I’m kind of torn on this one, because Apple certainly have a case to answer in terms of actively thwarting third-party repairs; if someone wants to void their warranty that’s their business.
But planned obsolescence, hmm . The reason this guy makes a living repairing Apple stuff is that their stuff is in fact designed to be repaired, and well-enough made in the first place to be worth repairing. It seems just a little po-faced to feign anger at Apple for supplying him with (a) a business and (b) a sure-fire clickbait shibboleth; would he prefer people to buy stuff that, when it broke, they pitched it straight in the garbage without even calling him?
I am only 17 min in - and wow - a lot of “fuck you” consumer.
I know it is harder and harder to fix anything. I really need to get a USB port on my laptop fixed, but I keep limping along.
What is ironic are the companies that want to present a green image, but forcing you to buy vs repair means that much more resources sucked out, and more ewaste added to the pile.
It’s not Apple specifically that’s supplying him with his business. If it wasn’t them, it would be some other company, and there would still routinely be people with electronic devices that break and need repair. If the market was more competitive, and Apple had less market power, you would likely be getting a pretty similar distribution overall, as regards repair-worthy vs low-quality equipment. Look at companies like Lenovo, HP… they have whole lines of products that are just junk computers. And then they have premium lines, business machines, where they do a much better job. At the top, there are always a couple companies trying to challenge Apple with really fancy hardware. But Apple uses business practices that are if nothing else, just different, mainly because of the OS situation.
I beg to differ. Until last year, our island didn’t have an ‘official’ authorized Apple repair/sales place. We had a kind of knockoff store that did a lot of things, but you couldn’t buy Apple equipment there, and of course Apple wouldn’t treat anything they did as warranty work. I don’t think having to travel a fair distance to get to an Apple store is all that uncommon.
I’m not sure what island you’re on, but I guess I’d amend my comment to say “anyone in or near a major US city”, which I would guess would cover most American members of the forum. Or “anyone near a major city”, really, since they’re worldwide. On an island? Well, maybe not so much.
Repair people have always had to deal with this, especially from certain manufacturers who seem to think that pissing off repair people is a winning strategy.
Curiously, the first Apple mass product, the Apple ][, was notoriously easy to repair. But ti was mostly Woz’s design, with Jobs acting as cheerleader rather than control freak.
Then there are the Torx security screws they use in things (like my own mini). I had to go get special bits with the cut outs for the security nubs because normal torx screws weren’t obscure enough.
Well, to be fair, Apple takes this BS to egregious levels. That doesn’t excuse Samsung or anyone else, though.
One of the things I’ve always loved about ThinkPads is that they have been designed to be serviceable - even if you never NEED to open one up, you can do so. They aren’t perfect in that regard (see also: BIOS whitelists for Wi-Fi cards), but I’ve gotten lots of miles out of used ThinkPads over the years.
His soldering skills, however make me loath to trust his repairs. He’s got a $9000 dollar BGA rework station but he’s doing his fine pitch SMA repairs with what appears to be a $9 Radio Shack handheld. He needs to get a Metcal or similar for fine hand work. He ran a mag wire and didn’t bother to pot it in place to keep it moving and breaking free. He fails to adhere to minimum electrical clearance when running it. His pad overhang when soldering those transistors on is excessive. The pad repair with a chunk of wire is particularly egregious. He uses an excessive amount of flux and is generally the absolute worst solderer that I have ever seen, for a person whose livelihood it is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if his repairs didn’t last terribly long. I would be ashamed to show that poor quality of work and associate it with my name.
I understand he’s not working on flight hardware, but there are still commercial requirements.
Given the openness that Apple was founded on, the extreme shift towards everything being what’s essentially designed to be a permanently sealed black box is quite baffling.
I don’t know, Apple and John Deere are really actively leading the charge against “Right to Repair” legislation. I think it’s fair enough to single them out.
Nope. South Africa, host to at least two major cities (Johannesburg and Cape Town) is still without a single official Apple Store. SA being the richest country in Africa, I expect the situation is likely similar anywhere else on that continent.
That openness died with the failed clones experiment. The near-death experience persuaded pretty much everyone around the company, from then-out Jobs to the last engineer, that closed is easier and more profitable. Which, in the end, it is, from a purely commercial point of view - as demonstrated by their staggering cash reserves.
Of course it’s shady as fuck from an ethical perspective, but you can’t be surprised by that: Jobs was so “ethically challenged” that one of his best friends was Larry Ellison.
Bad example; Torx screws are far superior to Philips, and anyone who’s had to cut a slot in a stuck/stripped Philips screw knows exactly why.
I don’t remember a time they were obscure enough not to be found at any decent hardware store (although you might have to find an electronics store for smaller than T8 or so.)
. The reason this guy makes a living repairing Apple stuff is that their stuff is in fact designed to be repaired, and well-enough made in the first place to be worth repairing. It seems just a little po-faced to feign anger at Apple for supplying him with (a) a business and (b) a sure-fire clickbait shibboleth; would he prefer people to buy stuff that, when it broke, they pitched it straight in the garbage without even calling him?