Good day all. One of the things that really angers people is the near impossibility to get their smartphones, especially Apple Iphones repaired. This is due primarily to companies such as Apple actively preventing third parties from fixing Iphones.
This has led to a call to force companies such as Apple to let third parties have the tools they need, for a price of course, to repair and update certain types of electronics. The main reason for this is the cost to replace the equipment with new items. Recently, there was a bill in the New Hampshire legislature to do just that. Sadly, an idiot killed the bill. Here are the details from Vice:
The New Hampshire State House rejected the Digital Fair Repair Act earlier this week, (October 25th), in part thanks to a representative who seems to think that cell phones are literally garbage that no one should bother repairing.
The bill would have forced manufacturers such as Apple to share repair manuals and parts with independent repair stores. House members didn’t kill the bill, but sent it back to committee for a year of interim study, citing security concerns and, in the words of Rep. John Potucek (R-Derry) the ubiquity, cheapness, and—in his opinion—disposability of new smart phones.
Cheapness? I gather this idiot hasn’t bought a smartphone lately. He probably uses a cheap burner phone. Most smartphones are going to run several hundred dollars, and in the case of the Apple Iphones, they can easily run over $1000+ dollars. Why should someone need to spend that kind of money to get a battery or some simple $10 components that might have either worn out or been damaged, replaced?
“In the near future, cellphones are throwaways,” Potucek said, according to New Hampshire Business Review. “Everyone will just get a new one.”
I recently replaced my LG G6 phone, which I paid $600 for with the LG G8 model. I still have my G6 in case I should need it. The only reason I went with the newer model was a serious upgrades in memory and battery life. The battery in the old phone wasn’t working as well as it did when new, and I went from 32GB of onboard storage to 128gb. The G6 is also almost 3 years old.
The only reason I replaced my G4 with the G6 is my old G4 bricked and died, never to work again. I had replaced the battery on it, which extended it’s life significantly. I also lucked out on a sale of the G8. I bought it for about $600 and recently saw the same model going for almost $900. It probably would have been cheaper to replace the battery and update the onboard storage of my old G6. That may have cost about $100. Sadly, that isn’t an option. As for buying a new smartphone? I’m not rich like Mr. Potucek, since he obviously has no problem with dropping a grand or more for a new phone every year.
The new iPhone 11 costs between $699 and $1,349. And it can be hard to find one at the moment. Google’s Pixel 4 costs between $799 and $999. Manufacturers seal smartphones to make it difficult to replace the battery and do basic repairs. Often, getting repairs through the company is so expensive that people simply purchase a new phone. Apple’s repair monopoly is so dominant that it’s the center of an investigation by the United States House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee.
The term for what Apple and other companies are doing is called “Planned obsolescence.” Basically, you make it very difficult to repair something your self, and make it impossible for a third party to make repairs. Then, to top it off, you charge a small fortune to repair it in the manufacturer’s facilities.
It used to be that cars would last 2-5 years and require a lot of expensive repairs. People wold have to buy new ones since the old ones literally fell apart. Then came the Japanese, and they built cars and trucks that would last for a decade or more. Now it’s not uncommon for people to hold onto a car for 7-10 years if not longer, especially considering what it costs to get a new one.
Right to repair advocates aren’t buying Potucek’s reasoning.
“If you told someone 15 years ago that by 2019 cellphones would cost $1,000 and be ‘throwaway’ device—and you wouldn’t even bother to replace batteries—that very idea would seem completely absurd,” Nathan Proctor, the Director of the Campaign for the Right to Repair at US PIRG, told Motherboard in an email. “We might be more used to that idea in 2019, but it’s no less absurd. We are in danger of losing the basic ability to fix our stuff outside of manufacturer control, and we need legislators to stand up for their constituents right to repair.”
“At our three locations throughout [New Hampshire], we serve tens of thousands of our neighbors and visitors each year,” Chad Johansen, president of NH iPhone Repair, said in an email. “Many of our customers are happy with their devices and would rather spend $100 to fix their current device instead of $1000 for a new one with little to no updates or added features. Now the [manufacturers] such as Apple and Samsung are making it harder for residents of NH to repair the devices they own.”
It’s not just Apple and Samsung pulling this crap either. John Deere has made almost impossible for farmers and local mechanics to repair the tractors and combines they make. Those machines generally start at $100K and only go up. Farmers can’t afford to replace them and when something goes wrong, they have no option but to pay John Deere’s rates to get them fixed.
The right-to-repair movement is at a critical stage. The Federal Trade Commission is studying the issue, and Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have called for national right-to-repair laws.
Oh crap! Are you telling me that they are in actual agreement with me? I think I’m going to be sick.
I have been working in the computer field my entire career. I’ve built and repaired personal computers and servers. The only time I had a manufacturer’s technician in to make repairs was if the item was under warranty. As for Rep. John Potucek, he doesn’t represent the district I live in so I can’t vote this moron out in the next primary. However, I hope people in Derry will explain to this clod why his statement is inaccurate. Hell, his accuracy is so bad, he could be working for the Main Stream Media reporting on President Trump! Oh, yes, he is a Republican, but hey, even they have some real blithering idiots.
Thatisall
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