I work in electronics manufacturing and I’m torn on this issue.
On the one hand, fuck Apple for requiring to go through so many hoops.
On the other hand, every device my company makes has an internal checksum and if one PCB is installed incorrectly, the main board throws a fit because the device checksum doesn’t match.
It sounds like Apple may do something similar for their products and it sort of makes sense: determined people try something crazy like take an older iPhone and install a newer Wireless module or replace Lightning with USB-C. Neither of those things were intended by Apple, and there’s a huge potential that it wouldn’t work.
With that said, it’s absolutely overkill for things like display or digitizer replacements, which are going to be the majority of repairs on iPhones.
Tl;Dr - fuck Apple, this is dumb, the users have the right to repair
I think signed hardware components are actually a good thing. The problem is that Apple makes it so that unapproved hardware doesn’t work at all. I think the device should warn the user, but allow them to override and continue at their own risk.
Of course, Apple isn’t going to allow that unless they’re forced to. Glances sideways at the EU.
Makes me wish Google hadn’t canned phonebloks. Can you imagine how much waste we could have cut down on if we decided to standardize every component like the usb-c port?
I can understand why installing the wrong part should give a warning, but the IDs are unique to the part, not the model of part, so even identical parts are not interchangable.
All of this stuff makes me sad. As a long(ish)-time Apple user, it’s been sad to see them go full throttle into hyper-capital mode. They’re literally the wealthiest company on the planet because they’ve spent the past twenty years figuring out how to nickel and dime their customers. Hell, even when I bought my first MacBook back in '07, the guy in the Apple Store suggested getting the RAM upgrade elsewhere because Apple prices were ridiculous even then. Everyone knows they didn’t go with soldered RAM and storage for the performance gains…
But they make incredible hardware, so I tolerate all that shit, making me complicit in the fuckery.
I have no love for Apple’s hardware (primarily price related*), but since I am completely dependent on Adobe for my work, my OS options are MacOS and Windows. I love MacOS and passionately hate Windows 🙄
My solution was a Hackintosh; chose my own hardware (within compatibility restraints) and built my own computer. The price is miles from what I would have to pay Apple. My system cost roughly $3K (with two 4K screens), compared to the (roughly) equivalent, non-upgradeable options from Apple that start around $5K without screens.
The caveat is that sometimes I need to upgrade hardware to make sure it’s compatible with the latest (ish) MacOS versions (because software like Photoshop requires it), and it is a difficult process. Recently had to switch out my graphics card because I was stuck on High Sierra (old card was Nvidia, no support beyond HS), and it took me the better part of a week to get everything working.
Now it works, I’m on Monterey, and everything is chugging along perfectly. For now. Not sure what the future of the Hackintosh will be, but most likely there’s a dead end out there somewhere (nearby) as Apple fazes out Intel support.
Still worth it, but I’m dreading the day I have to give up and either pay Apple for hardware, or switch to [shudders] Windows.
Or maybe Adobe will start supporting Linux! 🤣
* I think I might hate iOS even more than Windows, though.
- I think I might hate iOS even more than Windows, though.
This is why iPads frustrate me so much these days. The hardware is more than capable of running a decently powerful OS, but Apple are insistent on crippling them with a big version of iOS. iOS is fine on an iPhone where the limited screen size means I have no particular desire to do anything too complicated, but the same restrictions on an iPad feel like Apple don’t really know how to reconcile what the device can do with not wanting to pull customers away from Macs. I was unexpectedly gifted a 6th gen mini last week which is in front of me as I type and which I’m not entirely sure what to do with.
Good job. With all Apple has done in the past, this seems like the bare minimum
