Right to Repair, or Fuck Apple and John Deere

[Cajun 11722]

5 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Be careful what you wish for. I have an android phone, both my wife and daughter have iphones. They constantly fight over and lose each other's chargers. Between them, they go through probably a charger a week.

I am still rocking the original charger that came with my phone. Because they never touch it, because it is useless to them.

If all three of our phones used the same charger, my life would be a constant battle of "where's my charger?" in addition to "where's the remote? where's the flashlight I keep under the kitchen sink? where's the scissors I keep in the kitchen drawer? etc etc etc."

 

Chagring pads around the house solved this problem for me.

[Parliament 14292]

8 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

 

One thing the EU was looking at was standardizing the power supply connectors. No more brand/device specific chargers. One charger for every phone and tablet.

This would make life so much easier.

 

Isn't everything new made for USB-C now?

[TwiceHorn 31534]

Apple, for the most part I think, has a better technical case for making their stuff non-user repairable.  It's their design philosophy.  It's not locked down so much as designed and built in a way not to be easily repaired.

But, as crash notes, they throw in some bullshit that isn't dictated by their design philosophy.  Still, in some cases they may be able to justify it by relying on their "user experience" mantra:  that is, user mods/repairs/replacements have the real potential to downgrade the "user experience" and that's about 60% or more of Apple device appeal.

Deere and some of the vehicle manufacturers I think have less technical justification for their lock down.  However, they can fall back on the safety thing:  people tinkering with their warez could cause safety issues.  And, as things like autonomous driving or super-cruise get built into the warez, that can get pretty compelling.

One complaint you see about Deere equipment is that there are features or options that cost thousands at retail that can be completely implemented simply by the flip of a software "switch."   That is annoying from the user perspective (why should I pay thousands for this feature when all you have to do is click a box in the software interface to enable it), but legally it is going to get absolutely nowhere and is a product of internet "err'thing should be free" think.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4977]

8 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Be careful what you wish for. I have an android phone, both my wife and daughter have iphones. They constantly fight over and lose each other's chargers. Between them, they go through probably a charger a week.

I am still rocking the original charger that came with my phone. Because they never touch it, because it is useless to them.

If all three of our phones used the same charger, my life would be a constant battle of "where's my charger?" in addition to "where's the remote? where's the flashlight I keep under the kitchen sink? where's the scissors I keep in the kitchen drawer? etc etc etc."

 

Speaking of flashlights, my EDC flashlight can charge using the same charger as my phone. My wife is constantly going through chargers. Part of that is because the kid keeps chewing them up, but that never seems to happen to mine.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4977]

Edit: OU sucks

Edited July 24, 2021 by NotActuallyALonghorn

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4977]

3 hours ago, Cajun said:

Chagring pads around the house solved this problem for me.

Until they get a case with one of the button things on the back, so the wireless charging doesn't work unless they remove the case and you charging pad gets unplugged to plug one of their chargers in. And there isn't really any reason for an unused charging pad to be laying around, so they should probably just put it up somewhere, like behind the refrigerator or wherever it is the missing socks go in the dryer. In fact, it's probably your fault it went missing because it was taking up valuable electrical outlet real estate with a charger they can't use.

[atomheartbevo 89788]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Apple, for the most part I think, has a better technical case for making their stuff non-user repairable.  It's their design philosophy.  It's not locked down so much as designed and built in a way not to be easily repaired.

Their insane lust to make things as thin and light as possible, while still high-performance, is fucking up a lot of stuff (not just repairs) and pisses me off because I don't need big-ass displays on phones that are thin and light and all screen, I want a 4.7-inch display (or smaller) on a phone that will fit in my pocket.  The current iPhone SE is almost my perfect phone (if it had a 512GB option).

And it's going to get worse with their laptops as they move forward with the Mx series of CPUs - integrating the memory, storage, etc. with the CPU on the system board certainly provides an amazing amount of performance (I'm still amazed at the M1 MacBook Air) and security (storage + hardware encryption), but we are down to basically a system board, keyboard, display, and battery, and they are liable to try and make their laptops even thinner (which I'm opposed to, since people could buy a fucking iPad Pro with a keyboard if they wanted that).

[atomheartbevo 89788]

3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Still, in some cases they may be able to justify it by relying on their "user experience" mantra:  that is, user mods/repairs/replacements have the real potential to downgrade the "user experience" and that's about 60% or more of Apple device appeal.

They don't want customers thinking about fixing anything - that's why they have the iPhone upgrade program, where customers move to a new phone every year.  In theory, most of their customers won't have anything go wrong in that time (at least hardware-wise), and Apple can take the trade-in phones, refurbish them, and then sell them or use them for warranty replacement.

I had a friend who worked on iCloud stuff for them, and they were focused on making it seamless for people moving between devices (iCloud backups, "Continuity", etc.), whether it's simply one device breaking, or somebody doing something on their phone and moving to their laptop when they are at their desk, and their iPad at their couch.

Apple will use that stuff, and their design philosophy, to justify not going out of their way to make their devices repairable.

And they will use hardware advancements to justify it as well.  Used to be you needed more room for physical cooling, so that made it easier to have things accessible to repair techs and by proxy, owners.  The 12-inch MacBook was the writing on the wall - the move to passive cooling reduced the need for a lot of internal cooling space.

[atomheartbevo 89788]

And yeah, I'm bitching about Apple for making everything thin and light, but the rest of them are doing it as well - Samsung, Lenovo, etc.

I miss being able to add a battery slice to the bottom of a ThinkPad, after adding an extended battery, and getting 20+ hours.  On the flip side, now that most of them have moved to USB-C, I have a USB-C battery pack that can power my laptop and my phone, and the laptop + USB-C battery are much lighter and smaller than a ThinkPad with multiple batteries attached.

[TwiceHorn 31534]

5 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

And yeah, I'm bitching about Apple for making everything thin and light, but the rest of them are doing it as well - Samsung, Lenovo, etc.

I miss being able to add a battery slice to the bottom of a ThinkPad, after adding an extended battery, and getting 20+ hours.  On the flip side, now that most of them have moved to USB-C, I have a USB-C battery pack that can power my laptop and my phone, and the laptop + USB-C battery are much lighter and smaller than a ThinkPad with multiple batteries attached.

I think the PC/Windows thin and lights that compete well with MacBooks have more replaceable components simply due to advances in technology, no?  Things like thinner SSDs, etc.

And iPhones have never been remarkably thinner or lighter than say Galaxy S phones, and the latter are fairly reparable and had replaceable batteries up until 9 or so.

But yeah, while Apple's design philosophy at one time dictated their "repairability," they have clearly latched on to the replace not repair mantra.  But everyone else seems to be trying to jump on that train too.  I'm sure the phone companies subsidize to some extent cell provider's programs that have the endless "lease," where the phone turns over every year.

[atomheartbevo 89788]

3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think the PC/Windows thin and lights that compete well with MacBooks have more replaceable components simply due to advances in technology, no?  Things like thinner SSDs, etc.

It's down to SSDs for the most part, in the 13-inch and under (I never saw a point in 15-inch and above).

[Parliament 14292]

12 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

(I never saw a point in 15-inch and above).

Tell me you have a little wiener, without telling me you have a little wiener.

[rage-a-holic 4462]

On 7/24/2021 at 5:45 AM, Cajun said:

Chagring pads around the house solved this problem for me.

I have chargers and Qi wireless pads everywhere. My girlfriend refuses to use anything except her original iphong 11 charger. She's convinced any other charger or charging method will melt her phone into slag. And she's a math/chemical engineering major.

I am constantly baffled as to why we ever let them vote or even out of the kitchen.

Edited July 25, 2021 by rage-a-holic

[RPM 26351]

If the features are there and the owner figures out how to activate them, more power (no pun intended) to 'em. I can tune an extra 300ish hp to my 6.0, it wouldn't last very long, but it would be impressive while it did.

[TwiceHorn 31534]

8 minutes ago, RPM said:

If the features are there and the owner figures out how to activate them, more power (no pun intended) to 'em. I can tune an extra 300ish hp to my 6.0, it wouldn't last very long, but it would be impressive while it did.

Would you feel the same if the user stole a disk harrow instead of paying for it?

Is the feature somehow less valuable or worthy of payment if it is implemented in software?

Edited July 25, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[RPM 26351]

Stealing a plow is one thing, unlocking a feature is something completely different.

[TwiceHorn 31534]

2 minutes ago, RPM said:

Stealing a plow is one thing, unlocking a feature is something completely different.

How so?

[RPM 26351]

Just now, TwiceHorn said:

How so?

A plow isn't built in to the features of the tractor, it's a separate implement. The features are built into the tractor. You don't want owner activation, don't preload the software. I paid for the tractor, I can do wtf I want with it. Getting them to stand by the warranty when I do is another thing.

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

I'd take more battery life and software updates that don't make the phone worse instead of five cameras.

[Fudge Nuggets 19220]

On 7/24/2021 at 8:48 AM, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Part of that is because the kid keeps chewing them up,

Your kid chews electrical wires?  I would have thought a good dose of 110V would have cured that pretty quick.

[atomheartbevo 89788]

1 hour ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Your kid chews electrical wires?  I would have thought a good dose of 110V would have cured that pretty quick.

Maybe the kid is addicted to it.

[atomheartbevo 89788]

2 hours ago, RPM said:

If the features are there and the owner figures out how to activate them, more power (no pun intended) to 'em. I can tune an extra 300ish hp to my 6.0, it wouldn't last very long, but it would be impressive while it did.

[TwiceHorn 31534]

2 hours ago, RPM said:

A plow isn't built in to the features of the tractor, it's a separate implement. The features are built into the tractor. You don't want owner activation, don't preload the software. I paid for the tractor, I can do wtf I want with it. Getting them to stand by the warranty when I do is another thing.

I submit that the bold is no answer at all.  It's like saying "I stole the bike because it was unlocked."

A similar example.  I think most installations of Windows Home can be turned into Windows Pro simply by entering a Windows Pro key, which costs an additional $100 or so.  Since Pro is already there, is it ok to use a bootleg key to unlock it?  Or an Office trial that comes installed on most computers.  It's there, just take it.  If MS doesn't want it stolen, it shouldn't put it there.

[crash_davis 23115]

43 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I submit that the bold is no answer at all.  It's like saying "I stole the bike because it was unlocked."

A similar example.  I think most installations of Windows Home can be turned into Windows Pro simply by entering a Windows Pro key, which costs an additional $100 or so.  Since Pro is already there, is it ok to use a bootleg key to unlock it?  Or an Office trial that comes installed on most computers.  It's there, just take it.  If MS doesn't want it stolen, it shouldn't put it there.

What if you pay some Russian dude $5 for the MS Office license?

Do you pay for porn?

[TwiceHorn 31534]

1 hour ago, crash_davis said:

What if you pay some Russian dude $5 for the MS Office license?

Do you pay for porn?

The question is whether it's legal or not.  And subsidiarily whether it is "moral" for Deere or the public to complain about it.

The internet has created a huge sense of entitlement to free shit without regard to legality or any sense of morality.

Pure software businesses like Microsoft, seem to be able to withstand fairly mass piracy.  That doesn't make it right.  And as "hardware" companies become more dependent on software to implement functionality of cars and tractors and other "hardware," they are and should be entitled to prevent copying and unauthorized use of their warez.

Edited July 26, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Cajun 11722]

17 hours ago, rage-a-holic said:

I have chargers and Qi wireless pads everywhere. My girlfriend refuses to use anything except her original iphong 11 charger. She's convinced any other charger or charging method will melt her phone into slag. And she's a math/chemical engineering major.

I am constantly baffled as to why we ever let them vote or even out of the kitchen.

While driving by one of those "Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone" signs my first wife said, and this is verbatim, "You know, we should really take a picnic to the aquifer sometime."

She was dead serious.  She votes.

She also wrote a $5 check to a homeless guy in Dallas and was pissed that he seemed unappreciative.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4977]

14 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Your kid chews electrical wires?  I would have thought a good dose of 110V would have cured that pretty quick.

Charging adapter is only 5V DC. But it really doesn't matter if the charger is yanked out first.

[Kennythetiger 9455]

2 hours ago, Cajun said:

She also wrote a $5 check to a homeless guy in Dallas and was pissed that he seemed unappreciative.

Do you know how hard it was for me to find a bank that would cash that check without me having an account there?  Shit.