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Ask HN: What happened to Apple's self service repair program?

 2 years ago
source link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31014998
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Ask HN: What happened to Apple's self service repair program?

Ask HN: What happened to Apple's self service repair program? 54 points by adtac 3 hours ago | hide | past | favorite | 29 comments https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-se...

This was announced in November 2021, but there hasn't been any development since. The cynic in me thinks this was just a PR move to quell EU right to repair regulations, but I really hope that's not the case.

I assume they're still slowly adding repair frameworks into software, for instance. CoreRepairKit was added into macOS, and we're starting to see more things (like the 'request parts' function for Apple Watches in the Apple Support app).

Logistics likely takes time for all of this as well as the legal side of things. It's not as simple as "poof, self repair!" as much as Samsung and Google are making it seem with iFixit.

[1] https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1484155025266180097

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Question, what’s CoreRepairKit? Googling only found me a symbols list on GitHub.
The Apple blogpost says "will be available early next year in the US and expand to additional countries throughout 2022.", as it's still early in the year it's probably a bit early to see it as a pure PR move.

https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/08/what-happened-to-apples-new-s...

Apple is probably waiting for the EU laws which would actually force them to do this. Until then this would be on the backburner
Before they get this program for the 'old and busted' way of owning technology they need to get their offering of the 'new and useful' way of owning technology up and running.(https://www.wired.com/story/apple-iphone-subscription-roundu...) This way they can farm the repair work out to their certified network and keep a handle on parts distribution to the 3rd party repair niches.

I am of the mind that self repair on a leased device will void agreements.

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Everything As A Service is bad for society
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Like Cooking As A Service aka restaurants?
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You've got the paradigm backwards. Cooking is a service. The closest thing to "as a service" would be your microwave requiring a subscription to cook some ramen in your own home. It's blatantly possible to be done without the subscription, but is added as a way to capture more revenue.
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They didn't say they want Nothing as a Service.

Some things are certainly great as a service, but it's bad for everything to go in that direction. I don't want an oxygen subscription.

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> don't want an oxygen subscription

And that's fine! As long as you stay within the bounds of the free plan, you can have ad-supported oxygen! Terms & Conditions apply.

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Remember, you can always switch to an oxygen supplier of your choice. Atmosphere corp thanks you for your continued appreciation of its atmospheric oxygen technology.
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NB: Change fees apply. There may be a transition period of 1-3 business days before your new oxygen supplier begins service. Atmosphere Corp, subsidiaries, and related companies are not responsible for lack of oxygen capacity planning. Early termination fees apply.
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Interestingly enough, in the olde days in the UK, you'd have boarding houses instead of apartments or condominiums, and they would often be a larger house where the householder would cook meals for the boarders.

This is probably substantially more efficient than each dwelling unit having its own kitchen, but unlikely to be desired by many these days.

College-life is often similar.

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Yes if you weren't allowed to cook your own food because grocery stores also owned restaurants and closed all their grocery stores.
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If restaurants lobbied Congress to outlaw grocery stores, as Tim Cook is attempting to do at this very moment [1], then yes, it would be bad for society to allow them to succeed.

1: https://nypost.com/2022/04/13/apples-tim-cook-claims-anti-bi...

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If it was the only means to acquire food, yes absolutely that would be bad

of course you know that is not what I was talking about, the "you will own nothing and like it" crowd which I assume you are a part of given your response never wants to debate the actual problems with that position instead they take hyperbolic positions designed to deflect

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We went wrong with Dormitory as a Service aka hotels.
I must be dreaming, but could swear back in the day DHL would pick up your Apple product, fix it, and deliver it back to you.
A corporation's fiduciary duty is to its shareholders, not to its customers, just in case anyone's forgetten how investment capitalism works:

https://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/47872-cook-blames-users...

The current debate is thus over whether or not customer disgust with their declining ability to repair and upgrade their devices, and resultant lost sales, will do more harm to shareholder profits than lost sales due to people extending the lifetime of their devices by easily replacing batteries etc.

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"Fiduciary Duty Pile-On Thread" is always a good square to score in HN Bingo. Now I just need a guidelines reminder to complete this row...
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Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness is always an option:

> "There had been a lot of such rot let loose in print and talk just about that time, and the excellent woman, living right in the rush of all that humbug, got carried off her feet. She talked about 'weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways', till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit."

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> A corporation's fiduciary duty is to its shareholders, not to its customers

As far as I know, corporations don't have fiduciary duties. Corporate officers, directors, and employees who act on behalf of the corporation, have fiduciary duties.

And those duties (in the US, as far as I understand it) amount to putting the company's interests above their own and making responsible, informed decisions. That doesn't necessarily mean putting the shareholders before the customers. Its a judgement left to the people acting on behalf of the corporation - as long as they can show that their decisions are reasonable and not made out of self-interest.

Edit to add: This is also the basis for Corporate [Social | Environmental] Responsibility. People with fiduciary duties can reasonably decide that it is in the interest of a corporation for it to behave in certain ways within some wider context, even when that behaviour is not directly profit- or advantage-seeking.

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This is obvious nonsense. If the ‘fiduciary duty’ were as strong as modern urban legend suggests, it would imply that all companies need to abandon their customary businesses and do the most profitable thing at all times.

Lemon prices down this week? Quick! Stop manufacturing spoons! Buy lemon farms!

That’s obviously not true in the short or the long terms.

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Yet, Costco still sells $1.50 hotdogs and drinks. Just because you have a duty to shareholders doesn't mean you have to run your business into the ground seeking quarter over quarter profits.
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They don't do this as charity, though: they do this because customer disgust with being nickle and dimed over a hotdog, and thereby the resultant lost sales from their actual warehouse, will do more harm to shareholder profits than they would gain back on selling more expensive hot dogs (and maybe, just maybe, the hotdogs were always a loss leader anyway, to make the trip to Costco to buy hundreds of dollars of groceries more enjoyable to begin with).
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They also change things, I notice they don't have the polish sausage anymore, the dog buns are different, etc.
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Hotdogs and drinks are probably a loss leader for Costco. What Apple product would you suggest they sell below cost as an enticement to people to make other Apple purchases?
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Most of the Apple subscription services (Music, iCloud, etc) would be a perfect choice there.

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