Super Cali optimistic right-to-repair's negotious, even though Apple thought it was something quite atrocious

Re: "PLEASE can these headlines actually scan?"

Don't you also have to say "Apple" in one syllable?

I hear tcmonkey's comment about abandoning El Reg, but feel that leaving without fighting for something you love, or at least posting a comment, would be foolish! And in all honesty I can cope with a bit of brain-manglement for the sake of the rest of my fave IT red-top news website content.

Re: Next on the list

@ Greg 38

I recommend you Google the John Deere DRM fiasco. By design John Deere tractors would refuse to start unless their parts were fitted by their field technicians, at $150 call out fee... not useful if the dealership is 40 miles away and you need to get the harvest in. So the farmers would get hold of pirated JD software that had been cracked by Ukrainians so that their local diesel workshop could fix their tractor. This was legal for the farmers to do as long as they modifications didn't exceed emissions controls. John Deere then started requiring farmers to sign a contract before taking delivery of a tractor so that they could sue farmers for breach of contract if they used the cracked software.

Re: Next on the list

This will only happen if we can ever get all those corporate cronies out of office.

Re: Next on the list

Yup, and I have a set of factory manuals for my two cars. Makes fixing them a lot easier, even if most of the repairs are intuitive and I really only need the manuals for torque values and bolt tightening patterns.

> you should choose manufacturers who support this

Uh huh. And where is that an actual option? Where can one buy these unicorns?

It's hard enough finding a phone with a simple god damned headphone jack on it these days.

When was the last time you owned a phone with a replaceable battery? Let alone one that used a battery with an industry std.form factor, capacity, and voltage rating?

For me, it's been 15 years since I've had a phone with a replaceable battery. And I don't think I've ever had one that used a std. form factor that wasn't unique to the model or brand of the phone. And the luxury of having more than one vendor to source said standardized battery from? Forget it.

We're way overdue to correct for this throwaway crap.

We are at a problem with the "free market" wherein the lack of regulation has lead to very few manufacturers. The smaller manufacturers have been bought or gone broke. Combine that with the successful marketing of the extremely slim phone and what you get is fewer manufacturers which mean fewer choices in parts used to build phones and it becomes more difficult to differentiate ones style of phone. I'm still sad that Blackberry, Palm OS, Sailfish, Web OS, MeeGo, Firefox OS and doubtlessly others have either gone or not been more successful.

For instance, I'd love to be able to buy a new phone about the size of an iPhone 4 with a side slide keyboard and I'll bet I'm not the only one but I can't find one any where. I also couldn't care less about apps. I'd be happy with what amounts to a feature phone as I most just use my phone for texting and that thing one does when you punch in some numbers and then talk to a person not sitting near you. I do that fairly often. What's that called again? I wonder, can get that big assed clam shell phone in NA?

With this said, it is indeed woeful that so much technology ends up either in landfill or "recycled". I do wish that people cared more.

Whether they like it or not, they'll have to care now that China is now refusing to accept all types of recyclable waste. The other nations in that market (or potentially so), even combined, can manage to match China's capacity. This is going to get interesting.

Re: Why should apple care?

" ... have I repaired the car? ... "

Yes you have. The car wouldn't start. You replace the defective starter,. You FIXED the car.

You replace parts in a defective starter. You FIXED the starter.

" ... by replacing the whole card ... "

The graphics on your COMPUTER stop working. You replace the graphics card. You have FIXED your computer.

Using Apple as an example. You can't repair your computer. You can't upgrade your memory, or your mass storage. You can't replace either if they become defective. You can't REPAIR your computer.

If you are to lazy or ignorant to do the repairs, that's one thing. But to solder components to the motherboard ( in the case of Apple, the memory and the mass storage ) so that you can't is another. Especially if the only reason you do it is to make more money, well .....

You are not going to get any of my money. Even if you make the best damned product in the entire damned history of the entire damned Universe. And that's just one more of the many, many reasons I haven't bought from Apple. And won't, well, maybe every, buy another one.

" ... At what point does swapping out a damaged part go from "repair" to "parts replacement"? ... "

It never does. Because by definition, "parts replacement" is REPAIR.

" ... tilting at windmills ... "

The only "windmills" being "tilted" at here are the broken ones, that can be repaired.

* Full disclosure: I spent 7 years in the U.S. Army as an electronic tech. Been doing repairs for 45+ years. So I am both competent and capable.

Though I will concede that replacing components on a motherboard is neither an easy nor a reasonable thing to attempt. But that is irrelevant to the "right to repair" question.

I paid for the item in question. I OWN the item in question. Why don't I have the "right" to repair it myself, or have whom ever I choose to do it for me?

That is the question at hand.

Now I'm waiting for someone to give me a reason I don't have that right?

Re: Why should apple care?

The idea that anything other than batteries or displays will be "repaired" in a smartphone is silly. Maybe the odd button or connector in certain circumstances. That's all we should be worrying about.

I kind of disagree. My grand son had a phone that had a faulty connection in the mainboard: it would work and stop working and work again when bumped at a specific angle. Cold or broken solder. Local shops would not go though the detailed diagnostic and I finally decided to discard the phone. I am now thinking that I should have tried to reflow the solder first, if it worked, he would have saved the cost of a replacement unit.

Re: Why should apple care?

"It is impossible to "repair" a chip"

But it's easy to replace a broken chip, assuming that you can get a replacement part. That's a huge part of what the right-to-repair movement is trying to ensure you can do.

"If you have a tiny fiddly board with two dozen chips ranging from a grain of rice to a thumbnail in size, on both sides, how could it possibly make financial sense for anyone to take the time to diagnose and then desolder and replace one?"

Finding and replacing borked chips isn't nearly as hard or time-consuming as you seem to think. Also, there's the fact that microchips are not the most common parts to fail.

Re: RAT

Repairability is only a part of the equation, since one has to take into account durability and user satisfaction as well. I.e, it doesn't matter how easy it is to repair if it doesn't go wrong, and if it was a frustrating piece of trash to begin with then nobody will actually want to fix it.

Re: RAT

Many electronics, with the proper knowledge, or access to schematics can easily be fixed with a few dollars worth of components and a few hours work. Is it worth it to shell out 150 dollars for a new motor, drive belt and bearings on a 14 year old washing machine? Probably not. Is it worth it to spend 150 dollars on a 800 dollar device that's barely 2 years old and holds all your photos, agenda, email, etc? For a lot of people, yes.

Re: RAT

"[1] The dead one was just two months shy of 14 years old, and had outlasted a fridge-freezer bought at the same time. So I can't complain too loudly."

And to be fair, in the case of a 14 year old washing machine, there's a fair chance a new one will pay for itself in a few years in energy savings (and water, if you are metered) Similar applies to fridge/freezers. Sometimes replacing old kit is actually the best option.

Re: @DougS

Personally, I think soldering and desoldering those tiny surface-mount parts is actually easier than doing the same with old-school through-hole parts. BGAs excepted -- those are roughly on par in terms of difficulty with through-hole.

Re: With a few refinements

That nicely illustrates a problem with lack of regulation.

Re: With a few refinements

Easy, they are required to sell the replacement parts at a reasonable cost. If it's severely patented that reasonable cost can be profitable. This is definitely not an argument.

Re: Having the right to fix as you want the stuff you own

"If the “right to repair” goes through the there will be a flood of trash out there, and Apple resell value will decline"

That's something that Apple can easily address the same way other companies have addressed this in the past: offer a "certified pre-owned" program. It would be easy for Apple to certify that a used device was never touched by anybody but them, keeping the resale value for those devices high, while at the same time allowing people who don't care about the resale value of the device they own to be serviced in any way they deem fit.

Re: Having the right to fix as you want the stuff you own

re each and every time.

Really, sounds like you've been buying shit to start with.