[aucisson_masque]

Are they seriously praising apple for repairability ?

The same company that locks people people and third party company out of repairing their phone with parts that are serial coded. I don't know any other company that does that.

And they can't even pretend it's for security like with faceid, it would be possible to wipe the phone when a part is not recognized. I'm sure people would be fine with it.

I believe they are only making these changes to appease the law makers, and in the case of the battery because Europe said they will need to be replaceable.

This is just corporate doing corporate stuff, nothing to praise.

For me the day they locked me out of my apple watch because I dared to replace it's broken screen is when I realized apple is full of shit when it's about repairability and especially about environment.

[terhechte]

The reason they do the serial coding is to reduce the incentive for stealing iPhones. Due to locking, you can't really sell a stolen iPhone. Instead, thieves break it apart and sell the parts. Serial coding disincentives this. I know many people that had their iPhone stolen and it is an awful experience.

I'm a simple man, I'd never have the ability to solder and fix my own phone. Instead of repairing it myself, I'd always go to an official repair shop. I'm not benefitting from non-coded parts. On the other hand, reducing the likelihood of people stealing my phone is a huge upside for me. So for me, and people like me, these measures that Apple takes are a net benefit. I understand that for tinkerers it is a different equation - but you have to agree that for the majority of iPhone owners the equation might also tip in favour of not having to worry about stolen phones instead of being able to fix their own hardware (which most normal people also would never do).

[ActorNightly]

>As for the serial numbering and activation of replacement parts: that also has a simple explanation that doesn't involve a nefarious lock-in plot.

People really need to use their brain more.

If parts pairing was to deter theft, then it would work like this - any time a stolen part is detected in a non paired phone, it would notify the user and Apple, and allow that part to be tracked down. Or, just make the phone completely inoperable.

It doesn't work like this. Swapping to a unpaired display makes the display still work plenty fine with some limitations.

EVERY SINGLE DECISION that Apple makes is for revenue gathering, and keeping their devices in the status of high end tech jewelry. They will never be a company that gives a fuck about things like right to repair, or offering more features to consumers for free.

[audunw]

> People really need to use their brain more.

You included, perhaps

> Swapping to a unpaired display makes the display still work plenty fine with some limitations.

Apple has to walk a tight rope here. Every change they make is risky and you could end up bricking legitimate devices.

It's undeniable that the limitation they've applied makes stealing the parts less desirable. You can't easily pass off a device made with stolen parts as completely genuine which reduces the resale value in the most lucrative second hand markets. Every generation they're slowly moving more in this direction, while also balancing these restrictions against repair-ability and risk of unintended bricking.

This effort is creating a lot of work for Apple. I seriously doubt it's worth the trouble just to make repairing the devices harder. The money they make from that is peanuts. What they gain from customers being happy that their phones are less worth stealing, and the price they get for a fully genuine phone in the second hand market when they upgrade, is probably much more important for driving the sale of new phones.

> EVERY SINGLE DECISION that Apple makes is for revenue gathering

Of course. Why do you say that as if it's news, or as if it's something not every single person here knows already?

Yet the fact is that sometimes these decisions overlap with the genuine interests of the customers, either because of customer feedback, increase/decrease in sales, or from competition, or due to regulations.

And I personally think this effort is something that heavily overlaps with consumer interests. Especially now that they're putting more effort into making pairing/calibration of swapped parts easier.

[cromulent]

You are yelling about Apple making every single decision about revenue. This is demonstrably and famously not true - not every decision.

Apple was challenged by shareholders to only commit to environmental or accessibility projects if they increased ROI. Tim Cook rejected that out of hand [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/03/tim-cook...

[spookie]

I see this argument constantly, but how many times have people had their phone stolen?

Isn't it a better option to just have the phone have proper robust security preventing people without proper permissions to access personal data?

It just seems a bit much just to prevent an unlikely scenario. I think that its purpose is for Apple to control who repairs and gain revenue from it.

[dagmx]

Theft isn’t about the data protection. It’s about the parts scavenging.

The data security part is on the flip side when someone might receive a phone with a counterfeit part that may reduce security (faking authentication etc).

Parts pairing solves for both, but the two aren’t related beyond that.

[Rinzler89]

Wait, how is this a benefit for you or a deterent for thieves? iPhones get stolen all the time. Leave your iPhone unattended in a public space and I guarantee it will disappear in no time. Where do you see the reduction in iPhone thefts? This feels like a myth that keeps being spread around HN.

[dagmx]

Down by 25-50% within the first year after introduction

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iphone-thefts-down-thanks-to-ap...

There’ll always be theft but the incentive has been greatly reduced.

[jocaal]

This would be a valid response if first party parts were easily available to be bought directly from manufacturers.

[argsnd]

They are, https://selfservicerepair.com/home

[jocaal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV4_mLw2BGM&t=270

TLDW Apple has slow response times. Not all parts are available. Parts are super expensive. Liability with heavy NDA's.

[argsnd]

I’m sure Rossman has legitimate complaints that he can’t order thunderbolt controllers or whatever in bulk from Apple to conduct complex main board repairs in his repair shop, but the fact is that any repair that Apple themselves will perform at an Apple Store or service centre is performable at home with official Apple parts often with significant discounts over getting it done by Apple.

I recently replaced an iPhone 12 Pro Max battery myself at home for £44 rather than the £85 Apple charges to do it for me. All I had to do was send them my old battery. No NDAs or sketchy agreements.

[threeseed]

Maybe you can talk about which parts are not available and/or are unreasonably expensive.

Because looking at the repair site it looks pretty comprehensive and you can even hire everything you need for $49 a week.

[bzzzt]

> I don't know any other company that does that.

It's common in the car industry as well. Seems to be the reason my airbags are still in place after 10 years while a certain popular german brand here is uninsurable because it's not a question if but when the airbags will be stolen.

[Etheryte]

Yeah, wasn't it an Audi a few series back where the headlights were ridiculously expensive, but you didn't even need to unlock the car to remove the whole light fixture? If you had a long metal rod you could reach in under the light, release a hook and then just walk off with the lights.

[popol12]

Well, they just introduced the “Repair Assistant” which allows you to pair new parts after a repair. They talk about it in this article, had you read it.

But, yeah, about fucking time, I agree on that.

[aucisson_masque]

i did read it in full but i knew too well apple to not trust it, i believe it's going to be another half done attempt that is overcomplicated and totally inefficient.

Like, i don't know... the recent self repair program. cost as much as sending your device to apple but you get to do the manual labor and take the risk to break it. WHAT A DEAL !

Edit: went to look on the Repair Assistant, it sounded promising until i read that it requires you (who repair the phone) to be able to authenticate with the Apple Account of the owner of the phone that you are taking a part of.

Basically it means that every iphone thrown away that the owner didn't take the time to remove it's apple account, and god knows people don't care about this even if they should, is useless.

You also can't buy a part on the internet because how do you know it's been taken from a phone that got it's apple id logged off ? it throws away 90% of the available phone to scavenge.

And most important, you can't buy third party parts. Why can i replace the shaft drive on my bmw, which is deadly important part, with third party shaft drive yet i can't replace iphone battery with a non apple one ?? Does apple consider us to be that retarded that we can't buy batteries from genuine reseller ?

[mjamesaustin]

Are you upset that you won't be able to buy stolen parts anymore?

The fact that Apple will make it impossible to use stolen parts is a great feature for me as a customer. I want potential thieves to get nothing when they steal my phone.

If I buy a phone from someone else, asking them to remove it from their account before the transaction is already a good idea, and trivial to do. Beyond the physical parts, I don't want any of their data or account info on my new phone.

[Double_a_92]

Where do you live that getting your phone stolen is a bigger concern than being able to repair your stuff? Thats more a society issue, not something that Apple needs to fix.

[aucisson_masque]

I'm not upset anymore since i ditch my iphone for an android, i'm merely pointing the corporate hypocrisy from apple.

> If I buy a phone from someone else, asking them to remove it from their account before the transaction is already a good idea, and trivial to do. Beyond the physical parts, I don't want any of their data or account info on my new phone.

Do it with the ssd then. you don't need to lock the screen, the battery or the faceid sensor. it makes no sense security wise.

I'm all in for fighting against stealer and pickpocket, but also lucid enough to know that it doesn't prevent them from stealing it. They still steal them and then sell them on internet, only for people to buy it and receive a brick. It just doesn't work.

And honestly if i get my samsung stolen, i'd rather know it's been resold by some scumbag, but still being used, than having it get shiped to india for 'recycling' into one of the many landfill site.

[syrgian]

If you are going scam people with locked iPhones over the internet, why send an iPhone at all? You should just send a literal paperweight. It will serve the same purpose. It's not like the marketplace will be like "It's an iPhone. Even if it is locked, the seller is right. We will remove the negative rating and let the seller keep their reputation".

By the way, I recently sold an iPhone 8 (through App, but the transfer was in person) and out of 5 potential buyers, all of them asked the same three questions: "Is it on and unlocked?, is it carrier sim-locked?, which is the battery %?".

[threeseed]

> Do it with the ssd then. you don't need to lock the screen, the battery or the faceid sensor. it makes no sense security wise.

They don't lock the battery or display.

The display sensor and FaceID components are paired because they don't want rogue actors e.g. governments/spouses replacing them with compromised ones.

Privacy and security may not be a priority to you. But for many it is a million times more important than being able to repair the device.

[aucisson_masque]

Oh is it ? Seriously, they could make the phone wipe itself when a new faceid touchid sensor is put.

There is absolutely no reason to put a lock on these parts when other simpler solution exists.

Guess what happens when I unlock the bootloader of my Samsung ? It wipes itself. Samsung are as much secure as iphones yet they allow parts to be replaced, how can it be ? Korean are just stupid and apple knows better ?

And it's not just samsung, Google does it too.

There are many things great with iphone but it doesn't mean it's perfect in every way and everything apple say is true.

[argsnd]

You can buy a third party battery it’ll just say “you have a third party battery” in the settings

[myspy]

It's good that we go in a direction where we have accessibility to the devices components and the high end technology. I can't assess how easy it is for the layman to repair an iPhone, but the inertia is there to make a device longer usable.

[Double_a_92]

How about they just get rid of that nonsense instead?

[Sakos]

All this just means that replacement parts are expensive, repairs are expensive and Apple continues to control the ecosystem. I can't believe people are praising Apple for it.