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Comment by ProAm | Hacker News Reader

Can't you just charge different prices for Official Apple Certified parts vs aftermarket. Should keep your profit margins the same.

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Personally I’d be shocked if Apple allows an independent repair provider to provide both OEM and third party parts. Their terms are pretty broad on their application page but they explicitly state they reserve the right to cancel your access for any reason. I can’t seem to find more detailed terms, but I’m willing to bet there’s something in their terms that would prevent this.

> Personally I’d be shocked if Apple allows an independent repair provider to provide both OEM and third party parts.

How exactly would they know? Just run two corporate entities out of one shop, with the grey-market one registered to a nearby PO box.

“Hello, how much to replace the screen on an iPhone X?”

Just because it's not easily enforceable doesn't mean shops will accept knowingly breaking their terms with Apple.

And, as mentioned in a sibling comment, there are ways to do it, like an auditor posing as a customer, or simply compelling them to say under oath if they are doing this or not (in which case the situation goes from breach of contract to lying under oath).

People will just continue to use non-Apple parts then no? If Apple expects customers to buy a new phone every 2 years, why would they spend a significant more amount of money for a few extra months of usage? If there is a $150 difference between an Apple screen and non-Apple screen, Im going non-Apple

> Apple expects customers to buy a new phone every 2 years

Sorry what? My iPhones last 3-4 years, but software support is for around 5 years.

its a little over two years for most but its slowly creeping up due to excessive pricing [1] [2]

[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43ejej/study-smartphone-i...

[2] https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/07/15/how-often-...

Slowly creeping up due to improved long term OS support?

My wife and brother are still completely happy with their iPhone 6 devices.

Each person might replace their phone every two years but that's not very often the end of the devices life. Some people pay a premium to have the newest device every year or every other year but then someone else uses that phone for the next 2-3 years until it actually wears out.

Yes, but what is the warranty period? I.e. how soon are you expected to pay large amounts for simple fixes.

It’s funny how people will complain specifically on Apple just because they don’t have longer than industry standard warranties.

Do you complain to your car maker of the same issue?

Or maybe do you dump your car whenever warranty wears out?

Yeah if you want to keep products longer you’ll have to deal with maintenance. Yeah it could improve but that should be an industry wide regulation not something Apple specific.

As far as I now Apple guarantee genuine parts availability for ~6 years after last sell of a product. This is way better than most. My wife once tried and failed to buy a genuine HP laptop removable battery for a 2y old product.

> Do you complain to your car maker of the same issue?

No, because when my car fails, I've got:

- producer's repair place

- other producers' repair places (you can ask Ford too look at your Mazda, as long as no specific parts are needed)

- unaffiliated repair places which can obtain replacement parts when needed

- many people who know basic car repairs and can use common tools, because many internal car systems are designed to be taken apart and reassembled

If those are removed and the only authorised car service in 100km will tell me that to fix a trivial thing I'd have to leave the car with them for 3 weeks while the parts ship and they need to replace half the car to do it and it will cost me close to the value of the car, so maybe I want to buy a new one instead - yes! I'm definitely going to complain about "the same issue" then.

The way they count on you not repairing the device after the warranty period makes me question their short warranty as inadequate.

No one knows for sure. However, Reuters says: "The program will allow independent stores to set their own prices for repairs and also offer cheaper aftermarket parts."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-repair/apple-to-sup...

No one knows for sure at this point...by reading this press release, you have as much information as we do. It's our hope that we can do that, but if people come in and pick the Apple screen, we'd like to make as much margin as we currently do on the aftermarket screens.

I don't think that's realistic. You're getting genuine parts from Apple, not parts that fell off a truck in China. If you want the same margin, raise your prices.

that's what he's saying?

That sounds like a non-issue that can be solved with separate corperate entities. Bubba's phone repair and Jimbo's phone repair can both operate out of the same location owned by a third party and enter into a contract that lets them suitibly share resources. Small businesses do this kind of thing all the time. You can imagine if you have a company that does landscaping and takes down trees would want the landscaping under a different LLC to reduce costs (insurance, regulatory compliance, etc) and limit liability from the tree cutting side of the business.

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