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Comment by fillskills | Hacker News Reader

Knowing nothing about your business, I would humbly suggest not fighting on price but on other areas like speed, quality, customer service etc. The nearest apple store to me is 20 miles away. I would rather pay more money to have it fixed in a durable way closer to home. Just my 2 cents. Take them with a big grain of salt.

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I would say you are in the minority of consumers, most will just chase the lowest price.

Additionally, most people will look at third-party repair shops as a way to get a discount from Apple's prices, not to pay more.

Someone just chasing the lowest price wouldn't have bought an Apple device to begin with ...

That is most certainly not a true assumption. There are quite a few people who stretch their funds to just buy an iPhone and need to penny pinch when something in it breaks. They're still a valuable market.

Normally I'd agree but having some familiarity in this area, my observation is that there is a subset of Apple users who buy Apple products who don't think about any post-purchase costs (as with many other products associated with the "higher end / luxury" image in the mind of the customer, I'd imagine).

A customer doesn't expect to be quoted >$1000 to replace a damaged screen on an iMac machine, nor do they expect to be told that their SSD can't be replaced because Apple uses their own proprietary connector [1]. Tons of legitimate things to not like about Apple particularly if you care about the right to repair your own machine. [2]

> When Apple released their first “blade” solid state drive in the Late 2010 release of the MacBook Air, they still used established mSATA interface technology, but ditched the traditional SATA and mSATA form factors found in most laptops at that time, instead opting for a custom connector that’s never been used by another manufacturer before or since. With the 2010 MacBook Air, Apple began a new trend of developing proprietary connectors and form factors that eventually pervaded the entire Apple lineup and ushered in an era of drives that, while easily replaceable, were not so easy to find.

Many people incorrectly assume the connectors are one of the M.2 variants found in many PCs, but to date, Apple has still never used a standard M.2 connector. And unlike M.2 pin arrangements, Apple’s connectors were never given distinguishing names, so from this point on I’ll just refer to the connectors by their pin arrangements as described in the image below.

[1] https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-gu...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_right_to_repair

Speed is an important factor. AASP are really really slow around here. 7 days or more to replace a battery is ridiculous when 3rd party shops can do it in 20 minutes.

If those shops would have access to the same tools and instructions as Apple, that would be great!

I dropped my 7+ last week, called the local AASP to see if they had parts in stock to replace the shattered screen. It was repaired 90 minutes later. I wonder if older phones like mine are easier/faster to repair than the newer models?

More expensive screen, I suppose.

iPhone 6 and 7 (including Plus) have a repairability of 7/10. iPhone 8 (including Plus), X, XR, XS have repairability of 6/10.

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone_6

[2] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone_7

[3] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone_8

[4] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone_X

[5] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone_XR

[6] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone_XS

> If those shops would have access to the same tools and instructions as Apple, that would be great!

Why don't those shops become AASPs? There has to be a reason why they don't want to or are ineligible..

because AASP are not allowed to repair anything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR5ZUl0Q-NI

Your role is to send stuff to Texas to get another refurbished unit in return https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/CSAT-Solutions-Houston-Rev... and up-sell people to a bran new device by citing ridiculous cost of 'repair' (which you contractually arent allowed to do anyway, you are only allowed to replace whole units).

What AASP is taking 7 days to replace a battery? We do them all day long as a premiere partner and we always set the expectation at around an hour and a half to be on the safe side.

That's the time I was told it would take at Computerwerkstatt in Linz. I think it takes so long because they mail phones to a different country for repair.

In any case, it's pretty ridiculous, and I went to a different repair shop instead.

I've no doubt that it describes a good part of the market but we're talking about people's primary phone and computer. Having turnaround on the order to days rather than weeks because of shipping at least to me would be super valuable. Hell one of the reasons I bought my last iPhone was because the official repair process for Pixel devices was so miserable.

I'd say there are customers on both side.. I personally once had my macbook's battery replaced at a 3rd party repair shop while it is under warranty because I needed it immediately. The Apple shop required me to leave the laptop with them for close to a week while I can wait for my battery to be replaced in front of me at the 3rd party shop..

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