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Apple doesn't want their customers to get f'd over you say?

You might want to check out Luis Rosmann's videos, a famous Apple repair geek who fixes for cheap the products Apple themselves misdiagnose[1] in order to rip off their customers[2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7RXJP4mxCc // teenager's MacBook's display is not working correctly so Geniuses tell him he needs a new motherboard replacement while Luis discovers in 2 seconds that the lid-close sensor cable is broken so he replaces it for $8

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns // customer's MacBook's display is not working correctly so Geniuses tell him he needs a new motherboard and display replacement while Luis discovers in two minutes that the display connector has a bent pin and fixes it for free

It might be that Apple is not able to apply the same attention to detail that Luis applies to every case.

Luis complains that he can't find competent board level repair technicians to scale his business. The real problem is that it's a difficult expensive skill. Luis can't scale it, Apple can't scale it at a reasonable price either.

Human attention is expensive, that's the reason software is eating the world. Part of that means paying less attention to individual user's products when it requires less human attention to just replace parts in mass.

My 2 cents.

I love watching Louis diagnose and fix laptops. He can make good money charging $300 to fix a motherboard in an hour or two because he has done it for years but I can imagine even a very smart technician it takes 2-3x time starting out and I doubt he pays much more than $25-30hr, though maybe the business would be more viable if not in NYC thats borderline living wage here.

> Apple can't scale it at a reasonable price either.

That may well be but they charge premium prices and position themselves as providing a premium service. They're the only business that calls their repair staff "geniuses", so I don't think it's too much to expect a "genius" to not go for the quick fix. People expect more from Apple because of how they present themselves.

In both these cases had the actual hardware ever made it to the Apple repair depot (which has more expertise than the average Apple Genius and is not located on the back of the store, contrary to what Luis may think) then they undoubtedly would have come to the same conclusion that Luis did about the ease of the repair, and would have charged accordingly.

What Luis heard from the store was a preliminary estimate, not a final bill.

While Luis is certainly a master-level expert on repairs (of course he could easily find cherry picked examples that could fool a Genius), in my opinion he is a classic example of an Apple hater and comes to this with a strong bias and a highly self interested agenda which includes 1) promoting his repair business and 2) creating juicy “gotcha” clickbait for his YouTube channel.

Which is a fantastic chance btw... despite what I’ve said it’s a great channel for learning a lot about hardware repairs.

Both videos mention suggestions to buy a new computer because repair cost is close to the price of a new one. In such case, the computer would never reach a repair depot.

As to Rossmann being a hater, I too have seen so many stories of Apple denying warranty for made up reasons (liquid damage, etc) that it is very difficult to believe that Apple is acting in good faith when it comes to repairs.

Apple's warranty and their water damage sensors are absolutely useless. The water damage sensors go off if you are in a humid area and along with it goes your warranty. I had problems with my keyboard macbook 2015. Took my laptop to the apple store and was basically told that warranty is void due to water damage. I don't understand know how this is legal?

I suppose humidity can also cause water damage. Humidity is basically caused by high levels of water moisture in the air. Which water moisture, as we know, moves in and out of liquid form as it condenses and evaporates, sometimes unnoticed in places we can’t see.

Seems unfortunate that some environments are harmful to electronics, but what would you have them do, guarantee the product in absolutely any conditions?

If they're legally selling devices in these areas, then yes. I don't see why environment absolves them of any and all responsibility.

I think you should try doing what they do, but add on this warranty that fills the “responsibility” of covering all possible damage from all possible environments that can be found anywhere around the area... “the area” being the whole Earth, of course, since these devices are intended for mobile use globally.

Might as well step up and not shirk your obvious responsibility for covering impact events as well, since those occur fairly often in many everyday situations. Let us know how that works out for you.

I don't think it's reasonable to support hardware that was taken up Everest or on some Antarctic expedition - actual, extreme circumstances.

I think it's entirely reasonable to support hardware sold in 100% humidity central Florida where Apple is licensed to do business (covered under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.)

this is exactly the point, most of the times people just assume harshest weather condition and think we are asking them to support that the moment this argument pops up.

Like I said, if they're actively selling a device in a certain place, they should be on the hook for it if the device hasn't been designed to cope with the environment of that place. Not sure what's gained by the second most profitable company in the entire world being able to offload that kind of risk onto consumers.

Frankly I wouldn’t put it past Rossmann to make up that anecdote about the Genius suggesting they buy a new computer. That’s just not how Apple works in my experience.

As to your second point, I’ve had only positive experiences with them with repairs both in and out of warranty. However some of that may be because I always buy at an Apple store, rather than at third parties, because doing so gives their systems more visibility into the detailed history of the specific item I buy, and thus they have more leeway and discretion to solve problems in very nice ways. It’s likely that many horror stories you’ve heard are dramatized after the fact by people who went for a sketchy discount purchase and want someone to blame. People do lie, and liquid damage is a real thing.

> make up that anecdote

Apple got caught on hidden camera. Multiple times.

You can find plenty of these kinds of videos, but I think Rossman was referring to this one, featuring the man himself:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_XneTBhRPYk

Missed the edit window for a typo but fantastic channel, that was supposed to say, not chance. And, I would think, also a good business for him at this point.

Nothing in your sources indicate there's intention in Apple driving folks towards these repairs. Geniuses don't work on commission, they have zero incentive to tell people to fix things they dont need to. I think this is a Hanlon's razor situation where you're assuming Apple is malicious when really it's just lack of knowledge on behalf of some Geniuses.

No one is claiming that apple is training their geniuses to intentionally guide people to more expensive repairs. In fact they are accusing apple of a lack of adequate training, These guys just don't know that what they're saying is untrue. Apple's failed to train their technicians to repair anything. all they can do is replace.

The commenter I responded to literally said that the genius intentionally told the customer the wrong thing. They have since edited that part out. So yes, folks right here are claiming intent where there is none.

You can’t claim there was no intent either right? Whether there was or was not intent is unknown.

“It may or may not have been intentional, but I was guided to buy a more expensive option”.

Louis Rossman isn't really the best source for unbiased information: https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossman...

They're claiming the factory wasn't authorized to manufacture the batteries, but that's only because they had an Apple logo on them, so he had them get rid of the logo, which is the only thing that requires them to be "authorized" for. How is that even controversial? It seems to be the opposite of counterfeiting -- making it so the non-Apple battery doesn't have the Apple logo.

Rossman tried to claim that Apple seized the batteries (they didn't: the DHS did, independently of Apple) and claimed they were counterfeit when they weren't. Except he was actually smuggling illicit batteries into the country (willfully obfuscating this fact by hiding the Apple logo) and then making videos claiming that they were completely genuine and Apple didn't want him to have these because Apple personally hated him.

They're only illicit if they have the Apple logo on them when they shouldn't, which is the whole point of taking it off.

…but then you can't claim that there were genuine, as Rossman did in his videos.

Do you have a link to the video? There is a difference between saying things like "manufactured to Apple spec" and claiming they were actually manufactured by Apple.

https://youtu.be/AVL65qwBGnw?t=43

That's kind of ambiguous. He could mean original spec, as opposed to some junk using completely different components which is merely electrically compatible.

The fact that he's then comparing "original" with "counterfeit" goes against that a little, but it feels more like confusion than malice, or using the same word in two different contexts. Saying these are original-spec components without Apple logos and not counterfeit might be true even if the reason they're not counterfeit is that they don't have Apple logos rather than because they followed the spec.

There's nothing ambiguous about it at all, they are indisputably not original components even if they adhere perfectly to the original spec.

That's what I mean by using the same word in different contexts. Think AuthenticAMD rather than GenuineIntel. You have someone manufacturing components they're not claiming are Apple components, then they're original -- not original Apple, original That Other Company.

First off, Louis Rossman has made his fair share of stupid mistakes on camera and I am sure he's had his own work returned to his shop in the past. It is important to note is that he is cherry picking the worst cases of incompetence from across the country since he has many fans willing to send their Macs to him. Apple's Genius Bar services over 18 million users per year. There are bound to be some stinkers. https://www.cultofmac.com/185762/did-you-know-apples-genius-...

If Luis is putting in fake batteries and calling them real he is a scammer to. That's the topic here.

As to this claim that these examples are apple screwing over their customers - perhaps the frontline folks at a store can fix a certain set of issues, and if the machine looks dead (ie, no screen) they advise customer of potential cost and send it to a group better able to fix things?

I'm not that impressed with support I've gotten at other places selling laptops (walmart / target) but maybe apple really is the worst here.

I'm having a very hard time following your logic: Apple charges lots of money on commodity parts because they don't want users getting, as you say, "f'ed over"

There is a healthy after market ecosystem primarily because apple charges so much. Not the other way around.

Furthermore, in the video on the ifixit site, the blogger replaced the battery with a genuine secondhand apple battery and it would not recognize it.

This is predatory behaviour from Apple on its consumers.

I think we are seeing the predatory behavior of scammers here.

For example, you are claiming that just attaching a chip from an old apple battery to a new one should read as genuine in the phone. That is a total scam.

The detection feature is tied to a chip, not to the cell chemistry itself. If chips from old iphone batteries are all it takes to show a scam battery is genuine, given the high volume of old batteries, EVERY scam battery would show as genuine. This is a workaround already used and well known in other situations. To avoid this workaround you need to tie a specific chip in, not just any apple chip in.

Seriously - how do YOU propose apple alert the user to a bogus third party battery.

Show a warning, click ignore and be happy. Display battery information regardless.

This. I bought a second hand phone off some guy who does phone repairs in my area. Didn't realize the fingerprint reader did not work until a few days later as I had never owned a phone that new that had one and did not know it was supposed to work. When I looked on the internet it seemed that the reason was the home button was swapped out but without taking the chip that ties it to the phone with it from the old button. Asked the seller and he admitted that the home button was swapped, poorly at that. I still can not use the home button to unlock even though the phone is not stolen and I own it. So I personally am not a big fan of apple locking parts down. I personally had an iphone 4s up until half a year ago. I still have it I just happened to get an iphone 6. But my iphone 4s I have put at least 4 screens on it, a new battery, a new set of speakers and a power button. I laugh at the amount of work I have done on it. It is my Theseus iPhone :)

To phrase this another way: a third party made some modification to the biometrics sensor that is used to control access to your private data, including all of your device’s encryption keys, stored passwords, and payment information.

The phone detected this tampering and disabled the compromised component.

And you are disappointed that the part has been “locked down”.

That is not how I would rephrase it. And that is simply not true what you claim. Simply replacing the fingerprint scanner does not allow any access. The moment the phone is off the phone will require a password entered manually. Unless you suggest an actor can replace a home button all while not powering down the phone and I suppose that is possible but that to me would seem state level actor and they probably have other ways. So no there doesn’t seem to be a threat to my data if the fingerprint sensor is replaced. It would still require my password upon restart and if I failed to provide it at that point then sure good move Apple. The fact is they know they can force people like me, or people who’s home button is actually broken into their store if they want that magic button. Don’t kid yourself that they are doing this in the name of my security. But thank you for actually commenting I wish more people here on HN would justify their down votes with some conversation on the subjects. Edit: I realize that perhaps someone could swap the button without my knowledge and upon me restarting it I would enter my password and the phone is compromised. But in all honesty who falls under that threat model? Apple simply could notify you of the change and allow you to accept the risk. That’s all it would take.

One possible attack would be to replace the sensor with one that records the fingerprint the next time you authenticate. And then in the future it could “replay” the fingerprint image to the SEP (secure coprocessor).

If it were really Apple’s intention to prevent you from servicing your device, would they only disable the Touch ID sensor? Why wouldn’t they make the whole device inoperable, rather than make you suffer a minor inconvenience by having to use a passcode?

The less exciting answer is that the sensor was designed to certain security parameters and modifying it invalidates those. Yes, the threat model includes nation-state actors. Disabling the sensor preserves system security; designing for a potentially adversarial sensor is difficult and increases risk.

> Why wouldn’t they make the whole device inoperable, rather than make you suffer a minor inconvenience by having to use a passcode?

They did by mistake: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205628

What installing a malicious fingerprint scanner buys you is that you can unlock the phone. Which means all you have to do is require the user to unlock the phone (e.g. with a PIN) to activate the new fingerprint scanner. That protects the data that was already on the phone when the new fingerprint scanner is installed.

And as for future use of the phone, that's already hopeless, because if you have the capability to fabricate a rogue fingerprint scanner, install it in the phone and unlock the phone to activate it, you could just keep the original phone and replace it with a fully rogue phone that you've copied the original data to.

I am not sure I follow. (Edit: there is more to the threat model than the scenario that the device is being broken into outside of your possession. Consider just a fake part that pretends to authenticate you but sends a fixed fingerprint image or embedding or whatever to your SEP. You wouldn’t know but someone else could get into your device.)

But each device has a unique encryption key that is implemented in hardware. The flash storage cannot simply be moved to a new device. Cloning the storage and the hardware key is assumed to be significantly harder (and more costly) than replacing the sensor with something similar-looking (see any number of Chinese knockoffs).

> Consider just a fake part that pretends to authenticate you but sends a fixed fingerprint image or embedding or whatever to your SEP. You wouldn’t know but someone else could get into your device.

Which was the second point. They can replace the whole phone and you're in the same situation. Having two components authenticate each other just requires them to replace both.

> The flash storage cannot simply be moved to a new device.

Not the way they've designed it, but there is no security reason not to allow that once the phone has already been unlocked.

> replace it with a fully rogue phone that you've copied the original data to

How? This would require decrypting the data, wouldn't it?

But you just unlocked it. That's the point. If you can unlock the phone without it then you might as well accept the fingerprint reader.

Maybe I'm not understanding your "attack": are you not saying that the repair shop can replace your phone with a malicious one with your data on it?

You give them your phone and and the ability to unlock it, now they can copy all your stuff. The phone they give you back isn't yours, you have been pwned.

> the ability to unlock it

Why would I give them that? I'm handing the phone over powered-down and without revealing my passcode.

> Why would I give them that?

So they can repair your phone.

And they get the same thing when they give you the rogue phone back and you try to unlock it, at which point it sends the PIN to them and they can use it to unlock your original phone and then mount it over the network to display the same data until they've finished copying it.

Why do they need my phone to be unlocked to repair it? They just take off the back and put in a new battery.

We're talking about the fingerprint reader, which makes sense to require the phone to be unlocked to replace to prevent someone from doing it without your knowledge.

Though even that only makes the attack more expensive, because again, they can just replace the whole phone. Doing that undetected is harder because you have to connect the rogue phone to the original one as soon as they give the rogue phone what you need to unlock the original, which is a sophisticated attack. Though manufacturing custom malicious hardware already implies a pretty sophisticated attack.

I can't see the similarity to a battery though.

> And yes, the scam of a trash after market battery to make the iphone battery life look good is well known. And guess how many parents and grandparents then go to apple to "fix" something that has nothing to do with Apple?

This very situation happened right in front of me while I was waiting at the Apple store to pick up my 4yo 6s after a screen repair.

A helpless woman had strange issues with her new iPhone. Turns out it was a “refurbished” phone from a shady shop. The Apple guy went through half an hour of diagnostics and calmly explained all the little details (manufacturing date, battery cycles, actual mAh, various parts misbehaving and reporting obviously bogus information to the diag tools) that had no way of adding up, which led to the conclusion that she had been scammed (although he could not be sure so he never stated it as such).

As it turns out, no, you can’t get a brand new iPhone X for less than 200€.

I purchased a few iFixit iphone batteries and was less than impressed with their performance. I think what iFixit is doing is awesome, and I am a huge fan of them. I used their iMac kit to put an SSD in my family iMac and it made the job simple. The iPhone 5s/and iPhone 6 plus batteries I bought from them are trash though, and they lasted a few months before degrading severely. I took those same phones to apple and the batteries were markedly better.

I'm no fan of Apple's domineering attitude, and repairability is very important to me. If I have broken or worn out hardware not covered by a warranty, I will always attempt to repair it myself, and I usually research repairability before making any significant purchases. I don't own any modern Apple hardware.

That said, I think this mostly OK as long as Apple doesn't actually try to prevent replacement batteries from working. They could probably do a bit better with the messaging here, letting the user know there's not necessarily a problem, just that the provenance and quality of the battery can't be verified.

> People can't figure out why apple can charge such ridiculous premiums on what is otherwise a commodity product. This is why.

It's why they can charge such a premium for commodity batteries -- which is the problem.

> From applecare to the activation lock to app permissions to alerting user to bogus behavior to app store quality to reversible charging cables - all the activities HN considers "anti-consumer" have helped make consumers value apple products.

Let's apply this logic to history. Suppose Microsoft makes it so that Office doesn't run on anything but Windows and Windows won't run any office suites other than Microsoft Office.

Now you argue that Microsoft is doing their customers a great favor -- they can make sure nobody sells them a computer with some off-brand office suite that can't read their documents. But it's pretty clear what the problem with that argument is at this point, right? People should be able to make that choice for themselves. Corel shouldn't be able to call their office suite Microsoft Office, but it should still be possible to use it with Microsoft Windows when people are informed of what they're actually getting.

And then, does the fact that Windows and Office are tied together cause more people to buy them? Maybe, but not in the good way where people like it. In the anti-competitive way where you need Windows and some office suite and you choose Microsoft Office only because none of the others can run on Windows and the choice is forced on you.

After many hours and tiresome calls with Apple global support and getting nowhere I told them I must take the issue to social media so others might avoid the same issue. The service agent responded “we have a large team of people who respond to such posts”.

I wonder if they're required to disclose they’re employees of Apple. If so, they could hire an external company to do the Job.

Hard to know these days.

Hassle of doing it on an Android phone?

I pop open the back and put in a different battery. No tools required. And it's even got a decent water proving rating.

I've been on Android since the OG Droid, and I can't remember the last time I had a replaceable battery. 4-5 years or more.

I don't buy phones that don't have a replacable battery or don't let me flash a custom OS. This is true for all my electronics tbh.

I had to upgrade my S2 after 5 years of service because it was getting too slow for the crap people call a navigation app nowadays. Now I'm on an S5 that has easily kept up so far.

The hermetically sealed glass and aluminum phones don't usually let you do it but more sensible plastic bodied phones often still do.

Nokia 2.2 has a removable battery [1]

1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/one-of-the-cheapest-...

It's hit or miss.

Some, while non user replaceable, are very easy. Others require you to take the phone almost entirely apart to replace it

A cracked screen repair on a recent iphone is $200, which I think is very high.

I think if they lowered the price of common repairs to "reasonable", then good things would happen.

If instead of becoming a source of profit, repairs became more costly to apple, maybe they might: make things more modular and repairable, make parts available, allow external repairs.

(I could be idealistic and wrong)

You're not wrong, but Apple won't do that while there are still people who accept and encourage this kind of consumer-hostile behavior.

But if you replace the battery with one from the Apple store it'll still say the battery needs replaced right? That's the issue - even with a new OEM battery. Only Apple can replace it and get rid of that message.

Well, it literally says the message is there even if you swap in a genuine Apple battery yourself.

Whatever, can't lose if you never play Apple's game.

Apple doesn’t sell genuine Apple batteries to anyone but authorized service providers who can only use these to install them in phones themselves. The only genuine part you can get is a second hand battery from a broken phone. Who wants that?

> The only genuine part you can get is a second hand battery from a broken phone

Sounds like a problem deliberately created by Apple.

It is a situation deliberately created by Apple. Whether it is a problem is an opinion.

How would you do this? Remember, the chips in old apple batteries can be removed and used in other batteries.

I doubt they would be. Even laptop battery BMS systems brick themselves so they can't be reused. It's where I get all my 18650's from. They are all NOS batteries that were never used and the BMS disconnected the cells due to fractionally too low voltage. Cells are fine but the BMS chip will never work again.