If I loosely quote Louis Rossmann, one of the issue of right to repair is that more and more companies (Apple leading the trend) are using slightly modified chips from manufacturers, and them make then sign contracts that prevent any part selling to anyone.
So technically even you can replace those chips, you can't buy them.
And next Apple if putting serial numbers to prevent that even if you get the part, you will have a non-functional device.
This bill does not appear to address that.
Besides, the "information they need to repair" is also where the devil will be. Companies like Apple provide instructions on how to unscrew the laptop cover with a screwdriver (literally), but won't provide any data sheets.
> So technically even you can replace those chips, you can't buy them.
They don't even need to resort to this. If the chip requires programming, they keep the chip protected from read and the code locked and bingo: you can buy an identical one but it won't work without the original code. Pretty much any digital product in existence works like that today. One could have the entire BOM of an iPhone available, but without their iron level firmware, all programmable chips would just sit there doing nothing thus making the device unusable.
That is largely Apple-specific, as most other OEMs use off the shelf chips. Even in that case though, the distribution doesnāt exist for many components to be available to individuals or repair shops, since the component makers only want to deal with their couple dozen big customers directly.
On that note, Rossmann is a curious character. He openly and variously despises Appleās hardware choices and policies, yet to my memory, thatās his shop works on. Are the economics of repairing Apple products that strong or is the man is a true masochist?
Watch some of his videos. He has a lot of insight about the subpar quality of Apple devices, about the outrageous lies of Apple Genius Bar quoting people thousands of dollars for repairs that take him 5-10 minutes, for appleās efforts to make the devices non serviceable, withholding schematics, controlling access to replacement parts etc.
Hereās a televised CBS report.
He is extremely good at repair while despising the companyās despicable practices - and warns people about them.
He runs a shop that supports many employees and himself, so, yes, the economics obviously work in his favor. One doesnāt need to like the choices of a company to offer to service their products.
If my memory is correct, he explained that this was where most of the market was (especially on the neighborhood of NYC he lives in), and it was easier to fix a bunch of Apple models, rather than thousands of different Android brands/models.
He stopped working on iPhones because of the BS.
Apple had to cut the time to buy AppleCare+ in China down to 7 days simply due to the fact people were swapping parts in iPhone and return for exchanges.
And I am not entirely sure if it is a good idea Apple sell these parts for repairing. Which Apple will definitely do so with their hardware margin. i.e They will sell you the Display Screen with Glass for $300+. At this point you might as well go to Apple and fix it.
I had always wish the Services Strategy of Apple was to raise the price of iPhone and Mac by $100, move those to Services Revenue and included AppleCare+ by default. Also lowering any replacement and fixing price rather than try and gouge their customer at their Genius Bar. Which is increasingly a thing since 2015.
Getting third party fixing also have risk when your Data aren't fully backed up. Which is something likes to push for their iCloud Services.
Doesn't matter. Serials numbers can be spoofed, chips can be found in already discarded electronics of the same model by other reasons. Have 2 or 3 broken phones, make one good from them. The bill is a big step in preventing Apple suing the local shop that was doing just that.
Normally the next step would be a vote on an identical bill in the stateās Assembly.
But Thursday is the last day of session for the NY legislature, and the bill has not yet escaped committee, making a vote by the full Assembly unlikely.
The battle for fair repair in New York will continue into next yearās session, with a strong record of success.
So eventually... maybe.
We aren't even at the half way point of the year and this is already the end of the years session? In a large state like NY? How does anything get done? This isn't some small town in the middle of nowhere.
> We aren't even at the half way point of the year and this is already the end of the years session?
We have a part-time legislature. The other half of the year lets our politicians earn a living outside politics (as well as politick--it's an election year.)
Our Governor is powerful. If an emergency arises, I believe the Assembly and Senate can be called back into session. But that's rarely required.
The majority of US states only meet a few months a year. Many have two year sessions that start in odd-years, so things that don't get completed in 2021 can get picked up again where they left off in 2022.
You'd be surprised both how much they're expected to get done in a few months, and also how little some state legislatures actually pass. State and Federal agencies serve a huge role in the US, partially for this reason.
Texas is every 2 years from what I understand.
Thereās actually a problem here in washington state, and Iād guess in other states as well, that most of the legislators are real estate agents. Theyāre one of the few common professions that can afford to take off months at a time and still make significant income the rest of the year.
Louis Rossmann is more skeptical:
Right to Repair bill PASSES in NY state senate! What now? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX6BVQe6Tq4
TL;DR: Low probability than anything will happen before next year
From someone living in NY and having watched bills like this... Last time this came up it silently died without a vote. This vote is probably symbolic and it will languish in the Assembly forever. It is nice they voted for this overwhelmingly but it has not been "passed" as a law. It just passed step 1/3
If NY really wants to cut e-waste they should require removable batteries in cellphones and laptops.
The move to non-removable batteries always seemed like a thinly veild money grab to me.
Politicians use e-waste as the reason use for these RTR bills, but my concern is simple.
I'm tired of my closet of broken devices. I don't like spending money on a new item when I was happy with the old model.
I am tired of not seeing all the trouble codes on my car when it breaks down.
I don't like spending money on electronics because a company won't let me fix their product, restricts information, or spare parts.
I came from a family that was too poor to buy new, and repair was just expected.
I'm tired of my closet of broken devices, too. But I'm also tired of my closet of perfectly working devices, which the manufacturer just up and decided to no longer ship software updates for. Hardware that's totally functional as the first day I bought it, except 1. with software that no longer does what it's supposed to because backends have been turned off, and 2. the device will be 0wned instantly if I ever connect to the Internet.
We need mandatory bootloader unlocking for products that the manufacture finds unprofitable to ship software updates for.
My work want to force me to update my PERSONAL phone because apple do not support very old Iphone anymore. ( they gave me another phone for work stuff, 2FA and what not... )
this old phone works really well still. I do not conduct any work related activities on it. But they see it as a attack vector I guess?
If you don't do any work-related activities on it and you have a work phone, how/why are they requiring you to get a new personal phone?
If one does do work things on their phone and, especially if you have MDM installed, it is of course reasonable to require you to be on a current OS. And Apple is pretty good about length of support but it's not forever.
It makes everything disposable. Iāve seen a few 200 dollar health devices that fail quickly because they use cheap cr 2032 batteries that canāt be accessed.
I miss the days of clip in batteries. I still have a 2013 laptop like that.
Agree. Non removable batteries is an aesthetic approach to consumer devices. It has no place in industrial applications. An analogy would be a decorated plastic bag selling seeds at hardware store, Or a brown ugly burlap selling seeds to landscape contractors. One is for consumers. The other is for the expert.
But this would force your laptop to be a whole 1.8cm thick! Unthinkable!
You joke, but LG makes a <3lb (1.36kg) 17ā laptop. Thatās impressive. (I canāt vouch for its quality, I donāt have one).
Samsung makes a 15.6ā laptop that weighs 2.6lbs, which is extremely practical. Iām planning on getting one. I wouldnāt be if it had the bulk and weight of a removable battery.
Standardized would be nice too. I have at least 3 laptops that could be put to good use but the batteries are no longer available, 2 of them don't even work with the plug unless there's a battery in there for some god awful reason.
The cells in the packs can be replaced.
Really? Never thought of that, is that a DIY thing or would I need to take it someplace?
Non-removable batteries are annoying, but they allow you to make devices which are much more compact, or which have a larger battery at the same size.
The battery in e.g. an iPhone 6S takes some work to replace, but it's still quite easy for a repair shop to do, so that seems like a very reasonable trade-off to me.
What about non-removable batteries that are also glued in? With a excessive amount of glue?
Making them doubly non-removable?
That is a totally different story! No, I for one am not okay with that at all.
There is the valid argument, of sealing it in, for water protection.
I am still looking for a new phone, which removable battery.
Not really related but ifixit really is fantastic. Iāve fixed so many things I had no business being able to fix on my own thanks to their guides and videos. I wish more people would turn to their site before throwing stuff away.
Take their guides with a bit of a grain of salt. Having gone through Apple ACMT training back in 2015, many of the iFixit guides have recommendations or procedures that do not follow official Apple guidelines. In most cases it doesn't matter, but it can come back to bite.
For example there are torque specifications for some of the screws in the trashcan Mac Pro. I doubt getting the torque wrong would cause any issue, and Apple is probably being a bit pedantic. However, iFixit's thermal paste application article specifically recommends spreading thermal paste with your finger[1], which is a TERRIBLE idea and goes directly against Apple repair procedures.
So use common sense when working with iFixit guides, they should not be considered replacements for official Apple repair guides, though they are far better than nothing, which is what Apple provides to the general public :).
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Apply+Thermal+Paste/744#...
I don't give a shit what Apple thinks, and wouldn't bother seeking their opinion. I've replaced probably every part in an old MacBook Air I have and the non-Apple online documentation has been really good.
All that being said, thermal paste is pretty poisonous, I'd never even considered someone would just splodge it on with their finger.
I've had great success with iFixit guids too. 2 iPhones and a iPad. But I've been a bit weary of doing that since last time I got a screen where the connection wires that came with it weren't quite right and caused the iPad to get hot enough to burn skin and cause heat warnings from the OS. In that case, it was possible to reuse the original connector to fix the issue, but my trust in third-party parts diminished quite a bit.
I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories, but I do wonder about the idea that by making the power source impossible to remove, the phone can be a surveillance device even when the user thinks it's powered off.
I wonder what the minds of HN think about this scenario. Is the move towards non-removable batteries perhaps related to this?
I also wonder about the movement away from physical headphone jacks....I imagine bluetooth is easier to hack then a physical cable.
Edit: thanks for engaging on this. You helped me discount this theory.
Letās just engage this for a moment.
The first thing to ask if we think that the non removable batteries is related to surveillance is how a non removable battery would help surveillance. And itās hard to see how it would. The vast majority of people would leave their removable batteries in the phone with it on anyways, since they donāt expect the surveillance. The next level of paranoid people would switch off the phone, in which case it wouldnāt matter if the battery was removable or not. The only crowd it would affect is the people who are paranoid enough that they would additionally also remove the battery. But if they are so careful, if they do have a phone with a non removable battery, then they have a simple alternate solution of simply locking up the phone in a lockbox and not taking it into the room youāre having the discussion (or taking it around with you if youāre worried about tracking).
Insisting on non removable batteries will give you an extremely minor benefit (people who are careful enough to want to remove their batteries for privacy, but not dedicated enough that given a non removable battery, they will still keep their phone around and wonāt find an alternate solution).
So really, it doesnāt make sense at all.
Further, thereās a completely explainable, and frankly predictable, trajectory and goal that led to non removable batteries. The same goal that led to other changes such as the removing of the headphone jack, etc.
"a completely explainable, and frankly oredictable, trajectory and goal that ked to... changes such as the removing of the headphone jack, etc." Bad taste? Narcissistic corporate executives... with impractically bad taste?
:-) Yeah, no need to go to a conspiracy theory with no rational basis or factual evidence when stupidity,greed, incompetence or a combination thereof will explain the result. It seems to me that these kinds of theories only build up the power and influence of those petty industrial tyrants to the detriment of all.
Still, cold comfort to those of us who have lost the replaceable battery option and dread the day headphone jacks disappear forever.
>Letās just engage this for a moment.
Please no.
Designwise, it's about waterproofing.
You have to undersize parts for a watertight fit, which can result in undesirable characteristics when deformation or dropping of a device does happen. There's also an increasing tendency to use the outer shell of a device as a heat-sink/radiator. Adhesives enable this type of design but make it darn near impossible to maintain.
I'm not going to say there isn't a mustache twirler somewhere with surveillance plans of grandeur... but unfortunately the truth may be closer to it's cheaper to buy a tube of glue than to get a tub of small, self-tapping screws.
That's just my 2 cents from having torn things apart and put them back together to varying degrees of success.
I'd be ok with certain smart phones as the exemption, but not electronics in computers, home electronics, cars, tractors, etc.
And if it's truly about waterproofing, the companies better include water damage in their measly warranties.
If you want your cell phone to disappear from the airwaves, fold it in a piece of foil. Quite cheap and infeasible to overcome.
There are more realistic things like that, e.g. foil-protected credit card / access card wallets that prevent accidental contactless reading.
That's unlikely because people would notice the devices working while off. Your power draw comes from two sources unless you run games and heavy apps: display and radios - and there's enough interest and measurement happening there that people would notice radios activating when they shouldn't.
There's also lots of interest in tracking device communication and I really expect someone to notice a randomly appearing device where there shouldn't be one.
The attack scenario is, that the mobile just listens to you via the microphone and saves it - and later when normaly turned on, sends away all the data. All of this on a very low hardware layer, so no need for complex cpu operations or engage with the OS(in case of turned "off"). So very low power demand.
And it would also not show up, in anyone doing radiotraffic/wlan analysis.
So it would be indeed very hard to spot. (don't have the sources, but I think on some defcon was a talk with proof of concept about this)
So if anyone thinks, he is a specific target of some powerful intelligence agency, (like someone strongly engaged with the opposition in Hong Kong) - I think they definitely should consider this scenario as a possible one (but I don't know how likely it actually is, probably not high, if your are not considered a leader).
But that this change for non-removable batteries in general was made, so that even the paranoid part of the population can be tracked non-stop by the global Illuminati ... is indeed very much tinfoil area.
But the part about your phone maybe spying on you, when you think it is off:
Well, Snowden actually said, they can do it.
https://www.androidauthority.com/watch-edward-snowden-phones...
I think right to repair bills could be important, but I think they should also cover cases where the physical device is fine, but the company is no longer running a service, or sending security updates. In these cases, "repair" should include the ability to run different firmware etc.
... different SaaS service, including any security keys?
Can someone please explain exactly what regulations are being proposed and what manufactures will be required to do? Are manufacturer going to be, for example, required to manufacture electronic parts for every old model and keep them available for 10 years as was suggested in one comment? I'm sympathetic but there is no way this is going to work. There are literally thousands of different models of phones, for example, made every year. Ask yourself if it is it really practical to require manufacturers to keep generating parts for every old model? And then multiply that problem countlessly for every other electronic product out there.I don't think this is an area for regulation This is a recipe for shutting down the tech hardware industry. This is an area for customer pressure not regulations. This will be a hugely burdensome on manufacturers and will greatly reduce the amount of innovation and new products. And shut many new products out of the marketplace.
Can anyone comment on this please? (from the nysenate.gov link in the article)
"This bill require original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to make diag- nostic and repair information for digital electronic parts and equipment available to independent repair providers and consumers if such parts and repair information are also available to OEM authorized repair providers."
This seems to imply that if something is being sold as non repairable, it will continue to be, since there would be no authorized repair providers.
Your take sounds right. Like if Apple replaces phone screens at an Apple facility, they must also make the screens (and supporting equipment) available to other parties. If they don't replace screens, then they don't have to make them available.
Exactly. Which would make sense in case of spare parts, "we don't make spare parts for us, so we can't distribute them for others", but that would apply also to firmware and technical information, which they have and doesn't require distribution in physical form.
I'm afraid that for some time we'll continue to see old phones discarded in landfills because there will be no technical information available allowing developers to port open operating systems, drivers and apps to them.
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