[ifixit] We Are Retroactively Dropping the iPhone’s Repairability Score

"Why don't you buy Apple products?"

Me: Gestures broadly at this:

Ever the innovators, Apple introduced a new dimension to repair that our scorecard simply didn’t account for: namely, that you could take a highly repairable design like the iPhone 14, install a genuine Apple replacement screen or battery, and then… it fails to work. Following the correct procedure was no longer enough.

Today, you need one more thing: a software handshake, using Apple’s System Configuration tool. It contacts Apple’s servers to “authenticate” the repair, then “pairs” the new part to your system so it works as expected. Of course, it can only authenticate if Apple knows about your repair in advance, because you gave them the exact serial number of your iPhone, and they’ve pre-matched it to a display or battery. This is only possible if you buy the screen or battery directly from Apple. Forget harvesting parts—which is a huge part of most independent repair and recycling businesses. It’s also impossible to pair any aftermarket parts—which means only Apple-authorized repairs can truly restore the device to full functionality.

I can understand Apple refusing to do repairs under warranty, or even invalidating a warranty, if someone has broken their phone after digging around inside without knowing what they are doing, but bricking a phone the person owns through a software lock is absolutely insane and stinks of attempts at service capture and fighting right to repair laws.

Yet another reason I'll never give them a penny.

Fairphone gang rise up!

This hardware DRM shit is just plain evil. Was considering an Iphone next year for the first time, but going to nope right out of there.

Almost everything apple does nowadays is a marketing front, repairability, privacy, not including chargers, accessories and removing the headphone jack for the sake of the environment, and more to come.

And consumers "punish" Apple for these unrepairable devices by buying new iphones in record numbers.

Until consumers hurt Apple in the ONE place it cares - it's pocketbook - hope is lost on changing them.

But consumers are like lemmings. We see this in pre-orders for videogames and folks who proudly are buying the latest crop of obnoxiously priced videocards, or in the car industry where some consumers paying way over sticker just so they can have the latest new model.

And then we wonder why companies seem to have us bent over.

for now, we are only rescoring the iPhone 14. We are not retroactively rescoring earlier iPhones at this time. If we did, their scores would also likely decline.

I don't get it. They finally recognized that the score does not reflect reality, leads to wasted money and frustration, and then they don't apply there newfound insight to products already affected? To me that seems somewhat dishonest.

This should be illegal. We legislation that force repairability and open repair methods (anti-drm).

Uhhhh, it wasn't already zero?

Fucking capitalists

Permanently Deleted

That score of 4 is still very high... I feel, it should be closer to 1...

Should and will be illegal

I've been trying to convince myself now that the iPhone uses USB C to swap from Android since Google and the whole DRM bit. To be fair I'm a Firefox user and I know Apple uses a chromium wrapper for Safari or what have you but I am afraid of Graphene OS installation.

With this I just can't do Apple. Alright all you Lemmies telling me just to try it and so being a wimp, I'm gonna do it.

Why do people care about Apple's repairability? If you don't like that your phone is unrepairable - don't buy it?

I'm not doubting this is true given the source, but there are phone repair shops all over my town that repair cracked iPhone screens all the time. How do they make that business work if they have to register something like a screen replacement?