The Verge did exactly what Apple would have like them to do. And you could argue whether that was intentional or not. ( Part of the whole PR play is to shape public discourse )
By showcasing the proper way of doing it, or how it is done when you paid $69 in the Apple Store, the article has correctly set the stage for 99% of Tech readers. ( Non-Tech people never give a damn or wouldn't want to try it themselves anyway ).
The fact that they're subsidizing the tool kits (the $1200 deposit they take is nowhere near the value of all that equipment) also suggests that they wanted regular people to get their hands on these tools (and no doubt talk about it) as opposed to charging the actual market value which - while affordable for a repair shop - would've been way out of reach of a regular user.
After all, this kind of equipment is not new and has been available for ages (comments on another thread about this say that in China every phone repair outlet had similar equipment) if you could justify buying it, and yet we haven't had articles like this on major tech news websites until Apple subsidized it enough and put it in a nice, idiot-friendly package.
That's not a subsidy - in the normal course of business the deposit is returned and no money changes hands.
The deposit is just an insentive to return the goods, it can cover 30% or 300% of the value. The tools might not be returned, and that probably is a crime, but that's not a subsidy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/uuocl3/the_verge_...
To confirm it, here's all the Apple Tools listed for the iPhone 12 Battery Replacement. All costed at $1086.96.
# Apple Tools
$49.00 [7-Day Rental] iPhone 12 Tool Kit (Part RKIT-12) [Rental Information]
$0.65 Back Protective Cover (Part 923-04877)
$0.65 Display Protective Cover (Part 923-04878)
$0.70 Adhesive Cutter (Part 923-01092)
$2.78 Nylon Probe (Black Stick) (Part 922-5065)
$8.00 JCIS Bit (Part 923-0246)
$10.00 Super screw Bit (Part 923-02066)
$12.00 Micro Stix® Bit (Part 923-01290)
$13.33 Torx® Security Bit (Part 923-0247)
$29.50 Display Adhesive Press Plate (Part 923-04911)
$50.00 6.1-inch Repair Tray (Part 923-04908)
$80.00 Torque Driver (Green, 0.45 kgf cm) (Part 923-00105)
$85.00 Torque Driver (Gray, 0.55 kgf cm) (Part 923-00738)
$99.00 Torque Driver (Black, 0.35 kgf cm) Kit (Part 923-0248)
$108.00 6.1-inch Heated Display Pocket (Part 661-19620)
$115.00 Battery Press (Part 923-02657)
$216.00 Display Press (Part 661-08916)
$256.35 Heated Display Removal Fixture (Part 661-17619)And... I don't know, PR move or not, isn't it awesome that regular consumers can rent access to the full kit? I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to, but I'm sure someone is super excited, and good for them!
If I'd written the article at The Verge, I would have ended with something along the lines of:
> For most people, renting Apple's Tool Kit isn't worth the cost or hassle. If you don't have experience repairing electronics, the Apple Store is a safer and easier alternative, and if you do, you probably have your own tools already. It's great to see Apple selling genuine replacement parts to consumers. Just, don't throw out that iFixIt toolkit quite yet!
>The thing you should understand about Apple’s home repair process is that it’s a far cry from traditional DIY if you opt for the kit — which I did, once I saw the repair manual only contains instructions for Apple’s own tools. (You can just buy a battery if you want.)
Everything about this program signals that Apple is grudgingly doing this. It's designed to scare people away from doing the repairs themselves.
The gripe of the right to repair movement isn’t that tech should be made less complex, it is that the access to parts, information and schematics/designs should be made more accessible for repairs — useful if you have the necessary skills required to carry out repairs without OEM tools.
This is coming from someone who does board level repairs on the side.
If I go out and ask everyone I know, if they are happy with the current unrepairable appliances, the amount of people who answer yes is < 10%.
The only people I know who are happy, live in extreme privilidge where they can afford replacing devices annually.
But let us say that both claims you are making are true -> so what? What are the economic and environmental implication of unrepairable equipment?
I find this incredible.
Most people have been throwing away / replacing perfectly repairable appliances since long before mobile phones.
What makes mobile phones different?
(Obligatory Framing: I'm all for RtR. I don't think it's practical to require Apple to dumb down their design or construction to fit what a consumer could accomplish at their basement bench. But if I, or my neighborhood repair shop, is sophisticated enough to perform the work, I do think parts should be available.)
The question seems pointless because it's a combination of asking something that people always want more of (who doesn't want more repairability, at least in the abstract?), and fails to mention the trade-offs (eg. price, thinness, water resistance).
Anyway, is your result from doing simiar diffetent?
iPhones and iPads are very easily good for, at a minimum, three to four years of very heavy use before any battery replacement would be necessary at all.
Your numbers are sourced from a very atypical population, and you are obviously smart enough to know that. My numbers are accurate, as evidenced by, um, people still buying hundreds of millions of iPhones a year and Apple still having the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry. Astronomically high ratings.
As for the environmental implications, that is of course a fair question, but have you taken some time to familiarize yourself with Apple's extraordinary efforts to build robots for the specific purpose of fully disassembling its devices so that materials can then be recycled? You should. You might be impressed.
I rest my case.
> It's designed to scare people away from doing the repairs themselves.
I don't think the program is perfect, but I don't see how missing components scare people away.
You'll find 404 responses when you click on repair manual links; the link to the self service repair is at the bottom of the support page; the self service storefront is very deliberately non-descript and as others have mentioned immediately raises red flags for people trained to look for basic clues about a site's legitimacy. Etc.
The argument will be made that the "App Store" is there to protect you because security/privacy. And the DRM'd components are there to protect you from cheap chinese knockoffs. I think that's fine as long as it's opt-in.
But no, it's not for your protection - it's to control the market and drive the cost of repair higher so you will forced to buy a new phone more often. This is a blatant case of "OK you demanded right-to-repair, so let's show you how to make it as difficult as possible". It's not grudging - it's willful and spiteful.
Lastly, as I already pointed out in a sister comment, the grandparent said the program is designed to scare people away from repairing their phone. I actually don't see how. In fact, providing the tooling makes it more accessible than just providing the parts. I'd love to see everything replaceable, but this is a step in the right direction.
So is the complaint here that in addition to making the parts available to purchase, and a rental program for the “industrial” gear, they should also have developed a parallel set of low-cost tools and procedures for the hobby/personal market?
I think that’s a red-herring. A home hobbyist would be better off going “great, thanks for the parts, I’m off to pay iFixit for some tools. Oh and now give us schematics and parts for when I work out how to do SMD rework”
(And for pro shops, the price quoted for those pelican cases strikes me as an absolute bargain, if they don’t already have tools they like better)
No. It's that this is mostly a diversion that does nothing to address what someone actually needs to reapair a device, which is parts and for the software not to artificially brick the hardware. But it makes everyone else who don't repair things think that Apple is trying to be reasonable and cooperative while they're still not at all.
You, a competent person, will just use a guitar pick and your fingers to do the same job. Or at least you won’t have anyone else to blame if you mess it up when apple offered the tools or the in store service to have it done.
Apple has a tool for putting glass screen protectors on phones, or unplugging the power cable from their monitors. All things normal people can manage just fine with their hands. But the tool costs very little when used regularly at a store and prevents the rare mistakes.
There is a difference in doing something properly, and doing it ”good enough”.
The conclusion of the article is literally:
>The more I think about it, the more I realize Apple’s Self-Service Repair program is the perfect way to make it look like the company supports right-to-repair policies without actually encouraging them at all. Apple can say it’s giving consumers access to everything, even the same tools its technicians use, while scaring them away with high prices, complexity, and the risk of losing a $1,200 deposit. This way, Apple gets credit for walking you through an 80-page repair, instead of building phones where — say — you don’t need to remove the phone’s most delicate components and two different types of security screws just to replace a battery.
> I don’t think Apple expects anyone to seriously take it up on the offer of self-service repair kits. It stacked the deck in favor of taking your phone to an Apple Store, where it can tempt you to buy something new instead. The real victory will come months or years down the road, though. That’s when Apple can tell legislators it tried to give right-to-repair advocates what they wanted — but that consumers overwhelmingly decided Apple knows best.
The whole tone of the article is clearly that it's absurd to rent these tools, and that the option to do so is a red herring.
Rossmann’s main message: “to complain about something that is an option rather than complain about all of the options that are missing misses the forest for the trees”.
Key points:
1. For certain repairs, Apple’s repair program has “made availiable the exact same OEM parts and tools that they use” via rental. Renting these tools is optional and not required; Rossmann recognizes that while he (and in his opinion, most people) will likely not use these tools, their availability is a non-issue.
2. Sean Hollister’s article in The Verge was highly critical of the entire self-repair process, and called out the weight and price of this completely optional tool rental. Per Rossmann, “part of the problem with tech journalism in general is… focusing on the things that are easy rather than focusing on the things that matter”.
3. Rossmann reminds us that the right-to-repair fight is far from over. Board schematics and individual components are still not available even to authorized repair shops. He argues that these would enable him to more efficiently perform repairs.
4. Rossmann: While the tech press’s complaints are “making the right to repair people look like… fools”, “it is important to [know] that they don’t represent us [normal repair shops and average users]”.