[kalleboo]

Why are you singling out Apple here? I can't think of any consumer product where the manufacturer does board-level repair. My washing machine dies? They replace the whole board. TV dies? replace the TCON board. My aircon stops? They replace the whole board. ECU in my car starts throwing errors? They replace the whole unit. What company sends out a repairman with a soldering iron?

[throwaway48476]

None of those boards have expensive CPU's RAM, and NAND.

[kalleboo]

Samsung still charges $300 for a new board for their washing machines, half the cost of a new machine.

It's actually an even BETTER candidate for board-level repair as they have easier to hand-solder, off-the-shelf through-hole components, and yet they still don't do it.