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.