Apple, CTA and Big Car are working in secret to kill New York's Right to Repair legislation

From repair.org:

FAIR REPAIR LEGISLATION WILL GIVE OWNERS AND INDEPENDENT REPAIR SHOPS …

ACCESS TO SERVICE INFORMATION, SCHEMATICS, AND REPAIR MANUALS

FAIR MARKET ACCESS TO DIAGNOSTICS AND TOOLS

SPARE PARTS FOR A FAIR PRICE

CRITICAL UPDATES

Sorry, you’re probably not getting schematics. Those are trade secrets, and would provide an unfair advantage to competitors. Sort of like, hey, we did all this work to create a thing, why don’t you go copy it?

It’s ironic that many of the Apple customers who cheered on the “Switch” campaign are likely gearing up to hand-wave away the hypocrisy of lobbying to make it literally illegal to switch away from Apple-supplied products, invoking the absurd claim that Apple critics are bitter hipsters who merely resent the company’s success.

Wow - not only is that a classic ad-hominem, but it’s the hypothetical anti-hipsters attacking hipsters they imagine to be attacking the hypothetical new law. The secret law that is being discussed on the Internet, but only in theory. I hear the President has an opening for a speechwriter…

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Can you get an ssd machine, and the apps you use, to test before you buy? A colleague or lab or something?

I have recently upgraded both my home tower and my work laptop with ssd, and neither of them have a noticable boost in everyday use. Although they are a bit quieter when first getting acquainted with them.

Option A, Cory has gone senile and is no longer able to tell the difference between hardware lock in (which Apple practices without apology) and data lockin. Last I checked, I had absolutely no trouble whatsoever moving my data between macs and PCs.

Option B, Cory hates Apple with such an irrational passion that he can’t tell when he is spouting total nonsense any more.

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Do not hold your breath. Modular and expandable (a) enables repairs - even by third parties and (b) makes things last longer, reducing consumer consumption, which is bad for Apple.

(There’s only one Apple in this barrel, it’s gone bad, and it ain’t gonna mysteriously get better.)

Well, given that they’ve already announced the product and its development, I’ll hold out hope. It’s in their best interest to keep their most loyal customers – the pro market – happy, and they aren’t doing that very well with their current product line.

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I distinguish (and apologies, thought you were too) between ‘pro’ consumers who buy kit for working purposes, perhaps, and the rest of us who are not ‘the pro market’. Apple may have announced something for ‘pros’ but your average high volume mac for non-pros will not become modular and expandable. Sorry I was not clearer about that being my meaning.

Yep, I just gotta get my hands on a board layout and I’ll just fire up the factory I have in my backyard to sell bootleg IPads.

Are you for real?

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Yes, I’m for real. Have you ever been to China? Give them the schematics and they’ll be churning out copies in no time.

The world is bigger than just your back yard.

It’s B. It’s always B.

The legislation they’re pushing for would make toner refills an “illegal repair”

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China doesn’t need schematics to make knockoffs. Knockoffs just need to look the same.

You can’t make a passable clone without software, and Apple controls the software quite effectively.

BS apologism is BS.

Copies are not the same as knockoffs.

I fail to see what a New York right to repair law has to do with chinese counterfeits.

See my above comments.

I did. IANAL however i’d imagine that state and US IP law would still provide the criminalization of counterfeit products?

Schematics and repair info are not protected as trade secrets. Mechanics having access to auto schematics did not produce a wave of fake cars. Electronic engineers having access to radio schematics didn’t end with people listening to fake radios. The computer engineer down the street from me who fixed my laptop doesn’t spend their spare time making Dell knockoffs, I’m relatively certain of it.

I dunno, it looks like schematics are in fact trade secrets. I would love to see your mechanic produce a schematic of the computer that runs your car. Fuses and wiring diagrams, sure, no problem. Nor does the computer engineer who fixed your laptop have the schematics for the MLB in it. Repairing a laptop is easy, just replace the broken module. In some cases, you can even replace ASICS.. Frankly, at the time, radios were so simple that you could trace out the schematic if you really wanted to. One layer boards/discrete components are pretty easy. Everyone from Popular Electronics to Boy’s Life had plans for them.

US IP law holds no sway in China, or anywhere else that isn’t the US.

Entirely different scenario. If the repair shop opens an iphone factory in the backroom, then maybe this fear mongering will be worth it.

There is a difference between sharing technical data with an industry competitor and providing repair data and schematics necessary for hardware repair and replacement to a repair shop. One is quite obviously more capable of producing counterfeits which could harm the business position of the OM than the other.

If you don’t think that’s taken into consideration with fair use in IP then I’d suggest taking a longer look at it. And my truck doesn’t have a computer and I have the Barrett’s manual so I can repair the damned thing myself.

But you were the one who referenced piracy in China. So does it meaning anything in context to this conversation or not?

Yes, my point was that if schematics are available, they will make their way into the hands of people who can use them to copy said device. Just like, you know, if there’s a back door available for the good guys, the bad guys will get ahold of it too.

Which has long been an unfounded argument by manufacturers in an attempt to scare and bully people from repairing what they’ve purchased.

An unauthorized iphone factory is not going to pop up in some abandoned warehouse in Yonkers because the schematics and repair data were made available. Not even considering the technical feats required, the economics behind that scenario simply don’t make sense. If they did, it already would’ve happened, because getting your hands on the firmware schematics wouldn’t remotely be the greatest expense in undertaking this kind of operation.