Repairability
psankar.blogspot.com
psankar.blogspot.com
I bought the 2015 Macbook Pro which developed the "staingate" issue. In first world countries, I hear that Apple replaced the screens for customers for free (I'm not sure if this is true or whether it's astroturfing). There is no such system here. Both speakers in this Macbook developed tearing and are no longer audible. Other laptops - Samsung, Lenovo, etc. in my household have worked perfectly. One laptop developed an issue with the keyboard, which was replaced for $50.
I received Airpods as a gift this year in February. One earphone stopped working within 8 months. Apple told me they weren't going to do anything about it. I must have used them about 20 times total. I also own knock-off Airpods. They work perfectly.
I follow Louis Rossman's YouTube channel where he opens up the devices and showcases the various corners that have been cut in the manufacturing process. He also exposes the unethical behaviour of the Apple "Genius" employees who overcharge customers for simple repairs. In one case he just plugged a loose connection back in and charged the customer for 20 minutes of labour whereas Apple said it would require a screen replacement for roughly ~30% of the cost of the device.
Repairability is becoming near impossible with these products now. At one point in time you could salvage together parts from dead devices to gather spares, but now Apple is working on technology to ensure that parts from different devices will not be compatible with each other.
Without legislation they will continue to operate like this with impunity. If enough key markets push for something like "right to repair" there is a small possibility that something will be done about this, otherwise the way things are headed, there will essentially be no accountability for cases like this.
I would not be surprised if there will come a point where they make devices stop working if you open them, and only they can restore the device back to a working state.
An average junior software developer here is making $10,000 a year. Hypothetically if they bought a new M1 Macbook Pro they'd spend $1,700 for the cheapest model (compared to around $1,500).
If there is a manufacturing issue that shows up after a year, they're down ~17% of their annual salary for a defective product.
The first couple times I ventured out of the US, I was struck by the differences in environment for some companies.
For example in Mexico, I was struck by plentiful advertising for cigarettes and hard alcohol. Strangely, Coca Cola advertisements on the TV always had a legal disclaimer, something like "always with food" (I recall poorly).
Furthermore, one of them knew about it and quietly advised me not to do it because it is an extremely harsh and clumsy with scraping of glue and other such steps involved, some of which may inadvertently cause other damage, and so they recommended I just deal with it and upgrade eventually but they were happy to attempt it.
So my choices were to either live with the stains or risk the replacement based on what I was told. I use it with the stains till this day.
Same experience with butterfly keyboard servicing on my current MBP. Obviously these flaws shouldn't exist in the first place but they treated me well.
However, I agree that Apple services are crap in India where they'll charge you Rs.2500 for even telling you what is wrong with your laptop and then maybe ask you to get the motherboard replaced for a minor repairable problem.
[1] It is fairly easy to repair them by using rubber cement but don't expect the original audio quality.
>The Macbook pro will not work without a battery even if it is plugged in an electric power supply.
>The only reason I bought the Macbook pro in 2016 was because I had to do some iOS app development.
Yeah... I'm writing this on my trusty MacBook Air 2011, but this is why I won't touch anything Apple anymore.
I first got a Mac Mini, and then an iPhone, and it seemed nice at the time, so I invested more in Apple...
But the relationship has been turning more and more abusive and controlling since then. If a human abuses me, I distance myself from them and eventually let the relationship fade away. It shouldn't be any different with a corporation.
1. I like my items old and lasting because it makes them more personal and gives it history.
2. There is a sense of pride when you fix something, whether that be a coffee table or a bug in software.
3. Reduce waste.
4. Save money.
Repair (especially in technology and cars) has become more and more locked down and difficult, and the right to repair is one I think we need to continue to strive for.
6. Repairability often comes hand in hand with better control over what a device does/does not enforce about how I can use it. (Read: better Linux/FOSS support without garbage bloatware.
The laptop is now out of warranty, so I contacted Dell to see about a replacement battery. "Sorry, we don't support laptops more than 4 years old" was the response. The support person suggested I source a replacement battery on Ebay and find a local laptop repair place to do the swap.
I deliberately chose to purchase a high spec (for the time), expensive laptop so it would have good longevity and previously I have had good support from Dell. Seriously disappointed by Dell's response this time.
Will be giving careful consideration to repair-ability and long term support before making another laptop purchase.
I ended up buying a battery on eBay both times along with a screwdriver kit with a T5 star bit (I think that was the size) the first time. It takes about 5 minutes to swap the battery.
I just looked in my email and the seller I used was "good-batteries" but it looks like they don't sell on eBay anymore.
"Thankfully Apple is not yet making cars, otherwise, to change Engine oil, we may have to dissasemble the headlamps, engine, transmission, differential, etc."
Of course, an Apple car would be an EV and there would be zero user-servicable parts, for sure!
I do want to note that, my 2012 Macbook Air still runs, but the battery does indeed need to be replaced. And I fully agree: It would be very nice to be able to use the laptop with a dead battery as long as it was plugged in.
lol ... apple must be the only laptop manufacturer to not allow that... can you use your iphone while plugged in?
You cannot do that? What? First time I am hearing this. This is a deal breaker.
Great link to resource https://www.ifixit.com/laptop-repairability to choose a repairable laptop.
The last Apple product that I have bought is Mac Mini 2018 - unlike other Apple products, Mac Mini is easy to open and installing the ram was a surprisingly light experience. I expect next generation of Apple products to be totally glued, without option to repair at all. I have no problems with this, because I will not buy any Apple product in the future, but Apple creates trends and other manufacturers copy quick.
I don't see change for good in this direction unless legislative measures arise and insist repairability to be mandatory.
Even older MacBooks would boot with the battery disconnected (in some sort of safe mode).
https://osxdaily.com/2019/06/14/how-boot-macbook-pro-without...
Newer ones likely wait to check the battery properly.
I've not come across any laptop or Android smartphone that wouldn't power up without a battery.
However, I do not have any experience with USB-C powered laptops, those might be different seeing as they need to negotiate power first.
I had the pleasure of working on an Android smartphone that wouldn't power up without a battery. Or even with a battery, if the outside temperatures were sufficiently low to cause the battery voltage to drop below the FCC-defined limits for running the radios.
Do you have any proof for that? It sounds very unrealistic to me. These days there aren't even any magnetic disks to spin up at boot time.
The power brick is rated at 19V 3.16A output, so 60W, the CPU is a 35W TDP second-gen i3.
Of course a big part of that is spinning up the disk, so as you say I imagine this is quite different these days with SSDs.
Apple has more and more in common with other luxury goods, such as expensive cars, which have a glamourous reputation but are notoriously unreliable after only a few years. Then they are eye wateringly expensive to repair.
For someone buying simply for utility, Apple is best avoided. Their market position and financial incentives are aligned against selling you a machine that is solid in the long term.
Isn't that precisely why people buy luxury goods?
They have a premium price not because they are a premium product but because "influencers", celebrities, and the wealthy use them, thus they "must be premium" and must have a high $$$
It is perception vs reality, it is marketing vs substance
In this Apple is Genius at perception and marketing
I completely believe the horror stories though. They’re a huge company operating all over the world. Frankly these things can happen with any company. I only use iMacs and a Mac Mini so can’t comment in detail on the laptop keyboards but I can understand why people were upset.
It entirely depends on your own specific needs and circumstances. For me a Mac is a powerful, well built consumer desktop and Unix workstation, with some great convenience features. For someone else they might be over priced inflexible systems lacking needed capabilities.
I have flooded it twice, once a month after buying it with hot latte. Then second time two years ago when it was dropped into clean water. In the second case the water got absolutely everywhere including between individual leaves of the LCD panel.
Thanks to how it is built, both times I was able to disassemble it myself and clean it properly to remove any water and residues.
I have also changed internal battery which was as simple as unscrewing it and disconnecting from main board. I hacked BIOS to accept 4G M.2 card because when the laptop was certified 4G wasn't even a thing yet.
I will be giving it away and replacing it with a newer one but only because of some outdated technology. It still runs fast, doesn't get hot, panel is perfectly readable and everything works smoothly.
The replacement battery killed the GPU.
The screen turned blank when waking from sleep. It survived another week, but after that, would crash whenever switching to NVIDIA graphics.
I can't just replace the battery now - I need to change the logic board ($500). Repairs for the 820-3787 are possible through Louis Rossmann, Paul Daniels, etc - but cost a similar amount to a replacement board.
Original batteries cannot be bought from Apple - the laptop is obsolete. I don't know which batteries to trust.
Non-Apple devices lack MagSafe, Thunderbolt, iSync USB, and Time Machine. Newer Apple devices lack most of these too, and can't even upgrade the SSD. The latest M1 MacBooks can't even dual-boot, or use Target Disk Mode for recovery. In the end, I'm probably just going to have to learn how to use OpenBoardView, buy a better soldering iron and microscope, and go for the real full-stack, hardware as well as software.
Or you know go for a better ecosystem that does not have all of these lockin issues
And seemingly unlike many others giving their anecdata in this thread - a pet peeve of mine on HN, because it's effectively meaningless noise - my 2014 MacBook Pro is still going strong after one battery replacement two years ago, and if it wasn't for the M1s I wouldn't even be thinking about upgrading.
It would force compromise on every other aspect of the product.
In the real world = more time (at every stage of the R&D and manufacturing process) + extra material costs (more tooling, more PCBA's, more screws, etc.).
I personally think that this issue will become a very big deal over the next decade or so, but at this point the market isn't applying enough pressure for the big companies to change their GtM processes.
I am sure it isn't, but once upon a time all products were designed for repair.
No, but releasing basic board schematics - or even just allowing third-parties to freely redistribute their own custom-made schematics - is. Allowing your supplies to sell board components directly to consumers and third-party repair shops is. Allowing third parties to move used OEM parts across international bounds without fear of having their property seized for being "counterfeit" is.
There is a huge community of independent repair technicians out there who are constantly undermined by the likes of Apple and other major hardware manufacturers. The manufacturers don't even have to "design for repair". They just have to allow repair to be an option in the first place.
Maybe if repair becames a common alternative again, "design for repair" would actually be considered a competitive advantage.
You can’t blame it on the climate just because you have never experienced it.
NB.: How many mac’s are your statistic based upon < 100? I think we need the big numbers...