect (but cannot prove right now) that right to repair would lead to devices becoming more secure, more trustworthy.