I believe most of the proposed right to repair bills include a provision requiring manufacturers to provide diagnostic tools and replacement parts under "reasonable terms."
I find his claim dubitable at best whereas there can be real concerns from Apple's side about possibly counterfeit or ill-gotten merchandise that isn't up to their standards making it into a customer's machine and ending up in a fire or something.
He should really be complaining about Apple not offering service parts from a first party /trusted source.
I find parts of his claim dubious... Specifically the Apple + CBP timing conspiracy.
However, the rest seems more than fair - Apple won't even sell the parts to authorized repair shops, nor will they repair the laptops themselves.
He believes the batteries he ordered are genuine Apple parts, and I see no reason to doubt that. Shenzhen has entire buildings filled with both genuine and fake Apple parts.
CBP says that because these parts are imported through non-official channels and bear trademarks, they're most likely counterfeit. Louis says they're original.
Having your stuff taken sounds shitty but I'm not sure that's a significant problem here. The batteries were seized, not destroyed. Louis has (albeit deeply inconvenient) recourse available to get them back, but at some point, somebody is going to have to decide that these are genuine, or they'll be destroyed.
This structure is in place because there are floods of fake parts out there pretending to be genuine. That much should be obvious when anybody can have their phone screen replaced for a fully-branded replacement for $20.
And yes, it's the branding here that's the most obvious catch. If these were unlabelled (video comments talk about just crossing the logo out with a Sharpie), it would be a much harder thing for CBP to assume.
But yeah, these parts should all be on general sale, from Apple. And if they don't want to do it, they need to allow their suppliers to supply those parts to market.
Apple's repair policies are terrible for the environment, entirely anti-consumer, and violate anything close to resembling the hacker ethic. But I doubt Rossmann's claim that the CBC video was the cause for Apple's action. It was probably his work in Albany on the Right to Repair bill where he was repairing legislators and staff laptops, on site, in the lobby of the building.
If you look at the wider issue, EVERYTHING in the Apple ecosystem is broken. This isn't just an issue about repair. OSX is buggy. iOS is buggy. iTunes is buggy. Photos is buggy... etc etc.
The hardware used to be solid at least. I have a 12-year-old MacBook that's still running. But, my new machines don't last.
It used to be that Apple would fix stuff, so you didn't really worry about the hardware so much. But now, they'll refuse to fix things in warranty, even.
So we've arrived at a point where Apple's software doesn't work, Apple's hardware doesn't work, and Apple won't acknowledge it-- and it's all at a premium price.
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 578 ms ] threadI wouldn't be surprised if Apple tries to finish him off.
He should really be complaining about Apple not offering service parts from a first party /trusted source.
However, the rest seems more than fair - Apple won't even sell the parts to authorized repair shops, nor will they repair the laptops themselves.
He believes the batteries he ordered are genuine Apple parts, and I see no reason to doubt that. Shenzhen has entire buildings filled with both genuine and fake Apple parts.
Having your stuff taken sounds shitty but I'm not sure that's a significant problem here. The batteries were seized, not destroyed. Louis has (albeit deeply inconvenient) recourse available to get them back, but at some point, somebody is going to have to decide that these are genuine, or they'll be destroyed.
This structure is in place because there are floods of fake parts out there pretending to be genuine. That much should be obvious when anybody can have their phone screen replaced for a fully-branded replacement for $20.
And yes, it's the branding here that's the most obvious catch. If these were unlabelled (video comments talk about just crossing the logo out with a Sharpie), it would be a much harder thing for CBP to assume.
But yeah, these parts should all be on general sale, from Apple. And if they don't want to do it, they need to allow their suppliers to supply those parts to market.
Also Apple: These parts you imported are probably counterfeit because you didn't buy them from us
If you look at the wider issue, EVERYTHING in the Apple ecosystem is broken. This isn't just an issue about repair. OSX is buggy. iOS is buggy. iTunes is buggy. Photos is buggy... etc etc.
The hardware used to be solid at least. I have a 12-year-old MacBook that's still running. But, my new machines don't last.
It used to be that Apple would fix stuff, so you didn't really worry about the hardware so much. But now, they'll refuse to fix things in warranty, even.
So we've arrived at a point where Apple's software doesn't work, Apple's hardware doesn't work, and Apple won't acknowledge it-- and it's all at a premium price.