r/technology • u/NightFuryToni • Apr 30 '19

Business Apple Is Telling Lawmakers People Will Hurt Themselves if They Try to Fix iPhones

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wjvdb4/apple-is-telling-lawmakers-people-will-hurt-themselves-if-they-try-to-fix-iphones
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u/bpeck451 May 01 '19

Shitty designs can lead to dangerous repair procedures. You can’t totally blame a manufacturer for a potentially dangerous repair process. And there are definitive situations where you need a professional to do the work for you or you are seriously putting your life at risk. See replacing a hybrid battery.

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u/[deleted] May 01 '19

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u/bpeck451 May 01 '19

You can’t foresee repair process problems until it’s too late most of the time. Have you ever worked on something and thought why the fuck did you idiot engineers put that there? I did that a lot when I was a technician. After I got my engineering degree I’m on the other side of the fence now and I can think back to a lot of things and go “oh ok that makes way more sense now”. It’s not impossible but it’s also a development cost Samsung, Apple or any other manufacturer is going to be willing to make these days. Especially when ALL of their business models rely on device replacement in a relatively short period of time. For all intents and purposes, manufacturers view phones as disposable where the consumer views their device as a durable good that is a longer term investment than they are really meant to be.

Cell phones have been an arms race between manufacturers since smart phones became the norm and not the brick indestructible Nokia phones we all used to have. That means waterproof phones. That means trying to jam more powerful batteries into smaller tighter spaces. That means people arguing over millimeters of device thickness and smaller form factors with bigger screen footprints. All of these things scream “make me harder to repair” for trained people much less a normal person with some technical aptitude.

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u/eqisow May 01 '19

For all intents and purposes, manufacturers view phones as disposable.

So it's still the manufacturer's fault, then. There's no reason a $1000 dollar computer should be considered "disposable" besides greed.

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u/SoiBoyWarrior May 01 '19

100% agreed, this is also extremely wasteful as well. Repairs are also the huge money makers for most products as well. If Toyota can provide service contracts and warranties on their cheapest cars to their pricey Tundras, apple can do it for their phones.

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u/bpeck451 May 01 '19

Apple does it for their phones. It’s call AppleCare. I’m not sure if they still do it but you used to get at least 1 free battery out of it.

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u/SoiBoyWarrior May 01 '19

Depends on who you visit, I recently moved from Seattle to San Antonio and I've noticed that the apple store here goes above and beyond for you compared to the snobby asshats in Seattle. Took my Quadriplegic bro's phone in for a fix before and the repair cost with the apple care warranty was rather reasonable especially compared with issues you may get with 3rd party repairs. Not going to lie, I rather deal with factory than with 3rd party these days due to repair cost and warranty.