• Apple to oppose Right to Repair legislature
    42 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Gamerman12;51826687]I once had a broken screen. I brought it to the Apple store, and because it was under 1 year I got it repaired for around $110 in less than an hour. The most difficult part was setting up the appointment for the genius bar, but that's because it was a saturday in one of the busiest malls in america. Overall, I'm pretty happy with Apple's service, with what little time I've had with them. I'm okay if I'm paying more if my experience is consistant and better than the gamble I've had with third parties. But people claiming Apple's service is worse need to get off their high horse a bit, I've seen no problem other than price. and honestly, you're always going to overpay when you get something fixed by the original manufacturer. IMO that's a pretty good price to pay vs the inconsistency with getting electronics fixed by a third party who may or may not be good at what they do. The bill is a bit confusing though. While "Right to Repair" is the name of it, the actual bill is just saying things along the lines of giving instructions on how to fix stuff and selling wholesale parts to consumers, not taking away the end user's right to repair stuff. If Apple was actually opposing the right to repair stuff, then there'd be hell to pay, but as of right now Apple just doesn't want to open up another part of their business for parts and to actively build a market against their own, which i guess makes sense. When it comes to small repairs like the screen, they truly replace that one part. No idea for something like your antenna or if something shorts out. But Apple's backup system is nice, so if you've got a backup on iCloud it saves everything properly and re-transferring everything is a breeze with the right wifi connection.[/QUOTE] You know what the difference between right to repair and being absolutely fucked in the ass is as a consumer? Audi cars from the early 2000's have this issue where the LCD display in the instrument cluster fails due to a bad ribbon cable. This is a ~$1000 fix from the dealership still because they just replace the whole cluster. It's a $60-80 or $150-300 fix depending on if you know how to solder surface mount components and just buy either the VDO OEM lcd again or a chinese copy vs if you pay someone who does those repairs for money either on Ebay or their own website. Right to repair literally means that I can fix a problem that happens to literally every car in a 5+ year range for less than 10% of the cost of the dealership. This LCD is vital to viewing warnings such as sensors going out, levels being low, what gear you're in if you have the shiftable auto like me, etc. This screen is basically vital to car operation if you don't like driving your high performance luxury car in complete blindness to what could be going on in the engine without manually checking my fluids and shit every few days. The costs aren't as high with phones but the point remains the same. Requiring the end user to only go through your company for repairs is anti-competitive by very definition. It's beyond anti-consumer, it's anti-business as well.
In the 5 years I have been repairing apple devices I have never seen a battery catch fire. However once in a while I will work on a poorly serviced device that has been repaired by a kiosk in a mall. More than a handful of these phones had loose screws that embed themselves into the batteries. Sometimes they smolder when we remove the foreign object or replace the battery entirely but even with a screw lodged in the battery they are still working like normal in most cases. On top of that I have a box full of lithium batteries removed from apple devices, in particular iPhones. Some that have been punctured/compromised in some way, some are swollen, some are in pristine condition that have simply exhausted their charge cycles. They have been sitting under a table awaiting recycling for over a year now and not a single one has caught fire or smouldered. IMHO apple batteries may not be the best when it comes to life expectancy but they are incredibly robust considering the torture they endure in the hands of incompetent techs and people who treat their device like shit. This fire hazard hype train apple is riding seems to be nothing more that thinly veiled "fuck you give us more money". If someone wants to take on the responsibility of repairing their own device let them.
If they are concerned about users fucking up their iDevice when self-servicing it to the point it becomes a firebomb, then maybe they should be made more end-user serviceable.
I understand Apple would like the layman to go to them for their services, but the Genius Bar (and Support as a whole) has degraded [I]so far[/I] since iOS 7/OS X Yosemite/MacBook (Retina) each launched. When iOS 7 came, many found themselves with slow phones, namely the iPhone 4/4S. They went ahead and blocked FaceTime on older OSes (4, 5 and 6) in an effort to upgrade. When OS X Yosemite came, people saw issues with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Mail, Safari, graphics and more. When the Retina MacBook came, people accepted it, if only because most people could still buy the Pro anyhow. See where it got us? Jony Ive himself has said that he has taken a step back from the design of products, and the Aluminium motif used for the last 10 years is beginning to grow stale. Remember when it "just worked"? That was a headline of Mac OS X. Now if you buy the top quality hardware, you'll see you need a huge bulky adaptor to connect a simple mouse. It IS ahead of its time, but it's not what Apple needs right now. They need to make hardware that works [I]flawlessly without patches[/I], OSes that [I]work on the first install[/I], and hell, a new design. Too many people are copying them now. Apple needs to revolutionize again, and they need to do it soon.
[QUOTE=chipsnapper2;51828456]I understand Apple would like the layman to go to them for their services, but the Genius Bar (and Support as a whole) has degraded [I]so far[/I] since iOS 7/OS X Yosemite/MacBook (Retina) each launched. When iOS 7 came, many found themselves with slow phones, namely the iPhone 4/4S. They went ahead and blocked FaceTime on older OSes (4, 5 and 6) in an effort to upgrade. When OS X Yosemite came, people saw issues with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Mail, Safari, graphics and more. When the Retina MacBook came, people accepted it, if only because most people could still buy the Pro anyhow. See where it got us? Jony Ive himself has said that he has taken a step back from the design of products, and the Aluminium motif used for the last 10 years is beginning to grow stale. Remember when it "just worked"? That was a headline of Mac OS X. Now if you buy the top quality hardware, you'll see you need a huge bulky adaptor to connect a simple mouse. It IS ahead of its time, but it's not what Apple needs right now. They need to make hardware that works [I]flawlessly without patches[/I], OSes that [I]work on the first install[/I], and hell, a new design. Too many people are copying them now. Apple needs to revolutionize again, and they need to do it soon.[/QUOTE] No no, they tried to revolutionise already and it didn't work remember? Courage?
Get fucked Apple.
These are the same assholes that are *rumored* to charge more than 1K for their next gen phone because it supposedly uses an OLED screen. Fuck off apple, other manufacturers have been doing it and don't charge an arm and leg for it.
[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;51826838]You know what the difference between right to repair and being absolutely fucked in the ass is as a consumer? Audi cars from the early 2000's have this issue where the LCD display in the instrument cluster fails due to a bad ribbon cable. This is a ~$1000 fix from the dealership still because they just replace the whole cluster. It's a $60-80 or $150-300 fix depending on if you know how to solder surface mount components and just buy either the VDO OEM lcd again or a chinese copy vs if you pay someone who does those repairs for money either on Ebay or their own website. Right to repair literally means that I can fix a problem that happens to literally every car in a 5+ year range for less than 10% of the cost of the dealership. This LCD is vital to viewing warnings such as sensors going out, levels being low, what gear you're in if you have the shiftable auto like me, etc. This screen is basically vital to car operation if you don't like driving your high performance luxury car in complete blindness to what could be going on in the engine without manually checking my fluids and shit every few days. The costs aren't as high with phones but the point remains the same. Requiring the end user to only go through your company for repairs is anti-competitive by very definition. It's beyond anti-consumer, it's anti-business as well.[/QUOTE] [B]they're not stopping you from doing it yourself or having some else do it for you.[/B] if they were, i'd be pissed as hell. and i was for a short period of time before I read the article(s). i know what the words "right to repair" mean, and they don't mean what this bill is setting out to do. this bill isn't saying "right to repair," it's saying "right to an easier repair via access to documents and parts." again, it's not the coolest thing in the world that apple isn't supporting these businesses, and i would welcome their support with open arms, but I understand their position and I hope you can too some day. the jist I get is that they don't want a bunch of people who aren't repairing stuff right to go around and start repairing their products, unauthorized. it's bad business, it doesn't let them pump money into a stronger customer service, and overall hurts the brand of apple by having a bunch of unauthorized devices walking around every day. (also they want your money and they want to keep you under the wing of apple. no surprise there, they're a fortune 500 company, like of course they wanna keep you in their family.) besides, apple has been offering the ability to learn through them for years with the "[URL="https://locate.apple.com/"]apple authorized service provider[/URL]" program, offering training and access to wholesale parts iirc to companies that wanna get into the repair business for apple. anyone from random third party chain stores to places like Geek Squad are all authorized for third party repair by Apple. and that's exactly what this bill is proposing apple do, but instead of making sure it goes through a secure channel, the bill is asking them to let the public go nuts with it. again, you're not "fucked in the ass as a consumer" because they aren't offering an easier way to get parts or an easier way to learn how to repair it yourself. you ARE fucked in the ass if your litteral right to repair is threatened, which it isn't. the whole "right to repair" thing is a buzzword and it sucks, i wish they would've chosen a better name so it wasn't so misleading. apple just wants to keep everything under their wing of course and not become the shitshow that is android phones and windows pcs with bloatware and the like. albiet they want to charge an arm and a leg for it, and that sucks. but it's their business and they have a right to charge what they want for their products, and if you don't like the prices there's tons of other options out there. for instance, if you look at an early 2000s audi and don't want to go to the hassle of replacing that screen, there's far nicer cars out there. or you can stick with what you have and get it done cheaply by a third party since it's so easy to do so apparently, because guess what, [B]not having this bill doesn't stop you from doing exactly that.[/B]
[QUOTE=Gamerman12;51829627][B]they're not stopping you from doing it yourself or having some else do it for you.[/B] if they were, i'd be pissed as hell. and i was for a short period of time before I read the article(s). i know what the words "right to repair" mean, and they don't mean what this bill is setting out to do. this bill isn't saying "right to repair," it's saying "right to an easier repair via access to documents and parts." again, it's not the coolest thing in the world that apple isn't supporting these businesses, and i would welcome their support with open arms, but I understand their position and I hope you can too some day. the jist I get is that they don't want a bunch of people who aren't repairing stuff right to go around and start repairing their products, unauthorized. it's bad business, it doesn't let them pump money into a stronger customer service, and overall hurts the brand of apple by having a bunch of unauthorized devices walking around every day. (also they want your money and they want to keep you under the wing of apple. no surprise there, they're a fortune 500 company, like of course they wanna keep you in their family.) besides, apple has been offering the ability to learn through them for years with the "[URL="https://locate.apple.com/"]apple authorized service provider[/URL]" program, offering training and access to wholesale parts iirc to companies that wanna get into the repair business for apple. anyone from random third party chain stores to places like Geek Squad are all authorized for third party repair by Apple. and that's exactly what this bill is proposing apple do, but instead of making sure it goes through a secure channel, the bill is asking them to let the public go nuts with it. again, you're not "fucked in the ass as a consumer" because they aren't offering an easier way to get parts or an easier way to learn how to repair it yourself. you ARE fucked in the ass if your litteral right to repair is threatened, which it isn't. the whole "right to repair" thing is a buzzword and it sucks, i wish they would've chosen a better name so it wasn't so misleading. apple just wants to keep everything under their wing of course and not become the shitshow that is android phones and windows pcs with bloatware and the like. albiet they want to charge an arm and a leg for it, and that sucks. but it's their business and they have a right to charge what they want for their products, and if you don't like the prices there's tons of other options out there. for instance, if you look at an early 2000s audi and don't want to go to the hassle of replacing that screen, there's far nicer cars out there. or you can stick with what you have and get it done cheaply by a third party since it's so easy to do so apparently, because guess what, [B]not having this bill doesn't stop you from doing exactly that.[/B][/QUOTE] Not only does Apple take a cut of any money you make off repairs from become Apple authorized, they also force you to follow their bullshit philosophy of "oh unrelated part? replace the whole thing!" Also this. [t]http://i.imgur.com/BHnISvp.png[/t] Even if I wanted to, I couldn't become Apple authorized. There's a reason Louis Rossmann isn't authorized. [video=youtube;VFmKlcjvta0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFmKlcjvta0[/video] [video=youtube;Pk4p4oEu2sE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk4p4oEu2sE[/video] Disregard the title, he was getting "sued" when he put it out, the content is what's important.
[QUOTE=FlakTheMighty;51829903]Not only does Apple take a cut of any money you make off repairs from become Apple authorized, they also force you to follow their bullshit philosophy of "oh unrelated part? replace the whole thing!" Also this. [t]http://i.imgur.com/BHnISvp.png[/t] Even if I wanted to, I couldn't become Apple authorized. There's a reason Louis Rossmann isn't authorized. [video=youtube;VFmKlcjvta0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFmKlcjvta0[/video] [video=youtube;Pk4p4oEu2sE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk4p4oEu2sE[/video] Disregard the title, he was getting "sued" when he put it out, the content is what's important.[/QUOTE] you make a fair point, the authorized repair system does suck and isn't as complete as it should be and has some strange terms. However, my original point stands, if you as a consumer are unhappy at apple for their terms, you absolutely have a right to find business elsewhere, and there is no law now or ever that will ever stop you from doing that. no terms of use contract bullshit can stop you from finding a different repairshop, and any case that apple would try and do such would be immediately thrown out of court (i hope.) and that calling this a "right to repair" is a huge misnomer.
[QUOTE=Gamerman12;51829627][B]they're not stopping you from doing it yourself or having some else do it for you.[/B] if they were, i'd be pissed as hell. and i was for a short period of time before I read the article(s). i know what the words "right to repair" mean, and they don't mean what this bill is setting out to do. this bill isn't saying "right to repair," it's saying "right to an easier repair via access to documents and parts." again, it's not the coolest thing in the world that apple isn't supporting these businesses, and i would welcome their support with open arms, but I understand their position and I hope you can too some day. the jist I get is that they don't want a bunch of people who aren't repairing stuff right to go around and start repairing their products, unauthorized. it's bad business, it doesn't let them pump money into a stronger customer service, and overall hurts the brand of apple by having a bunch of unauthorized devices walking around every day. (also they want your money and they want to keep you under the wing of apple. no surprise there, they're a fortune 500 company, like of course they wanna keep you in their family.) besides, apple has been offering the ability to learn through them for years with the "[URL="https://locate.apple.com/"]apple authorized service provider[/URL]" program, offering training and access to wholesale parts iirc to companies that wanna get into the repair business for apple. anyone from random third party chain stores to places like Geek Squad are all authorized for third party repair by Apple. and that's exactly what this bill is proposing apple do, but instead of making sure it goes through a secure channel, the bill is asking them to let the public go nuts with it. again, you're not "fucked in the ass as a consumer" because they aren't offering an easier way to get parts or an easier way to learn how to repair it yourself. you ARE fucked in the ass if your litteral right to repair is threatened, which it isn't. the whole "right to repair" thing is a buzzword and it sucks, i wish they would've chosen a better name so it wasn't so misleading. apple just wants to keep everything under their wing of course and not become the shitshow that is android phones and windows pcs with bloatware and the like. albiet they want to charge an arm and a leg for it, and that sucks. but it's their business and they have a right to charge what they want for their products, and if you don't like the prices there's tons of other options out there. for instance, if you look at an early 2000s audi and don't want to go to the hassle of replacing that screen, there's far nicer cars out there. or you can stick with what you have and get it done cheaply by a third party since it's so easy to do so apparently, because guess what, [B]not having this bill doesn't stop you from doing exactly that.[/B][/QUOTE] i'd agree with you except apple's got a notorious rep for overcharging customers not only for services rendered, but also going in excess of the common repair. there's a reason why when you send your phone in for repair you don't get your data back -- you're essentially getting a brand new phone while they sell off those broken phones to be refurbished. there's also the problem that they directly get to control who's an authorized service provider, meaning that if they feel like your repair shop isn't getting them enough of a cut, [I]they can pull that out from under you at any moment.[/I] the fact that you can only get an actual repair through an apple-certified(see: monopolized pawn), and also that they're slowly making it more difficult to acquire documents needed for repair. how much are you willing to let apple develop a complete stranglehold on one of the most essential parts to your everyday life until you realize that the more control they have, the more they can gouge your wallet? [editline]16th February 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Gamerman12;51830026]you make a fair point, the authorized repair system does suck and isn't as complete as it should be and has some strange terms. However, my original point stands, if you as a consumer are unhappy at apple for their terms, you absolutely have a right to find business elsewhere, and there is no law now or ever that will ever stop you from doing that. no terms of use contract bullshit can stop you from finding a different repairshop, and any case that apple would try and do such would be immediately thrown out of court (i hope.) and that calling this a "right to repair" is a huge misnomer.[/QUOTE] this is what happens when i try to search for an apple-authorized repair shop, and i live in the fucking bay area [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/vMw29pd.png[/IMG] most of these are only best buy, apple store, or clickaway stores. apple is quite literally killing independent repair as a business by opposing this bill.
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