<story><title>Apple now strives to design and build products that last as long as possible</title><url>http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>the_solenoid</author><text>I think if you try to extrapolate your or my willingness to repair something to the overall market for the iphone, it would be an error.&lt;p&gt;What are the tradeoffs for a user replaceable battery? (really, this is something we should all know if we are arguing FOR replaceable batteries - maybe it&amp;#x27;s not the best idea?&lt;p&gt;I would wager 99%+ of sales go to people who never want to touch the innards of a phone.&lt;p&gt;And anecdotally, my SO&amp;#x27;s father got a cheap battery for his iphone and it ballooned up and almost destroyed his phone.&lt;p&gt;He also asked me if he should get a 3rd party power adaptor for his macbook (I said no, he ignored me because his wife is cheap), and it was this cheap POS that actually ended up forcing him to doa $600 repair AND get an apple power supply.&lt;p&gt;I spent years working on consumer PCs - normal people dont have time or inclination to deal with all this crap, just like they don&amp;#x27;t want to learn to repair their own air conditioner.&lt;p&gt;Consumers who want&amp;#x2F;need easily replaceable batteries already don&amp;#x27;t choose an iPhone, so all this in mind, I suspect the numbers don&amp;#x27;t add up for this argument.</text></item><item><author>beloch</author><text>You know what helps products last longer and reduces waste at the same time?&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Repairability&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;The repairability of apple products is so poor that even Apple can&amp;#x27;t fix most of their own products without replacing surprisingly large portions of any given Apple device.  End user repairability has been utterly neglected.  Disassembly is frequently impossible without causing damage, and components such as batteries are frequently soldered on.&lt;p&gt;Are other manufacturers better?  They &lt;i&gt;used&lt;/i&gt; to be.  Apple leads the way, and now the average phone is nearly as difficult to repair as an iPhone.&lt;p&gt;Hey, it&amp;#x27;s great that they managed to get iOS 12 to run on a 5S.  It probably runs like an absolute dog, but it runs!  Just wonderful.  How easy is it for end-users to replace the battery in that off-warranty 5S?  Oh.  I see.  Well, running iOS 12 on a 5S isn&amp;#x27;t so practical then, is it?&lt;p&gt;Repairability.  I&amp;#x27;ll believe point #2 when Apple stops making every succeeding generation of their products harder for end-users to repair.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>logfromblammo</author><text>Repairable devices create a market for third-party device repair.&lt;p&gt;When something on my car breaks, I take it to a person that has no direct affiliation with the company that built my car, and it is always cheaper than taking it to the local repair shop that the manufacturer runs.  &lt;i&gt;Always&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;I can also replace the parts in it with parts manufactured by yet another third party.  Again, the parts of equivalent quality are nearly always cheaper than the original manufacturer&amp;#x27;s replacement parts.  You can also spend more on premium aftermarket parts, if you like.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t even want to change the oil in my car.  But I can pay someone who wants to service and repair cars all day, as their job, to do it for me, rather than sending the car back to the factory to have its engine replaced every time the oil gets dirty.&lt;p&gt;If I like tinkering with electronics, I could swap my own iPhone battery, and then I could also do that for other people.  The problem is that Apple, Samsung, et al do not wish to share the repairs market, or allow repairs to eat into new sales, and therefore do not sell repair parts at reasonable prices or release part specifications so that third parties may produce repair parts of equivalent quality.&lt;p&gt;So the only way to get cheaper than an official first-party repair is to get crappy grey-market parts.  Proprietary and patented connectors that don&amp;#x27;t get licensed on reasonable terms make things worse.  This stuff doesn&amp;#x27;t need to be repaired by everyone, but it needs to be repairable by &lt;i&gt;someone that isn&amp;#x27;t beholden to the original manufacturer&lt;/i&gt;.  Repairability is the consumer check on planned obsolescence.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple now strives to design and build products that last as long as possible</title><url>http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>the_solenoid</author><text>I think if you try to extrapolate your or my willingness to repair something to the overall market for the iphone, it would be an error.&lt;p&gt;What are the tradeoffs for a user replaceable battery? (really, this is something we should all know if we are arguing FOR replaceable batteries - maybe it&amp;#x27;s not the best idea?&lt;p&gt;I would wager 99%+ of sales go to people who never want to touch the innards of a phone.&lt;p&gt;And anecdotally, my SO&amp;#x27;s father got a cheap battery for his iphone and it ballooned up and almost destroyed his phone.&lt;p&gt;He also asked me if he should get a 3rd party power adaptor for his macbook (I said no, he ignored me because his wife is cheap), and it was this cheap POS that actually ended up forcing him to doa $600 repair AND get an apple power supply.&lt;p&gt;I spent years working on consumer PCs - normal people dont have time or inclination to deal with all this crap, just like they don&amp;#x27;t want to learn to repair their own air conditioner.&lt;p&gt;Consumers who want&amp;#x2F;need easily replaceable batteries already don&amp;#x27;t choose an iPhone, so all this in mind, I suspect the numbers don&amp;#x27;t add up for this argument.</text></item><item><author>beloch</author><text>You know what helps products last longer and reduces waste at the same time?&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Repairability&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;The repairability of apple products is so poor that even Apple can&amp;#x27;t fix most of their own products without replacing surprisingly large portions of any given Apple device.  End user repairability has been utterly neglected.  Disassembly is frequently impossible without causing damage, and components such as batteries are frequently soldered on.&lt;p&gt;Are other manufacturers better?  They &lt;i&gt;used&lt;/i&gt; to be.  Apple leads the way, and now the average phone is nearly as difficult to repair as an iPhone.&lt;p&gt;Hey, it&amp;#x27;s great that they managed to get iOS 12 to run on a 5S.  It probably runs like an absolute dog, but it runs!  Just wonderful.  How easy is it for end-users to replace the battery in that off-warranty 5S?  Oh.  I see.  Well, running iOS 12 on a 5S isn&amp;#x27;t so practical then, is it?&lt;p&gt;Repairability.  I&amp;#x27;ll believe point #2 when Apple stops making every succeeding generation of their products harder for end-users to repair.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lentil_soup</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t necessarily have to fix it yourself, though. You could get it serviced by a professional, just like people do with a washing machine or a fridge.</text></comment>