What if I want to buy a device that is impossible to repair due to e.g. being inside metal/ceramics/glass?
There are many hardened phones that are repairable.
Edit: also a main issue with repairability is DRM and evil companies trying to use the copyright law so you won't publish repair manuals and schematics. Your ceramic phone won't suffer if someone shares a manual about it's internals .
Any phone (including iPhone) can be taken to nearly any service shop and it will probably be repaired within a day for an affordable price (if they have all parts, which they can order no problem; tools are not a problem a tall).
They also don't want the latest and greatest because that costs them way too much, most phones are mid market here, and the capabilities of these phones don't change much (same hardware for a number of years is not an exception) - but the design does. And no, the display notch is a very distinct status symbol that made the upgrade very much needed, same with multiple cameras on the back.
The few people who are buying Apple can choose between Apple stores, official Apple resellers and also a huge selection of unofficial (called "post-warranty") service shops. Not sure if it's OK with Apple, but it's definitely legal here, and it doesn't seem like these people have any problems with getting parts, getting tools or repairing the phones, but I agree that there should be an official way of doing so.
It's true that some phones became unusable with and because of software updates - that is wrong, but also an unrelated issue.
I guess that suffices to conclude that you have an extremely a-typical social circle.
People vote for representatives, those representatives enact legislation, and the free press reports on it, causing a feedback effect. Over time we have a picture of what society wants. It's really not that hard.
Obviously, there are many different interconnected societies in the world and not all of them have representative democracy or a free press. Maybe that was your objection?
I think it's clear why this tells us nothing about what the society here wants. It might be said that the EU was the voice of the nations before they removed the unilateral agreement requirement, but not today.
Nobody here (parties, the representatives) is even talking about the right to repair, how can you be so sure the society here wants it?
On the contrary, it very clearly tells us that your society is apathetic about the EU and does not care about decisions made in the European parliament.
In my own country, 2/3 voted in the latest EU parliament elections. The debates here were dominated by environmental policy, so I'm really not surprised that legislation like this is now being considered in the EU parliament.
Exactly, that is the only thing that is clear. And the reason is that we have much greater political problems to deal with so the EU is not that relevant to us, especially not issues like right to repair (which is not an issue to anyone I know and google gives me mostly no online discussions in our language). It still does not give anyone the right to shovel us "what the society wants". Our society didn't want the Lisboa agreement, but our politicians signed it anyways - so what exactly does our society want and what exactly should the EU be saying about it?
Even if 100% of people voted, still the 2.85% of voice don't seem like much space to express what our society wants, you know? And why there should only be space for one central opinion? That doesn't seem that diverse.
Then vote for a different set of politicians and leave the EU. The UK paved the way. I believe in you!
> Even if 100% of people voted, still the 2.85% of voice don't seem like much space to express what our society wants, you know? And why there should only be space for one central opinion? That doesn't seem that diverse.
Humans aren't borgs, but that doesn't mean we can't generalise about the general tendencies of society. Do you want me to admit that not everyone in a society has the same opinion? Seems a bit pointless, but sure, I'll admit that.
That's nice of you. I am not a leaver, I believe in European cooperation, maybe even federalization - but I don't believe in centralization.
We have to come to term with the fact that owning such devices isn't good for humanity in the long term.
> Who exactly will I hurt with my phone
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-truth-...
https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/27/europe-s-electronic-wast...
https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/czechs-become-eu-leaders-in-plast... ;-)
> I mostly don't care
Yeah, I figured out that part. The good thing is that there are less and less people like you in this world.
I certainly think that you should have the absolute right to attempt to repair your device, and you shouldn't be legally prevented from doing so.
On the other hand, I would like a secure, lightweight device, which lasts as long as possible on battery. All of those things will suffer if people who don't understand how modern phones achieve those things attempt to force them to be made up of piecewise-replaceable components.
On many modern devices, you don't have "a battery", you have battery cells fit into every available space and wired together. You're certainly welcome to try replacing those. I just don't want to see that reverted to a discrete battery design.
> Also I should have the right to use components from a broken iPhone into a different broken iPhone so I get a working iPhone
By all means! And "components" here may well mean "single integrated board", as it does on many laptops and phones.
Source for this. No device has unpackaged unprotected battery cells just floating around.
They may have many discrete batteries to use up all of the available space, but each unit is self contained with protection electronics and can be swapped independently of the others.
As I stated earlier in this thread, you should absolutely have the right to attempt such repairs. I just don't believe that there should be requirements to make devices use more modular components, at the potential expense of other desirable properties.
Each one will have a tiny PCB with protection circuitry on it. It’s the only way to prevent them from accidentally catching fire or exploding.
Batteries are far more complex than most people expect. Especially lithium batteries found in phones. The chemistry is super sensitive, and anything except careful monitoring of each battery pack risks catastrophic failure. Hence the tiny PCB on each battery pack.
WHY?! You'd end up with stuff 3-5mm thicker, but basically the same weight. Let's drop the "thinner" fetish once and for all, nobody cares about some mm of "wasted" space (that usually improves cooling anyway) inside a devices case and it being a bit chunkier, as long as it's almost just as lightwieght!
Fffs, let's go back to getting gold plated or diamond encrusted laptops and watches for showing off status! That's way better than the thinner/lighter nonsense...
Sure, getting smth. thinner bc technology actually improves (eg. displays) is cool, but shaving micrometers by packing everything close together is stupid.
(Oh, and we could start fixing our brains to think the same about cases for... people! Eg. housing. Like in kill the micro-apparments disease, there's enough room on the planet for all to leave confortable... in bigger rooms, and with chunkier laptops if that makes them more recyclable. "Space" IS mostly "free" ya know - very little of Earth's surface is actually usable for stuff like agriculture, energy production, mining etc.)
Then there is no phone that literally has a single board, there are other components such as the camera, earpiece, screen, etc. that are still replaceable.
I am not familiar with the latest models, do they changed that dramatically and I am out of date? Can't a competent mechanic replace any part on your new car?
This is done to ensure that "strippers" will not steal a car for the parts since the most valuable parts can't be sold.
Manufacturers just shouldn't be allowed to produce them.
Perhaps we don't need to go that far, but just removing the moats that prevent people from building compatible hardware would go far. That toners include DRM chips just to protect consumer unfriendly business models still bothers me. It's just e-waste for no good.
And I wouldn't include any used goods sold between actual people (not the corporation people) and grandfather in any products that were first put on the market before a certain date (and make that date a few years in the future as a grace period). And maybe even progressively introduce different restrictions.
But yes, by and large it has the same effect and yes, I think that this effect is to be desired.
Now the question that needs careful consideration is what constitutes "unrepairable" legally? It has to be sensible and legally ironclad.
Also anything which is structural is likely not going to be the part which maintenance needs to be done on
Unfortunately there hasn't been any significant follow through yet.
Yep. All those dark pattern cookie banners are illegal under GDPR.