Apple launches Self Service Repair in Europe
apple.com
apple.com
Example, iPhone 13 Pro Max screen price:
US: $311.96
UK: $338.63 ($26.73 more expensive)
Poland: $351.35 ($39.39 more expensive)
The prices are without VAT/Sales Tax (20% for UK and 23% for Poland already deducted respectively)
In the comparison I have used current exchange rates. GBP or PLN don't have a tendency to drop down by 10% overnight. I also do not see the reason why Apple couldn't offer the option to charge in USD, in Europe many banks offer currency conversion without fees for online card payments, such as Monzo in the UK.
Someone else mentioned that warranties are required to be longer in the EU, which would increase the OEM's operating cost as well.
1. Maybe it's not UK vs. Poland difference, but UK vs. EU difference?
2. There may be less iPhone users in Poland, so the prices reflect lack of economies of scale?
Certainly when UK was in the EU then the Consumer Rights Act gave (and gives) (paraphrasing) "as long as a reasonable person would expect" as the effective warranty period; washing machines are expected to last a decade, at least, so if it fails after 3 years you can claim regardless that the warranty on the box says 2 years.
Software providers say "no returns" or give a couple of hours of gameplay time, but the UK law (as above) specifically includes software and gives no such limit.
Mandated warranty is 24 months. But the burden of proof (of some kind of manufacturing defect) is on the consumer after 6 months.
So really, you only get 6 months of little to no questions asked.
Can you give a source for this?
Afaik the burden of proof shifts from seller to buyer after 12 months, not 6.
See https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...
The problem might be that only people pissed of at a product might be motivated enough to add a review and you end up with a skewed view.
Anyway, added a review. Best of luck!
When I was going through my father's stuff after he died, I came across a Television manual that had come with the product. It included a full schematic of the TV. Every resistor, capacitor, transistor, and diode. I marveled at the idea that the company who made this TV was more interested in your having confidence in the product than protecting their next sale...
Because back then a TV cost an arm and a leg and they broke more often. Being maintainable was a requirement for the initial sale.
Who can possibly fix individual components in a modern integrated chip for less than the cost to manufacture a new one?
There was a manufacturer in Italy that - at the time - created the "perfect" setup for cheap repairs that produced no or very little waste (old post):
But no one could fix a capacitor or resistor for less than it would cost to manufacture a new one. "fix a capacitor" even seems silly to say, because it is beyond the scope of the average person to fix. A similar analogy is a car engine, you can repair the engine, however mostly what a mechanic does is swap out pieces. Some things can be fixed with a welder, most (spark plugs, gaskets, belts, even parts like a carburetor) are just replaced. This is similar for "technology" items. The parts may not be fixable but sub-components should be replaceable; the overall product should be repairable.
Though I doubt you could run a TV repair business these days and be very profitable.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/galvanizati...
My first car, built in 1987, was partially galvanized (I know because the sales brochure was proud of this fact), but had rust streaks down the doors at 50k miles and the frame rusted completely through at 80k miles.
The improvements in automotive coatings in the 90s and 00s have been immense.
I think the 70s were more notorious for cars rusting out. It’s still a slight concern for older cars coming from colder states. I watch two people on YouTube who specialize in 90s and 00s Mercedes and BMWs. Many times they are looking in specific spots for rust on older cars.
And farmers and other rural people all knew how to do this, had welders and other power tools and access to spare parts (or at least a junkyard). The frame parts themselves were made with enough slack that even if you had a crash with something, it needed to be a fairly serious collision to cause damage beyond the frame. Hell, even a 1994 VW T4 could collide with the rear end of a traffic jam, be 10cm shorter than before and it would still run (I speak from experience on that one).
Today, most cars are locked down so hard you need specialized software from the manufacturer to swap a fucking stereo, and the frame is packed with bits and pieces so even a tiny ding on a parking lot can end up with a five figure repair bill.
A return to this would likely require unwinding decades of global crash and pedestrian safety legislation - it's this more than anything else that has made cars less resilient to small knocks, especially the pedestrian safety rules found in many markets. Yes old cars were easier to fix, but survivability for occupants and anyone else involved in your accident was significantly worse. Personally, I'll take the safety features of 2022 over 1994 - the changes are massive.
From an environmental perspective it is a reasonable position. But a democracy is never going to support any such transformation. “Make appliances more expensive so that I cannot afford new ones easily” said nobody.
It was priced at like $15, about the same as today.
But if you did the math for inflation, it would cost like $120.
So of course they lasted forever. And they were made of metal and designed to be workhorses. They cost $120!
When you make a plastic desk fan for $15, even with razor thin profits for everyone involved there just isn’t much money left to put into lasting quality parts.
A lot of us have way too much disposable odds and ends--I don't even want to tell you how much tech logo clothing I've ended up with over the years. But not everything needs to be pass down to your grandchildren quality.
But yeah most grandchildren auction off their parents belongings anyway. That’s why birds make nests and then they go somewhere else and maybe return, make a new nest.
People are fixated on permanence—perhaps that’s another way to build housing: design it so it is sustainable, then tear it down and recycle the materials every 10 years.
It's amazing, and unlike the plastic ones didn't die in 2-3 years. Way more powerful (the "low" setting is somewhere between "medium" and "high" on the plastic fans we've owned), cord's thicker and heavier, whole case and the screens are heavy metal so they're difficult to break and I could probably repair them somehow, if they did.
Unfortunately, last I checked nobody makes anything like it now. Guess we'll have to look for some kind of shop-fan if this one ever dies and can't be fixed, assuming those haven't been shittified by then.
Cheap goods make things more accessible to more people. Planned (or even unplanned) obsolescence is an unfortunate side effect.
Re: planned vs. unplanned: I don't think the cheap fan manufacturer really builds it that way so you keep having to come back when yours breaks. At least, I don't think that's the primary motivator. More likely, their goal is just to sell more units in the first place, and lower prices are usually a good way to do that.
(Meanwhile, companies like Apple have found the holy grail: an expensive, high-margin, premium product that's difficult to repair.)
If you did spend $150 on a fan today, it would probably last just as long as a $15 one. Emphasis on probably, there are good quality items... just not a lot.
TVs are a great example: a $900 Sony smart TV I got 5ish years ago lasted barely longer than its 3 year warranty (before a hardware-related bootloop). A crappier cheaper TV would have lasted the same.
Seems to be the trend when introducing smarter software features. Near every appliance I had to replace in the last decade died because of "the motherboard" (according to several technicians), which was coincidentally about 50% the price of the appliance. I guess manufacturers like to cheap out on embedded hardware components?
> Near every appliance I had to replace in the last decade died because of "the motherboard"
Part of this is because appliance repair techs are not skilled in component level repair. They are trained to understand module-level repair, and that's it. It is possible to do more precise repairs, but mass manufacturing makes new modules cheaper than skilled (western) labor.
And regardless, modern features are pretty much frivolous crap anyway. I mean, a smart refrigerator? A smart oven? Please. Older ovens are designed to bake—not sell ads.
When my TV just magically started showing ads I decided it’s time I go to the library and read more books. Books were designed to better humanity.
For the average person who has one or two projects every year, Husky or Harbor Freight is more than enough.
Not a fan of mid-century sci-fi mass-market paperbacks, I take it? :-)
(they often have some glossy ad pages stuck in the middle, typically at least one of them for cigarettes)
Cars being a significant expense do not come today with a schematic or repair manual.
Buyers want their durable goods to be durable. They don’t want to spend a significant chunk of their income on a product and be stuck with a broken product next year. Whether that’s a 10 year 100,000 mile warranty, or a schematic you can take to your local TV repair man, they don’t care.
For example just adding air conditioning to a normal family sedan back then would cost the equivalent of $10000 USD nowadays.
If your fine with paying $10000 for an air conditioner, $20000 for an electric driver's seat, another $20000 for an electric passenger seat, $10000 for heated seats, $30000 for ventilated seats, etc... then I'm sure manufacturers would be more than willing to supply a transistor level diagram.
The thing is that having the manual or not is not the problem, is the equipment you’ll need that is hard to get, and not only that, for cars you may only use them once, for that particular car, that particular repair, and it may cost hundreds. Maybe if you keep the car for 15 years and 300k miles you get to use it again.
Same with the equipment you need to do circuit repair nowdays.
Back in the day the boards were simple, big and you could use a $10 soldering iron to fix things. Now a regular soldering iron tip covers 3 components at a time.
Haven’t been able to find anything that doesn’t have someone on YouTube replacing it.
When something is a cultural change... and you notice something better in the past... how do you push to make it better, again, in the future?
First you have to define what better means, before you can try to make it better again. What you just said boils down to "make it more expensive, again, in the future"
My mom's first VHS player got repaired when it broke. On a new equivalent it would probably get chucked. Sounds terrible? Her first VHS player cost $700. In the early 80s! That would be absurd in todays money much less back then, of course that bad boy got repaired when it broke.
Same goes for things like washers and dryers. Nostalgic memories of how back in the 60s they were built like tanks. Of course they were, they cost the same price then as they do now, not adjusted for inflation. Spend that kind of money on a washer today and it will be built like a tank.
Cars are getting less repairable. I think most people who’ve worked on cars for a long time will argue that car repairability is getting worse. Cars are also a case where the average cost, when figuring for inflation, has gone up
For you and other young 'uns, Apple and other early computer makers did this as well: https://downloads.reactivemicro.com/Apple%20II%20Items/Hardw...
http://cini.classiccmp.org/pdf/Apple/ (page 122 is where it really gets interesting). It has enough information to wirewrap your own (and hand key the instructions to blow a prom).
It was Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Frankl....) that led to the judgment that software stored in ROM was copyrightable in the US, requiring Phoenix Technologies to make a clean-room implementation of the BIOS of the IBM PC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Technologies#Cloning_t...)
On the one hand: yes, this does allow third parties to carry out repairs on Apple equipment. On the other hand: no, this is so costly and inconvenient that it effectively locks out everyone but Apple anyway.
So, what would it take to enable cost-effective repair of Apple equipment? A relaxation of "parts DRM", even if it weakens overall ecosystem security? A mandate to enable side-loaded OSes to extend hardware lifetime and perhaps enable certain kinds of (security-sensitive) repairs?
I truly don't know...
Apple said it was the exact same tools their repair technicians use, and offered all the tools for a $49 rental (which, honestly, probably doesn't even cover shipping for 77 lbs. of equipment). The Verge, iFixit, Ars Technica, and others claimed Apple deliberately designed and priced their repair program to make self-service repair not worth it, even if there wasn't the part serialization.
Which... what malarkey. Of course repairs are cheaper when you don't need to rent the toolkit every time and can reuse tools. According to Apple, the parts are the same cost the Apple Stores and their repair partners get, and according to congressional testimony this is not a profitable program, so what do you expect? Apple to sell parts publicly for cheaper than they get themselves? Do you want Apple to send you the repair tools for free and have cheaper parts? That's what they were saying - the parts should be cheaper and the tools should be less complicated even though that is what Apple literally uses. You think Apple repairs screens with guitar picks and are upset Apple doesn't ship those instead? It was really disappointing.
Imagine if Apple was a car company. They wanted the ability to repair their cars, so Apple agreed to loan them for $249 hundreds of pounds of equipment for repairing just about anything on their cars. Then imagine if people cried this made car repair too complicated by design. Right to Repair does not encompass right to simple, idiot-proof, no-tools repair.
Fairphone for example does a great job showing us what what would look like.
But this is the criticism I have with Apple's program. Technically they comply here but not in spirit. It's clear to me they don't actually want this to happen. They didn't invent pentalobe because it looks cool like a little flower. But to keep people out.
Of course existing products can't be improved but upcoming products should take be easier to repair.
Pay attention carefully and watch different videos about what R2R means. There's a significant schism in the R2R movement over whether R2R means repairable design or not. The most successful branch legislatively (New York, Rossmann, EU proposals) says that it does not include repairable design; and that Right to Repair only encompasses the right to have manuals and parts, not that the manufacturer has to make specific design choices (other than, like, USB-C but that's not repair-related).
Edit: Another issue that comes up is how granular is a "part". Louis Rossmann sees a part as being on the level of a specific microchip and is upset he can't order parts at that level of granularity. Apple, and other R2R activists, view a part as a much larger finished item, such as a PCB or a Battery (rather than, say, the specific resistor on the inside of a Battery). Legislators for R2R in EU currently are trying to define R2R as being "if the manufacturer sells a part, they must sell it to everyone," not "the manufacturer must individually sell all pieces of a product until they are no longer divisible" - but the Louis Rossmann crowd views as being insufficient R2R. So... another loose R2R schism.
In fact, I would propose this kind of ambiguous slogan has, as a memetic advantage over more well -defined ideas, precisely because of this "broad appeal" which is actually the broad appeal of a slogan, not a policy.
When I don't have schematics and boardviews, I have to spend time generating them in my head.
I don't do videos. If someone actually takes the time to write it down I'll read it :)
But for me right to repair simply doesn't work when the design itself is repair-hostile like Apple's.
Rossman appears to want the same as you say the EU want, the actual manufacturer to sell parts freely rather than being locked up by that manufacturer's downstream buyers (eg Apple) preventing repairers like Rossman from going to the chip factory to get the supplies to do repairs, in the same way that Apple go to the factory to get supplies when manufacturing boards, etc.
Which is to say that it makes a trade off of improved repairability by sacrificing water resistance and battery life compared to Apple’s phones. TANSTAAFL
For example Samsung's XCover series can be opened, have removable batteries and are waterproof. It's a matter of priorities, waterproofing just wasn't one for Fairphone.
I know XCover isn't meant to be repairable as such but it's obviously a lot more repairable than a glued up phone.
I prefer indestructible and long lasting devices-as-tools. I want more appliances, fewer janky assemblies of parts more likely to fall apart or fail me when I need them most.
Put another way, the goal is not "easier to repair", the goal is net fewer devices requiring repair, net fewer repairs.
One of those is actually better for the environment than the other, and it's not the one that churns through parts for people who want to repair or tosses more devices in the trash for people who prefer to just buy a new one.
The thing that's good for the planet is devices that last. That's the goal.
TL;DR:
If you want to legislate something, legislate lifetime warranties.
But rugged devices are generally much more easily disassembled and often even have replaceable batteries. Like Xcovers. We use them in work and they can be easily taken apart with torx screws, battery replaced etc, all while being much more rugged than normal phones and waterproof.
The only reason I don't really use them is that Samsung keeps putting midrange CPUs and mediocre LCD screens in them. I really wish the S-active range was still around. The last one was the S8 active sadly.
But these things don't have to be mutually exclusive at all.
> The thing that's good for the planet is devices that last. That's the goal.
That's your goal. Not mine. Upgradability for example makes devices last longer. Having the user decide what is repairable instead of a company also.
> If you want to legislate something, legislate lifetime warranties.
Lifetime limited warranties is what this will turn out to be.
There's no point in a lifetime warranty if a supplier can simply refuse it because there's an unrelated scratch on the side so they can claim it to be user damage.
I don't think trusting corporations is ever the answer.
Users do not know better.
As soon as you have aftermarket repairs, next thing you know, users are suing makers because some aftermarket nonsense burned a hole in their leg, or more recently, because their entire multi-family dwelling burned down.
It's been interesting how fast the same places passing laws giving right to repair pass jump to pass laws that you can't use repaired things so people don't die.
Those poor companies. Give them a few wrongful lawsuits and they fall over. /s
If only it were so simple to bring companies down. I think the odds are heavily against something like this being a big issue. Companies have more money to prove you wrong and also pay better lawyers to present proof. Sure, there could be a few of such cases. But they probably happen anyways.
That said, you sure can "fix" your John Deere easier to increase the horsepower while also unlawfully increasing exhaust fumes. But this is an individual issue then, not the problem of the company (John Deere). Right to repair does make some things more tricky. But the payoff is worth it imho.
Tell me how Apple not doing that shit would make the slightest iota of difference to their ability to make devices that last?
How would them not attacking 3rd party repairers make a difference.
Why not mandated warranties and repairability?
Would FairPhone would even remotely be so robust?
Many iPhone owners will not have a credit card (especially in Europe), let alone a credit card with a credit limit capable of holding thousands of dollars even if it's temporary. It's also a risk some people on lower incomes simply will not want to take. The tools Apple send are so over-engineered for the task at hand, the replacement value is enormous relative to the task.
> https://www.selfservicerepair.com/tool-kit-rental
When NYT tried, 49 dollar rental fee, 1210 dollar hold. 1210 dollar CC hold just to replace a battery is crazy when independent stores across the USA do it with third party tools costing a fraction of this just fine every day. Apple's right to repair efforts arguably verges on a parody of a right to repair at times - cellphones should not need a holding deposit significantly larger than renting a car for the same period of time to replace a $79 battery. If Apple's motivations are genuine, the full replacement hold could arguably become a lower insurance hold fee just like a car rental often does.
If you want to look to a company renting for 7 days expensive, heavy, complex technical equipment - I think lensrentals.com does a great job renting equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars and Apple's repair program could learn a lot.
> https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/technology/personaltech/a....
There're plenty of perfectly serviceable cars. You might be too rich to care about it, but I live in a third-world country and there're lots of people who do self-service for some repairs and procedures. It's not hard and it doesn't require costly tools. Especially with modern resources when you can download service manuals and watch youtube videos its easier than ever. You only need a will (or necessity).
Note that many new cars these days don't come with any tools at all. And spare tires are an expensive optional extra that don't always come with the tools anymore.
A lot of car tools are specialty tools than can only be used on other cars. And they are big because cars are big. It is hard for a library to stock some of these tools, too. People often have a few car tools, though: A jack, wrenches, and things like that. You know, the ones that are easier to store in an apartment closet and can be used for other things. Some libraries rent these.
Phone tools are closer to the car tools that people have. Even small libraries can rent them and you can store them in your desk. You'll probably be able to use some on other electronics or at least other phones. You'll probably let family borrow them. Some of the tools are already affordable, too. The things you can't do, you can pay someone for. And they can probably work out of a kiosk.
I'd actually argue that right to repair is hard, though - just not for the reasons stated. It is easier to unscrew something than to unglue it. We don't design for ease repairs. Ease of manufacturing has been winning out.
They've demonstrably gone to insane lengths to figure out how to manufacture things better for use but impossible to make at scale before they figured it out. Then they teach suppliers those methods.
Eventually others benefit too.
The question is if you can take your car to an independent repair shop and do they have access to tools, repair manuals and original parts? Today, independent shops often don't have access to genuine parts and the manufacturers don't make them available on purpose so that only they can do the repair at much higher prices.
Right to repair isn't necessarily about doing the work yourself.
I’ve tried it. It’s a lot of work, but it can be done without expensive tools.
This is also what is probably at the core of all this right to repair stuff: there are definitely some anti-consumer practises but in reality people might be too busy with other things to fiddle around with their products when someone else could be doing it instead (or they might simply prefer it and shift any blame and quality control to a third party while they are at it).
Even for really simplistic things like changing a light bulb in a car people just can't seem to be bothered.
I also know that "a lot of work" doesn't even begin to describe it if I'm doing it on my garage floor with tire irons. If you're low on money and without other options, by all means, give it a go. But if $100 isn't the difference between your kids eating or not, save yourself a fuck-ton of grief (as well as half a Saturday) and just go get those new skins put on at a shop where they have big air-driven machines that will spoon those things on in mere seconds. Back in my pro days, myself and a helper timed ourselves from the time the car pulled into the bay until it hit the ground with four new tires: nine minutes. I probably can't get a single wheel off my car from a cold start in nine minutes.
So, yeah, it can be done. But you don't want to do it.
Those days are probably behind me though.
OTOH, it's a handy skill to have when you're in the Yukon by the side of the road with an unpluggable tire, and 100 miles from civilization.
I would certainly replace the battery on my own, though. Well, maybe: getting a new battery home without the use of my car might be so annoying that it would probably be easier to just get a tow to a mechanic (or get someone to jump it and then drive to the mechanic). And again I'd have to deal with disposing of the old battery on my own: again, annoying and costly.
It would take people to stop stealing iPhones and selling the parts to unscrupulous repair shops.
What we're talking about here, is disabling that possibility once the fingerprint sensor (OK), screen (huh) or battery (double huh) has been replaced.
In other words: after which "repairs" exactly does Apple get to disable a device? Some of these would enable fencing, others definitely not... TL;DR: yeah, difficult!
Forcing them to make a larger, more modular device that a few loud people want and most regular users couldn't care less about. I don't buy the argument that Apple is forcing people to choose their devices. They're in business to make what customers want, and their broad success suggests they've got that nailed.
https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/press_release/consumer-...
https://morningconsult.com/2022/03/23/right-to-repair-electr...
Even worse than that, those few loud people who say they want it can easily turn out to be just that - loud, but not actually wanting it once their demands are satisfied.
Case in point - iPhone Mini. Some people were loudly demanding a smaller iPhone for years. Apple introduces iPhone 12 Mini in Q4 2020 with great specs in a small form-factor. Builds on top of it with iPhone 13 Mini a year later. Then in 2022, Apple announces discontinuing iPhone Mini line due to very weak sales.
Also, Apple gave it less then two years. I could easily imagine plenty of people wanting the Mini, but being unable to justify the purchase because their existing (larger) iPhone was only a few years old. Not everyone has the resources to buy a new iPhone every year or two.
The only people I know who pick SE are those who either still want the physical home button or just want the cheapest new iPhone. In all other metrics, including smaller physical size, Mini wins hands down.
So I find your claim about people who loudly demanded a smaller iPhone cannibalizing Mini sales by picking a larger SE instead a bit difficult to believe.
Also, it is worth noting the desire for small phones is mostly due to a desire for easier one-handed use, and the SE is as easy to use as the Mini in that regard, since the user does not need to reach the top of the device and the home button is centrally located, and thus easier to reach.
As a resident in a minor EU country, the fact we are often excluded from lists of EU countries in many companies websites is a source of much frustration.
The title should be amended to say "parts of Europe", not "across EU".
Their programs haven't been great so far, but _some_ repairability is better than none, and eventually this will build a taste for non-disposable devices in consumers' minds.
The real question is - how competitive is it, and prices. Hence, device insurance is, and probably will be, the safest move for many still.
Apple has been migrating all of their devices over to USB-C for years. The iPhone has been a holdout because people will bitch about not being able to use their 10 years of accumulated lightning cables. I hate to have sympathy for a big corp, but c'mon, nothing they do will appease everyone.
Decided to fix it myself. While handling the screen and disconnecting cables I managed to damage Face ID sensor permanently.
Decided to take advantage and replace battery. In the process of removing the battery cable managed to damage it in such a way that cable now keeps disconnecting itself.
While trying to disconnect the battery cables by removing the parts near charging connector I managed to pull it a bit strongly and damage the charging connector that is connected to the logic board.
Even if I manage to repair the phone to the state it was (incl face id) with a professional it will cost as much as another phone.
With the experience above I decided I will think twice next time before trying to repair devices myself.
Update: typos.
Then I tried to hook connector back, couldn't get it connected back. Panicked. Felt I basically broke it, and needed to buy a new phone. Left it for a day, didn't sleep at night, with a sick feeling since I wasn't ready to buy a new phone at the time. Thought about buying the previous model used.
But then the next day, I figured since it was broke to me, I'd just try really hard to push it back on. Eventually with enough force I thought I'd break everything on it, nearly all my weight, I felt the click of the connector snapping on.
Phone turned on. Switch still didn't work. Gave up fixing my phone after that.
Apple is just trying to front-run legislation that is gaining momentum, just like they did last year when Biden and the FTC signaled R2R friendly legislation.
They will do anything to make sure they stay at the center and in control of their products from cradle to grave.
1 - https://repair.eu/news/apples-self-repair-programme-is-not-t...
But I'm not going to be their cheerleader when they make a move that is deliberately designed to undercut independents and preempt consumer-friendly legislation for repair in the EU and US. This program is purely corporate strategy and marketing to defend a major profit center.
(I have no idea which is true, but the fact that the kit is roughly the price of the repair+a reasonable salary for the work is by no means an indication that they make no profit)
It is absolutely a step in the right direction.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apples-self-service-r...
If this was just about appeasing the EU then Apple would surely not have included the UK.
(Disclosure, I'm British and very pro-EU.)
No. I'm not sure where you found that in my comment, but to clarify, I'm genuinely curious what you claim is the link to the EU given that this wasn't rolled out in the EU first and still isn't available in most of the EU.
Corporate PR doublespeak at its finest. My eyes rolled back into my head reading this.
"Technology that lasts" from a company who perfected planned obsolescence.
"Rarely require maintenance or repair" might've been their ethos decades ago, but nowadays there are plenty of dumb design and hardware issues. See Louis Rossman for examples.
"We want customers to have many options for safe, reliable, and secure repair" translates to "we were happy gouging customers for an AppleCare subscription, and fighting 3rd party repair shops, until governments introduced pesky consumer rights and anti-competitive laws".
But great, let's celebrate all mighty Apple finally doing what they should've been doing all along, _in one region of the world where they're legally obligated to do so_.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42615378
https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/01/apple-lawsuit-portugal-planne...
These are just the top results for "apple planned obsolescence". You've either been living under a rock or willfully ignoring these issues. Your personal anecdata doesn't make them any less true.
In any case, even stronger evidence that this particular case was one of planned obsolescence doesn't support the assertion that Apple have "perfected planned obsolescence" which is the phrase I was originally contending.
Why do you think that gives you any authority in this argument? If anything, it makes you biased.
> slowing the phones down to preserve battery life seems like a more likely explanation than the intentional consumer harm theory.
It's not about intentional consumer harm. Companies are rarely that evil. The most likely explanation is that it was a business decision to boost profits. If Apple truly cared about their users, they could've suggested any of the existing power saving features, or introduced more, like a performance slider, and given users the choice to decide what they value more.
> I can see how a court that doesn't know any better or folks on the internet who get a lot of utility from hating apple would lean the other way though.
"Folks on the internet" are hundreds of thousands of users all around the world. And some of the lawsuits were settled[1].
Why you think your personal opinion matters more than thousands of consumers is beyond me. But I can see why it would happen on this forum.
Oh, and this slowing down issue isn't the only example of planned obsolescence from Apple. There are many cases of dropping support of new OS versions or features for perfectly capable hardware[2].
I'm sure you'll tell me how there were good reasons for all of these, but let's spare ourselves the time, and don't bother.
Apple didn't invent PO, but it has certainly played a role in making it the world's most profitable company. Hence, "perfected it". :)
And now, flying in the face of all this evidence, they have the audacity to claim how consumer and environment friendly their devices are, and to frame this minimal effort to offer user repair options in Europe as another example of their benevolence. It's corporate gaslighting at best.
It's frustrating having to defend this case in a forum surrounded by smart people, but again, unsurprising given many here have FAANG backgrounds.
[1]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/04/08/apple-to-pay-34m-...
[2]: https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/apples-planned-obso...