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Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

Cynically this could be one of those laws that the big producers like Apple have a competitive advantage over smaller companies that do one-off production runs with contract manufacturers.

When you are at the scale of Apple, you could have a whole team designing your right-to-repair compliant processes, and lobbyists to ensure the law as passed is most favorable to your implementation.

It also fits in nicely with Apples general SKU-minimization philosophy (though they've been loosening up there). It is a lot easier to stock parts/manuals/tools for 3 phone SKUs per year which you continue to sell for 2 years than for 25 Samsung Galaxy somethings.

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It would be twist if instead of industries lobbying for loop holes in right to repair bills, they started lobbying for thorough to the point of being Byzantine ones to keep new entrants out of the market. I guess it will be a function of how worried they are about their moat.

Incumbents love regulation as a barrier to entry. Doesn’t have to be Byzantine, just that extra 5% tax that combines with scale economies to make new entrants unviable.

I’ve always thought RtR enthusiasts would be surprised when they finally caught the car. And here we are.

This is exactly what turned domestic US sales tax collection. Once there was market share, figuring out jurisdictional taxing became a moat to keep small players out.

Insane that the US government does not offer an API for it.

Although what you say isn’t wrong …

Apple really can’t win. Oppose RtR. Gets criticized. Complies with RtR. Also gets criticized. LOL

That's called skepticism because people (rightly) don't trust Apple.

Thats especially true when it comes to this, which is something they've been aggressively fighting against for years.

They put themselves in this position, it isn't the first time they've come out in support of right to repair, only to push a maliciously compliant repair program. So everyone's going to be highly skeptical of them until they see the results.

Because until now, they "complied" with right to repair in bad faith by providing an unusable platform which is basically just there for PR purposes & helping them in lawsuits.

It makes sense people are skeptical now when they were already fooled once.

Personally I'm going to believe it when I see it.

"Complies" is an overstatement. The independent repair program they released was so restrictive and missed so many key parts that it felt like intentional sabotage/poisoning of the well. "We helped independent repair shops but they can't even do basic stuff, see?" The self-repair program is a step in the right direction but it's also kind of disingenuous because it provides parts specifically to you, i.e. you can't just have an independent repairman order the parts for you. Which is still unhelpful if you're not adept at hardware repair/soldering.

Can't you bring the parts to a skilled technician and have them do the labor?

>Apple really can’t win. Oppose RtR. Gets criticized. Complies with RtR. Also gets criticized. LOL

Wrong, they can just do i

- publish schematics for everyone (not only approved partners)

- publish diagnostic software for everyone

- sell repair tools and spare parts to everyone

- allow legit users to use their broken devices parts for spare parts by providing ways for the owner to transfer ownership or renounce ownership claim over the device.

- actually offer repair services instead of pretending soem small issue is unfix able and the user should buy a new device sicne repalcing the motherboard costs as much as a new device.

- admit immediately where there is an hardware problem not only after they are forced by the justice system (at least we would avoid those annoying HN Apple fanboys that were rudely accusing people with the keyboard problem that they are putting food or drink on those keyboards and claimed Apple super paid engineers would have caught any problem with their SciFi robot hands that they use to test their keyboards, no joke, so many fanboys were defending Apple in that period)

One legal thing mobile equipment manufacturers point at to support closed designs, is that the FCC requires that no "simple" software change can make an approved device violate its approved operating parameters. Many wifi and 4g/5g radios could be turned into very general purposes software defined radios if they were completely open about the software. Primarily because they want to be able to comply with standard changes if they occur after the chips are designed, but before the point of peak sales for the chip. Parameterizing things like channel width, and even band limits to some extent are insurance against being left with a lot invested in an unsellable product.

We need to remove the threat of that regulatory stick and add another atick threatening them for lack of openness. Then there is the carrot hobbyists will find a use for their chips that creates a secondary market like rtlsdr or rpi back when. Let the FCC go after people actually breaking the law rather than making sure the world is safe from things a few people might use for breaking the law.

Nobody asks Apple to open source the drivers or firmware.

I do not think that the "apple approved partners" have access to software that can at the same time diagnose a hardware issue and change the bandwidth or other parameters to illegal values.

I remember one other issue , maybe it was fixed, but if you were a partner with Apple and someone had a broken product that needed a new part you had to first send the broken part to Apple and then they would send a replacement , so a customer would have to wait for days. It is a system that encourages the user not to repair and just give more money to Apple.

> Many wifi and 4g/5g radios could be turned into very general purposes software defined radios if they were completely open about the software.

Which is why those things are usually independent subsystems. You can be completely open about everything else and still keep tight control over those things.

They are not complying. They never came any close to complying. If they started complying all the discussion here would be of confused people trying to make sense of something they never thought Apple could ever do.

All they did is some PR pretending to support a law they will clearly refuse to obey. There is no explanation for this except that it's a Machiavellian act.

But are there smaller companies producing one-off product runs in the smartphone market that are actually noticeable?

I hope there is some clause that exempts small manufacturers from having to comply...

if i buy a device from a startup, why should they be exempt from providing service manuals, batteries, etc, if they haven’t, say, made enough profit from the device first?

frankly, it’s the smaller players who are more likely to go under, like Vanmoof, where as the consumer i’m MORE in need of the right to repair it myself.

I’ve run into this personally with a Rapsodo golf launch monitor with a faulty battery, where i attempted to replace it myself. I couldn’t find the battery online and the company refused to sell me just the battery. They said i had to buy a new device.

Why? They should be forced to release schematics, software, and firmware if they can't handle the repairs themselves. This will allow someone to repair it without assistance from the manufacturer.

So they can invest in developing a new product, release all the software, schematics, and firmware, and have a factory in China produce a perfect knock-off in a split second?

Why develop anything new when copying someone else’s work is so much more lucrative?

IMO the core of right to repair should be more focused on preventing anti-competitive artificial barriers to repair, not forcing companies to give away their secret sauce.

If it's a 'one-off' product, why should they care if someone copies it?

And unless your product is covered under a patent (and even if it is), China's going to knock it off anyway.

Wait, what? Why should Inas a consumer have fewer rights because I bought a product from a smaller company? Should small airlines have less stringent safety regulations?

It would depend on the extent to which the consumer is a willing participant in the trade offs. It’s unreasonable for every passenger to assess the safety of different airlines in making a decision on who to fly with, but if you’re buying a niche smartphone you’re probably more aware of the trade offs.

Also running a small batch of non-RtR compliant phones is probably going to result in a more expensive device than a mass produced RtR device due to economies of scale, whereas I’d guess it’s much easier for a small airline to undercut competitors by foregoing safety checks, so there’s more adverse incentives in the airline case.

Rules that vary based on company size are common.

https://blog.execustaffhr.com/legal-compliance-based-on-your...

This is mostly done to not suffocate small companies.

A bad analogy if I may, we have less expectations with kids than with adults.

Small airplanes only require one pilot, even operating commercially, so in some senses, yes, smaller airlines are afforded some leeway.

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