this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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Key Points:

  • Apple opposed a right-to-repair bill in Oregon, despite previously supporting a weaker one in California.
  • The key difference is Oregon's restriction on "parts pairing," which locks repairs to Apple or authorized shops.
  • Apple argues this protects security and privacy, but critics say it creates a repair monopoly and e-waste.
  • Apple claims their system eases repair and maintain data security, while Google doesn't have such a requirement
  • Apple refused suggestions to revise the bill
  • Cybersecurity experts argue parts pairing is unnecessary for security and hinders sustainable repair.
all 49 comments
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[–] bappity@lemmy.world 131 points 1 year ago

no suprise here. it's apple. they made a $3500 device that has been bricking itself and charging people $100 to fix it because it's completely proprietary

[–] Cheems@lemmy.world 76 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Obviously people should be able to repair their own devices.

Pumps millions into actively preventing that exact thing

[–] SitD@feddit.de 36 points 1 year ago

Pumps more millions into a cringe advertising campaign with some mother earth bullshit or so. Yeah sure we love her but let's force more ewaste down her throat. 😂

[–] the_q@lemmy.world 64 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's crazy that Apple is lauded as having amazing designers and engineers, but they can't make easily repairable devices. It's almost like that's the point...

[–] maniclucky@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ooooh. I have a story for this.

I was a student at Purdue and one of the freshmen "engineering hype" lectures had people from industry come say why they're so cool, etc. Now, this was specifically an electrical and computer engineering course, not the whole engineering school. These are the people who tore apart their various electronics for fun and made cool stuff using parts from RadioShack (RIP).

Apple came to one. First red flag: she started with "don't tell anyone we were here". Weird, but whatever. She proceeded with her spiel and, after however long, got to the Q&A bit. Someone raised their hand and asked this: "why does Apple solder RAM into their devices". This woman said, and I quote, "It is the position of Apple that the consumer has no right to change the product after it has been sold". With a straight fucking face. Jaws dropped. There was a solid 10 seconds of silence while all these nerds (I include myself here) processed such a blatant anti-consumer (and anti-us if we're being honest) statement. This was in 2010 (+/- 1 year).

She finished up and left a few minutes later. No doubt some of my classmates went on to work for them, but it set my passionate hatred for Apple in stone right there. Don't care how nice their devices are, even if my husband uses his apple devices all the time (the walled garden works well for his needs), I will never purchase an Apple product for myself.

[–] LifeInOregon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Allero@lemmy.today 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks for the fact check!

[–] maniclucky@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Guy must have been talking about that then. This was one of my rare clear memories. I had no idea about it at the time till that guy asked.

[–] highfiveconnoisseur@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't vs won't. I have no doubt that they could do it, but apple didn't get to be one of the most powerful companies in the world by doing the thing that is cheaper for the user.

Oddly, these hard to repair things in apples case are actually cheaper because of it, and probably in many cases makes them more durable due to less failure points.

The problems only come up if/when something does fail.

Having to replace a whole board instead of just the ram isn't cheaper, but that board per unit is cheaper.

[–] test113@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

They have, but they are not in charge. Apple's goal is to make money; everything else comes as an afterthought.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Apple just wants to sell you more shit. If they'd just admit it, I'd at least respect their honesty. As it is they're just flip flopping.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Apple just wants to sell you more shit.

Bingo. I just set up a dual monitor and dock setup for my laptop in our home office. It dawned on me that my wife could get some use out of it, so I plugged it in. Come to find out, her MacBook Pro only supports a single external monitor. To do two external monitors, she'd have to upgrade to an entirely different and obviously more expensive MacBook. Dafuq? My almost 15 year old Sony laptop can do that ffs. Fucking boners.

I know there are software hacks I can do to enable the functionality, but that's asinine for a $1700 laptop. Guaranteed if I dual booted Linux on it the problem would magically disappear.

[–] EddyBot@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Guaranteed if I dual booted Linux on it the problem would magically disappear.

unfortunately not since its a hardware limitation
probably a cruft from the iPhone/iPad era since the first ARM desktop chips from Apple are basically beefed up phone chips which don't need more than one external monitor

anyway it is pretty stupid to ship a laptop with that limitation in this century

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

While I haven't tried, there are software circumventions on osx that bypass that limitation, so I can all but guarantee it would likely be a non-issue on any given Linux distro

[–] ozymandias117@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

They haven’t yet supported right to repair for their own devices, so there’s very little flip flopping

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 41 points 1 year ago

apple's "support" was basically malicious compliance.

The only way to get new parts involved sending in the damaged ones, which still screws over any third party business because they can't have spare parts on hand for fast repairs. And the pricing basically meant you were saving like ten bucks in exchange for potentially fucking up and destroying your hardware. As opposed to using the repair program at the apple store.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

They hoped you'd forget about all that .

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If parts pairing is nessesary, then just publish the tool used for pairing?

[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago

-Apple's official statement.

[–] Bonehead@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's a security risk that would allow dangerous 3rd party hardware to be paired with perfect Apple products.

/s...if it's really necessary.

[–] Aatube@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose?

[–] tabular@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

"safety, security, safety, security"

No, you mean "money, money for us".

[–] TheAlbacor@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course they want you to use their shops. That way they can charge whatever price they want.

It's the same reason McDonald's ice cream machines are always down.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee -3 points 1 year ago

Meh, the ice cream machine is a different thing. I haven't figured out fully how it benefits McD's, I suspect there's little profit margin on ice cream, but having the machine at all still brings (hopeful) people in who buy something else. A bait-and-switch.

McD's uses the same machine as many other places, but they have the temp variance much tighter, so much tighter that after the daily cleaning cycle, it takes hours to get back to temp.

Then (and this is probably what you're referring to), if the machine has a code, the franchise is required by contract to use the repair service that comes with the machine lease.

There's an indedependent dev who wrote a code reader/reset tool for the machines, and McD's isn't happy about it.

I'm not clear how doing the maintenence this way benefits McD's, unless they own the servicing company, and it doesn't appear that they do.

In the end, it means McD's will often not actually have ice cream available. But these are franchises, so it would hurt the franchise most directly. Seems there'd be a potential legal issue here, if it could be proven.

[–] Oha@lemmy.ohaa.xyz 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] themurphy@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Fortunately, they are forced to do it in EU.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Will this fix the HP printer problem?

[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Make parts pairing a free procedure by law with minimum required process and anyone can request it. Now Apple gets to keep their “security” bs argument and repairs can be done by anyone and paired by Apple for free.

[–] ironsoap@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago

Anyone have the unwalled content?

[–] Infinity187@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Sounds like the GQP and the latest bill.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Apple is a hardware company. They get the biggest bang from people buying their hardware. They aren't going to make this easy cause it quite literally means giving the shareholders less profit, which is illegal in the US.

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They aren’t going to make this easy cause it quite literally means giving the shareholders less profit, which is illegal in the US.

Making less profit than previous periods of time or even operating at a loss is not illegal in the US. Many companies have periods where they lose money or sacrifice short term profits for long term growth.

Investors with enough control might boot the leadership out, but they can also do that for whatever reason including unrealistic expectations.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hell, some of the highest valued tech companies right now have never turned a profit in their entire existence.

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Suckling the teat of VC firms and investors works really well until the money dries up. After that, enshittification. Lots and lots of enshittification.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

FFS sake, our CEO told the Board, for a couple of years, "We're gonna lose money to invest in $X, $Y and $Z." They applauded him. Out loud. Literal clapping.

(We accidently made profits for those years. Oops. But that's beside the point.)

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

giving the shareholders less profit, which is illegal in the US

Cite me chapter and verse. Point to the illegality that hurt you.

https://uscode.house.gov/

This idea is a childish notion of how corporations work. And it's a lie. I'm not saying there's nuance here, I'm saying it's a LIE. But bullshit scores internet points!

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits