Everybody [1] can buy parts at https://selfservicerepair.com and download manuals
> only to find out they didn't work after the swap.
AFAIK, Apple ¿currently? doesn’t support cannibalizing systems (because they’re greedy or to prevent stealing of phones for parts. Your pick)
> So even if you can get a replacement component, do you have the management software to update the eeprom
Their manuals tell you how to do that.
[1] in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK or the USA and, by extension, in the entire EU (https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-eu/selling-...). I don’t know whether Apple honors the latter, though.
For 'iPhone 12 mini TrueDepth Camera Bundle' you have to pay $280 in EU countries + shipping I guess. If your iphone 12 mini breaks in ~2 years from now probably will be cheaper to buy just working second hand iphone 12 mini.
yes, this is a general problem with all repair. n=1 repairs are very expensive in terms of labor and logistics. making a million pixel phones in a factory is cheap, mailing someone a camera board and having a technician disassemble the phone and solder a part and re-seal the phone for waterproofing is very time-consuming.
if repairs are only financially viable by using knockoff parts with inferior quality, that's a problem, that's a market failure.
easy answer is tax new devices heavily so that repairing a device is relatively more attractive. but I think people won't like the idea of 50-100% tax on new devices.
there's always a price for your morals - nobody is buying a new phone at $100k tax per phone, and would not support such legislation. now we are just haggling over the price.
Taxing is not solution I don't want to tax cars 100% so even though fixing cost the same supposed make me feel better because it's then just 10% of whole product instead of 30%. Car industry has right to repair and it's a solved problem - even though cars have bigger safety considerations.
Repair can be cheap in the same way as car repair can be cheap. Currently iphone repair cannot be cheap because of their DRM.
You mentioned before that cheap repair cannot be done because of more expensive labour. But I mentioned that authorised repair shops quotes me ~300euro for repair and apple for just ordering single component wanna charge me ~280usd - it's obvious they just price component so expensive to make it not worth making repair yourself.