Key Points:

  • Apple opposed a right-to-repair bill in Oregon, despite previously supporting a weaker one in California.
  • The key difference is Oregon’s restriction on “parts pairing,” which locks repairs to Apple or authorized shops.
  • Apple argues this protects security and privacy, but critics say it creates a repair monopoly and e-waste.
  • Apple claims their system eases repair and maintain data security, while Google doesn’t have such a requirement
  • Apple refused suggestions to revise the bill
  • Cybersecurity experts argue parts pairing is unnecessary for security and hinders sustainable repair.
    • Dangdoggo
      link
      fedilink
      10210 months ago

      They “supported” a bill that they immediately circumvented, yeah. They had no interest in protecting right to repair they just wanted the PR. It should surprise no one that they’re opposed to actual bills that force them to alter their business practices.

        • @BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          910 months ago

          People still act like Apple is a privacy-oriented business even after they planned to scan everyone’s iCloud files on behalf of the government to “protect the children”.

  • Bappity
    link
    fedilink
    English
    13910 months ago

    no suprise here. it’s apple. they made a $3500 device that has been bricking itself and charging people $100 to fix it because it’s completely proprietary

  • @Cheems@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    8010 months ago

    Obviously people should be able to repair their own devices.

    Pumps millions into actively preventing that exact thing

    • @SitD@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      3910 months ago

      Pumps more millions into a cringe advertising campaign with some mother earth bullshit or so. Yeah sure we love her but let’s force more ewaste down her throat. 😂

  • @the_q@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    6710 months ago

    It’s crazy that Apple is lauded as having amazing designers and engineers, but they can’t make easily repairable devices. It’s almost like that’s the point…

  • @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    5810 months ago

    Apple just wants to sell you more shit. If they’d just admit it, I’d at least respect their honesty. As it is they’re just flip flopping.

    • @bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      49
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      Apple just wants to sell you more shit.

      Bingo. I just set up a dual monitor and dock setup for my laptop in our home office. It dawned on me that my wife could get some use out of it, so I plugged it in. Come to find out, her MacBook Pro only supports a single external monitor. To do two external monitors, she’d have to upgrade to an entirely different and obviously more expensive MacBook. Dafuq? My almost 15 year old Sony laptop can do that ffs. Fucking boners.

      I know there are software hacks I can do to enable the functionality, but that’s asinine for a $1700 laptop. Guaranteed if I dual booted Linux on it the problem would magically disappear.

      • @EddyBot@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        510 months ago

        Guaranteed if I dual booted Linux on it the problem would magically disappear.

        unfortunately not since its a hardware limitation
        probably a cruft from the iPhone/iPad era since the first ARM desktop chips from Apple are basically beefed up phone chips which don’t need more than one external monitor

        anyway it is pretty stupid to ship a laptop with that limitation in this century

        • @bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          310 months ago

          While I haven’t tried, there are software circumventions on osx that bypass that limitation, so I can all but guarantee it would likely be a non-issue on any given Linux distro

      • @XeroxCool@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -2810 months ago

        Apple’s design revolves around devices “always” working. Dual externals probably has the potential to run like shit with heavy cpu loads. So they limit it to one where it’s “promised” to operate well. It’s why peripherals have to meet certain standards and have a license to pair to apple products, they have to work as Apple expects. Apple is afraid people will overextend resources and buy shitty peripherals and then say their apple is a piece of shit. So, their factor of safety is excessive. It helps foster the whole “apple just works” mentality, promoting its clean UI and smooth operation. It’s for common folk, people of the land, you know… Morons.

        And things still run like shit anyway, especially when navigating proprietarianism hell

        • @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          2310 months ago

          No they aren’t, they want to sell you and me more stuff. It’s the way it’s always been. We’re just the pleebs giving them our money.

          • @XeroxCool@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            610 months ago

            That’s the goal, yes, by way of making the gen pop think apple is doing them a favor by providing a worry-free environment

        • the post of tom joad
          link
          fedilink
          English
          2110 months ago

          Apple’s design revolves around devices “always” working.

          This is what they tell us, yes. It is not what reality reflects

        • @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          810 months ago

          My 2010 Lenovo X series can run dual monitors with no problem. On any OS.

          No, apple intentionally handicapped this capability, which is available via USB on my 5 year old laptops.

        • @bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          7
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          Nah I fully get where you’re coming from, but locking out users is a cop out. Considering Apple’s M-series chips being “system-on-chips” integrating the CPU, GPU, RAM, and more, I can slightly understand limitations with someone trying to do dual monitor video rendering or 3d modeling overloading the chip and crashing the system on lower end chips. But even then, there could easily be a software mechanism that disallows such use when loads are too high as well as a warning to the user by way of a pop up prompt. Modern monitors using display port via thunderbolt and USB C while claiming the chip can’t handle it is such a silly restriction when 3rd party software can mitigate it. Like I understand to an extent that they’ve made computing easy for the technologically uneducated and illiterate, but given their track record with other business decisions, this seems like more of just another “we like money” scenario instead of protect grandma.

          Awesome username btw

          • @barsoap@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            8
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            You don’t need additional monitors to overload the GPU you can do that with compute code alone, no actual graphics needed much less outputting graphics.

            Also it’s not terribly hard to prioritise scheduling such that certain aspects of the system remain responsive no matter how high the load, do that until you kill the resource-hungry process for exceeding hard limits and then display a popup sending the user to the apple store to buy an even stronger machine that’s even more overpriced. There, done. That still wouldn’t be a Mac I’d buy, but it’d be an Apple I’d respect, none of this “things are better when they’re worse” kind of gaslighting. That includes thinness of devices, btw, modern Apple laptops are severely crippled by their atrocious thermals, the beefiest CPU doesn’t do you any good if you can’t dissipate even half of the heat it produces, when you can run all cores at full tilt for a full half a second before it has to throttle to a crawl to not melt itself.

            Sidenote: Can OSX maximise windows nowadays? Did they get around to implementing it?

            • @datavoid@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              410 months ago

              Sidenote: Can OSX maximise windows nowadays? Did they get around to implementing it?

              Don’t worry, you can buy a program to accomplish everything they forgot to put in the OS…

              Seriously though, the M series hardware is impressive, but it’s not like apple software is actually more reliable. I’m running Ableton Live on an M1 air, and while it performs much better than on windows, it crashes exactly the same if you happen to choose the wrong order of operations. At least on windows you can choose “wait for this program to respond” - on mac you’re going straight to desktop.

  • @whoelectroplateuntil@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    4810 months ago

    Right to repair also has an environmental angle. Consider which one uses more resources and likely produces more pollution:

    • The RAM in your laptop dies, you take it to a repair shop, they swap out the dead RAM. Dead RAM goes in the bin, laptop has years of life left in it
    • The RAM in your Macbook dies, the RAM is soldered to the board, you throw the whole thing away and buy a new one, and when a single component in the new Macbook dies, lather, rinse, repeat

    Considering how much extra e-waste is generated when people can’t repair things, there’s really no way to buy Apple and call yourself an environmentalist.

    • bruhduh
      link
      fedilink
      English
      210 months ago

      Mother earth advertising beg to differ /s

    • @theherk@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      110 months ago

      I really hope neither Apple nor any other repair shop simply casts electronic components in the bin. My expectation in both cases is that the components are recycled, at least for precious metals.

  • @NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    4210 months ago

    apple’s “support” was basically malicious compliance.

    The only way to get new parts involved sending in the damaged ones, which still screws over any third party business because they can’t have spare parts on hand for fast repairs. And the pricing basically meant you were saving like ten bucks in exchange for potentially fucking up and destroying your hardware. As opposed to using the repair program at the apple store.

    • Bonehead
      link
      fedilink
      18
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      That’s a security risk that would allow dangerous 3rd party hardware to be paired with perfect Apple products.

      /s…if it’s really necessary.

  • @TheAlbacor@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    2110 months ago

    Of course they want you to use their shops. That way they can charge whatever price they want.

    It’s the same reason McDonald’s ice cream machines are always down.

      • @TheAlbacor@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        110 months ago

        That doesn’t make sense when they backed the one in California but only didn’t back this one because it would allow consumers to go outside of their repair system.

    • @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -310 months ago

      Meh, the ice cream machine is a different thing. I haven’t figured out fully how it benefits McD’s, I suspect there’s little profit margin on ice cream, but having the machine at all still brings (hopeful) people in who buy something else. A bait-and-switch.

      McD’s uses the same machine as many other places, but they have the temp variance much tighter, so much tighter that after the daily cleaning cycle, it takes hours to get back to temp.

      Then (and this is probably what you’re referring to), if the machine has a code, the franchise is required by contract to use the repair service that comes with the machine lease.

      There’s an indedependent dev who wrote a code reader/reset tool for the machines, and McD’s isn’t happy about it.

      I’m not clear how doing the maintenence this way benefits McD’s, unless they own the servicing company, and it doesn’t appear that they do.

      In the end, it means McD’s will often not actually have ice cream available. But these are franchises, so it would hurt the franchise most directly. Seems there’d be a potential legal issue here, if it could be proven.

  • LazaroFilm
    link
    fedilink
    English
    510 months ago

    Make parts pairing a free procedure by law with minimum required process and anyone can request it. Now Apple gets to keep their “security” bs argument and repairs can be done by anyone and paired by Apple for free.