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No.

Also, "right to repair" doesn't mean manufacturers have to change their product designs in any way. iPhones today aren't hard to repair because they're thin, they're hard to repair because Apple ships DRM that checks the serial numbers of all the parts, so that it will refuse to work if you try to replace something.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY7DtKMBxBw

Nah, not anymore. SSD and RAM are soldered on the motherboard in newer Macbooks [1]. And you can't even swap parts in iPhone 12 unless you reprogram their EEPROMs [2].

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/laptop-repairability [2] https://youtu.be/FY7DtKMBxBw

While it is quite nice, maybe they did it to look better in the antitrust investigation. They are still forcing devs to use their in-app purchases within iOS apps, forbidding 3rd-party payment processors. And iPhone 12 is no longer repairable by swapping parts between devices [1], Safari is still the only web engine on iOS. Finally after many years they are slowly starting to support royalty-free VP9 codec across the OSs but on the other hand are starting to use proprietary M1 chips to further lock in their users.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY7DtKMBxBw

There's this video where a person replaces parts with genuine apple parts from another iPhone. And guess what? The device cripples itself thinking it's not genuine iPhone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY7DtKMBxBw

iPhone 12 models could only be serviced by Apple. A youtuber bought 2 iPhones and swapped their main boards to have a plethora of issues with the screen, battery and cameras: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY7DtKMBxBw

I’m never going to buy another Apple product. The first blow was being unable to install linux to “my” devices.

⬐ meowster

Apple is no longer the woman with the sledgehammer in their 1984 comercial.

Before the iPhone 4, I liked Apple. Once they blamed users for holding their phones wrong, my opinion of the company stated to change.

Apple being very anti- Right To Repair, should be a huge wake-up call for everyone. I don't understand how someone who knows Apple is doing that, can support the company.

⬐ __d

Two points:

Firstly, I think it's now pretty clear that Apple (and others) provide products that have numerous restrictions after their purchase. You don't own the device in a completely divorced context, but instead you have an ongoing, unavoidable relationship with the vendor, and that includes a forced lifetime after which the device becomes unusable (for reasons other than actual hardware failure). This is not unique to Apple, although arguably they've moved to this model faster and further than others.

Secondly, there are reasons for this, and they're not solely about making more money out of you. For many (I think actually most) people, it's an acceptable trade-off. They get a good product experience, at least in part because of this ongoing relationship. For some people, that trade-off doesn't work. These people should not buy an iPhone, nor a Macbook, Apple Watch, or indeed many modern electronic products from many manufacturers.

I think it's worth explaining this trade-off: in concept, and in specific detail for popular products, so that non-technical people can make informed choices.

But both approaches are valid.

I think you have link to the wrong video. Though i enjoyed this video too.

Here is the correct one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY7DtKMBxBw

⬐ sschueller

With face id and the battery they claim it's about security and safety. How is this anything other than preventing repair?

If you don't let people fix your device you can not claim you care about the environment. Not including a charger is about making more money and nothing more.

⬐ millzlane

Same issue with the logic board and touch id.

⬐ floatingatoll

Can I put a replacement camera into your phone that transmits a spy signal feed continuously without you realizing it?

Before this change: Yes, without any barriers or chance of detection.

After this change: Not easily, and the hardware and OS are looking out for that attack.

This seems like a targeted defense against blackmailers and state-sponsored attackers. I’m glad to see it.

⬐ ganoushoreilly

If state sponsored attackers targeting your hardware is an issue for you.. you have bigger issues. The number of people buying the phone that are targeted specifically is probably in the small hundreds vs the millions they'll sell.

This is clearly about Apple controlling repairs.

⬐ bootlooped

I don't care if they (or any other phone company) omits the charger purely for profit. It's still true that almost everybody already owns one and doesn't need another.

⬐ ganoushoreilly

A lot of arguments being made now are that they include a USB-C cable. Most people don't have a USB-C charger.

⬐ xt00

Moving the entire logic board from one phone to another is not the same thing as just replacing one of the cameras. They may do some cross camera calibration. So one camera is used to help the other camera. So if you replace the whole set and that data was stored on the flash storage, then it’s probably totally wrong now. 2 or 3 cameras have the wrong calibration.

If Apple does the service they probably have an operation to download the cal data and transfer it. Or for a new module they have cal data that they store into the phone. I totally agree with the right to repair but it’s possible in this case it’s a bit more complicated.

Another thing another commenter mentioned that if the images store some magic bits that water mark your image which could be matched to your phone that’d be super crappy and Apple should say that otherwise it would damage their image they are trying to push as caring about privacy..

⬐ easde

These changes are more about protecting the average user from shady repair shops that use fake parts. There are some particularly egregious examples such as cheap LCD replacements for OLED iPhone displays. Someone getting their iPhone fixed or buying one from the secondary market would likely be quite unhappy to end up with such a display on their expensive phone.

It would be nice if Apple made genuine replacement parts more generally available, but that's kind of an orthogonal issue - a shady repair shop might still go with the aftermarket LCD for $40 rather than the genuine replacement for $100.

⬐ pcdoodle

False, you can not move a camera from a iPhone 12 to another iPhone 12. This is not about parts quality. Shame on apple for perpetuating our throw away culture.

⬐ 95014_refugee

This also means there’s less value in stealing your iPhone 12 for parts...

⬐ pcdoodle

Nobody does that.

⬐ rasz

That would make perfect sense if it checked serial numbers in a blacklist of reported stolen merchandise.

⬐ mandragon

If these tamper-resistant mechanisms were also part of an effort to allow the camera to reliably sign photos and videos in a manner that faciliated a digital defense against deep fakes, this would be a remarkable innovation. This seems unlikely, though, as such a mechanism would probably be disclosed as a feature, and the existence of any such associated signatures in the metadata would be obvious.

It could still be the case for instance, as an undisclosed feature, if there is a steganographic method to surreptitiously sign photos for this purpose. This seems unlikely, but is a fun topic to consider, particularly as we move towards indistinguishable convergence between fake and authentic content. And, any such mechanism would be quite difficult to protect from eventual extraction/cloning of associated signing mechanisms for inclusion in a sophisticated deep fake pipeline.

There are potential upsides to reducing the self servicability of these supercomputers, yet it is an unknown whether Apple has any such agenda to help consumers increase information assurance as a result of such couplings noted in the video.

⬐ mensetmanusman

Yes, if they are going to do this, I hope they can sign images as not altered, that would be great...