Last fall I took my early era MacBook Air to Apple and ordered a battery replacement for $99. It came back with a new motherboard too. Essentially a new machine, and it took two interactions: drop-off and pick up.
Last fall I bought two Dell desktops (for a client project) and neither has working Bluetooth/WiFi. One machine has been fully out of commission for 2 months and the other is limping along with weak WiFi and no Bluetooth.
The Dell is upgradeable and I could put 3rd party cards in there and get along. But they’re brand new machines under warranty. I’ve had two tech visits and traded more than 45 emails with Dell tech support and I’m still waiting on full system replacements that will ship in February sometime. I bought these machines in November.
Right to repair or not, I trust Apple non-right-to-repair hardware over Dell “I could repair it myself” desktop hardware.
The user experience of dealing with both companies negates the right to repair concern for me, on these right now.
But if/when we ever have right to repair laws that apply to Dell & Apple, based on their track records, I'd probably still invest my future computing dollars in the one that has the strong game.
How is that important? You could absolutely do that and Apple absolutely could do that. Right to repair laws wouldn't force Apple to create obsolete parts so what's your point?
I think the inability to repair Apple products is right on par with the rest of the industry really. My Samsung mobile phone is just as difficult to repair as an iPhone.
Also, when it comes to computers (I use a Mac), there is also another factor. Apple devices may be difficult (and expensive) to repair, but they are certainly popular, which means one can find plenty of online resources or even spare parts, where applicable. And, one can actually find a local store that repairs Macs and take the computer there, if throwing money at the problem is an option.
Quite recently, I came across a case of a Lenovo laptop whose user had somehow activated bitlocker and forgot the password. Wasn't interested in the files, they just wanted to be able to use the computer again. I tried to find a way to reinstall the operating system and, I kid you not, there was literally no obvious way to boot normally from a usb device nor Lenovo provides any meaningful documentation or, Heaven forbid, the boot image to reinstall. It was actually kind of difficult to even determine the model of the device, as there have been several generations with the same name, each with a different processor and efi firmware. It was almost as if the model never existed.
We can laugh all we want for Apple's expensive and un-repairable devices, but the above nightmare cannot happen in the Apple ecosystem. You can even get the device to an apple store and they'll happily take your money and fix your device (if it's not severely damaged of course). This is not unique to Apple, e.g. Dell has excellent support and documentation. But this is a quality that is very important and yet it is often overlooked.
> My Samsung mobile phone is just as difficult to repair as an iPhone.
If anything, the iPhones are much easier to repair.
As of the latest generation of Samsung Galaxy S series and iPhones that have been torn down by iFixit, the Galaxy S20 was given a repairability score of 3 vs. a score of 6 for the iPhone 12.
On the iPhone, iFixit said:
>[ease of] display and battery replacements remain a priority in the new iPhones' design.
Most other important components are modular and easy to access or replace.
On the Galaxy S20, iFixit said:
>Every repair starts with painstakingly un-gluing the fragile glass rear cover.
Replacing the glued-down battery is tougher than ever, especially with board interconnect cables to work around.
All-too-common display repairs require either a complete teardown or replacing half the phone.
Devices being easy or difficult to repair is not really the crux of right to repair. It's more about people being empowered to be able to fix them should they have the skill to do so.
I'm only following the subject casually so I might be biased to have incomplete information but apple is seemingly worse that it's peers when it comes to repairability.
A quick Google search takes me to a page where Samsung lists official resellers of parts for their devices. The selection wasn't great but as far as I know apple doesn't do even that. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Apple has been in litigation in my country trying to block a independent repairer from procuring parts(think it was refurbished original screens).
I haven't heard of any Android phone manufacturers serial linking parts the same way apple has. At least not to the same extent.
TBH, I think most of the smartphone manufacturers are worse than Idd want them to be, but I definitely think Apple is among if not the worst of them when it comes to repairability
Point 100% taken on the matter of having the right to repair and procure spare parts. Here in the EU, I hear there is a major push to introduce some meaningful legislation to establish requirement, definitely right direction.
Comparing Samsung with Apple is interesting, because Samsung is very competitive and will come to your door (so to speak) to sell its products, which I respect very deeply. In my country, Samsung official service is top, better than Apple probably. I've been able to go to the service unannounced, ask for a battery replacement, go for a coffee and come get my device back after an hour. For computers, Dell also has a very respectable name, to the point where people will prefer Dell solely because of this. But below that level, chaos really, you have to go and order parts from ebay most of the times.
Is it true still, tho? I got the impression there is a lot of myth around Macbooks, which kindof wasn't updated since 2015.
A lot of folks around me simply skipped the new Macbooks, since touchbar, keyboard, ... , were just unusable for them.
Then you had the major issues with dust getting into the keyboard messing it up, the screens dying after weeks of usage, USB things...
Now the Big Sur update bricks your machine, if you reset it, because there is a firmware bug. The M1 Macbooks are distroyed by USB-C PD hubs (not just the "cheap ones"; as if that would have been excusable..). Plenty users reporting the machines to panic once or twice a day.
People seem to be happy with the old non-retina Air's, the pre 2016 Macbooks, but I don't see this at all for the recent stuff. Apart from the M1 performance hype, which of course is legit, but doesn't cancel out the "just works" issues.
Seems rather like a long, long experimental transition, then reliable experience.
I have the '17 MBP (because I wanted something smaller, I was traveling a lot and it replaced a 15" 2012 MBP). It's been perfectly usable, though I did have to take Apple up on their keyboard repair service because they did screw that up. The rest of the system has been entirely fine, and since the keyboard repair there have been no issues. As I recall the keyboard issue applied to the 2016-2018 laptops. If my only complaint is, "the 's' key got stuck and they had to replace the whole keyboard for free, which took 24 hours at a local repair site", then I'm not too worried about it. It's annoying, but compared to literally every HP or Dell laptop I've owned, it's a far better situation. Though I hear some people had even worse experiences than my stuck 's' key.
Ultimately I think it's hard to come to a conclusion, since few people stick to a particular brand outside the Apple ecosystem. I think the only other bubble would be Thinkpads. So continuous comparison seems flawed anyway. On the other side, Mac users seem to be weirdly accepting of things not working out, the "you are not using it right" meme holds some truth from my observation.
Personally, I have bad experiences with newer Thinkpads and "QC" on dead pixels (lol, one shop won't sell to me anymore, because I keep finding dead pixels), which is why I was considering an M1 Mac for the first time. Sadly/gladly I found out about the various bricking issues in time. Let's see how Apple is going to handle these in the next months...
The other day I put my phone through a full washing machine cycle though, and it didn’t need to be repaired. That’s incredible. It came out of the machine looking brand new.
I’m a little torn. Can we have repairable devices that are this stable and robust, and have such an incredible form factor?
Considering this phone will last me 4 or 5 years, it’s a good value and extremely dependable. I want more repairable things, I just don’t know how they’d make it happen in a way that keeps them competitive.
One shitty thing: my left AirPods Pro clicks and pops, and the only solution is a complete replacement. Apple is willing to replace them at no charge, but I can’t stand the waste. What will they do with them? Recycle and landfill? These things really are a repairability nightmare and I don’t think I can justify buying then again.
My personal experience has been very positive though. The need to repair is remarkably rare.
I reaaaaaally dislike the implication that Apple is against people's rights to repair their own devices because, frankly, that's nonsense. You can support "right to repair" while simultaneously opposing the current proposed bills. I think people should be able to do whatever they want to their devices once they've purchased them but I don't think that Apple should be forced to provide them with the parts, tools, and manuals to do so. That doesn't make me anti-RTR.
That rings true, though Apple could do better when large problems do crop up, which doesn't happen often. They seem to need several rounds of PR beatings before doing the right thing.
