It's your device, you should be able to repair it

Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by fouric on Friday April 30, 2021 @11:28AM (#26994679)

I'm not very happy with the quality of the article, overall. It seems useful for a consumer, but obvious, and old-hat, to HN denizens.

HN submissions are supposed to be "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", but we've seen dozens of right-to-repair articles by now, and this doesn't bring anything substantially new to the table (unlike the top previous submissions https://hn.algolia.com/?q=right+to+repair).

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by lsllc on Friday April 30, 2021 @11:43AM (#26994934)

I think anything publicizing "right to repair" in mainstream media is a good thing. Agreed that for HN denizens, it's nothing new, but most people are just unaware of this topic.

Glad to see the BBC running this.

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by judge2020 on Friday April 30, 2021 @12:04PM (#26995225)

Maybe, but it’s all over the place and thus might cause confusion for readers who will later see 'right to repair' and think it means that Apple should be forced to send iOS 14 to their iPhone 4S.

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by LocalH on Friday April 30, 2021 @01:03PM (#26996119)

Maybe they should have to open iOS signing to all versions a device ever received when it becomes EOL? That also has implications with regards to preservation - if you can never install a given version of the OS again, then how can you trust it is properly preserved?

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by judge2020 on Friday April 30, 2021 @01:08PM (#26996183)

You can always install the old version, Apple just doesn't think they can optimize new iOS versions to make old phones work well with the new software (and the bloat/feature creep within).

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by LocalH on Friday April 30, 2021 @02:01PM (#26996998)

No you can't, and you haven't been able to in some time. Apple devices that need restoring post-EOL are generally restricted to the last-released version. I think you have to go back to the original couple of iPhone models to be able to ignore SHSH and APTicket.

There are ways around this with some models, but it's been a long time since it was even "save SHSH blobs and replay them" easy.

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by EvanAnderson on Friday April 30, 2021 @01:40PM (#26996697)

Without circumventing protections you cannot install old versions of iOS. Many phone models have flaws in the protections that allow you to circumvent the protections, but officially installing old iOS versions ends when Apple decides.

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by joshspankit on Friday April 30, 2021 @12:31PM (#26995644)

Exactly my point as I read down this thread:

For this type of legislation push it is very important to keep the narrative focused on what’s morally and technologically reasonable.

Very few people agree that a manufacturer should be forced to spend time and money on supportting a product for life, many (I hope) agree that we should force manufacturers to give us the ability to repair all functions ourselves (or at least not stand in our way), but almost everyone can agree that you should be able to replace something as trivial as a button, a cable, or a screen.

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by hilbert42 on Friday April 30, 2021 @01:31PM (#26996546)

"I think anything publicizing "right to repair" in mainstream media is a good thing."

Absolutely, the more the merrier. Also, I believe that lay people are now becoming aware of the fact, as I've seen many articles both in the daily press and on the television news about it (where I live the Government's current inquiry into the matter seeking public comment has been reasonably well covered).

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by rozab on Friday April 30, 2021 @12:06PM (#26995251)

I think the reason it was posted was more to point out that the BBC was running this article on the homepage, rather than the content itself.

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Re:It's your device, you should be able to repair it by kbenson on Friday April 30, 2021 @04:17PM (#26998740)

I agree, the increasing awareness of this topic is itself interesting and worth note.

Additionally, the fact that this submission has 350+ comments at the time I write this is all the evidence I need that this was worthy of submission. Many times, the comments, even if it's a tangential discussion, are much more interesting than the article submitted.

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