Hacker News Reader

The repairability Rossmann is talking about is not user-replaceable components. His repairs usually require soldering to replace components.

One of his main critique points is that Apple makes it hard to repair their products, even for electronics professionals. In the past, Apple has also altered designs so that small electrical problems suddenly fry the most expensive component on the board, the CPU. Either this is an embarrassing, junior-level oversight or a deliberate anti-repair-buy-new-hardware tactic.

See, for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jahtu1_idVU

As such, it seems you are arguing against an idea that no one is suggesting.

Right to repair isn't "obligation to repair devices yourself", or "force manufacturers to redesign hardware so repair shops jobs are easier".

It's about preventing certain business practices that hinder the repair industry. Like when Apple forces their suppliers to not sell components to anyone but them.

"Component level repair" is a thing that's done today. It involves replacing individual components on a motherboard with a microscope and soldering iron, special equipment, and smart and well-trained people. That's what Rossman does regularly on his Youtube channel.

But even if you have the skills and tools to replace a tiny burned out IC on a motherboard, where do you get a replacement? Apple doesn't allow suppliers to sell them to anyone.

I don’t think your first sentence is accurate - there is no single standard definition for right to repair, and I have absolutely seen people saying that right to repair includes an obligation for manufacturers to redesign hardware so repairs are easier. I’ve also seen people say it’s only about allowing schematic access and nothing else. I’ve seen people say it includes unlocking bootloaders. IMO this is one of the biggest problems with the right to repair movement: the goals are fairly poorly defined.

Louis Rossmann made a video giving his definition, which is that parts are available. However, that is only his definition, there is still broader community lack of focus on what it means.

Some people think it means that Apple must make their products easy to repair. Others think it means Apple must every single chip available for independent purchase. Others think it means Apple must only make available the parts that they would provide their AASPs with (only finished boards and displays, not individual chips).

Repairability doesn’t make products fragile or unreliable, poor design and quality control does. Source: spent the last 18 months building a highly repairable product and putting it through the same reliability tests less repairable products go through.

A lot of repairability just comes down to making replacement parts readily available too, which is orthogonal to the design.

I respectfully disagree. I’ve worked on products where field serviceability is a design goal. It absolutely can add complexity and cost - after all, it’s another design constraint. Rivets and glue are faster, cheaper, smaller, and often more reliable than screws. Soldered-on connectors are more vibration resistant and smaller than pluggable ones. Access panels can introduce structural weakness. Gluing or welding cases shut provides environmental protection that’s difficult to achieve with screws.

Even making parts available can be a pain. I might want to spin a new rev on a product where the old parts aren’t compatible with the new - but now I have to warehouse the old in case anybody wants them. I might not actually warehouse anything myself (contract manufacturer ships directly to retailers), but now I have to find a way of warehousing spares of everything. I might not have any good way of packing/shipping some of these loose parts.

That’s not to say R2R is a bad idea or anything (rather, I think it’s generally a good idea) - but it is not free, and we should be realistic about that.

You don't have to warehouse the old parts if you don't want to. When you deprecate them, you can simply license someone else to do so. They'd jump at the chance; parts are a profitable business.

Automakers have been warehousing parts for decades. Here's Toyota's catalog entry for a starter motor that fits a 1974 Corolla Coupe 1.6L A/T, which is available for under $200 via my local dealership: https://parts.toyota.com/p/Toyota_1974_Corolla-Coupe-16L-AT/...

The only reason to be anti-repair is if you want old devices to become useless so that more new devices get sold at retail. Automakers can't do this because if Toyota screws me on parts, I can buy a Honda next time. Apple is relatively peerless in many ways, and they also do their best to keep people locked in to the MacOS/iOS ecosystem.

Your point about packing and shipping is ludicrous, considering that all of the component manufacturers do that for all of their products. How do you think a device gets built? How does it get repaired under warranty? You just put the component in a bag, put the bag in a box with some foam, and voila. Electronic parts are fairly robust and there's a huge market for them (Newegg, Mouser, Digikey, etc).

When you say R2R "is not free," what you really mean is that repair is more economical for the user. The manufacturer isn't entitled to recurring revenue from replacement of potentially reparable devices, and shouldn't bake that revenue into their business model. That is an entirely anti-consumer practice whose existence is a very valid justification for regulators to open up a can of whoop-ass on device manufacturers.

I upvoted you because you presented an alternate view I hadn't heard before, but I disagree.

After a few years, a laptop's battery degrades. In well under a decade, Wirth's Law kicks in to make devices seem slow.

This attitude unintentionally suggests that people should turn their entire computers into e-waste instead of just swapping the battery or upgrading the RAM.

Nobody's saying that companies should have to make design tradeoffs to make things easier to repair (e.g., making devices bigger to fit sockets so components can be replaced without soldering). We're just saying they should stop going out of their way to make things harder to repair (e.g., withholding schematics and service manuals that they already did the work to write, and forcing suppliers to not sell their parts to independent repair shops).

Rossmann is not advocating for companies to change how they design stuff. Primarily, he just wants companies to release schematics (that they already have and aren't really proprietary) and to stop making deals with manufacturers to only sell custom parts to that company (which is what apple is doing with one of their charge chips).

I agree I dont care about reparability by third party as long as the devices is literally made indestructible. But If it cant be made that way, why the trade offs?

Why should I loss all my Data on MacBook when its CPU, GPU, or logic board has a problem?

Why does repairing a keyboard require replacing the half of the laptop.

And why are these repair so expensive.

It is all about balance. And a lot of these balance in Apple seems to be disintegrating since Steve Jobs passed away.

IMO, the balance in Apple disintegrated when Woz left.

> Repairability? Other concerns, things that change the day-to-day use of the device, should weigh more.

I don't think repariability is something you need to put effort into build into a product, it's something you put effort into taking out of a product. Apple's engineers definitely have things like what Louis uses for his repairs: board views, schematics, diagnostics software. Louis gets these things from illegal vendors in other countries who obtain them from Apple workers. If Apple just sold these things to him he'd be willing to pay but that's not in Apple's best interest.

Also, Apple prevents Louis from buying replacement parts because they make their vendors agree to never sell the components they use to anyone but apple.

> Other concerns, things that change the day-to-day use of the device, should weigh more.

This avoids another massive externality: recycling and the environment. Right now Apple's recycling program takes old mostly working systems and shreds them. There's a reason we should: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle in that order.

> So maybe only these component failures are left. Reverting to the old methods of replaceable components would likely re-introduce a massive class of problems that have by and large been eliminated.

The macbook repair community was at one point fixing a very common issue by replacing a component with a slightly higher spec part. The difference was 1/1000 th of a cent to 2/1000 th of a cent in cost or something like that. Multiple iterations of macbooks came out with this flaw until Apple employed a similar fix.

I think another thing that's important to look at is how other industries handle similar things. If you found something that was:

1. In a different industry.

2. Had a similar experience ruining issue.

3. Said issue was resolved by a consumer.

4. Rather than ignoring the issue for years they very quickly create a patch that takes the feedback from the end user.

We could then conclude that this adversarial relationship between repair professionals is: not required to run a profitable business, can lead to better products, and can make everyone happy.

I happen to have one such example:

- https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times...

- https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/03/developers-to-update-...

We can conclude then that Apple explicitly does not do this out of their own will. Apple doesn't have a hardware bug bounty. Apple does not acknowledge when a community member derives a fix for their product that works better then them.

I couldn't begin to imagine why Apple doesn't behave more like this. It just seems to make more sense for everyone.

Are you also against being able to upgrade a device, like adding memory or a larger hard drive? Why can't repairability be at the top of the list with performance and design?

Apple doesn't want you to fix its devices, it wants to force you to either have them fix it or buy a new one. It's a business decision not a technical one.

and it seems like of the time, the fix costs as much as a new one