Apple shareholder resolution calls for company to support right to repair | Hacker News Reader

Apple shareholder resolution calls for company to support right to repair

9to5mac.com

256 pointsheshiebee41 comments

This dosen't mean anything at all. Per SEC requirements, you just have to own $25,000 in stock (or $2,000 if you have held it >3 years) in a company to put forward a non-binding shareholder resolution.

Union and environmental groups have been doing this for years with an assortment of companies, mostly to raise their own profile with the press.

Hmm yeah. When you have distributed ownership, largely to funds with a duty to vote for whatever increases the stock price, you pretty much just distribute and dilute any ethical or societal obligations when looking at the broad voter population.

Yes and no. It meaningless directly, but it can help to amplify the message to Apple management. If public uproar did cause them to reconsider their approach to CSAM, maybe there is a chance they will retink their abominable environmental policy.

Right to repair is really only important for hobbyists and for people with lower incomes. CSAM scanning is an attack on their core userbase, those who are technically inclined and want a phone/computer that cares about your privacy.

I'm completely fine monetarily with tossing a phone in the garbage if it breaks and getting a new one

There are people like me that can afford an expensive phone or computer but keep using their 5 years old devices, even as a developer there is no justification to run the latest 32 core Threadripper or latest CoolPhone (you could say as a dev you should feel how stuff runs on medium spec devices).

Anyway you classified most Apple users as rich people that can throw away 500+ dollars and don't care about environment . Sure there are some rich Apple users , and people that are into Applo as an identity but I assume not all as you, I mean it was proven with the keyboard issues, with the battery issues , with the GPU issues - some fanboys blamed the users but in the end the majority did not bought a new device but forced Apple (sometimes with the help of the justice system) to fix their devices and be transparent about stuff.

But sure, throw away a good laptop when a key is broken, be proud of it too , let us know how much money you have and how much you hate right to repair.

There is a Swedish.. uh... "Tradition"? in Stockholm called "Vaska"[0]- basically the point is to buy a really expensive bottle of alcohol and pour it out.

Why? Status. It's pretty universally reviled by the rest of Sweden; but people do it.

The same is true of Apple devices, some people buy the latest one every year; but much like consumers of alcohol, the people who buy the yearly phones are in the small minority, just like the people who "Vaska", and both are similarly reviled by the other consumers of those products.

[0]: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Vaska

I think the keyboard fiasco has shown the opposite. Apple did cave in, eventually, but it still took three years. The keyboard were definitely a huge problem but enough people didn’t care for apple to keep the keyboard for a whole cycle.

"I'm completely fine monetarily with tossing a phone in the garbage if it breaks and getting a new one"

Maybe. There are non-economic reasons to consider repair instead of replacement, or there would be if repair was a feasible option. For example, maybe someone feels a moral obligation to reduce the demand for tantalum (or to not personally add to it):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_minerals

Apple has basically thrown their hands up and said, "It's just too hard to keep Congolese tantalum out of the supply chain." Meanwhile, their products are hard to repair and encourage people to just buy replacements (and thus consume more tantalum, some of which is paying for the worst war crimes imaginable)...

There's a phone repair shop in my town and every single time I've passed by when it's open, there are customers inside. I don't think those people are hobbyists.

> for people with lower incomes

Income being Pareto distributed, we can faithfully translate this as "for the majority of people."

Many iPhone owners use financing from their carrier, their credit line, or Apple's payment plans to purchase their Apple devices. iPhone owners are not universally well off enough to be able to toss a phone when it is broken instead of repairing it. Even among the iPhone owners who are able to do this, some of them would prefer to repair their devices because it is the more environmentally sustainable option, or because they prefer not to spend more than they need to.

Nowadays it seems to mostly be a way for "ethical" fund managers to justify the higher fees compared to simpler index funds.

https://frame.work/

I wonder if Linus' investment into Framework has led to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNYFOMOIDYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSxbc1IN9Gg

Interesting. Those laptops look nifty. Hopefully they'll have some Ryzen based ones by the time I'm ready for an upgrade. :)

While it interesting if a majority or even +10% of shareholders called for this (as the title might hint), the fund calling for this doesnt have much ownership to throw around.

What if they went for a critical supplier or patent holder, instead?

"to avoid damage to the company’s reputation"

To me, anything a company does to avoid damage to its reputation when it's too late and has already become a matter of more profits or less profits, does indeed damage that company reputation anyway.

Don't get me wrong, that would still be a (very) good thing, but I wouldn't expect any significant boost in Apple image, unless they pair it with a well crafted pro-environment PR campaign with the usual green hills, flowers, butterflies, happy families and possibly pink unicorns.

> In particular, the resolution says that Apple making DIY and third-party repairs difficult contradicts the iPhone maker’s stance on the environment.

Anybody that reads Matt Levine's Money Stuff column/newsletter is surely wondering why they're faffing about with shareholder resolutions, when they could just sue for securities fraud!

(I realise this is probably much cheaper.) I think it has to go to a vote(?) to even be.. enacted in its non-binding way, but is there any requirement that it actually sees much/any discussion or response before that?

as a faithful Money Stuff reader, this was my first thought :)

How about a right to privacy next?

No —- Tim Apple

I get some enjoyment thinking about how much Apple must annoy all the right-to-repair people every year as they solder more and more components into their logic boards.

Compomnent count doesn't have to do anything with right to repair. And I really hope easily swappable components too (well up to a certain point, maybe. Just maybe).

Naturally, you need expertise to repair. And you need tools too. But you have to have access to schematics+boardview, spare parts, a way to flash firmware (so the replaced component actually works/talks with other components on the board) and you are good to go.

What is your problem with right to repair exactly?

It's not at the top of my list of priorities. What I want is reliability and security updates for a long time. If a bit more glue means the phone is less likely to break when I drop it or if it gets wet then I'm happy with that.

You were FUD-ed, right to repair is not about making things less thin and not water proof.

Making the same software and documentation Apple partners use available to all does not make your phone less sexy.

Making it possible to recycle say a screen from a device and put it into other device, those reducing waste will also not make your phone less sexy.

Allowing me the choice to replace a battery at an Apple approved store or let a random dude do it for me it will not make your phone less sexy.

The part about filling the device with glue is debatable, is it done for the user benefit or is done to prevent repair or done to gain 2 cents. If is done malicious to fuck the user then I think they should stop.

And I mean this in general, including washing machine, consoles and other devices, there is always a very cheap part that breaks, that could have been made stronger with a few cents more of materials and for some reason each year you get a new model of the thing with a redesign so the parts will never fit.

I don’t think this is just FUD. Many people on this site actually want a thicker iPhone with a replaceable battery. But you are correct, right to repair does not have to mean easy to repair.

Right to repair has nothing to do with making devices thick or thin or waterproof or not waterproof. It's about manufacturers making schematics and spare parts available to consumers and third party repair shops, not voiding warranties when said third party repairs are performed and not arbitrarily DRMing parts so that they cannot be replaced.

It is normal that many people would sacrifice 1-5 mm of thikness for more battery and the ability to replace the battery... but this is not about preventing people to repair their phones, just that people hate to charge their phone daily and always keeping on eye on the battery.

>You were FUD-ed, right to repair is not about making things less thin and not water proof.

There clearly is a trade off.

The rest of your complaints are just about commercial concerns, they have nothing to do with the environmental impact of these devices.

>The rest of your complaints are just about commercial concerns, they have nothing to do with the environmental impact of these devices.

How the fuck don't have an impact if

1 Apple approved repairs cost more and Apple "encourages" you to buy a new device

2 most people don't have an Apple store near by, so it makes it even more expensive and time consuming to get your device fixed.

From 1 and 2 results Apple approved repairs are more expensive and time consuming where it results (obviously) with less repair happening results more e-waste.

There is no tradeoff. Apple providing the same schematics and spare parts that they already use internally to third party repairers and consumers is not going to magically make their products thicker or heavier. And I fail to see how any of this would have a negative environmental impact.

That's a commercial concern, it has nothing to do with the environmental impact.

Commercial? Like people might not buy a new device and instead fix it? This could be at the same time an environment issue too, what is better for Apple is bad for users and environment

You enjoy Apple pretending to be environmentally friendly all the while demonstrating they are no such thing? Why?

Apple doesn't pretend https://www.apple.com/environment/ Anyway those aren't mutually exclusive - you can't replace transistors like you could a vacuum tube.

Sorry I couldn't help but do the same as you have, which is link a companies public environmental page as evidence for a company caring about being environmentally friendly.

Aramco doesn't pretend about being environmentally friendly either https://www.aramco.com/en/creating-value/sustainable-busines...

Despite being the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the world...

> you can't replace transistors like you could a vacuum tube.

What, precisely, do you think "right to repair" advocates want to do with their phones? Because you're right, it certainly doesn't involve popping out individual transistors like vacuum tubes.

Soldering isn't the hard part. People can do that no problem.

The hard part is understanding the device without schematics. See https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-techn... for a very good explanation of the issue.

Are an Apple fanboi or Google's? Or both?

Right to repair is critical for the environment, and not sure what you gain by standing against it.

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