We need to have a serious chat about iPhone repairability. We judged the phones of yesteryear by how easy they were to take apart—screws, glues, how hard it was…
Good job ifixit! This should be a cause for outrage. Pretending to support the right to repair while also softwarelocking repairs is not just two faced, but actively harming the consumers.
While I personally wouldn’t repair my own iPhone. If I need it done I would want to go to an Apple Store anyway.
This makes selling on your phone for other people to fix and use and sell on and use again virtually impossible, which would’ve been more sustainable than just binning the phone.
It’s especially shitty since they also announced net zero plans. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
You know, as both an Apple fanboy and a repair advocate I was disgusted by their over affirmation of being carbon neutral like it’s a badge to be proud of when people KNOW they are just not friendly to repairing your shit easily.
I’m heavily locked into their ecosystem but they are starting to push their luck with me trying to push this bullshit.
people KNOW they are just not friendly to repairing your shit easily.
You know, I got into an argument about this recently and there were 3 different people trying to argue exactly the opposite to me. And they used ifixit's scores as evidence. So no, people don't know. Apple's disinformation works.
My partner and I left the apple ecosystem about a year ago. We got new phones and gave our old watches, airtags, and airpods to friends and family that wanted them. It felt like it was going to be too much to give up, but honestly it's been great.
There's so much more freedom in every facet of the phone. Apple likes to give an option, a rich people option, and occasionally a truly professional tier. Leaving Apple behind, I have wireless earbuds I love that have an 8hr lifespan out of the dock. They were fifty dollars and they sound easily better than airpods. It felt like it would be expensive to leave, but the alternatives once you leave the ecosystem tend to be cheaper pound for pound.
Ever wondered why the cable breaks so easily? It’s because they use crappy materials. Oh, and it’s also ecological or something, which obviously has no impact on profit margins, right.
Has anyone been surprised in the slightest that Apple locks you in, since the 1980's? I mean, it's literally ALWAYS BEEN the shittiest company to do any tech work with because it's so proprietary, in their hardware, software, entire ecosystem. THIS WAS ALWAYS THE PROBLEM WITH APPLE WHY HAVE SO MANY IDIOTS BOUGHT INTO IT.
Good UI, familiarity, catering to non-tech people, marketing to certain lifestyles, and the hassle of migrating out of the apple ecosystem and buying new apps. At one time apple had better offerings than the PC world did, but when it caught up any reason to buy apple products at 1.5x the cost evaporated for me. This was long before smartphones.
Apple has the trashiest UX out of any smartphone maker. Their back gesture is not universal, and you need to adapt to 3 types of back function for apps. Sane goes for their MacOS, I never found it comfortable as someone who duals Windows and Linux.
Yes, Apple locks you in, but Microsoft has always been worse. Apple's options are proprietary, but Microsoft used their monopoly power to destroy their competitors like Netscape, and waged war against Linux. Meanwhile, Apple switched to a variation of NeXTSTEP which is mostly compatible with Unix and the GNU tools.
On the iPod / iPhone front, both Google and Apple lock users in to their app stores. Both manufacture un-repairable phones. The non-standard Lightning connector was a pain in the ass, but so was the frequent switching on Android phones from mini-B B to micro-B to USB-C. And, until USB-C there was the constant problem of trying to plug in the phone and getting the orientation of the plug wrong, something Apple got right with Lightning.
Then there's advertising / surveillance. Google is an ad-tech company so privacy is never going to be high on their list of priorities for their end-users. Meanwhile, Apple led the way with App Tracking Transparency. Yes, Apple still surveils its users, but at least it doesn't seem to use that data to rent eyeballs the way Google does.
Google and Apple are both shitty companies, but if you want a modern smartphone you basically have to deal with one of them. Apple and Microsoft are both shitty companies but if you want a desktop or a laptop, without the constant toil of dealing with Linux, they're your only options. So, it's about what bothers you more: anticompetitive actions including embracing standards with the aim of destroying them from within, or annoying proprietary stuff? Planned obsolescence and an extreme aversion to fixability, or slightly less surveillance, a slightly more open system, but much more surveillance?
Really, what's needed is proper regulators who can reign in all these shitty companies.
Mfs out here want to install their bootleg faceid in my phone at their sketchy self repair place so they can sell my data and break its security. Let’s not pretend ifixit isn’t the exact same rent seeking that apple is, they just want to be the middle man
Those "bootleg" screens often are genuine, but Apple makes features not work unless paired. You can literally swap the screens of two fresh out of the box iPhones and they won't work. Swap them back, they work fine. Don't defend their practices, and don't believe the lies about repair they've been feeding you for years.
often are genuine, but Apple makes features not work unless paired
Because unless you pair the screen, the device has no way to know it’s genuine. If it’s not, it could implement any number of attacks, including keyloggers, screen stealers, etc
don’t believe
Why shouldn’t I? No one has given an argument that you can actually secure these peripherals without software locks, I bought my iPhone and MacBook because they offer security, even when I run Linux on it my MacBook has far superior boot security (the only thing apple has engineering control over in that use case) than any intel machines I’ve used
Also lol that article, you know the difference between one incident and a pervasive effort to mine your privacy for profit