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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

Somehow I suspect Louis Rossmann will still be non-plussed by this and release a video explaining why... and he makes solid points. When Apple starts allowing him to order all of the chips (like charge controllers) to repair his customers' devices then this is just lip service from Apple meant to do the absolute bare minimum to look like they are accommodating Right To Repair while giving the middle finger to independent repair shops who are only being held back by lack of access to parts.

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From TFA:

> Self Service Repair for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro offers more than a dozen different repair types for each model, including the display, top case with battery, and trackpad, with more to come

So you can purchase the whole display assembly, top case (so basically the whole computer except the display assembly) and trackpads separately. Buying these parts in most cases will not be cost-effective and it's just pure waste to offer them instead offering components more granularly. So yeah, I fully expect Louis to roast this and he will be right.

> Buying these parts in most cases will not be cost-effective

Apple also requires a serial number when purchasing these parts and the parts are paired to the device. So even if you wanted to start a repair shop that just replaces those parts you can't stock or even install them.

And you can't harvest parts from a dead device.

So much for Apple being "environmentally friendly"...

As the saying goes, "reuse comes before recycle".

A lot of people seem to think Apple purposely made the components less modular for profit purposes, but I think the bigger reason is that Apple took was limited by the tolerances of the case design and took shortcuts with the component assembly to make manufacturing/QA cheaper.

Why not both? They certainly aren't pricing RAM and SSD upgrades from the goodness of their hearts. And I do wonder if continually making the base models have sub-par amounts of SSD and storage for the price gets people to upgrade the entire machine earlier.

Doesn't help that you can't easily get a 1TB MBA either, that BTO, but you can pay an extra $1000 and get a 1TB 14" MBP right now.

Of course. That's why I said "the bigger reason" instead of "the only reason."

they designed the case

I remember there is a LTT video saying that buying components from this self service repair is more expansive than their official repair service, you need a device serial number to buy some major components. So it is probably not really for independent repair shops, just a lip service.

I remember watching this video. If I recall correctly, he was including the cost of the tools to repair as well and not just components.

I'll need to re-watch and update this comment.

edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3kggpE9W8A

I was wrong, parent comment is correct. Program is priced to be more expensive and less convenient than taking it to an Apple Store or buying/upgrading to a new phone.

this is why right to repair needs to exist. apple is just paying a lip service right now.

> this is why right to repair needs to exist. apple is just paying a lip service right now.

This "service" is how Apple is trying to fight right to repair.

Wrong link i think

correct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdYzVaC6HSQ

I trust Rossmann, He will give Apple (or any company) credit when they do something right. Apple lost my trust years ago.

One of the problems is that truly 'fixing' a Macbook is impossible. If your Logic Board has water damage, 90% of the time you'll need to replace the entire board instead of the $0.50 component that's failing. That's why Louis (and other repair shops) have used donor boards to attempt actual repairs instead of just replacing your whole mainboard.

I reckon that's what Apple is going to do here, too. Of course they don't have the gall to sell consumers their Texas Instruments ICs for board repairs, it's likely they're only going to sell piecemeal topcases, Logic Boards, and if we're lucky, batteries too.

Unlikely that Apple even stocks "Texas Instruments ICs for board repairs" for their own use either.

Custom ICs (and at Apple's volume why wouldn't they be custom?) will be ordered and delivered straight to the manufacturing line. They'll know exactly how many to buy to minimize waste. A few leftovers may end up on AliExpress, but Apple is pretty tight so they probably go into the trash.

In no situation would we expect either Apple or TI to keep a stockpile of out-of-production custom voltage regulators around, unless a hardware engineer happened to have some in a desk drawer somewhere.

> Apple is pretty tight so they probably go into the trash.

Let's destroy our spare parts to make sure that Louis Rossmann can't get his hands on them and use them for board-level repair!

I assure you no one at Apple is losing any sleep over Louis Rossmann.

If they have freaky strict disposal controls over leftover components, it is because they are trying to prevent China's famous "midnight run" of the assembly line to produce counterfeit assemblies.

Please name one device manufacturer that sells the individual electronic components on the logic board for repair.

Do fuses count as an electronic component or does it have to be an active device? If so then I can name a couple. :)

I can name plenty that don't prevent you from buying replacements wholesale.

Please cite evidence that Apple is doing this for tiny random components on the board as opposed to more major components.

I wonder why Apple would even want to protect a battery charger IC? All of the interesting stuff would be in software anyway. Maybe the reason repair shops can’t buy it is more mundane. Basically it’s an expensive part, particularly to Apple’s logic board, and distributors don’t believe there are enough Rossmanns out there to sell through a 100k part factory order. When I made PCBs for a large company I had parts I could buy direct from Maxim, at 250k parts minimum, that weren’t on Digi-Key for just that reason.

Apple is selling you exactly what they use to repair their machines. If Apple shares all of the tools/parts/manuals they use to do component level repairs, the result is NULL.

This isn't anything limited to Apple, or even computers. For just about any OEM repair process for nearly any product, there's someone who will do a repair with a higher labor cost and lower parts cost. That doesn't mean it's a reasonable process for a business at scale.

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