[willyt]

The catch is that in this hypothetical scenario most people would have had to decide that they wanted a big clunky hackable computer for apple to have been successful enough to have all this money... Judging by what people chose to buy, this doesn't seem to be the case. Personally, I buy raspberry pis for hacking and an iPhone for reliable, secure and frictionless pocket internet. YMMV

[wila]

Repairable does not equate to "big clunky".

[2pEXgD0fZ5cF]

Arguments like these are used pretty often to defend the practices of corporations and it implies that manufacturers would have to adapt their devices to make them repairable. It is also false for the majority of cases.

Reasons many devices are not repairable include: DRM built into parts to prevent replacements, no repair manuals (see Thinkpads compared to macbooks). Also measures to prevent people from flashing the firmware or updating the software once a company decides to drop support despite the hardware being still functional, or easy to put back up to speed by changing a battery.

Forcing companies to stop these anti-consumer strategies has 0 impact on the designs while making electronics far more repairable.

I find the "right to repair will make my devices big and ugly and appeasing to the evil tinkerers and hackers" angle really dishonest.

[sokoloff]

I’m pro-repair (and a regular purchaser of 18-36 month old iPhones and 2-4 year old [often just off-lease] computers).

Even given that, I don’t see how “end users must be able to change batteries in a practical way” would not negatively impact the quality of the iPhone I’m holding in my hand right now.

From a water-resistance standpoint alone, I think my phone would suffer in at least one dimension that matters to me. (It’s an Xs Max and yes, I bought used, confident that the water resistance was intact. If I sold it now, the next buyer has that same assurance.) Phones get wet at some low (but not insignificant) rate; it’s hard to avoid that across the entire population.

[taylodl]

The "right to repair" doesn't say anything about "ability to repair" or "easy to repair." What's at issue is people making modifications to firmware and then getting sued by the manufacturers. This is what's going on between John Deere and American Farmers, which was the original impetus of the "right to repair" movement. What "right to repair" is addressing is when you purchase a device then that device is yours - you can make any modification to it without fear of reprisal from the manufacturer. What "right to repair" does not mean is that you'll be able to repair your device, that it will be easy to repair, or that your warranty won't be voided if repairs are made by an unauthorized repairer.

[dagmx]

I think the biggest issue here is there's not a colloquially accepted understanding of what Right to Repair is.

What you're describing, and I agree with you, is what many legal right to repair advocates are fighting for.

However you'll see many people conflate it with easy to repair and easy to get parts, or repair without voiding warranty. Which IMHO should be separate talking points, but alas, they're all jumbled up when these discussions happen.

It's also why I don't think right to repair will please most people. Because the scenarios you described are limited and outside what most people are thinking e.g home repairs of cell phones

[themaninthedark]

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-06C https://phonedb.net/index.php?m=device&id=2871&c=nec_medias_...

NEC Medias smartphone from 2011, removable battery and IPX7 which is waterproof up to 1m deep. It is 8.2mm thick.

The Iphone 4S was released that year @ 9.3mm thick.

It is possible to make phones that do it, the companies don't want to.

[chapium]

The reason I doubt this is that Apple has gone to many lengths to make their phone as sleek as possible. How hard would it be to have batteries slide into the side of the phone or have a removable panel on the back? If any device company could find an innovative solution to this problem its Apple.

[kiba]

I don't have an issue with making certain design changes to make water resistance possible. Specialist repair services for these devices will always be in demand. I just don't want these companies to go out of their way to make things harder for me.

[willyt]

Oh yes I completely agree with being able to work with the hardware and software without getting sued. I was thinking of it purely from the hardware design for repairability and adaptability point of view. My point was that the original all in one mac was competing with all kinds of weird and clunky computers when it came out and it was successful because it streamlined the complexity of using a computer and, despite the bad period in the late 90’s, apple have shown that people want this streamlined experience. I want this streamlined experience most of the time but I would like to be able to unlock an advanced mode on my iphone so I can hack on it. E.g Years ago I wanted to write some software for my phone to communicate with my laser measure over Bluetooth and I couldn’t because there was no way to communicate with a Bluetooth device that was not approved, without signing up for some special hardware developer program, which I would never get access to. I was pissed off by this arbitrary limitation.

[mschuster91]

The problem is, "repairable" can have different meanings.

One is the availability of original spare parts like screens and backside covers (aka the stuff that breaks very often) for ordinary people and repair centers. A phone that's glued together and absolutely waterproof as a result can still be called "repairable" under that definition as long as there is non-discriminatory (aka external customers get charged the same as manufacturer repair centers) access to spare parts.

Another is the accessibility of repair without special tools (cough Pentalobe) or the need to discard a fully functional component to access a defective one, e.g. when the screen is to be replaced you need to remove the glued in back cover first, a step that risks permanently damaging it by bending or breaking it. Most waterproof designs have a really hard time here as it's hard to make a waterproof design that is still easily disassemblable and slim/optically pleasing.

The third definition of repairable is if an end-user can replace a common wear item on their own: batteries most obviously, but also outward-facing connectors for headsets and charging/USB.

The fourth definition of repairable is the firmware side - aka, can people repair defects in the firmware like security flaws on their own after the manufacturer has ceased support, without risking to lose functionality. Apple is the worst offender of them all with not allowing "rooting" at all, but in most of the Android world the situation isn't much better - root your device and you'll lose KnoxGuard/TrustZone functionality (sometimes breaking apps relying on it, half the apps on my rooted Samsung don't do fingerprint auth anymore since rooting), and SafetyNet attestation will also fail, leading to apps either stopping to work entirely (banking apps, just f..k off, I know what I'm doing) or offering reduced functionality (Netflix).

And with all of the various definitions of repairability in mind, you will always have some trade-offs to make.