<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>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>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></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>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>prepend</author><text>Repairabiliy is important. But I think durability is more important as it requires no action by the user. iPhones are pretty solid as far as lasting a long time. I’m using a 5S that is 3 years old and it’s my daily driver.&lt;p&gt;I passed on my old 4 that is still being used as a Netflix&amp;#x2F; web browser.&lt;p&gt;This is contrary to competitor phones that have hardware issues as well as ability to keep getting software updates.&lt;p&gt;Nexus 5x released sep 2015 and selling used for $85 with original retail [0] compared to 6s released at the same dome that is now selling used for $165 despite an original price of $650 and worse specs [1].&lt;p&gt;Certainly some of this price difference is due to Apple as a luxury product. But it may also be due to new OS releases not being supported on the 5X, but are on the 6S.&lt;p&gt;[0]  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;gp&amp;#x2F;offer-listing&amp;#x2F;B0178GEA04&amp;#x2F;ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;condition=all&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;gp&amp;#x2F;offer-listing&amp;#x2F;B0178GEA04&amp;#x2F;ref=mw_dp...&lt;/a&gt;
[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;gp&amp;#x2F;offer-listing&amp;#x2F;B015E8TYHW&amp;#x2F;ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;condition=all&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;gp&amp;#x2F;offer-listing&amp;#x2F;B015E8TYHW&amp;#x2F;ref=mw_dp...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>