Well this is interesting....

[rubber_jonnie]

Apple announces self-service repair: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/ ... xNpld9jc_E

Is it April 1st somewhere?

[Aeberbach]

It's going to be interesting seeing YouTube repairers tie themselves in knots to explain why this is actually a bad thing.

[mrbombermillzy]

Well, there must be something going on.

I cannot see Apple just deciding to haemorrhage their repair centre profits for the love of their customers.

[eightbit]

Wonder how many people who screw up their devices are going to try to collect warranty from Apple. "You told me it was ok to open it up!"

[sporniket]

@mrbombermillzy, to me, until legally proven wrong, it is just a "smoke and mirrors" type of move to stiffle the momentum toward a legal right to repair, that would force Apple (among others) to substancially unlock their hardware.

edit : phrasing.

[cmorley]

Just sounds like one of the Dell options where IT departments can get replacement parts sent to them rather than a Dell technician visiting the site. They send you a new motherboard & you send back the old one - in Apple's case that'll be with all your data because it is soldered to the board! :lol:

[mrbombermillzy]

Just sounds like one of the Dell options where IT departments can get replacement parts sent to them rather than a Dell technician visiting the site. They send you a new motherboard & you send back the old one -

There were other Dell options...like unscrupulous Dell engineers coming round and swapping all your dead motherboards for new ones that they had stashed; (were meant to be putting in customer repair units, but were found to be working, so kept them), all for cash!

Oh, that's allegedly/ a man who I don't know told me down the pub/ etc. ;)

But yes, I guess its so Apple can have some sort of control over the inevitable 'right to repair' revolution.

[rubber_jonnie]

I do wonder if it is just a tactic so that when right to repair looms, they can say 'Oh, but we already do it'.

At present, it looks like mostly things like batteries, cameras and screens, but they are also talking about M1 machines, which are more like mobile phones these days.

The new MBP already has battery removal tabs like the iphones, and since the logic board is a single unit, there is no reason why you couldn't swap it with little more than a screwdriver.

In terms of other things, like the USB ports, on the M1s these are all removable and should be replaceable with a screwdriver too, so if they can provide these parts that do fail for phones and M1s then that is a good way forward.

I guess time will tell, Louis Rossman talks about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jCtVDCiY_8

Once again, it could be smoke and mirrors so they can block any right to repair bills by saying 'But we already do let our users repair their gear'.

Probably 99% of users won't want to repair their own devices, so who knows what this is going to look like.

Also, we know certain items are serialised, and don't function properly when swapped, so how will they get around that?