Based on all the dumbfounded and cynical replies, I don't think people understand why this is happening.
Anybody saying this is a response to recent anti-trust headlines doesn't understand how a company the size of Apple works. When an announcement like this is made, it means this program has been in the works for YEARS.
My guess, this is all part of Apple's slow shift towards a recurring revenue services model, and a better integration of customer & business incentives.
It used to be, the worst thing that could happen to Apple was the customer stops upgrading their phone.
But now, when the revenue growth is coming from services instead of hardware, it doesn't pay to piss off customers by making them buy a new phone a year early because the battery died.
The worst thing that can happen now under this new business model is the customer leaves the ecosystem or buys less services because they aren't happy with the hardware.
Hence why you're seeing Apple do things they never would have before. Capitulating on the MacBook Pro and rolling back on the Touch Bar, opening up to more repairability, etc. etc.
I don’t think it is related to antitrust, but I do think it is related to the growing “right to repair” advocacy.
The reason I think that, is that Apple devices have always been repairable! By Apple. No one needed to “buy a new phone a year early because the battery died” if they were willing to hand their phone and $99 to Apple. I got the battery repaired in 2 different iPhones and it worked great (and was less expensive and wasteful than a whole new phone). I also got the screen repaired on one of those phones.
So look at what is new here. It’s not “an iPhone can be repaired.” What is new is that Apple will help me do the repair myself.
It’s really cheap when you add the risks. Apple replaced the battery in my 6s about three years back and it didn’t work afterwards. If this was an independent phone shop they’d give it back and make an excuse or try and sell you another hooky handset. Apple gave me a brand new untouched 6s handset instead.
Been there done that. Went in for a battery replacement, on pickup they said they could not fix it as is, and gave me a new phone. Probably was a 6/6S for me too.
> I don’t think it is related to antitrust, but I do think it is related to the growing “right to repair” advocacy.
That's my point. The customers shouted, and Apple actually listened this time. And this has been happening more lately. Why?
It's because an exec at "old" Apple would say: "sure, the customers want to be able to repair easily, but won't this hurt our revenue growth and my bonus next year? What if they stop upgrading hardware as often?"
An exec at "new" Apple is now incentivized to think: "well, even if they keep their hardware longer, it doesn't matter. Because the customer will still be in the ecosystem and we can get them to spend more via Apple Pay, iCloud, Apple TV+, News+, Advertising, App Store, etc. etc. and all these new services!"
Thats a good spin by the exec, but it’s more like “the people shouted, governments listened, began legislation, apple protected themselves by getting ahead of it”
I don’t really think that this was a direct reaction to customer demands but a forced hand with good spin.
Independent repair shops: Apple won't sell us parts so you have to pay them $69 for a repair we could do for $49 or you could do yourself for $20 because it's really $20 in parts and $29 in labor.
Apple: Okay, here's the part you wanted, you can have it for $59 or have us do it for $69. No need for any new laws.
Yep, this is entirely "we can give you the right to repair your device. You don't need that silly law." The law is about giving consumers and repair shops the right to repair, but Apple is pretending that "right to repair" is just about giving individuals the ability to repair their stuff.
It's especially safe for Apple because Joe Q Public is not going to even remotely think about DIY'ing this, and they get to charge a price that assures they don't lose money on it. The parts are cheap, the instructions are cheap. It's the labor that is what is expensive.
Apple parts are unnecessarily expensive though. And they've already started rolling out new firmware in place to reject parts from third party sources. This will essentially force you to buy parts from them at high prices - I remember when I bought a Mac Mini, Apple RAM and SSD was nearly double the price of its competitors for similar or better specs. (I naturally chose to buy the non-Apple parts. Ofcourse, they've already made sure that your loyalty to them doesn't go astray by soldering the RAM and SSDs now!). And they will continue to make even more hard to repair devices. Nothing will change on their part here - Apple will not give you the ability to customise your hardware or software from non-Apple sources, as that will give you the freedom to leave their ecosystem.
> "sure, the customers want to be able to repair easily, but won't this hurt our revenue growth and my bonus next year? What if they stop upgrading hardware as often?"
I honestly think it was closer to "the customers will screw up the repair, burn down their house and then for two weeks the headlines will be about iPhones torching poodles." Between right-to-repair laws and the proliferation of unlicensed repair shops, however, their hand was forced.
At what point was Apple operating like the first quote here? I've never seen them as a revenue growth chasing business. Sure they print cash, but that doesn't say anything about how they go about earning it. I would like to see some actual proof that Apple works/worked that way, rather than concluding the cause from the outcome.
This is the latest example and they have had previous lawsuits before about intentionally throttling devices which leads to people buying the latest devices.
Their earnings reports depend on volume of iPhone sales, so the incentive exists to push for more.
> I've never seen them as a revenue growth chasing business
Apple is always chasing revenue growth. They're notorious for it. Most businesses are..
> intentionally throttling devices which leads to people buying the latest devices.
As the battery ages, internal resistance goes up, leading to voltage sags under high CPU usage, which is called "brownout." By lowering the maximum CPU frequency when they detect voltage sagging, Apple prevents the device from crashing or randomly rebooting. The iPhone gets slower, but it keeps working, and replacing the battery restores it to full speed.
It allows you to use an iPhone without replacing the battery significantly longer than you would be able to otherwise. It was customer and environmentally friendly.
At the time I bought this computer - now eight years ago - one of the reasons I bought it was because the battery was a new type that was rated to have 80% or better capacity after 1500 cycles. It exceeded that, by the way, handily.
About the only laptop that could manage similar battery durability would be a Thinkpad, with its min/max battery charging controls.
Apple throttled devices to prevent devices shutting off unexpectedly when an aging battery couldn't sustain the power draw. And they later added a setting to led users control this.
If this was done out of nefarious reasons, don't you think doing nothing (devices switching off when the battery degrades) would have driven more sales of new devices?
Jeff Williams, quoted in the press release, joined Apple in 1998. Tim Cook joined about the same time. So old Apple and new Apple are actually the same people.
Also it’s not accurate to say these are things Apple would never do before. I have an Apple MacBook Pro from 2009 and it was quite intentionally designed for users to upgrade and repair. And that was when they were much more purely a hardware company, with little services revenue or goals.
I just don’t see the overarching narrative that you do.
> and it was quite intentionally designed for users to upgrade and repair
Only for the battery.
Failure rates on the memory and hard drive components were far higher than we have today. And it didn't benefit Apple at that time to be soldering them to the logic board since thinness wasn't a concern i.e. due to the DVD drive dictating size.
Out of 320 comments only one notice this PR quoted Jeff. And not anyone else.
I read this as Jeff is on the supporting side and pushed for it within Apple. ( Which is inline with Post Steve Jobs PR pattern ) And Despite both Jeff and Tim Cook joining at about the same time and both in operation. Jeff and Tim Cook has a very different personality. At least Jeff has a product mind set.
Of course it is related to "right to repair" advocacy. This is the basic function of a company listening to feedback and making changes. As long as it doesn't conflict with the core values of the company, there is no reason to not add this. I love how this empowers individuals to repair themselves, or develop the skills to do this for friends, family and eventually open a shop in their local community. Apple is using their powerful iPhone economy to create local commerce. Pretty cool.
Just did this with my 10, $74.95 for a new battery, spent ~2 hours down the street curating a newsletter at a bar I like. It was a similar experience when I needed the battery in my MacBook Air replaced but closer to 100.
No clearly this is Apple responding to Louis Rossmann complaining on Youtube and nothing more. Gigantic companies almost always make policy decisions based on influencers on Youtube.
Just to be clear, Louis Rossmann has raised millions of dollars in funding for his Right to Repair efforts and has hired lobbyists to push forward repair legislation in something like 15 states. He is not just some YouTube guy he is a hard working advocate with 1.7 million followers and a legal campaign with teeth.
And to the point Apple ( or representative of Apple ) has to one way or another threaten the state along with other measures. Louis has documented many of these tactics in his video. I think Apple stopped ( or changed their tone ) sometimes after all the bad press targeting them.
This has been in the works for years, it was just only available to apple certified repair people. Tbh, this seems more like a rebrand of their existing program to me.
>When an announcement like this is made, it means this program has been in the works for YEARS.
Doesn't mean its wasn't spurred by right-to-repair movement. Its not like Apple was blindsided by it.
> But now, when the revenue growth is coming from services instead of hardware, it doesn't pay to piss off customers by making them buy a new phone a year early because the battery died.
I don't agree. Apples model has always been to produce sleek hardware, with every new release causing lines in front of physical stores. Nothing has changed since then. Furthermore, the repair through Apple services was always somehwhat of a money grab, with occurrences of pricey repairs and not-needed services.
It be interesting to see what the pricing on these kits are. Since Apple has been rolling out hardware with id, that prevents it from working with non authorized hardware, it almost seems like its trying to put the 3d party repair shops out of business, and this is just filling the void while fulfilling right-to-repair requirements.
That was the most frustrating part about reading HN while working at Apple. Changing something like the touch-bar or keyboard are things that take enormous amount of redesign and engineering from both the product and manufacturing standpoint which take time.
Oh, dear, engineering people have to do engineering. The horrors.
The "broken" four years of Apple laptops (2016 to 2019) were quite a bit more frustrating to users.
- The keyboard was prone to failure at entering text - "You Had One Job!" This was an amazingly bad reversion to... I don't even know when, actually. People love and hate various styles of laptop keyboards, but it was exceedingly rare to hear that a keyboard fundamentally didn't function as a keyboard after some time of use. Ive's (I assume, given his known preferences) pursuit of Thin Uber Alles led to a fundamentally broken keyboard. Ok, not a huge issue if the keyboard is a cheap and easy fix, but...
- The keyboard was so integrated into the top case that the whole thing was unrepairable without literally replacing the whole top case, track pad, battery, etc. IIRC it was around $700 out of warranty, and while Apple kept extending out the keyboard repair issue window for a while, it doesn't change the fact that it was both disruptive for users and, apparently, quite expensive to Apple.
When I got a lightly used mid-2015 MBP in 2018 or so (oddly, the base model was still being made quite a while after it had been "replaced" in the consumer lineup), I figured it would be my last Apple laptop, because the replacements were clearly broken, and after three or four years of it, it was clear that the direction was set, and that you were typing on it wrong, or something of the sort.
I'm exceedingly glad to see that with the departure of Ive, some engineering sanity has returned to Apple, and the freshly redesigned M1 {Max,Pro} laptops seem to be a reversion to "That Which Works." A more standard keyboard actuation, and actual ports on the side. Woah...
Unfortunately, that said, I'm no longer using Apple products at the moment because the whole CSAM thing, on top of bowing to China regarding iCloud, and the questionable labor ethics involved have driven me off. I'm glad to see they're addressing repairability and such, but it was painful enough to rip myself free of that ecosystem (I'm currently using a Flip IV phone, a PineBook Pro, and some Kobos as my general use hardware - yes, they all have a lot of sharp edges) that I don't want to really dive back in unless I'm confident I won't have to exit it again in the near future. With the on-device scanning, in particular, "Well... we're delaying it... for a while..." is a very different claim from "Yeah, sorry, that was a bad idea and we're not going to do it." The second would be useful, the first implies that they're waiting until either a few more issues are resolved, or until people simply forget about the objections. Or it could imply that they're planning on the second, but just don't want to say it for some reason. I have no way of knowing.
It's been interesting, though. I so very badly want one of the M1 Max laptops, as it's literally everything I was looking for in a laptop, just... anymore, I'm too hesitant about Apple to actually buy one. And the alternatives for little ARM laptops all mostly suck... oh well. I didn't need to do high performance compute anyway.
I swear my Pinebook Pro has drawn more blood than any other computer device I've ever opened. You'd think I'd learn to be more careful after the third time the bottom shell sliced my finger open.
You can have working deep sleep, or audio that resumes after sleep. I've got a kernel patch that improves the state of that (the audio codec literally has no sleep/wake function in the 5.7/5.8 kernel), but I haven't applied it to the 5.8 kernel I run, so audio is... just broken.
Wifi works. Except when it doesn't. There's an issue with the firmware involving country codes and some 5Ghz frequencies, and I've not had the patience to track it down. Sometimes after sleep, wifi is just gone until a reboot.
The Kobos are fine, other than some random lag and reboots if you ask them to do too much. Large PDFs will choke an Aura badly.
The Flip IV... works, mostly, if you're not too picky, and don't care about things like seeing who all is in a group text. It's not unusable, but neither is it nice.
Etc.
The PBP has some legitimately sharp edges physically, though, too.
Because that's not how these systems work. Did the new keyboard allow for a flatter design to allow for more battery life?
Apple has always tried to improve computing. I've had MacBooks from the nineties and the keyboards on those are large and heavy. Is that where they should have stop with laptop design?
Did the new keyboard allow for a flatter design to allow for more battery life?
All it did was to increase Apple's repair cost because they had to support repairing these keyboards for many years.
> Apple has always tried to improve computing.
Then why go backwards with a bad keyboard, removing the Escape Key etc. Apple is not a scrappy startup where they don't have a team to test and give feedback.
> Anybody saying this is a response to recent anti-trust headlines doesn't understand how a company the size of Apple works. When an announcement like this is made, it means this program has been in the works for YEARS.
It's likely they have many pro-consumer and anti-consumer initiatives in the works at any given time. Public opinion can still impact whether those initiatives get accelerated or delayed.
I guess I don't see this as "right to repair". I think this attached to the importance of the enterprise sales channel. They can pilot this with consumers, but the value here is in allowing the fortune 500 to adopt apple devices and staff for same-day repairs. They just announced and MDM, and they have rolled out the ability for iOS apps to run on m1 macs. To me, this makes it look like apple is vying to become the standard app dev environment for new enterprise apps, and have that inertia drag their devices into businesses. These small changes they've announced all seem to be stacking in that direction.
edit to add:
Security focus and end-to-end control are what the Apple ecosystem is built on. If the results of the trial with Epic go poorly for them, they still have all these features that make their ecosystem a good choice for paranoid/security conscious enterprises. If they get enough of those on the platform, then they have lots of companies depending on that security to back them up when Apple highlights their walled garden approach as a feature.
Apple has always had a self-servicing program for medium-sized and up clients. They don't need this program at all for that and it's not how any Fortune 500 will be doing their servicing.
That's not new and the requirements for participation haven't changed. Minimums are 1,000 Apple devices in the org and 25 repairs per year minimum, only service equipment your organization owns, and a line of credit to pay. Next day shipping of parts (subject to availability).
--------
To the extent that this new program fills a gap, it's for small organizations that want to do in-house repairs for their stuff, or at least have the option of doing it (and doing it with legitimate parts).
>Apple has always had a self-servicing program for medium-sized and up clients. They don't need this program at all for that and it's not how any Fortune 500 will be doing their servicing.
This. I dont know how many times this needs to be repeated before we could stamp out that narrative Apple is doing it for Fortune 500.
> Anybody saying this is a response to recent anti-trust headlines doesn't understand how a company the size of Apple works. When an announcement like this is made, it means this program has been in the works for YEARS.
Apple knows it has been skirting the line and likely has many programs in place to deploy if and when the time is right.
> Anybody saying this is a response to recent anti-trust headlines doesn't understand how a company the size of Apple works. When an announcement like this is made, it means this program has been in the works for YEARS.
I know how companies of this size work. When they have regulatory/pr/legal risk, they can move really fast for their size. Don’t know if that’s the case here, but given it only covers subset of parts of few latest models, limited to USA initially, and will likely take a few years to properly expand, it could totally be rushed in timeline of under a year.
The legend going around, is that the iPhone's screen was changed from plastic to glass a week before the announcement (6 months before launch). Nowadays, things like the cameras get finalized 2-3 years before the phone comes out (according to John Gruber) because of how complex finding suppliers, etc. is, but obviously if they find big issues 6 months before release, they can adapt and make late changes. But that's hardware.
There's zero reason they would need years to come out with this self-repair announcement, when all it is right now, is a blog post, announcing something that'll come out "in 2022".
Apple is not known for good web services. The App Store being a fork of iTunes Store and the Mac App Store building on the same unstable foundation. Sure they are getting better and better, but still...
Apple will want to scale this from the web or from on-device apps. Previously we've seen that Apple is detecting each part by serial number, so even mixing genuine parts disable a lot of features [1]. So, now it becomes clear part of their reason: If they can detect all the genuine parts, they can ship for self repair and it will work for the intended customer and not for other devices. This reduces chances of cloning, theft and scams, while guaranteeing quality (and guaranteeing their revenue on replaced parts too).
IMO, yes, it would require years for them to announce this. There is all the checkout part, they would need to issue the right part with the correct serial number to the exact customer and charge taxes accordingly. All this logistics is centered on software Apple has a bad reputation at best, and very slow process of development from what is seems from the outside.
> "The legend going around, is that the iPhone's screen was changed from plastic to glass a week before the announcement"
It's not a legend. Apple even mentioned the switch to glass in a press release at the time [1]. The original prototype iPhone shown at the announcement event had a plastic screen, but the version that shipped 6 months later had glass:
A plastic screen would have been a complete disaster. Apparently none of you owned an iPod pre-iPhone days. The screens got scratched if you looked at them funny.
I once wanted to try using the backs of iPods as part of a keyless entry system. We all carried iPods anyway, and everyone's iPod had a different scratch pattern on back, so have a system where you hold your iPod back up to a camera and enter a PIN. The scratch pattern tells the system who is requesting entry. If they enter the PIN for that person let 'em in.
>according to John Gruber.... because of how complex finding suppliers
The same John Gruber claims AirPod $159 were sold at near cost. Which leads to a whole world of misinformation passed along as fact in all AirPod discussions.
He may get a few things right in terms of design and software. But seriously his creditability in terms of hardware and supply chain is practically zero.
And no, camera or lens dont get get finalized 2-3 years before the phone comes out.
But I agree it absolutely does not need years. And if anyone has been following Apple for a long period of time should know this PR means it wasn't prepared for YEARS. Not to mention they are basically opening up their repair programme from 3rd party to end users. The only thing that take time rather than a flip of a switch is user instruction and legal clearing.
It's also worth pointing out that they will be ramping up this program over an extended period of time. It's not like this is landing fully formed. This is an early announcement of something that is still having the details worked out.
Win-win-win for Apple with this move. New revenue stream of expensive parts. Those iphone repair shops scattered all over the country that are getting pissed at you - just made them your customers. Keeps people with broke phones in the ecosystem. Puts down calls for legislation about right to repair. Takes a shot at the third-party parts market. Preserves the ability to have the firmware reject 'non-genuine' parts.
Yeah, unfortunately you are spot on - this move is created to kill the growing criticism against its increasingly hard to repair devices, while also ensuring that they have a ready excuse to reject parts bought from third-party's and be forced to buy only costly parts from Apple. Except for the availability of exorbitantly priced "genuine" parts, nothing will really - they continue to design more and more hard to repair devices with more soldered parts, with no real ability to customise or upgrade the hardware or software from non-Apple sources.
Apple prepared self repair already a long time ago, just in case they would lose money because of legislation ( because it would hurt sales of it becomes law = a business risk)
Upcoming legislation in Europe and UK. On 17th of June it was filed in Congress and voila.
There it is.
Eg similar. Office on Mac/Android was the exact same thing. Released under the current CEO, but created under Ballmer.
it's incredible whether ulterior motives were present or not. devices aren't more secure if you literally repair them with official parts, the guides shouldn't be compiled by 3rd parties
> When an announcement like this is made, it means this program has been in the works for YEARS.
I don't think so. Repairability is already something they have to consider because their stores conduct repairs. They ship tools and replacement parts to stores and to thousands of Authorized Service Providers already. And they already make manuals, tutorial videos, and repair guides available.
They also provide all the tools and repair resources (including software) to large companies and institutions - which is why universities can repair students' MacBooks on campus, and why companies can have an internal IT help desk that can perform repairs.
Adapting this for self-service is just a question of sorting out the legalities around warranty and liability - but their terms and conditions are so broad that it couldn't have been too difficult. And it's not too time-consuming for them to film a new tutorial video for display, battery, and camera replacements aimed at DIYers - perhaps their existing videos are already sufficient for this.
This is absolutely in response to antitrust and environmental criticism.
It is called a spin? Or you could call that a lie.
If you count the programme started when they were opening up to 3rd party repair it is well over a year.
That is the same as Apple ( or specifically Tim Cook ) spoke on record, under oath, in court, that their 15% App Store Small Business Services discount idea started well before the trial.
And Apple has been caught many times doing this. From Qualcomm trial to IMG PowerVR Trial. Either lying by omission or spinning.
> Anybody saying this is a response to recent anti-trust headlines doesn't understand how a company the size of Apple works. When an announcement like this is made, it means this program has been in the works for YEARS.
They can perfectly build the program and keep it on hold/maintenance internally, and when the threat of legal action/bad brand image arrives, launch it.
I’m glad to see the most sensible response float to the top. It seems a lot of people having given any thought, or plain don’t understand, how complicated a program like this would be to implement at a company the size of apple. Just think about how complicated this might be from a supply chain perspective. How about a support perspective?
Absolutely - it's different doing this for a small business and doing it at 'Apple Scale'.
Setting up distribution for this alone via an already-established 3PL multiuser facility will take 6-8 months if you include all the contract negotiations (and do them for all regions simultaneously). That's of course assuming you can't squeeze it in your existing facility - and that you go down the 3PL route (if you are setting it up yourself and don't have space in an existing facility it will take longer).
And that's just distribution, it doesn't include all the work that has to go into 'consumerizing' all the parts (i.e. presumably they need to come with proper packaging, instructions, disclaimers etc).
The people claiming that this can be done (well) in a few weeks have clearly never worked in ops or supply chain development.
This is making the assumption a lot of consumer will be doing self repair. Basic Distribution are already done with current programme. Especially in US.
> presumably they need to come with proper packaging, instructions, disclaimers etc.
This will be the same as current Apple Authorized Service Provider. Except for a few parts which has MOQ.
>The people claiming that this can be done (well) in a few weeks
People are only claiming this isn't prepared in years. Not to mention it only begins launching in early 2022. It is basically building on top of what they announced in 2019, and later expanded or updated in 2020. The biggest obstacles for Apple is likely legal clearance.
> But Apple didn’t change its policy out of the goodness of its heart. The announcement follows months of growing pressure from repair activists and regulators — and its timing seems deliberate, considering a shareholder resolution environmental advocates filed with the company in September asking Apple to re-evaluate its stance on independent repair. Wednesday is a key deadline in the fight over the resolution, with advocates poised to bring the issue to the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve.
> ... Leahy declined to say whether the timing of the announcement was influenced by shareholder pressure." Activist shareholders believe that it was. “The timing is definitely no coincidence,” says Annalisa Tarizzo, an advocate with Green Century, the mutual fund company that filed the right-to-repair resolution with Apple in September. As a result of today’s announcement, Green Century is withdrawing its resolution, which asked Apple to “reverse its anti repair practices” and evaluate the benefits of making parts and tools more available to consumers.
> ... something Apple has long argued is too dangerous for individuals to do.
How can it be more repairability when the hardware itself is unrepairable by an average individual who could repair most other electronics?
This seems more like an attempt to shoot down 'parts whitelist' criticisms while telling 'You aren't technically capable to repair our devices' to anyone asking for more user repairable devices.
This entire program can be created in weeks. You vastly underestimate just how fast these companies can move when necessary.
They don't need to task thousands of people for this, just a small internal team. It's no different than a highly focused startup, except with the resources and connections of the parent company to ensure they don't fail.
And as far as this announcement goes, there's very little tangible changes. It's mostly saying that even more things will eventually be announced in the future.
Anybody saying this is a response to recent anti-trust headlines doesn't understand how a company the size of Apple works. When an announcement like this is made, it means this program has been in the works for YEARS.
My guess, this is all part of Apple's slow shift towards a recurring revenue services model, and a better integration of customer & business incentives.
It used to be, the worst thing that could happen to Apple was the customer stops upgrading their phone.
But now, when the revenue growth is coming from services instead of hardware, it doesn't pay to piss off customers by making them buy a new phone a year early because the battery died.
The worst thing that can happen now under this new business model is the customer leaves the ecosystem or buys less services because they aren't happy with the hardware.
Hence why you're seeing Apple do things they never would have before. Capitulating on the MacBook Pro and rolling back on the Touch Bar, opening up to more repairability, etc. etc.
reply