Want to repair your own iPhone 12/13 (and soon M1 Mac) with official parts? Apple will now sell them to you complete with instructions and tools

[Blademaster91]

This seems too good to be true, could be apple knowing there is right to repair legislation coming, so they offer some parts before they're forced to, and by offering parts they get some good news out of it. This isn't actual right to repair if you can only get parts from the original manufacturer, apple can stop selling parts whenever they want and they'll still sue anyone else that tries to sell parts. And parts are probably expensive, I don't see how anyone is going to replace their own camera and screen when those are serialized to the device.

[WhitetailAni]

2 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I don't see how anyone is going to replace their own camera and screen when those are serialized to the device.

Apple clearly has a way to reserialize them, perhaps they'll offer a tool that will do it when the phone is placed in Recovery Mode?

That might backfire though as I'm sure people will rework it and make one that can reserialize home buttons and screens and Face ID cameras for older phones if they do that.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

This isn't actual right to repair if you can only get parts from the original manufacturer

Since when?
RIght to repair is just having the option to repair it

THat has nothing to do with where the parts come from.

If anything, this is closer to truely having right to repair because it is the OEM selling the parts, not some stolen shit that you got from a shady website that takes a half hour to load and only accepted payments in a even 50-50 split of btc and eth

[Lightwreather]

"WHO IS THIS IMPOSTER, AND WHAT have they done to the Real Apple"

/s

[RejZoR]

2 hours ago, SignatureSigner said:

They will still hold on to their 30% app store cut like the worlds ending,

W for right to repair tho

People still raging about this and entirely and absolutely ignoring that GooglePlay also has identical cut? Yeah, but Android has alternate stores and whatnot. And they are all shit filled with literal malware and spyware. But hey, you have them there and Google joyfully uses it as "hey we're open". Yet in reality, if you're not on GooglePlay you pretty much don't really exist. Sideloading is absurdly overhyped and overexaggerated feature like 9 out of 10 people use it. Reality is, probably not even 1 in 100 does.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

18 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

People still raging about this and entirely and absolutely ignoring that GooglePlay also has identical cut? Yeah, but Android has alternate stores and whatnot. And they are all shit filled with literal malware and spyware. But hey, you have them there and Google joyfully uses it as "hey we're open". Yet in reality, if you're not on GooglePlay you pretty much don't really exist. Sideloading is absurdly overhyped and overexaggerated feature like 9 out of 10 people use it. Reality is, probably not even 1 in 100 does.

But its an option

thats the reason the iOS store sucks, why people say its a monopoly. 

Fortnite was distributed as a APK for a while on android, before it went google play, plenty of people played it on android

The google play store may have a efective monopoly, but its not technically a true monopoly

[Blademaster91]

49 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Apple clearly has a way to reserialize them, perhaps they'll offer a tool that will do it when the phone is placed in Recovery Mode?

That might backfire though as I'm sure people will rework it and make one that can reserialize home buttons and screens and Face ID cameras for older phones if they do that.

I doubt Apple would let just anyone have their tool that serializes parts to the device, that would completely open up repair, apple offering parts just seems like they want to get some good publicity while they still require anyone that repairs apple device to be in the approved repair program.

2 hours ago, James Evens said:

At the end of the day this might just be another attempt to stop right to repair legislation to prevent "worse".

Anyway this looks to me like Trojan horse as Apple tries to make it okay that they are the only one authorizing/allowing repairs by limiting access to those DRM tools. That's not what right to repair is about. Repair isn't when the manufacturing says this time you are allowed perform exactly this repair if you buy from us the part and ship the defective back to us as otherwise you won't get access to the DRM.

Kind of like the apple independent repair program, it sounds good on a news headline, but it really isn't independent at all as it still requires a repair service to be an apple authorized repair service, so they still have to follow apple's rules for parts and repair, or they can no longer repair apple hardware.

29 minutes ago, James Evens said:

No. The issue is that the manufacturer has full control over it. It is the single provider of parts and decide if and how you can do it.

For example you have a donor iPhone: Can you transplant the screen onto your device? No. Because apple won't provide the tool/DRM for this as you didn't bought the part from them.

 

In the car world all of this (was) mostly sorted out. You had the option to buy from the manufacturer, OEM parts or third party parts with the option of regardless where you bought the part to pay for access to original repair guidelines. That's how it should be done.

Exactly,  repairing a phone shouldn't be any different than replacing a car part, ie. a battery or headlight, I can either buy a third party from whatever store, or go directly to the manufacturer for an original brand part and pay a lot more.

[WkdPaul]

it's an option, and a step in the right direction, yes, but it's not what the right to repair movement is asking.

 

If you can do board level repairs, you still won't be able to buy some chips because Apple forbids the chip manufacturer to sell it publicly, even though it could be a plain charging chip for exemple, or change a part (daughterboard, camera, screen, etc...) from another (broken or not) device.

 

If I want to change a chip on a board, why can't I do it ? The right to repair movement isn't asking Apple to freely sell mainboards or daughterboards, it's asking that they (companies like Apple, Samsung, Nintendo, etc...) stops forcing chip manufacturers to make "custom chips that can't be sold publicly" ... it used to be possible to get those chips from places like DigiKey.

[StDragon]

2 hours ago, WkdPaul said:

stops forcing chip manufacturers to make "custom chips that can't be sold publicly" ... it used to be possible to get those chips from places like DigiKey.

Playing devil's advocate - While chips serve different functions, what is the criteria by which Apple should and shouldn't make them freely available in the supply chain? A controller chip seems obvious until it's custom for whatever reason. So if obtaining custom chips is the issue, why should Apple also provide a spare M1 chip too? On the flip-side, why are chips that don't need to be custom made being made in the first place?

[RejZoR]

2 hours ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

But its an option

thats the reason the iOS store sucks, why people say its a monopoly. 

Fortnite was distributed as a APK for a while on android, before it went google play, plenty of people played it on android

The google play store may have a efective monopoly, but its not technically a true monopoly

Yeah, so awesome to have unlimited amount of shit options. Yay! Despite of all shit around Apple's shenanigans, I'd rather use iOS than ever again had to deal with garbage ass Android updating of lazy ass vendors who just want to sell you new phone because they can't be bothered to update shit they already released. And my god with the idiotic "seeding". Samsung is just releasing OneUI 4 to its users. And it'll take till summer 2022 for everyone to get the thing on eligible devices. Apple never does this shit. When iOS drops, it dropps for entire world on day 1. Problems or no problems, no one has to wait for frigging half a year to get it. Not even iPhone SE users. I can throw all the other issues out the windows just for this alone.

 

Also neither is App Store a monopoly. You do know you actually don't have to buy an iPhone? Shocker, I know.

[Salv8 (sam)]

*insert joke about being in an alternate universe*

[Helpful Tech Witch]

2 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Yeah, so awesome to have unlimited amount of shit options. Yay! Despite of all shit around Apple's shenanigans, I'd rather use iOS than ever again had to deal with garbage ass Android updating of lazy ass vendors who just want to sell you new phone because they can't be bothered to update shit they already released. And my god with the idiotic "seeding". Samsung is just releasing OneUI 4 to its users. And it'll take till summer 2022 for everyone to get the thing on eligible devices. Apple never does this shit. When iOS drops, it dropps for entire world on day 1. Problems or no problems, no one has to wait for frigging half a year to get it. Not even iPhone SE users. I can throw all the other issues out the windows just for this alone.

 

Also neither is App Store a monopoly. You do know you actually don't have to buy an iPhone? Shocker, I know.

Its not tha android vendors fault that they cant update. Qualcomm and other chip makers have a history of just not making drivers after 2 years. 
Im sure Samgsung would rather have the update out, haveing them so segmented would be an issue for their brand image.

 

and i dont think you get what I was going at there.

You dont have to buy a iPhone, thats true, but its more than enough to be considered a monopoly.

The 2001 microsoft monopoly case had a pretty similar thing. as I recall, microsoft was ordered to split, but that was overturned and they got some other punishment.

Apple has more power over their devices. You didnt have to use windows, but if you did you were bassically being forced to use IE. WIth a iphone, you dont have to use one, but if you do you actually have to use the appstore

[WkdPaul]

14 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Playing devil's advocate - While chips serve different functions, what is the criteria by which Apple should and shouldn't make them freely available in the supply chain? A controller chip seems obvious until it's custom for whatever reason. So if obtaining custom chips is the issue, why should Apple also provide a spare M1 chip too? On the flip-side, why are chips that don't need to be custom made being made in the first place?

All good points that I don't have the answer to.

 

From what I understand, this is only an issue with specific manufacturers. And that's why I only mentioned the charging chips ; it kinda makes sense because we have charging circuit in all the devices we have, and I don't get it why they need to stop chip manufacturers to sell $10 chips so that, down the line, they can sell a $1000 mainboard instead.

 

Board level repair isn't widespread in the general population, so I think that's why companies don't seem too worried about it, but IMO that's not a great look. Even if I personally can't do it, I think someone that can repair a board should be able to get the chips needed directly from the chip manufacturer.

[AnonymousGuy]

4 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

Its not tha android vendors fault that they cant update. Qualcomm and other chip makers have a history of just not making drivers after 2 years. 
Im sure Samgsung would rather have the update out, haveing them so segmented would be an issue for their brand image.

This is one of the things that blows with Android.  Everyone wants to blame someone else.  Google blames handset manufacturers who blame carriers and the end result is still your 1 year old phone being obsolete with no more updates.  Spoiler alert: even google's own devices don't get more than 1 update so the whole "woe is me the middlemen are the problem" is a red herring.  Ultimately it comes down to Google only caring about how many users they can latch on to for data mining and the ownership experience is secondary so long as people aren't jumping to someone else like Apple.

[Dracarris]

4 hours ago, James Evens said:

In the car world all of this (was) mostly sorted out. You had the option to buy from the manufacturer, OEM parts or third party parts with the option of regardless where you bought the part to pay for access to original repair guidelines. That's how it should be done.

Any Control Unit (aka any Electronics) in a car needs to be activated and linked to the car. Which can only be done by logging into a tool provided on a server by the original car manufacturer. To which only authorized shops have access to.

[Arika]

Wow. First time I think I've ever seen Apple running scared from potential legislation. There is no way in hell they did this out of the goodness of their hearts.

[hishnash]

8 hours ago, tkitch said:

Now, will they price the parts reasonably?  Or will they price them at a level that makes self-repair stupid, and replacement better?  

I would expect if you buy all the parts to build a phone/Mac yourself it will cost 2x to 3x buying it personally. What will however realymatter for cost is how broken down the parts are? 

eg when you replace the screen do you need to buy the entire screen assembly you can you purchase just the screen and re-use the existing backlight? or when you replace the tackbpad does apple sell that as a single part or do you need to buy the entire top case? That is what will really factor into if an repair is economic. 

 

5 hours ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

I can't wait to see Louis Rossman's opinion on this, however.

 

Given this is for consumers I expect it is part level not `board level` so Appel is unlikely to offer repair parts that require soldering so this is not going to be great for is Mac repair were he makes most of his money on doing the complex repairs that other repair shops can't or fail at.

The issue with board level components is apple likely currently has volume purchase orders with their suppliers that explicitly forbid apple from selling those parts on `as is` the suppliers do not want apple to udder-cut (after all apple will be getting a much better parts price than others buying smaller volumes).  So for component level parts apple would need to get new contracts with their suppliers.

For schematics (much more important for board level repairs) they would need to audit them for licensed IP (intel likely consider a schematic that indicates the voltages and controle pins of their TB controller to be their IP) and either remove this third party IP or get permission from the owner before they publish.  Apple absolutely can't just publish their current schematics as these will be full of IP and other data provided to apple by their supplies that is governed by NDA agreements.  

Some parts I expect apple will never be able to sell, such as intel mobile chips, since the supplier really does not want to own the OEM relationship and thus strictly forbids re-sale of these parts outside of final products. 

 

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

Its not tha android vendors fault that they cant update. Qualcomm and other chip makers have a history of just not making drivers after 2 years. 

The reason they don't make drivers is they are not paid to make them. They would absolute make them if a vendor offered up the needed money. Its not free for apple to support older hardware either they will have 100s of teams working on writing drivers and tuning the new os for the older hardware to ensure it runs.  

Things like the high 30% cut o the App Store are a very good way of justifying this cost as right after users upgrade they tend to also go on a buying spree in the App Store of new apps that support new software features of the os!  Apple can turn around to its stare holders and say supporting older devices make them money due to this leading to users buying more apps, users are much more willing to spend $30 on apps every year than they are to spend $10 on an os update! 

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, James Evens said:

No. The issue is that the manufacturer has full control over it. It is the single provider of parts and decide if and how you can do it.

That's still not right to repair. A manufacturer of a product or device may well, and should be expected, be the only source of parts for repair. The issue around right to repair is specifically not being allow to get parts and not being allowed to use any repairer, see John Deere.

 

Right to repair is about the rights as the consumer or owner to be allowed and be able to get their product fixed, not a right to IP. If your product has a part designed by the company, made by the company, then you have no right to demand the design schematics be handed over to anyone else to manufacture that part.

 

This story is literally Apple allowing anyone to buy parts and repair their devices, it's the most direct Right to Repair thing possible, without asking for more with no justification because something is never enough.

[hishnash]

4 hours ago, WkdPaul said:

If you can do board level repairs, you still won't be able to buy some chips because Apple forbids the chip manufacturer to sell it publicly.

Its not a matter of Appel forbidding a manufacturer from selling a part its that if you as a manufacturer make a part bespoke then you can't just sell it since the person you made the part is not just paying for each part but also fro the R&D and tooling. Its like a designer designing you a custom house and building it then going onto the market with the designe you paid for and building houses for other people. Or like asking TSMC to just sell some AMD chips, they have the designs, masks etc they should just sell them, its AMD being evil not letting TSMC just sell these chips on the side?

[HenrySalayne]

5 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

I don't see how anyone is going to replace their own camera and screen when those are serialized to the device.

Apple could send you spare parts serialized to your device ID. And this might be their plan all along: dry out 3rd party replacement parts. If there is still a multi-million dollar market which is not already absorbed into the Apple universe, they will find a way to do it.

[AnonymousGuy]

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That's still not right to repair. A manufacturer of a product or device may well, and should be expected, be the only source of parts for repair. The issue around right to repair is specifically not being allow to get parts and not being allowed to use any repairer, see John Deere.

Also DRM / soft locking.   Think: inkjet printer not working unless you buy their ink that has a little rfid tag in it.  Or what Apple is doing where if a speaker gets replaced with an aftermarket one you get a serial number mismatch prompt on the phone.  (Although I don't think Apple is intentionally being evil here...a lot of aftermarket parts are garbage and it makes a bad user experience when you get a "repair" that sucks and is worse than OEM).  So what Apple is doing that is great is eliminating this by just offering the OEM parts directly.

 

John Deere are assholes that block you at every step possible. No schematics, no diagnostic tools which are required to reset things, no parts sold directly to you, and DRM if you want to swap in used parts.

[hishnash]

1 minute ago, HenrySalayne said:

Apple could send you spare parts serialized to your device ID.

For sure this is what they plan on doing, or the tool you will use to do the pairing will require you to authenticate agist the purchase (this is likely an exiting of the Mac app they already ship to flash firmware). Appel will not want these parts just re-sold and in the case of some parts this is likely also to ensure they stay in compliance with the contract they have with their suppliers. (intel does not let you just re-sell laptop cpus legaly) 

[hishnash]

1 minute ago, AnonymousGuy said:

So what Apple is doing that is great is eliminating this by just offering the OEM parts directly.

Things like screws and speakers in fact its not just the serial number, the reason for these alert are really that the have not been calibrated, both the screen and speakers on Appel devices will be calibrated in the factory and that calibration info needs to be written to the firmware. Hopefully  with these parts apple provide the calibration info in such a way that you can flash that info to your device.

[AnonymousGuy]

3 minutes ago, hishnash said:

Things like screws and speakers in fact its not just the serial number, the reason for these alert are really that the have not been calibrated, both the screen and speakers on Appel devices will be calibrated in the factory and that calibration info needs to be written to the firmware. Hopefully  with these parts apple provide the calibration info in such a way that you can flash that info to your device.

Yeah we'll have to see how they go about on the execution.  They could price these things so high that it might as well be "buy a new device" or they won't sell you the serialized parts or whatever.  Or they only offer complete assemblies that are very expensive (like trying to sell the whole motherboard+cpu thing).  I understand there may be technical reasons for these matching-part-prompts but at the same time it's a bit asshole-ish to not offer a "dismiss forever" option for people who don't care if the display is slightly miscalibrated or whatever.