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Comment by vishnugupta | Hacker News Reader

> but they’re super difficult to use

That dude is looking for problem when there's none. He starts off the article with this

> For people like me who have little experience repairing electronics, the self-repair setup was so intimidating that I nearly wussed out.

Did he expect Ikea like instruction manual to repair an advanced consumer electronic gadgets? That kit is clearly meant for professional (or at the very least hobbyists) repairers who clearly have experience, and know what they are doing.

To be fair he does call out Apple's recommendation and that this repair kit is better used by experts. I also feel that faced with increased regulation and public scrutiny Apple threw the entire kitchen sink as a cruel joke. I mean that 75pound repair equipment requiring $1200 hold on a card should is a big signal to retail users "do not even dream of attempting repair"

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I also found the tone of that article annoying. The author is talking about repairing one of the–if not the– most advanced things ever mass-assembled. No shit, it's not easy.

And yet Fairphone manages without being significantly simpler in features.

To be fair, wouldn’t an iPhone from 5 years ago not be “significantly simpler” in features?

It's not like iPhones from five years ago were easy to repair. And definitely not as easily as Fairphones.

edit: wait, are we agreeing or not? I'm not entirely sure what you're arguing

What I mean is Fairphone isn’t really comparable to an iPhone 14 pro. Not yet anyway. I’m all for more sustainable smartphones and even laws backing this up, so I don’t know if I’m disagreeing with you. Apple is making enough margin to focus more on sustainability at this point without sacrificing anything else.

It's not as hard as you think it is. Apple is indeed massively over complicating the process.

They gave him three machines to use for replacing his battery.

1. A machine to melt the glue holding the battery in place

2. A machine to apply even pressure to the new battery to ensure it’s properly adhered

3. A machine to apply heat and even pressure to the entire phone to properly give the phone with a watertight seal.

That seems like exactly what I’d expect has to happen to repair the phone back to original spec. I’m actually impressed that Apple gives this out to consumers to use.

Any modern iPhone has its battery held by pull tabs (double sided tape that lets go when you pull on it sideways). They are sometimes PITA to remove but you just need tweezers, fingers and bit of luck to remove it :-)

Adhering the battery is the same - just press in place.

Heat is only needed for opening/closing the phone.

Are they water tight after repair? Can you re-open with the same ease?

I got my iPhone X’s battery replaced by an authorized repair center. You can’t tell whether the phone has opened or not. They worked that cleanly (no, it’s my phone. The serial number is the same). It’s waterproof and has no witness marks telling about the repair.

Moreover, they changed my speaker for free, because it was defective or damaged. I didn’t know that. I only learned after getting my phone with service summary report.

I had mine done by Apple at an Apple Store and then got it wet two days later. It was destroyed instantly. They gave me a new phone at no cost.

As a result, I now recommend AppleCare replacement over any repair, if the water resistance is important to you.

Honestly anyone can screw up during re-sealing step. It is not really that hard to do correctly but if you don't follow the procedure correctly, new adhesive will stick somewhat but will not be as strong as before.

The thing is that even if you screw this up, it will probably look OK for quite some time without being really water tight.

exactly. Luckily I had already planned to go swimming two days later so I noticed the problem quickly.

I'd say it depends on brand of pre-cut adhesive seal you use.

But normally (and if done correctly) it is watertight and opens +- the same.

Yeah, but you can do the whole repair without it, if you’re confident that you won’t set the existing battery on fire removing it, and don’t mind some small risk of the new one exploding in your pocket after you sit down, and waterproofing isn’t important to you…

Those are three pretty big "if" statements to get past. Maybe it is OK that some items aren't easily repairable at home.

It would be awesome if Apple also offered a lower cost model with an easily replaceable battery (like an old Android), more easily repairable, and not necessarily water proof. But, if there really was a market for that, some Android manufacturer would have something for it. Maybe there is one and I haven't looked.

Sorry, I should have left the /s on the end of that comment.

Meanwhile I've had to change the oil in cars where it's more of a chore than changing the screen on an iPhone. Just because you have the right to repair doesn't mean you have the expertise to do it.

> I mean that 75pound repair equipment requiring $1200 hold on a card...

How is this legal? Holds ought to be capped at the maximum payable for a transaction.

It's a hold to ensure the rental of very expensive equipment used to perform the repair.

How is this legal? Holds ought to be capped at the maximum payable for a transaction.

Sounds like you've never rented a moving truck. Or a power tool. Or tried to rent a car with a debit card.

Last time I rented a van, the hold was AU$500 (around US$300). Seems pretty crazy to put a $1200 hold on some phone repair gear.

Vans may be slightly harder to hide than phone repair equipment.

I've rented all the items you've listed, plus construction equipment and hotel rooms, and none had this absurd cost:hold ratio. Notably, only the powertools were cheaper than the repair equipment in absolute terms.

Having a difference of 2 orders of magnitude between card hold and actual fee is absurd and atypical. I cant imagine a $7,500 hotel room stay placing a $120,000 hold

The $1200 amount comes from it being what the tools actually cost if you wanted to buy them. The hold is to bypass the whole “charge $1200, then return for $1150 credit” rigamarole. Doing that would affect your credit usage and could kill your score if it wasn’t returned before the card due date; A hold doesn’t.

You can't steal a hotel room. You can't permanently damage a hotel room.

The comparison makes no sense.

That ~$1200 was the maximum payable amount for the transaction. That's the price of buying everything, in the case that you don't return the rented equipment.

This is normal for renting tools.

You don't really need their toolkit to make the repair - most of the repair shops has the necessary tools already available for other phones.

The basic process of opening/closing any moder phone is basically the same.

It's not so much opening it, it's holding the back while you use heat and force to excavate the battery from the backshell. Apple appears to have fixed that issue with the iPhone 14.

iPhones had adhesive pull tabs for years now. You really did not need heat and force for that unless you ripped it.

And even if you did rip those tabs IPA does much better job of un-adhering the battery as you really don't want to use excessive force on lithium pouch cells unless you like your repair job to get "fast & furious" :-)

Well, I've done several, and one of the pull tabs generally breaks no matter how slow and careful you are. Then, it's on to reheating everything and dragging a monofilament under the battery. Without a vacuum hold-down stage, it is difficult and annoying. I don't recollect iFixit recommending IPA, does that work?

I've found out that you really need to gut that thing like a fish before trying to pull on those :-) Unless you take out vibrator etc from the bottom you almost always break atleast one off.

Yeah, IPA and thin plastic shim card. These are often sold in lockpicking shops for door shimming - costs few bucks. Or directly from iFixit site (/products/plastic-cards). Just snip it in half so it is not as wide (careful not to leave sharp corner that coud tear up that battery!). Then slip it under the battery and use it to guide few drops of IPA under there. Worked for me every time with almost no hassle.

Just be careful because IPA is of course flammable. If you would puncture the battery or make it spark, you could end up having quite a bad day. But that probably applies for the monofilament-under-the-battery approach too.

Taking out the vibrator from the bottom is a key move.

What's the problem if you intend to return it?

Not everyone has 1200 USD laying around.

Then don’t rent their tools. Say they only put a $100 hold, and you didn’t return them. Now they charge you $1100 but you can’t pay it or your credit limit would prevent it. Oops. As another commenter mentioned, car/van rentals are the same way.

The tools are not required, despite what inflammatory articles like the Verge’s try/tried to claim. iFixIt’s guides makes it very clear that it’s possible to do the whole repair without them, and I’ve done it quite a few times in the past.

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