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Comment by ActorNightly | Hacker News Reader

It's not about tinkering. People want the option to have their stuff repaired without getting scammed. It's well known that Apple techs will scam people in replacing whole motherboards rather than fix the small circuit issue at fault. Same thing for John Deer equipment that requires payment for specialized techs to come out.

On the other hand with most cars, you can take it to a mechanic who can diagnose the issue, and order the respective part.

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Or outright replace the computer. My MBA had a damaged charging circuit. Battery was fine. Computer ran fine on AC, passed their diagnostics. Just couldn't deliver a charge to the battery.

I expected $2-300 after parts and labor.

"Looks like that will probably run you $950. How about we talk about getting you into a new Mac instead?"

No. It got repurposed into a DAW for my stepdaughter.

Apple won’t fix that kind of thing. They don’t have the facilities or people and it wouldn’t make economic sense to them. But you can find independent repair shops. I had that exact problem on an MBA and found a guy in Bangkok who just does Apple repairs. $15.

If an independent repair man a la Louis Rossman can make a living doing component level repair on macs, then I'd expect the margin to be good enough that the original company could do it as well. However, the economic sense to Apple is about selling new products, and an actual repair program would cut into product sales.

I can make a good living writing custom code, but I can’t scale my business for various reasons. Lots of things can turn a good profit at small scale but not work out at Apple scale.

Best Buy got into the service and repair business at scale when they bought GeekSquad. It kind of flopped for them. And you can find no end of complaints about incompetent service and even scams from Best Buy.

For your previous comment. Do I assume you are a genX?

- one can give tons of reasons for non-repairable devices but the planet has only so much resources. Eventually Apple will enter the group of terrible companies like exxon/BP. Sure Tim Cook will be having the billions but if more companies like tesla is following apple's strategy if vertical integration

Either govts will interfere

Planet is trashed.

- TV, phones have always been repairable. Even recently some one posted repairing a sony Trinitron.

- even if apple doesnot want to do the repair of a chip, capacitor they can make them available

- or not sue if 3rd party does it

- Louis rossman can replace a failed charging chip from an old logic/mother board. He/others like ifixit only tell apple to supply it or allow others to manufacture.

You have my age off, by at least a decade.

I worked for Apple in 1988-91 if that gives a clue. And I was around 30 at the time.

I don’t disagree about big companies trashing the environment with disposable goods. I keep my electronics for a long time. I don’t own a car. I try to consume very little. Individual efforts don’t make enough difference, though. Enough people have to vote with their wallets to stop predatory and wasteful companies. The realities of why Apple does what they do seem easily explained with simple economics, without invoking conspiracies.

Sony stopped making Triniton TVs and monitors in the early 2000s. How many of those do you suppose ended up in landfills? Someone repairing one today describes a hobbyist or tinkerer. Sony didn’t intend or support end-users repairing their TVs. Try doing that with a modern flat screen. Individuals can and do fix and upgrade consumer electronics, but they represent a negligible percentage of the consumer base.

Trinitron was an example. A lot of tv are repaired and sold in East europe, Asia.

It is negligible because repair is difficult.

> ... and it wouldn’t make economic sense to them.

That sounds pretty likely for the current state of things.

As a thought experiment though, if (say) Tim Cook got out of bed one day and said "Right, lets figure out how to make this work...", then I'm pretty sure they'd be able to do it. Economically I mean.

So, I think the problem is more their lack of interest ("making it work") than anything else.

Apple replaced my wife's iMac rather than replace the power supply.

Though they would only replace it with an i5, rather than the i7 that was in it "because the next gen i5 was better than the i7". I should have just replaced the power supply myself rather than than let her get scammed like that.

By what metric was your older i7 better than a newer i5 other than “7 is bigger than 5”?

By the metric that the system was slower to use?

2012 iMac had the i7 2600

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600+...

2013 iMac had the i5 3470

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-3470+...

It was noticeable enough in Photoshop that the system ran 30% or so slower.

It makes no economic sense to Apple to replace components on a robot-soldered board. Not a scam, just the realities of manufacturing. Almost everything we buy has the same issue. Consumers prefer paying less. AppleCare available too.

I’ve had auto mechanics try to scam me. Never Apple. John Deere isn’t selling common consumer products. Pretty bad comparisons. Try comparing to Samsung or Lenovo or Microsoft (Surface).

It makes no economic sense to Apple to replace components because it's more profitable to sell an entire part. The proof is in those parts being repairable for far less from third parties (when Apple does not needlessly lock the part down or when third parties have discovered a workaround).

That’s my point. Apple sells luxury consumer electronics and they make spectacular profits. They aren’t a public service. We can debate the ethics of that, I’m just stating the economic reality to refute the idea that some conspiracy is at work.

Try getting a Louis Vuitton bag repaired. Same thing. Self-repair doesn’t intersect their market.

Apple however has far more consequences to consumers in doing so, as it isn't actually a luxury brand, it's nearly half the entire American smartphone market and a significant portion of the laptop market.

As a result, selling expensive devices and making repairs expensive and wasteful has a much larger overall impact on consumers as a whole than the same for Louis Vuitton bags.

I'm not seeing how this isn't them conspiring to make repair difficult. Even just plainly accepting your reasoning, they perceive themselves as a luxury brand, thus they conspire to make repairs exceptionally difficult because they think that somehow contributes to their luxuriousness.

I agree with most of your point, but it absolutely is a luxury brand, even with 50% share, in the usa, a quite wealthy nation.

Apple doesn’t conspire to “make repairs expensive and wasteful.” That’s an inevitable consequence of their design and manufacturing. What other major laptop brand is easy for the end user to repair?

If you don’t like Apple equipment or their conspiracies then vote with your wallet. I’ve never had a serious problem with any Apple hardware. I pay for AppleCare like I used to pay for Dell extended warranties, and Apple has always honored their warranty and AppleCare commitments for me.

Whether they conspire or it is accidental due to thinness from customers

- it has consequences

- no one says- well pollution is not due to oil companies but customer obsession towards buying cars etc

- one tries to push better standards, reduce pollution etc

> major laptop brand is easy for the end user to repair

Dell latitudes

Again if apple has a tiny market share like LVMH then ok. But they are close to 50%.

If omega/rolex throws away EXPENSIVE A all is ok. Just 100 watches are made for 50K each.

Apple sells millions. Do you know when apple tried to brick all the phones with 3rd party fingerprint reader? That is terrible for environment.

Again if I look at your profile you live in SE Asia. These places will be affected by environment and cause high population deaths.

Again,ifixit only says allow others to make parts.

The likes of you can buy applecare and trash env. Lets others fix your old device.

First off, resorting to ad hominen insults diminishes everything you write. "The likes of you?" You can F right off. You don't know anything about me. Yes, I buy Applecare, because that extends the life of my Apple devices -- Apple does do repairs, you know. My older devices go to my children, my parents, my family, my wife's large family. I don't throw old phones or laptops away. Try sticking to the actual topic rather than tossing out stupid insults.

I do say that pollution is due to obsession with cars and refusal to use public transportation, bicycles, walk. I haven't owned a car in years. I don't support the oil companies but they aren't forcing everyone to buy two pickup trucks, they're just enabling it. Supply and demand, pretty simple concept.

Dell Latitudes are sold as business computers. Businesses depreciate things like laptops over 3-5 years. They may or may not care about repairs and upgrades, but in my experience businesses pay for service contracts with Dell etc. The Inspiron line is Dell's consumer line, somewhat less amenable to upgrades and repairs, though I grant better than Apple hardware. Both Dell and Apple offer recycling and trade-in programs, though I don't know what ultimately happens to that stuff. I see used phones, tablets, laptops for sale all over Asia, along with lots of small repair shops, so it's not all just going into landfill like in the US.

Apple's desktop market share is around 15%, not 50%, but that includes desktop and all-in-one iMacs. Laptop market share is closer to 7% globally with the (hard to repair) Asus and Acer ahead by a fairly big margin.

LVMH does not have tiny market share. They are the leading luxury brand. Among all purses or luggage or shoes sold, yes, LVMH is tiny. In their niche they dominate.

You seem to miss my actual point. You don't need to imagine a conspiracy at Apple to force consumers to buy new phones and laptops all the time by making their products unrepairable. The economics of manufacturing, logistics of supply, and the nature of consumer craving and demand do that for Apple, with no need for a conspiracy. Once Apple secured its spot as the luxury electronics brand they don't have to conspire -- people willingly buy new iPhones every year (they stand in line overnight, in fact) for the status display.

What about the day a child is not as successful as you - and cant afford to buy Apple when it breaks. So you would like him/her to buy $700 replacement motherboard or would you have preferred to get the SSD replaced. (And assume it was not your child - all is OK but if it was your child?)

You can write "f off" with money. But Apple is indeed > 50% market share(iPhones, lockin). Of course, you need not care because you have money.

You dont own car. How does it matter here? People are only criticising Apple. Not you.

> though I don't know what ultimately happens to that stuff

A quick google would tell you. So much is crushed.

Every inspiron has replaceable parts.

You need to understand the difference between someone trying to explain reality, as they understand it, and someone telling you or a hypothetical future child what to do. If I tell you that cars pollute the air and Apple makes their products hard to repair for manufacturing reasons, you can counter with different facts. But you can't blame me for the realities when I explain them to you.

I don't have a preference about motherboards or SSDs and how much they might cost an imaginary child "not as successful" as me. That has nothing to do with explaining why I think Apple makes their products the way they do. Nor does me explaining why I think Apple does that make me responsible for or complicit in the ethics as you or anyone else might perceive them.

I have paid for numerous computer and phone replacements and repairs for my own children, if that matters. I also volunteered for years at a non-profit that recycles used electronics and gives them to less fortunate people for free. Worthwhile but not something that scales to millions or billions of devices.

You brought up oil companies and cars. Not a great analogy as I pointed out but no one has to buy a car, like no one has to buy an unrepairable Macbook. Choices have consequences. Blaming the generations ahead of you won't do you any good.

Apple and LVMH are two of the richest and most profitable companies in the world. So objectively they know their markets and how to profit. That’s their goal. A relative handful of people stuck with laptops or purses they can’t repair themselves makes no dent. Neither company will change their successful manufacturing, market, and sales strategies to placate a tiny number of people online floating conspiracies about how they deliberately make unfriendly products.

If you work in the software business, consider the irony of this thread.

Software resists maintenance and enhancement, and is completely opaque — sometimes outright hostile — to the end user. Software companies deliberately lock users in to their platform and ecosystem to a degree hardware companies can only dream of. Huge profits come from the constant rewriting of working code by programmers who didn’t take the time to understand what their customers use, or need. Customers routinely get terrible estimates or plain stiffed by scammers and incompetent programmers. Conspiracy?

And most of the software produced has such poor quality and reliability it makes Apple laptops five-9s by comparison.

Thats simply not true.

If the economies of scale was the issue, apple would have no problem with 3d party repair shops being able to order components to fix customers laptops. But instead, they actively fight against that.

Furthermore the repairs that they provide themselves where they replace components are jacked up in price.

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