We are all free to vote with our money what we want. We collectively choose not to, on average.
I tend to buy my devices second hand so knowing it's difficult for a repairer to use sub standard parts is also good.
There never was a year where Apple released a mediocre repairable phone and a slicker unrepairable phone, so the vote has never happened.
I’m not defending Apple’s user-hostile practices, I’m just saying that if this situation is going to change by people voting with their wallets, it’ll be because of changes to things that matter to the masses, and not the (totally legitimate) philosophical concerns of technology enthusiasts.
Maybe you'll find that it's harder than you think (as well to turn a profit) and there may be reasons why things are the way they are?
Google and giving up your privacy? You might be happy with that but I’m already “voting with my feet” on that matter.
There are some independent Linux based offerings now but they’re immature and going that way would mean loosing support of some third party apps that I currently need.
No manufacturer is offering a perfect or even good enough product right now. You end up compromising on something.
Currently: a Google-free AOSP-based distribution on one of the hundreds of supported devices.
In the future, hopefully: a free software mobile platform compatible with a range of hardware.
Google-free Android is a thing, I've been using it for about 10 years now. I do not have a Google account, there is no 'Gapps' (Google Apps) on my devices, I do not use the 'Play Store' (which is a bit of a silly name for people who speak Dutch where the word 'Play' sounds like a Dutch slang term for toilet, 'plee'), I don't use Google Search directly (it is one of the engines used in my own Searx instance, next to DDG, Bing, Yahoo etc.), no Gmail (I host my own mail), no Google Docs (or whatever it is called today, Libreoffice Online works just fine for me, hosted on my own server), etc.
Just try it for a change instead of giving up and giving either Apple or Google their pound of flesh. There is too much disinformation on the subject of mobile freedom, too much 'party politics'. There is a world outside of Apple and Google, why not give it a try instead of assuming it doesn't exist?
My assumption has not been that Google free Android doesn’t exist but that I’d need Google’s app store to run the third party apps I need.
Specifically things it's stuff for firmware updates on stuff like Shimano Di2 or other hardware devices.
Are third parties now officially supporting other alternative app stores?
(Sorry about the questions but this is quite interesting.)
Personally I’m thinking of moving towards a non-android Linux based phone and keeping an older iPhone for these updates.
As someone who dabbles in alternative mobile OSes, it's always frustrating to me when more and more products require using Apple/Google services for basic functionality. I try to avoid buying devices like that whenever possible, because they just lock me into those ecosystems.
The Amazon app store is an option, for things that are available there. It's not everything, but it feels like there's a decent selection there.
That said, for those apps that are only found in the Play Store, there are third-party clients like Aurora Store: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/
(Warning: possibly against some part of the Play Store ToS and Google is notoriously opaque regarding enforcement. Use caution.)
That, unlike e.g. the Play Store, should be installable normally as any other Android app even on compatibility layers like Anbox. This probably isn't super polished yet, but I know there's work being done on using Anbox for Linux phones and it seems to work: https://social.librem.one/@dos/105119691527269967
But yeah, personally I'm planning on 1) keeping an older phone around for the things that absolutely need it and 2) avoiding things that absolutely need it as much as possible.
As to app stores, I use F-Droid and Aurora Store (an alternative front end to the Play Store) for those few proprietary apps (mostly the Swedish BankID electronic ID app) I need to have access to. Aurora Store works with anonymous Google accounts, you do not need - and are advised not to use - a real Google account for this.
I use MicroG (free software implementation of the Google Services Framework) on a few devices but mostly just do without it.
Is Apple to sell phones to you, or to the general population? Answer is obvious, isn't it?
For the general population, making a tightly controlled (and simple) hardware and software environment makes more things possible -- overall -- to the users than absolute freedom does. It's a paradox -- by controlling things, they set the market for this product loose.
You can see how it is a hard thing to manage to, and leads to users like you being unhappy. Linux gives incredible freedom to users, yet has very little market penetration.
Not everyone wants to be able to side load apps, tweak their battery charging settings, and have their phone die because they did something wrong to it.
Remember back when Apple made phones with smaller screens? They took notice when millions of consumers were buying Samsung/whatever devices instead with a key reason given being 'bigger screen'. Apple then started producing devices with bigger screens.
While I agree with this on principle, to me it looks like it gives the collective us an agency which I would argue isn't really there in that not enough people consider it as a factor.
I think that many people don't really care. As another commenter said, people seem to care more about "specs" (like in the commenter's example with people preferring Samsung phones because of the bigger screens) and about having the latest phone.
This makes me wonder what percentage of people actually have to repair their phones, and of those, how many would have opted to do it themselves with off-brand components.
While I understand the philosophical concerns around repairability and mostly like my laptops to be repairable, I also get the feeling that for phones it only now may become important, if at all, because of their usable life.
My previous phone was a Galaxy S5, with a user replaceable battery. A new Samsung battery from a reputable store (not Amazon) costed 50-60 €. A battery replacement for the iphone costs 70 € at an authorised shop (I'm in Paris, France). I know I could have used an "alternative brand" battery in the GS5, but after a terrible experience with such a battery for a camera, I wouldn't go through that again.
Now I understand that this or that model may have design issues which would have random components fail prematurely. But I doubt that replacing the component with an off-brand one would be that great. I'd consider that model a lemon and avoid it. Even if it would be simple, I'd hate to have to replace my phone's [x] every two weeks.
If I live in a neighborhood where it takes 7/10 households to vote to improve the paved road, or install fiber internet, if only 3 of them want it, we're not getting any of those things. I can move to a different neighborhood, or pay for my own solution.
This is life.
This can be seen in product faults that remain fixed for many years in other consumer products. (see Samsung washing machines, GM ignition systems, etc.) Folks don't know how to evaluate design considerations at this level, I think this supports robust right-to-repair regulation as a counter-veiling force.
[1] https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/News/Data-news/Big-Tec...
Suppose that there is a consumer market for something, and people have shown their preferences, and are actually demonstrating that they actually don't want something (issue, feature, functionality).
Are you saying that regulators should come in and force rules that satisfy the desires of say, 5% of users (if even that), to the detriment of the rest?
Who are they to contradict the choices of the rest of the people? I mean, this is not like carbon regulation or pollution where someone's individual action has a negative shared cost on everyone else. What principle are we to apply then? There are tons of other 5% issues too -- which ones will be put into regulation?
I think it's important to differentiate when your desire for something is personal and you want a company to do something despite others not caring about it, versus when there is actually harm being done and needs to be regulated.
Is it though? Many competitor smartphones are still repairable, and they still control a good share of the market.