[sjwright]

I disagree with your sentiment, because it assumes that Rossmann can read the minds of Apple product designers and warranty service managers.

The "Rossmann" method of device repair might be useful for short term disaster recovery, consumer asset loss mitigation and data recovery, but how reliable are his repairs long term? We never know. How scalable is this method of repair across thousand of cities? Probably very poor.

Rossmann probably has no idea what percentage of his repairs fail within 12 months. Whereas Apple probably has a very good idea how (im)practical it would be to deploy this approach at global scale, and how reliable bodge repairs are compared to simply fitting a new board straight from the factory.

[godelski]

Apple's job is to get the device through warranty, at minimum. They look better if they last longer though. Remember how Apple used to be known for a computer that lasted 5 years instead of 2 years? The problem now is that they aren't made that much higher quality than other products (if at all). But if we look at Rossmann he frequently does jobs like retinning connectors. I wouldn't call this disaster recovery since this kind of repair is quite common in electronics in general.

We could probably guesstimate repair failures by looking at industry averages. He could also guesstimate from returning customers. This is how you get an idea of repair failure rates in the first place.

And no, you can't repair at global scale. But why would you need to? There's a reason Toyota doesn't repair every single one of their cars. Or more apt to the conversation: there's a reason Toyota doesn't require you go to a Toyota dealership to get an oil change. It doesn't make sense to. The scale would be ridiculous. There's no reason that electronics needs to be more convoluted than repairing a car. There's no reason a simple fix like a battery swap needs to be more complicated than changing your oil.

[sjwright]

Your Toyota analogy doesn't make sense.

Oil changes—Apple devices don't need equivalent routine hardware maintenance.

Warranty repairs/recalls—Whether Toyota or Apple, the manufacturer is obliged to perform (or pay a third party to perform) the rectification.

Smash repairs—Neither Apple nor Toyota is responsible for impact damage that wasn't caused by manufacturer negligence. In both cases you'd go to a third party repair shop to mitigate asset loss.

[sumedh]

> but how reliable are his repairs long term?

So the alternative is to listen to Apple's advice and buy a new device just because they think the device cannot be repaired?

[sjwright]

I didn't say that individuals shouldn't seek such repairs. I'm just talking about whether it makes sense for Apple to offer them.