Apple’s 24-page defense of its repair strategy also contains some policy changes
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I'm focused on battery longevity too so please supply a charge limit feature for all devices (as in a user-set limit, not guessing my schedule) and show battery health on iPad.
edit: "Cheap charging cables from 7-11 are serial killers," - ha, serial, get it?
edit: "Cheap charging cables from 7-11 are serial killers," - ha, serial, get it?
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As someone who has used iFixIt tools and parts to replace an iPhone screen I’m decently happy with the experience. That said, I would gladly trade home repairability for a major reduction in how likely they are to need repair. When you can have your cake and eat it too, making a device that’s both durable and repairable, that’s great. But if you’re forced to chose between durable and repairable, durable wins every time.
It’s an important part of the repairability conversation.
It’s an important part of the repairability conversation.
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So, those pictures above of 3rd party batteries...what happens if you subject the OEM Apple batteries to that same exact test? Unless they include an extra BMS on the battery, which I doubt, I'd expect pretty much the same thing. The technologies and chemistry are roughly the same. Unless Apple has switched to LiFePO4 or LTO, which I doubt. Too low of energy density.
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Apple batteries are supposed to be able to pass the tests that led to those batteries' condition, so theoretically they're supposed to be fine.
But yeah, a picture of the Apple battery after would have been nice.
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My Ars brethren we meet again in the digital realm for some mental jousting.
I never even considered the carbon foot print for any changes I thought a company should make to their products. Definitely have to take that into account in the future.
I also wonder what would an iPhone or Pixel look like with 100% repairability and keeping its water proof rating along with enhanced durability.
Could we really get the device that we want? What would be a good test is if Apple made iPhones with increasing levels of said options above. Then based on sales we would know what the consumer really values. I have a guess that most consumers will take the cool shiny one over the bigger and bulky one with a greater battery life and repairability.
I never even considered the carbon foot print for any changes I thought a company should make to their products. Definitely have to take that into account in the future.
I also wonder what would an iPhone or Pixel look like with 100% repairability and keeping its water proof rating along with enhanced durability.
Could we really get the device that we want? What would be a good test is if Apple made iPhones with increasing levels of said options above. Then based on sales we would know what the consumer really values. I have a guess that most consumers will take the cool shiny one over the bigger and bulky one with a greater battery life and repairability.
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Been using i-stuff for many years now and have been lucky not to have needed any repairs so far. It does make me somewhat sensitive to Apple‘s story, however, at the same time I also not completely trust them, the notorious money grabbers that they are.
All in all I would support durability over repairability but how to strike the proper balance is too complicated for me, how do you measure, how do you define the baseline and how do you regulate this fairly?
All in all I would support durability over repairability but how to strike the proper balance is too complicated for me, how do you measure, how do you define the baseline and how do you regulate this fairly?
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Apple's statement here is at least a little suspicious, IMO. (see pg 12 of Apple's whitepaper)
- It relies on a non-peer reviewed study by "UL Solutions"
- This non-peer reviewed study contains this gem:
- It further claims to only have examined 3rd party batteries that were not certified to relevant standards:
Like, what does that even mean? Were they unable to source 3rd party batteries that were certified? Or did they deliberately limit their "study" to batteries that were not safety-certified so it would paint the picture they wanted?
At a minimum, there is a serious conflict of interest in this study. At worst, there is a deliberate cherry-picking of samples that would fail even cursory peer-review.
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Longtime lurker here, but reader of many years.
This is an interesting article to me as someone who enjoyed fixing phones and other gadgets as a teen, often helping family and friends with screen replacements and such. Over the years I've given up as devices use more glue during assembly making repairs tedious and decent quality parts are either impossible to find or priced above the value of the device. I would often have to repeat a repair after the "new" battery or screen would start glitching or performing worse than the 5+ year old original one after a few days.
I'm quite confused about the point made regarding Apple's charging connector. I've replaced a fair amount of these on various phones, and to my knowledge Apple has never released a phone where the connector was not replaceable fairly easily. I just looked up the price for my current phone (14 pro) and the connector runs between $15 and $20 for a genuine part. Is the issue that the charging connector assembly also has a few other electronics on it rather than being strictly the connector and nothing else? If so, I completely agree with Apple here, as making each tiny part of the phone individually replaceable adds a ton of complexity and screws and connectors for minimal benefit.
In contrast, many Samsung phones and other Androids have the flimsy micro USB port soldered on to the main logic board and required soldering to replace. I remember this being the case with the Galaxy S5, S10, and many other phones sold by the millions.
This is an interesting article to me as someone who enjoyed fixing phones and other gadgets as a teen, often helping family and friends with screen replacements and such. Over the years I've given up as devices use more glue during assembly making repairs tedious and decent quality parts are either impossible to find or priced above the value of the device. I would often have to repeat a repair after the "new" battery or screen would start glitching or performing worse than the 5+ year old original one after a few days.
I'm quite confused about the point made regarding Apple's charging connector. I've replaced a fair amount of these on various phones, and to my knowledge Apple has never released a phone where the connector was not replaceable fairly easily. I just looked up the price for my current phone (14 pro) and the connector runs between $15 and $20 for a genuine part. Is the issue that the charging connector assembly also has a few other electronics on it rather than being strictly the connector and nothing else? If so, I completely agree with Apple here, as making each tiny part of the phone individually replaceable adds a ton of complexity and screws and connectors for minimal benefit.
In contrast, many Samsung phones and other Androids have the flimsy micro USB port soldered on to the main logic board and required soldering to replace. I remember this being the case with the Galaxy S5, S10, and many other phones sold by the millions.
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Sometimes you can’t get everything you want because physics. I think Apple’s argument here - and one I agree with - is that you’re really trying to optimize for 3 things: durability, repairability AND embodied energy of manufacture. You could make something both durable and repairable by just building it like a brick shithouse - big and chonky. But in addition to being less desirable in the market, it would likely have a much higher embodied energy than a more svelte device.
Making something that is durable, repairable AND minimizing materials is tricky.
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Agreed. But given Apple's claim of being design and innovation leaders, I'm happy to hold their feet to the fire to push all three as hard as possible.
I'd personally prioritise that more than AI but YMMV.
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Why wait? The new iPad Pro offers battery health and an 80% charge limit. The future of tomorrow, here today!
Was that worth $670+tax or $60-ish down and $55.83 a month over the Air? I don't know. That's $22/month over 2.5 years (how long I've been dealing with it on my iPhone 13PM) to never have to think about charging limits ever again.
(Well, you also get a faster processor, more RAM, a brighter and more responsive screen, Thunderbolt, FaceID, more speakers, a nicer keyboard, and less weight and thickness.)
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My newest iPhone (15 pro max) lets me set max charge to 80% 'all the time' instead of 'based on detected use schedule'. Not sure if that is available on smaller phones or not.
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I had to read the headline several times to understand it. I understand it, but it is still difficult to digest.
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Oh yeah I did hear about that. I believe it isn't, though I can't fathom why. It should be on all devices.
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If they're anything like me, they assume the cable is the problem, buy a new cable, realize that didn't solve it, grumble loudly, and switch to charging via MagSafe.
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When I had a digital camera, I was delighted that my model used standard batteries so I could keep a few rechargeables on hand when I was on holiday and not worry about my batteries going flat.
I have a Magic Trackpad and a Magic Trackpad 2 on my desk. I appreciate that the Magic Trackpad was designed around its physical constraints: the height is dictated by the diameter of the standard batteries it accepts. On the other hand, Magic Trackpad 2 has an integrated battery so I know that as long as I stop dropping heavy objects on them, Magic Trackpad will be in service longer than Magic Trackpad 2.
For iPhones, I imagine Apple are taking into consideration the fact that they only receive X years of iOS updates, after which you are urged to purchase a new model. So as long as the integrated battery can handle that typical lifespan, then they feel their choices with regards to durability vs reparability are justified.
Some consumers are concerned with devices' afterlives, beyond official support, which of course, Apple are not concerned about.
Also, I feel that removing the still rather ubiquitous headphone jack from iOS devices (when EVERY Mac produced today still includes one) seems more about pushing people toward AirPods purchases and less about IPX water protection certification. I believe a commenter on Ars once wrote that he'd witnessed people casually immerse unprotected mobiles in ponds, fountains, etc. because "they're waterproof" which is not what that's about, since water tests generally use uncontaminated water and good luck finding pure water out in the real world. Those are more of a bit of protection in an accidental splash/drop scenario but emphasising their certification has caused people to become incredibly careless with their devices.
I have a Magic Trackpad and a Magic Trackpad 2 on my desk. I appreciate that the Magic Trackpad was designed around its physical constraints: the height is dictated by the diameter of the standard batteries it accepts. On the other hand, Magic Trackpad 2 has an integrated battery so I know that as long as I stop dropping heavy objects on them, Magic Trackpad will be in service longer than Magic Trackpad 2.
For iPhones, I imagine Apple are taking into consideration the fact that they only receive X years of iOS updates, after which you are urged to purchase a new model. So as long as the integrated battery can handle that typical lifespan, then they feel their choices with regards to durability vs reparability are justified.
Some consumers are concerned with devices' afterlives, beyond official support, which of course, Apple are not concerned about.
Also, I feel that removing the still rather ubiquitous headphone jack from iOS devices (when EVERY Mac produced today still includes one) seems more about pushing people toward AirPods purchases and less about IPX water protection certification. I believe a commenter on Ars once wrote that he'd witnessed people casually immerse unprotected mobiles in ponds, fountains, etc. because "they're waterproof" which is not what that's about, since water tests generally use uncontaminated water and good luck finding pure water out in the real world. Those are more of a bit of protection in an accidental splash/drop scenario but emphasising their certification has caused people to become incredibly careless with their devices.
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Since the 15PM came out before the new iPad Pros, my guess is that anything with an A17 Pro or M4 or newer that runs iOS/iPadOS will have the option in the future. So, the current 15 lineup won't get it, since they got the A16 Bionic, but the 16s hopefully will. And the new iPad Air didn't get it, because it runs on an M2, but future models probably will.
There are no M3 chips in iDevices, but I suspect an iPad that ran an M3 would get the feature, since the M3 came out after the A17 Pro. I'm guessing this will never be answered, since the next Air will probably get the M4 and the mini and regular iPads have historically gotten A-series chips.
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Nanh, you don't go far enough. Apple should be giving away phone for free. Because they're rich I guess? They OWE us!
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Probably the former. There are a lot of third parties making and selling replacements, and the cost of a real safety certification, amortized over the relatively low volume vs the first party supplier, is probably more than the market will bear -- especially if that certification requires outside testing, like at a UR facility. Most of the people buying third party parts are probably shopping on price, after all, which is why they aren't buying a first party replacement, and probably aren't much swayed by certifications like that.
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I don't see "less than 0.1%" as implausible for the part of the phone likely at the highest probability of failure (besides the screen, of course), especially given how I've seen phones and charging cords used. I'd like to know what the failure rate is on other phones as well, before discussing whether this is expected or not.
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Wait, so you want Apple (and I guess only Apple) to stop updating their hardware or adding features or keeping their port selection current? Where's my VGA port Apple? Planned obsolescence!
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Back when they announced the iPhone X (so 2017) they announced this policy shift. Included in the shift was at least 5 years of OS updates for new devices and build quality with the expectation that in normal use devices would last at least 5 years. This was on the tail end of the 2-year carrier replacement pattern that a lot of consumers were in. This also included the rollout of Apple's robots that could disassemble phones to recycle parts, expanding their trade-in recycling programs, updates to their buy-back program, improving waterproof, and a few other things here and there.
So, I think formally 'longevity' means 5 years, at least for iPhone. This is consistent with CAs right of repair law that Apple ended up supporting that makes parts available for at least 7 years after the product is introduced.
Apple hasn't removed a standard port by their own choice on iPhone or iPad since the headphone jack in 2016,. They removed Lightning in the EU because the EU forced them to. Apple added the Wireless MagSafe charging in that time which has gone on to essentially become the Qi2 standard, so even that hasn't needed to change because it's now the standard. On the Mac they've removed USB A and replaced it with USB C/Thunderbolt, as they are supposed to do. In fact, in that process they successfully worked to jam every goddamn protocol on earth onto the USB-C connector explicitly so that they wouldn't need to change ports. Want to go from USB-3 to 4? Same port. Thunderbolt? Same port. DisplayPort? Same port. You might need to buy a better cable to do that, though. That's out of their control. Even Apple cannot change the laws of electromagnetism.
About 75% of used phone market is iPhones because most consumers give up their phones before the phone has physically broken, usually because they want the new software features, etc. that can't run on the older hardware. Apple cannot download NPUs over the internet either.
So, please enlighten us which ports Apple has removed that would force a user to need to replace a device, and in which year they did it. Yeah, Apple ditched ADB for USB back in 1998. Get over it, it's been a quarter century.
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My new 13” 2024 M4 iPad Pro has battery health in Settings, and it also gives the user the option to charge to 80% of maximum.
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Apple has been pushing users VERY hard to NEVER use the charging port. Apple would very much like to get rid of it. Their entire focus for the last 5 years has been on wireless MagSafe. No mechanical connector, no wear.
Apple has for 25 years been on a goddamn crusade to eliminate mechanical wear from their devices. It's why they fully switched from spinning hard drives to SSDs years before anyone else did, it's why the dropped optical drives years before anyone else did, it's why they've moved form physical to wireless standards, and so on and so forth. Trackpads on MacBooks aren't mechanical. Little doors to cover ports went away. Things that pop out went away. The TouchID stopped being a mechanical button long before it gave way to FaceID. Even the early iPods gave up the physical spinning wheel for a touch sensor.
Apple makes a lot of money selling AppleCare to anxious owners, and Apple makes even more money when the device never breaks and needs to be repaired under AppleCare. They are financially motivated to get rid of routine sources of breakage, which to my understanding has always been physical ports more than anything else. The headphone jack, for all the people who bemoan the loss, was also the thing that kept a lot of phones from hitting the ground when the person dropped them and their headphone cord caught the fall, usually breaking the headphone jack connector and requiring a repair - even when the phone would have easily survived the fall. People seem to not have noticed how much less repair traffic Apple Stores are doing in the last 5 years since the headphone jack was removed (and people adopted wireless charging more aggressively) and people just relied on a case - even a minimalistic one - to take the fall impact instead of snapping off the headphone connector daughterboard.
The entire smartwatch market has relied on daily wireless charging for years now and it's been fine. Qi2 would have been a better choice for EU charging mandate than USB-C, given the confusion over cables and the dubious security of allowing data transfer over a connection that you intend to only transfer power.
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