>Here’s hoping governments regulate laptop manufacturers to actually make repairable machines in the future.
No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one. They exist. Others have already mentioned Framework, but there are other options that aren't that far down the spectrum either.
One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other.
I say this as a framework owner who would never buy something as irreparable as a macbook. Regulation is not the answer here.
Decades of HN users finger wagging and suggesting FOSS hardware has progressed society nowhere. 12 months from EU mandatory replaceable batteries and products across the industry are being redesigned with repairability, usb-c, and user friendly designs.
It’s time to accept regulation actually does work when you have a competent government.
> It’s time to accept regulation actually does work when you have a competent government.
Given that it's the EU making those regulations, it looks like the government only has to be semi-competent. Maybe the only requirement is that they're not totally in bed with the big corps making money.
> Given that it's the EU making those regulations, it looks like the government only has to be semi-competent
Context: I'm not a EU-native, I've migrated to here.
It disturbs me a lot when people keep repeating the "incompetent government" narrative when it comes to the EU, but when you compare it to the dictatorship that I escaped from, they still seem way more competent, surprising when the big advantage of a dictatorship is supposed to be increased efficiency while reducing personal rights.
Personally I cannot name a better government (or governing body, given that we are talking about the whole EU) anywhere else on this planet.
I feel I'm incredibly lucky to live here even when the economy is getting tougher. The only thing that worries me and makes me consider leaving is the right-extremes, which to this day, thankfully had limited influence.
Sorry for the digression, but I just wanted to address this repeating pattern. It's possible that you have very valid reasons to call them semi-competent and that I'm overreacting.
Indeed, government regulation is decried mostly because of all the cases where it got polluted by special interests, instead of following the interests of general consumers.
This is how you end up turning a chunk of your food supply into fuel to subsidize crops which aren't all that good at being distilled into fuel in the first place...
I would actually suggest this is symptomatic of the real problem: money in politics.
Elected officials (and some appointed, like SCOTUS) keep changing laws and precedents to allow more and more money in politics. They can't quit all that dark money - without a lot of funding, you don't get elected. Usually the best funded candidate wins.
There was an anonymous oped from a congressman some years back which bemoaned the reality - that 60% of their time was dedicated to meeting with donors for reelection campaigns instead of working on real problems.
Part of the reason money has such a big influence on elections is that first-past-the-post election system you have over there in the US. When voters have to make a binary choice between two participants, low-information campaigns like hit-pieces are able to make a big difference and are cheap to communicate en-masse. When voters have a actual choice between four parties on the left and four parties on the right, hit-pieces will only make a voter switch from, say, one left-wing party to another. So since the return-on-investment on political advertising is much lower, much less money will be spent on it and there will be less of it. And what will be there will be of higher quality.
When one party will violate every norm and law to the greatest extent that they can get away with it, it's pretty much impossible to compete with them. I want good things for people. I can't compete with fascists because they will cheat and lie and employ violence. My positive intent is almost impossible to out thwart their dirty deeds if they are willing to break laws / change laws and I won't.
Assuming you're from the USA, your two main parties are exactly like that. The appearances have changed, but Obama drone-assassinating random children on the other side of the world was not much better than what Trump is doing.
Not defending Trump, to be clear, just saying US imperialism and fascism has much deeper roots and that removing Trump is not going to fix any issues the rest of the world has with the USA.
It was not better, it was less. US imperialism has deep roots, yes, but a large chunk of the world who would tolerate a moderate level of it, don't tolerate this level.
Nope. What the real effect has been is a waste of billions of billions that have gone into changing stuff that never needed changing. Future development has now been slowed down as well in the EU.
All it takes to see that government regulation never works, is to look at how far behind the EU is in terms of GDP growth compared with the US and China who both have a significantly lighter touch when it comes to regulation.
The EU is f*cked, and will become a little socialist region, with manual and tourist industry jobs, where rich people from the rest of the world go for a few weeks of vacation.
I left the EU a long time ago, and I've earned so much money after leaving the socialist madness, that I recommend all young people I meet to do the same.
That's a great example of their point, all I got was a mechanically inferior connector (putting the most important piece of the female connector on a floating sliver of plastic was a choice) and the cable hell attached to USB C.
If USB C had been so important to me I wouldn't have bought iPhones all those years.
You also got a connector that supports much more than USB 2.0 speeds. It also supports high power charging, video, thunderbolt, etc.
Lightning was a dead-end connector that was only kept around to keep the Made-for-iPhone moat drawbridge up.
USB-C makes the right design choice in putting the springs in the cable. Those wear out over time. I've never seen the male part of the female USB-C break, but I'm sure it's possible. But reversing this would require that the springs on the USB-C cable are on the outside, and those are quite fragile, so that sounds like a worse idea.
Apple was on the design committee for USB-C, they also failed to make lightning an industry standard after 10+ years. The EU didn't design the connector, they just required the industry pick a design, and USB-C is what Apple and the rest designed.
I have tried to explain this so many times to people. You could just scrape out the lint from the lighting port with a tooth pick. The fragile part was the easily replaceable cable. Now the fragile part is in the iPhone itself.
Lightning had the contact springs in the phone, USB-C has the contact springs on the cable. This is the part that wears out, and USB-C moving to the cable is an improvement.
Throughout its life, Lightning suffered from "black pin plague" where when springs in the port wore out, the power pin would start arcing. Now you have a cable with poor connectivity on the power pin, and you use this cable in another Apple device and it starts arcing on that device as well, causing that device to start transmitting this disease. It was a terrible design and USB-C does not have it.
If Lightning is so important to you then you can still use Lightning-based iPhones. Nobody took away the hardware they sold you, they just mandated that the new ones adopt a common standard.
Apple can't even make their strain relief on their cables work properly due to "being ugly" so preferring them to USBC is just another case of Apple-juice-kool-aid
Having the government regulate the free market is an issue of physical force and should always be discussed as such. Are you willing to deal with men by force beyond retaliation? This issue is moral, not practical.
Besides, it’s easy to sell one’s freedom to a competent government, but it’s insanely hard to get it back when it rots. This has been the case of many welfare states. “Let’s force them to do the damn thing” is the very root of all social conflicts, not a magical solution. Being able to withstand it is a commendable exception, not rule.
Look, there is certainly a good argument to be made that regulation of this sort isn't the best way to achieve the goal.
However, trying to use an argument that this is 'an issue of physical force' is a ridiculous way to make an argument for that perspective. All laws eventually come down to that, so it is pointless to debate that for every discussion on what the law should be.
Laws protect everyone’s rights, both consumers and producers. When they are targeted to favor a specific collective, it’s fair to bring up the issue of physical force. The 20th century is repleted with examples of one social group fighting the other by seeking special privileges and favors.
So I don’t think it’s ridiculous, I think it’s efficient.
The perfect example of cognitive dissonance! The government, which mandates that the can of tomato soup I buy must not contain any glass shards, is immediately equated with physical violence. Although the shopkeeper who requires me to pay for the can before I take it out of the store is far more likely to get in my face if I don’t follow their rules. I don’t understand this worldview. You’re selling your freedom to big corporations. Your life expectancy is declining. Your food is of poor quality. Your cities are full of homeless people. But then again, I am an unfree European blinded by communism.
If I buy a can of soup and find glass in it, I have a valid claim against the manufacturer. It's a matter of holding someone accountable for fraud or negligence, not a matter of regulation. The proper route is a court, not a bureaucratic agency that preemptively dictates production methods on the assumption that every manufacturer is a potential prisoner.
> get in my face if I don’t follow their rules
If a shopkeeper asks me to leave because I refuse to follow his rules, he's exercising his right to control his own property, he's not initiating force.
> You’re selling your freedom to big corporations.
I'm not selling my freedom to corporations, they can't throw me in jail, or take my property by edict. The government, by contrast, holds a legal monopoly on force.
I am not an American, so I cannot diagnose declining life expectancy, homelessness, poor food, and other problems from afar. But I do know this: personal problems don't give one a moral claim on other people's labor. Need does not justify compulsion, and citizens are not sacrificial animals.
> I am an unfree European blinded by communism.
You hinted that Europe's communist past was somehow not a cautionary tale.
> The perfect example of cognitive dissonance!
Dressed-up ad hominem. You have no idea what I do or don't hold in my mind.
> not a bureaucratic agency that preemptively dictates production methods on the assumption that every manufacturer is a potential prisoner.
I see it exactly the other way around. I want this to be clarified upfront, not after I’ve already cut my tongue. What I don’t understand is why market participants are being given special treatment here. There are laws, and they must be followed. That applies just as much in other areas.
> personal problems don't give one a moral claim on other people's labor
Which problem is personal and which isn't? You seem to be twisting this to suit your questionable argument.
> You have no idea what I do or don't hold in my mind
But I read what you write and interpret it. Just as you read what I write and interpret it. Here’s another ad hominem for you: in your worldview, there is no morality at all. At least, none that is consistent. People like you behave toward the state like moody teenagers toward their parents. You don’t want to be told what to do, but you wouldn’t survive a single month without the institution you so despise.
You didn't say why this is a bad solution. The government mandates that cars get safer every year and fatalities are down 78% from the 1960s. Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit.
> One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc.
It seems like the Macbook Neo has a lot of those properties as well for a very inexpensive device that is extremely easy to repair.
The innovations that mattered were seat belts and airbags. After that you have to correct for all the electronic gadgets that also actively distract or make drivers over-confident. Real numbers are not available, but governments keep mandating all kinds of questionable safety features that increase the price of vehicles (and insurance) and reduces competition in the market.
Car safety is a bad counterexample because the risk is otherwise often externalized i.e. your car can easily hurt a total stranger whereas the consequences of your choice in laptop are strictly personal. And as GP stated, regulating this sort of thing would definitely force a particular trade-off on everyone. A lot of people would be pissed to have MacBooks with worse "build quality" even if they were more reparable. Having a choice is better.
I disagree. The lack of repairability has external costs not born by the purchaser or the manufacturer -- more toxic trash unnecessarily added to the environment.
Forcing a particular trade-off on everyone is entirely the point. It's the point of car safety, it's also the point of minimum warranties, electrical emission regulations, safety standards, etc.
Does this also mean only using "standard" parts? Or does the manufacturer have to over-produce the parts for, lets say 7 years, and then warehouse and ship those parts, probably multiple times. Or keep a low rate production line running for 7 years? What happens to the parts that don't get used? Are they scrapped?
That "what if" cost is going to be built into the cost of the laptop. Repairability doesn't always keep the cost low. The purchaser will definitely have to foot the cost otherwise it isn't sustainable.
> Does this also mean only using "standard" parts? Or does the manufacturer have to over-produce the parts for, lets say 7 years, and then warehouse and ship those parts, probably multiple times. Or keep a low rate production line running for 7 years? What happens to the parts that don't get used? Are they scrapped?
None of that is relevant in this context: The parts are available, but the laptop is designed and built such that the alone keyboard cannot be replaced.[1]
[1] Not sure if this is possible on that specific laptop, but with a steady hand, a tiny drill, maybe a magnifiying glass too, you can maybe drill out the rivets, then replace the keyboard, then either re-rivet it back again or tap very tiny thread into the laptop and use screws.
> Does this also mean only using "standard" parts? Or does the manufacturer have to over-produce the parts for, lets say 7 years
Why not? I don't understand how it's legal for manufacturers to produce absolute trash that can't be replaced and will just end up in a landfill. I think 7 years is far from enough, but because computers evolve quickly maybe 15 years is ok. For the rest of electro-mechanical goods, 50 years should be the baseline.
If a car or fridge from 50 years ago is still working with proper maintenance, that should be the minimum to be expected from products released today.
Repairability definitely doesn't keep the costs low. If it was cheaper and easier, it wouldn't have to be regulated. As for supply chain management, companies that get that equation correct are going to benefit. Which is exactly how it should be.
We define the rules of the game and companies that can best implement those rules will succeed. That is capitalism.
It won’t self resolve because consumers don’t fully factor in every detail while buying, and they often don’t get such granular choice anyway.
It’s easier and more profitable for companies to make a product that catastrophically fails around about when the new model is out. So that’s what they do. Until just now when the EU is reeling them back in line.
A lot of the recent car safety features are cameras and ADAS which make it safer for pedestrians. The problem is it makes the car so expensive no one can afford to buy it or to repair it. There needs to be some standards to drive down the cost.
>> your car can easily hurt a total stranger whereas the consequences of your choice in laptop are strictly personal.
You know that safety for pedestrians is also a very tightly regulated car safety category, right? Obviously, there's not much that can be done if you get hit by a car going 70mph, but the fact that most people should survive a 30mph impact with a modern car is mostly thanks to regulations requiring crumple zones specifically designed to protect pedestrians in a collision. And yeah, there are huge trade offs - I imagine people would generally prefer a car that doesn't need incredibly expensive repairs after a minor collision because everything at the front just crumpled, but then they would be guaranteed to cut off legs of any person hit - it's a trade off.
Not in the US. Specific pedestrian safety features are not included in cars sold there due to lack of regulation.
FMVSS was planning a regulation modelled after ECE R127, then the administration changed and no progress since...
> Backseat industrial designing through legislation is not the answer.
Again, why not? It's not mandating design, just minimal standards for repairability that should be obvious. If Framework and Lenovo can do it and Apple can do it on a $600 laptop, why can't everyone do it?
What everyone is missing: Because other manufactures do not have to; the profit margins are too good to give a shit, and they allow some pretty fierce competition within the target demographic:
<soapbox>
Sadly, the general public still just wants the cheapest option to consume their bullshit content, even if it needs to be replaced a year from now after their cat walks on it and causes critical damage.
The MacBook Neo is brilliant in that Apple takes a share of this market with a premium and affordable product that is basically just their previous generation phone, with the expensive bits likely sourced from their exchange program or surplus supply. Products that at some point the same people would've loved to have, but couldn't afford. Now repurposed with a larger screen, sporting the envied Apple logo, at an affordable price, and targeting that same demographic as the hot new thing, just one generation later.
I have a feeling we'll see this pattern continue, and it's genius. Minimizing waste, maximizing profits, and giving the consumers what they want, while maintaining a gap between low-end and high-end -- people that spend $$$$ still want to feel special, of course.
Don't get me wrong, the Neo is great, especially for us hackers, but it is absolutely not meant for us in any way. What is in our favor: it does, at the very least, raise the bar for these other manufactures that product absolute garbage.
</soapbox>
Someone needs to be a reference as to what is feasible in order for a standard to be established. Apple, Framework, and I guess Lenovo are the ones doing this these days. RIP the others.
I don't understand your math. The 1mm (the wall) was there already, so why is it being counted here? Plus, multiplying by 1 doesn't do anything? Also, the 2mm extra won't be solid plastic (they'll be solid air, since that's why we're adding the extra thickness, for the room.
If anything, the extra material for the case would be the perimeter length times the perimeter wall width times the height.
The post was fixed about 30 seconds after making it - due to the *s being interpreted as italics. It is a shame there isn't a preview button when composing posts.
The fear is that regulations ossify industries and that's why heavily regulated industries like healthcare, education, and transportation have seen basically no innovation in 50 years. If you mandate that all electronic devices must have USB-C cables, how can anyone invent something better than a USB-C cable? And for what, so people don't have to have multiple cables? That's not even in the top 100 problems that a government body as large as the EU should be concerned about.
> Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit.
Healthcare, education, transportation, and housing would all be counterexamples depending on how you want to frame "benefit."
> It seems like the Macbook Neo has a lot of those properties as well for a very inexpensive device that is extremely easy to repair.
This is counter to your point, no one regulated that Apple make the MacBook Neo easy to repair. Apple is incentivized to follow the market.
The argument about ossified connectors is obviously made in bad faith, since it obviously didn’t happen. USB-C isn’t the first mandated connector, that was micro-usb. And when the time came to upgrade, the mandate was changed. None of that imagined ossification happened back then, and it won’t happen when we go from USB-C to USB-D or whatever.
> If you mandate that all electronic devices must have USB-C cables, how can anyone invent something better than a USB-C cable?
That already happened with Micro USB. The EU initially mandated that manufacturers agree on a standard socket, because the absolute zoo of charging ports back then was counter-productive and only generated e-waste. Ultimately they agreed to use Micro USB, but obviously that's not what's used today.
These regulations are not just dumped on the manufacturers - there's a period of consultation and a grace period to implement them. If something actually better came up, you'd eventually see it mandated.
> If something actually better came up, you'd eventually see it mandated.
While I generally am quite content with that particular mandate and it does more good than bad, I would have to disagree on this. Something better doesn't come from nowhere - hell, USB itself has gone through a long and arduous path until it came to the (messy) standard it is today. This is essentially banning any other standard to grow and be improved upon with feedback and iteration.
> The government mandates that cars get safer every year and fatalities are down 78% from the 1960s. Whenever government regulates things to benefit people, people tend to benefit.
On some metrics. On affordability, new cars are considerably more expensive. Whether that's a worthwhile tradeoff is beside the point. The GP's point is that there's no free lunch, and your example doesn't address that.
I believe in this case regulation would work just fine. My old Macbook Pro from 2012 was just as solid and high quality as the newest models, but much more repairable. It's possible to create repairable devices without compromising much in other areas.
Here is the thing, replacing something may be hard or easy. But getting the parts (which are already produced and available for the manufacturers for their "added value" repairs) should be as easy as how they are getting them too.
Not to mention manuals/instructions. Regulation discussed here is about these too.
Also as consumer, I would argue the marketing done by apple is just scammy. They keep praising how much carbon saved or sustainable new machines are. But in fact, a minor issue becomes a massive electronic dump.
I also like Macs, I own several of them. Repaired a few. Mostly replacing batteries and keyboards. For example 2014 Macbook Air had a normal battery, no sticky business. Meanwhile 2020-2025 MacBook Air has sticky stuff, making repairs harder.
The best part is, 2014 macbook air has 54 Watt/hr battery, 2020-2025 models are 53 watts/hour. The lasting battery gains are coming from Apple silicon efficiency as well as modern BMS.
Simply put, regulation is the answer. Apple makes it difficult because they can, and also because it creates revenue. Of repairability was the source of income, you would see 10/10 repairable macbooks with no (significant) tradeoffs. (ie. it could be a few grams heavier for added screws)
Interestingly, Apple's newest and cheapest laptop (the Neo) is super repairable. And even the keyboard is finally replaceable without having to replace the entire top case. Hopefully the trend is continued in the next redesigns of the Air and Pro which are due soon.
Next year all consumer devices are required to have user replaceable batteries in the EU. Apple has noticeably been making massive design changes on many products to get closer in line with these laws.
> If you want a repairable machine, buy one. They exist. Others have already mentioned Framework
But that means Windows or Linux, not macOS. There's serious trade-offs that you're dismissing because you personally don't need macOS, but that's not the case for everyone.
I run into bugs every day. It wakes, and has a black screen not wallpaper. Change spaces and the focus is wrong for half a second. Login screen is a pain because it collapses all users together. Notifications don’t scroll if they stop scrolling when the cursor is over a gap between them. Something on the system constantly eats disk space, and I think it’s the system updates. If I dock two apps in one space, sometimes one is black. If I zoom out to the Spaces overview it shows fine in the preview though. In the Terminal if I close a tab it can focus an entirely different window.
I could go on for hours. It’s a buggy mess these days and I miss Lion and Snow Leopard desperately.
Nothing mentioned in the previous comment is indicative of a hardware problem. If you think I'm wrong, please describe a plausible mechanism to cause any of the problems described above. They all are plausibly software bugs. I mean, Apple hardware is not really any better than any other piece of fallible hardware, and their OS has been a buggy mess since Apple DOS. Most pieces of software as large as an OS are buggy in many ways, and Apple has not been proven to be the exception.
Oh, I completely agree. But they can get away with it because we depend on the platform more than the individual apps.
And yes, Tahoe is shiny hot garbage piled on top of so much broken software, just to push an effect trick. I'm not sure how I feel developing with SwiftUI when Apple clearly can't make it work for their own apps.
> If you want a repairable machine, buy one.... Framework
Sure, but Framework doesn't run the OS I want, doesn't run the chip I want, doesn't quite meet the form factor I want. It's not an effective market because I can't pick and choose.
The problem here is vertical integration. If you want anything from Apple you have to buy everything from Apple.
Being an effective market doesn’t mean you get everything you want.
You’re actually saying: “I want Apple’s software, and I want certain chips, and I want a certain form factor. And if Apple won’t build what I want, I will pass a law to make them build it for me!”
Come on man. You will make tradeoffs either way. The answer isn’t: force a company to build what I want them to build.
Well another version of it is: I want to be able to talk to my family, but I don't want to buy an iPhone. The EU rightly regulated that any chat network big enough must open their doors to different platforms. Or I don't want to buy Microsoft Office for my employees but I want to be able to do business with those who do, and thankfully we have relatively open document formats now.
The chips argument is contrived, the OS argument less so, but it's all just network effects at some level, and it's important for competition and effective markets that we prevent the largest networks from locking people in and forcing them to make a lot of other unrelated decisions.
The "just buy another one" argument only works if the alternatives are even comparable. For a lot of people, macOS is a hard requirement and not a preference, so telling them just to buy a framework that runs Linux ignores that entirely. Right to repair regulation doesn't force Apple to make a worse product it just requires that the parts and repair information are available.
This is a great solution. See: EU and normalization on USB-C for power delivery and wider market effect. Yes, market was heading in this direction, but EU legislation brought it over the line.
No. This is a bad solution. You can't blame consumers for not making the right choice when there's a sea of irreparable junk and a few niche repairable options on the market. Reparability should be the default expectation.
The Macbook Neo is just as high-quality as any other Apple product. Apple has some of the most brilliant engineers in the industry, they can absolutely design a repairable device to their own standards.
>Apple has some of the most brilliant engineers in the industry,
Did they fire the guy who designed the magic mouse? What about the one who designed the iPhone 4 antenna? Are they still working there? The butterfly keyboard? The class action Apple lost over the Macbook 2011 design flaws? Should I go on?
iPhone 4 was a tempest in a teapot. But yeah, the circular mouse and the butterfly keyboard...
Having said that, it seems obvious that there is a tradeoff between repairability, price, and compactness. And Apple offers devices on different points on that triangle.
100% agree. If you don’t like that Apple products are expensive to repair, don’t buy them or suck it up
I came to terms with it, mostly. I buy AppleCare. I’ve had my screen on my M1 Mac replaced twice.
I agree with the sentiment tho. I had the rubber foot come off the bottom of a MacBook Pro, Apple wanted $350 to replace that $1 part. I found other solutions
What if the repairable ones crunch the numbers and find out that Apple got the right idea from business standpoint and the only reason they can't do the same is that their laptops or their brand is not as good? It will mean that if they actually end up making a product that people want that product will not be easy to repair as well.
Yeah we can keep saying that, but thanks to the EU we have everybody with shared chargers. Thanks to the EU, the nintendo switch has a replaceable battery. Thanks to the EU, we have USB-C on iPhone.
I'm sorry but your argument conflicts with reality at this point: regulation works better for expectations on hardware.
Goverment regulates everything including cow farts!
Apple can keep their unrepairable macbook. Butc should not be marketed as "green product". It should pay extra as ICE cars, be excluded from educational markets, public institutions etc...
>One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair.
Lol what.
Nothing about apple design is a sacrifice to repairability. The only reason they make it hard to repair is because when your Mac breaks, you go buy another one. Can't afford it? Then you are not "classy" enough to own a Mac.
I swear, there must be some epidemic where Mac fans are losing their marbles even more so today.
What a wildly incorrect comment. You realize its perfectly feasible and fully within apple engineers powers to design trivially repairable notebook (or any other device) while not losing any of those qualities you mention (which are easy to find in expensive competition too)? Don't make those extremely well paid engineers incompetent just because it suits your argument.
But vendor lockin mandated by management is way more powerful than powers of engineers, apple ain't immune to this since its accountants and lawyers running the company.
I'll give it a benefit of a doubt and won't claim its a PR comment and just a uncritical fanboy one, but its pretty close.
I replaced the keyboard MacBook Air M1 keyboard with a $20 model from Amazon and it's been going strong for a full year. I had spilled ginger ale on the original.
The board is riveted in, but there are enough screws to hold the replacement in place. Removing the board is a shockingly violent process, but it worked for me.
I wonder if anyone has hacked it (in the "Hacker News" sense of hack) so that the above keyboard can be used in an external casing, without inserting it into the Macbook body. I'd pay a lot of money for that. The Magic Keyboard is different.
i mean it's pretty nice for a laptop keyboard, but i've never thought of it as good enough to use externally tbh
or do you mean integrating it into a different laptop a la framework? that could be cool, but would also have to think how much the chassey stiffness/specific construction contributes to the feel
p.s. has anybody here tried (the external) magic trackpad? the macbook trackpad is infuriatingly good
> After thinking about it for a bit I decided to remap all the arrow keys using Karabiner Elements . I disabled the right arrow key and mapped capslock + J K L I. And donated $10 to the project. A small price to pay to postpone a very expensive repair bill.
Great idea! Though I'd suggest to use RightCmd instead of Capslock, it's more ergonomic - you use your right hand just like before.
(and yes, it's both insane that the hardware is not repairable and that the OS software sucks so you have to use some other apps)
My MacBook Pro M1 keyboard broke too and Apple wanted $900 to replace it. I bought a $30 replacement on Amazon and started replacing it myself. Unfortunately the repair was a bit too complicated for me, but luckily one of my co-workers had more patience and replaced it for some beer.
Thankfully the m1 was the last of the evil design era for Macs. Modern ones are significantly better. The neo being the best, able to be fully disassembled with a screw driver in a few minutes
FWIW the Macbook Air is slightly more repairable and modern ones are decent enough to do work on without the display limitations of prior non-pro apple silicon. As a travel machine, I shy away from the Pro because of how poor it is to repair.
Unfortunately a Macbook is a hard requirement for travel simply because of battery life, at my desk I use my Windows gaming rig for work.
They do this by riveting the entire keyboard assembly to the top case. Meaning you can’t just replace the keyboard, you have to replace the entire top case.
As others have already alluded to, drills and self-tapping screws exist, as do replacement keyboards without the top case.
In many other machines, it is common for the factory to use rivets on initial assembly, but to service you drill them out and replace with bolts or screws. This is the expected procedure and even described in the service manual. I actually did this a few weeks ago for an old fan.
I'm advocating for right to repair as anyone else, and not fond of Apple's decisions in general, but this seems like a tempest in a teapot.
Finally got my $45 payout from the last class action suit against Apple for the butterfly keyboard fiasco. Seems like Apple didn’t learn the overarching lesson here: keyboards have to be robust and replaceable because they frequently need replacement.
> I’ll remember this experience and choose to buy a more repairable laptop like a ThinkPad or a Framework laptop.
> Here’s hoping governments regulate laptop manufacturers to actually make repairable machines in the future.
So there is already a solution on the market but for some reason the immediate desire is for the government to get involved and start regulating laptop keyboards?
FYI, for those who are consider Framework, you are usually getting a laptop that is 2x as expensive as a Macbook but slower, with a worse screen, far worse performance and battery life, and likely not as reliable as a Mac long term.
You can basically buy 2 Macbook Airs for the same price as Framework 13 and keep one in the draw if you are ever scared that one breaks. That's how bad of a deal Framework is or how much of a value Macbooks are.
Try configuring a Framework yourself and you'll quickly find that even the basic configuration goes over $1400. Any upgrade on the CPU and you're already at $1770.[0]
You can usually get an M4 Macbook Air 16GB for $750 - $800 on sale. So you can get 2 of them for the same price as one Framework 13 and still significantly outperform it.
Framework is an idealogical buy. It just isn't worth it otherwise.
I've personally found the repairability to be worth the price for me. I got the baseline $999 back when it launched & have done stupid things like spilling a whole gallon of milk on it. Had to take it apart & clean as well as replace the keyboard but now it's still chugging along.
Used to own a MacBook & the keyboard started dying after a year with a failed A key. Very expensive to replace so I just remapped caps lock to A. Then the screen started getting weird color issues and dead pixels.
A MacBook Neo does look attractive though. Probably better performance.
Framework Laptop is more expensive than a Macbook Air with all around worse hardware.
For a framework 13 I'd have to pay 1900€ with a 16GB setup. For 1450 I get a MBA with 24GB ram. Similar with a dell or lenovo who get smoked in performance comparisons.
It might still be worth it for those who hugely value open source and repairability but as for value I think its save to say that Apple is currently in a league of their own. Even if the altest os update is a flop.
Also, the Macbook has improved repairability. While its still not great its better than a few years ago.
> Framework Laptop is more expensive than a Macbook Air with all around worse hardware.
Is it though? I'd agree the hardware is less capable but if your Macbook anything is really just one 'top case' repair away from being more expensive. RAM failure is 'motherboard replace', the display? it is similarly expensive to replace.
So I would agree that it is more expensive to purchase a Framework laptop than a Macbook laptop, but also feel it is more expensive to own a Macbook laptop than a Framework laptop. Also I just replaced the screen on my FW13 not because it was broken but because they have one with 4x the pixels on it now. That's not something I could have done with the Macbook.
What is the probability of those things failing during the time you have the MacBook? I've had Apple portables since they were called PowerBooks and the only problem I've had that wasn't caused by violence was a battery swelling, and that cost me something like $120 to replace, not a big deal. If you add 5% to the price, that's probably about your expected cost for repairs or premature replacements if you don't have a habit of damaging your equipment.
If'd rather not take a low risk of a big repair/replacement bill and you don't mind helping Big Fruit make a bit more of a profit, you can pay them $50-150/year (depending on model) to take that risk. Multiply that by the number of years you expect to own the device to come up with a "real" cost including repairs/replacements.
> What is the probability of those things failing during the time you have the MacBook?
and
> ... you can pay them $50-150/year (depending on model) to take that risk.
These things are related, Apple knows what the failure rate in the field for their hardware is, and they "price in" that failure rate into their AppleCare costs. On my iPad pro, that's $90/year.
That said, it is entirely a 'bet' on your part as to whether or not you're in a position to cover costs of repair/replacement in the event of damage. That depends on a lots of factors and includes how much you can tolerate not having the equipment for a while, Etc.
My Framework 13 is a bit long in the tooth. I can pay 529 EUR to get a new mainboard and keep the same case/battery/speakers/camera/keyboard/mouse/screen/etc. Or, I can replace the keyboard for 32 EUR.
It's not just repairs, to upgrade a Mac you have to throw away all that perfectly working hardware just to get a new mainboard.
> I can pay 529 EUR to get a new mainboard and keep the same case/battery/speakers/camera/keyboard/mouse/screen/etc.
Or you can spend 50 euros more and get an entire new laptop that is not only much more powerful than your old framework but is almost as repairable: the neo.
At some point your argument begins to work against you, you should just have talked about the keyword repair being cheap. Not how you can get a new motherboard for "only" 530 euros.
> Or you can spend 50 euros more and get an entire new laptop that is not only much more powerful than your old framework but is almost as repairable: the neo.
You forget to mention - less powerful than his old FW 13 with new mainboard/CPU.
It's not just Tahoe; macOS is simply insufferable for many users. You can pitch Apple Silicon to gamers, warship captains or datacenter users, but they won't care when the dust settles. It's a device for people that want a Mac, and if you want a PC, server or homelab then you gotta get different hardware. It's entirely a software limitation, imposed by Apple.
I don't value open source or repairability that much. I just want to develop server software, and on macOS I always end up with the same janky VM-based workflow I suffer through on Windows. On the desktop I have no reason to waste my time with macOS, and I don't use a laptop often enough to justify reincorporating macOS into my life.
AppleCare is honestly a great deal, especially for laptops. M1 Macbook Pros from 2020 are humming along just fine for regular people who see no reason to upgrade.
I just looked up Apple Care. Costs $449 AUD (~$300 USD) for 3 years of coverage on a MacBook Pro.
A quick search shows that it's ~$500-$600 to fix the screen if it does break; I didn't bother looking up the keyboard but I'd assume it's much, much less.
So basically, on the off chance that your MacBook does shit the bed in the most expensive way, you save ~$150 or so? But in the almost-certain case that your Macbook is fine, you're down $450?
>A quick search shows that it's ~$500-$600 to fix the screen if it does break; I didn't bother looking up the keyboard but I'd assume it's much, much less.
_The_ point of that the article you're commenting on, is that a keyboard replacement on a MacBook is very expensive. Why would you make that assumption?
The "most expensive way" to shit the bed is also not the peripherals of the computer dying, it's the logic board giving up the ghost.
I'm a repair tech - hence made some assumptions that the author did not make.
Have done riveted keyboards on non-Mac machines before and would be surprised if an independent shop charged more than about $150 USD for it. It's not that hard to do.
You're right about the logic board being an extremely expensive fix, but it's also significantly less common than something like a keyboard, USB port, speaker or screen.
This is also something extremely Australian-specific, but consumer guarantees would probably cover any logic board damage within the first 1-3 years anyway, regardless of AppleCare warranty.
AppleCare is leaps and bounds better than any other insurance you can buy for mobile or laptops.
For accessories I don’t see the point, those are effectively disposable wear items.
Ironically a large part of deciding to migrate to an iPhone from android was final frustrations with even Google purchased devices under warranty coupled with hardware quality requiring repairs. My wife’s experience with AppleCare won me over.
If nothing else it’s first party insurance. I will never purchase device insurance offered via a third party ever again. Either its first party so I’m dealing with the place I bought it or nothing at all.
Insurance for things you can afford to replace never makes sense anyway. The expected cost of insurance will always exceed the expected cost of replacement in the long run.
Unless for some reason you know you will be breaking your device much more than the average person.
Insurance is for things that are unlikely to ever happen but would financially ruin you if they did.
>Insurance for things you can afford to replace never makes sense anyway. The expected cost of insurance will always exceed the expected cost of replacement in the long run.
"Peace of mind" is not free.
Paying ~ten bucks a month to insure my phone and not have to worry about it getting damaged is worth it to me, even if I could afford to replace it if I broke it; because now I just _don't worry about it_.
The peace of mind I have is that the $1000 for a new phone is sitting in my bank account. If I break my phone, I can get it replaced, and if I don't, I get to keep the money. While buying Apple care is ensuring you lose since you pay for a new phone whether you break it or not.
Why would you worry about it if you can afford to replace it?
If you say you worry about the cost, shouldn't you worry even more about the higher cost of the insurance? Sure, for one item the variance is higher if you are uninsured, but if you have several such items, variance goes down, and you are saving all the more money.
Because even though I can afford to buy/repair a new phone if I break mine; it still _feels_ terrible to have to spend 500+ bucks because I was a dumbass.
I literally toss my phone to my couch or my bed from across the room dozens of times a week without worrying about misjudging the throw (which happens more than I’d like to admit), toss is on the ground at the gym, have no problems taking long baths with it, washing it under the sink if it gets dirty, and do dozens of things I would not do if I had to pay a full price if I ended up actually breaking it.
Having AC+, lets me treat the device with the level of carelessness that is worth the price to me.
Math-wise with how durable recent flagship devices are, you are probably correct that I’d be better off financially to just accept that I will break a phone every couple of years and just eat the cost.
But psychologically, I’m happier paying ~120bucks a year, than $500 in repair fees once in a while.
Yes, the argument is that the entity providing the insurance is surely earning more income that they are paying out since in addition to payouts, they also have overhead costs and must be profitable. Said another way, their customers are paying more than they receive, on average. That's a mathematical and economical certainty.
You are right that it might still feel better to you to pay regularly instead. That's subjective.
Knowing that you will likely end up paying less in the long term if you don't pay the insurance might help getting over that feeling, but that's a personal choice in the end.
It's bordering on insurance fraud and I usually trade-in my devices back to Apple so I don't bother with it; but there's probably at least one case where both you and Apple come out ahead financially.
AC+ includes what they call "Express Replacement Service", where you will send you an entirely new device as part of your claim, and they'll reuse your old one for parts.
If you _just happen_ to accidentally fall with your phone in hand right after the new ones come out, the delta in price between "a scuffed up, used 1-year old phone" and "brand new refurbished device from Apple" is higher than the price of the insurance and incidental damage fees.
AppleCare is only worth it for expensive things with big repair costs; the "repair fee" for AirPods is such a high percentage of the replacement price that it just is not worth it.
I've never worried about AppleCare for my Apple products, until this year when I signed up for AppleCare One. I bought a few new devices, including the Studio Monitor XDR. For the XDR alone it's worth it, since replacing the screen is a multi-$1k repair.
> I say “stopped working”, but technically it works too well now, it is being pressed constantly, which makes the laptop pretty unusable.
I had this problem in my Framework. I fixed it by... holding the laptop upside down and mashing the offending key for several minutes. Didn't work immediately, but now you wouldn't tell that it was ever broken. I've managed to panic-order (~€80) another keyboard though, so now I have a spare.
This problem is caused by the layers sticking together. In the case of the Framework 16 the "d" key sits on top of a foam pad which in turn is placed on top of a heat pipe, so this area gets particularly hot under load. The layers are often made from PET, which starts softening anywhere in the range of 65-87C - so easily within range of a laptop heat pipe.
By mashing the key I was hoping to detach the layers and apparently it worked.
That being said for gaming I use an external keyboard now, because the one built-in is made by an external supplier and I don't think they'll start using a more heat-resistant material anytime soon.
Does anyone know if this is covered under the Apple Care plans? My 16" M1 MBP keyboard has been no problem, I'm just curious. Not saying that negates the issue.
Unfortunately, AFAICT, these repairability issues are largely due to the move to thinner and lighter laptops. Replacing my MILs Microsoft Surface tablet was a pain in the butt. Had to cut the case open and tape it back together. But that thing was insanely small and light. My MIL liked it because she has a lot of trouble carrying anything very heavy.
Yes it is, I had my M! Max keyboard replaced as repairing the individual keycaps didn't work, and then they replaced the entire logic board while they were testing due to finding an error. Total cost was around €1400, to me €0. New bottom case, new battery, new logic board.
Keyboards on MacBook Pros have been riveted since at least 2014. That doesn’t necessarily disprove your argument, but it does move the “thin and light” bar farther back than one would expect from the phrasing.
The new MacBook Neo's keyboard is not riveted and instead held with screws. As far as I could tell it is still just as thin and light as other MacBooks.
Cautiously optimistic, given the repairability of the MacBook Neo keyboard, that this design will make it to the rest of their laptops when the refreshed designs are released (next year?).
I'm glad to hear you are able to fix it with software for now. So many people can't just do that though and it is ridiculously expensive to have it repaired.
Any purchase is a gamble, macs are one of those gambles that seems more risky with its difficulty to repair, however I guess the expectation is that it's less likely to need it.
I remember being so disappointed with Apple back when I had a Macbook and the Apple store people were like "nah, if you spilled stuff on it you just buy a new macbook"
> order a replacement keyboard, take the laptop apart, replace the keyboard and good to go
That’s all it took with my Framework laptop, and I’m very grateful for it. I was in a good place financially when I got it, but now I’m not. I feel a strong sense of relief that if an accident occurs and I need a repair, it won’t set me back too much.
Had a similar experience with the XPS series. Was able to find a keyboard. When taken apart, realized they had used plastic bits, tape, and other things to connect the keyboard to the top lid. Seems they expected one to either be handy with epoxy or buy the combo.
I use right command + HJKL with karabiner and use it way too much, typing on someone else’s keyboard really throws me off but it’s great for my daily usage
The trackpad on my 2.5 year old Macbook Air stopped working. Apple wanted over £400 to fix it. Thankfully I found a local guy who did it for a fraction of that. Screw Apple.
I just had the most horrendous Apple repair experience. In standard warranty with Apple care. Would NOT authorize a mail in repair. Would only authorize walk in to my local shitty Apple authorized third party repair center who were unable / unwilling to reproduce.
Fought with them for weeks. Escalated. They lied and said they were doing a no cost replacement. Had to fight the charge. Then they lost my return.
So much so that I’ve started switching to Linux and de-googled phone. (Switching off of iPhone just to go to google seems like the greater of evils)
The non Apple ecosystem is much more mature than last I checked but still irritating. De googling was my biggest challenge. Getting a viable replacement for Mac OS was the easy part.
What was the problem? If the local repair center couldn't reproduce it, what was going on?
And what do you mean they lost your return? Like it got delivered and then it was lost? Surely they gave you a working unit at that point?
I've had a bunch of experiences with Apple repair and always always been fast and great. I mean, they're definitely the best service of literally any corporation I've dealt with, by far. Sometimes you get unlucky I guess with a particular rep or something hard to reproduce, but it sounds like you got extremely unlucky? It definitely isn't representative in my experience, not even close.
I have a broken left key and went with karabiner too. I still plan to take the laptop to assistance at some point and try to get it a deep clean up and maybe that will help.
Otherwise fuck apple I'm not paying 700+ to fix a key.
Over a decade ago, my father would fix washing machine controllers, replacing mechanical timers, buttons, panels, or other parts;
Now, for the same problem, we just need to replace a control circuit board; the circuit board itself is sealed with adhesive for waterproofing, which also means the circuit board is not repairable.
Maintainability is actually not a mandatory standard, but a design trade-off; the biggest problem with the MacBook is not this, but rather that Apple does not allow other means of repairing the MacBook, such as various certification chips, etc.;
Sure it's a giant PITA, but it's not expensive to repair if you do the labor yourself. Parts for macbook are easy to comeby since Apple decentralizes repairs so heavily.
I strongly recommend not buying a Macbook and instead hacking a mini: https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini ... cheaper and restores control of peripheral selection and replacement. That is to say "such a system will last ~forever instead of ~3 years [when the first major component dies and replacement costs ~70% of a new Apple product]". Particularly with Asahi Linux progressing so quickly. https://asahilinux.org/ Without Asahi Linux I would not buy a Mac in 2026.
I too looked at Framework and like the idea, unfortunately in my case the supply chain was too slow to be tolerable, before even considering the price-performance ratio.
I strongly support the idea that the EU should force vendors to make consumer device repairs cost-effective and available or open source and expose their component interfaces in exchange for the right to sell in Europe. After all, the EU brought us USB-C, so we know regulatory pressure works. Thanks, EU!
My MacBook Pro M1 keyboard repair costed >700€, this is not a butterfly keyboard. So also new models have an expensive keyboard replacement.
My previous MacBook Pro keyboard was a butterfly keyboard and also broke, but got replaced for free. I don’t feel I am a heavy user as the MacBook Pro is mostly connected to an external keyboard and am pretty annoyed by apples keyboard quality (based on my sample size of 2).
Apple is disgusting from that standpoint. I have my MacBook Air M1's screen break overnight (the "bendgate"), without any reason, after 13 months. I didn't buy the extended two years warranty. I was one-month off warranty. On a MacBook Air M1 I paid something like 1000 EUR VAT included (don't remember the exact price but in that ballpark), they were asking 700 EUR to fix the screen.
I still just ordered a MacMini M4 (I know the M5 is coming but we've got something like 20 computers at home, including servers, NUCs, laptops, desktop, etc. so I may not mind buying a M5).
Still... Apple, from the bottom of my heart: FUCK YOU.
Normally I'd agree purity tests are largely counterproductive. But large tech companies are major players and deserve extraordinary scrutiny for their actions.
Anyway, simply noting the impacts of their decisions doesn't seem deserving of an "ism"—surely there should be a normative component to make this a proper ideology—I haven't told you what to do.
This is a great answer. I lost the bet. I suspect even this falls apart if you consider the bill of materials, though.
Look my point is that commodity fetishization is real, it protects our entire economy, and once you look deeper/underneath the hood/covers, many reasonable prices become violations of our personal values. With such insanely complex and largely offshore supply chains, laptops and phones (and servers etc) become very problematic devices that we nonetheless rely on.
I think you might be right. According to Ebay, a complete OEM backlit keyboard + trackpoint costs $24.99 for my laptop. The iFixit is rated "easy" and supposedly takes 15 minutes.
Swedes many times have a defeatist attitude towards companies and authorities, and expect that they will never get any help unless they have a right to it (from warranties or such).
The author doesn't mention ever contacting Apple to get his keyboard fixed. Maybe he could have gotten pleasantly surprised?
"Here’s hoping governments regulate laptop manufacturers to actually make repairable machines in the future."
However, this quote is not a surprise at all, and goes perfectly in line with Swedish philosophy. And the philosophy of this message board as well.
Anyway, did he contact Apple to see if they could help him out? Because sometimes Apple fixes these things for free.
I've had very good and very bad experiences with Apple support for hardware failures. It's worth trying to contact them, instead of calling for more government regulation.
He went through the Apple Icon -> "About This Mac" -> "More Info" -> Coverage Expired Details Button -> Clicked the Get Support button and ended up in an infinite loop of questions on the Apple website if I recall correctly.
That's not the point where you give up. That's the point where you call or e-mail the company to talk to a human.
Hence my comment about defeatism. Sometimes you have to push a little bit before giving up and crying for the government to come help you. Big companies aren't unbending stone statues.
Go figure. MacBook Neo Is the Most Repairable MacBook in 14 Years [0]
Much as a laptop would suit me, I opted for a mini and a large display.
Come keyboard time, I was ready to spend $$$$$ for an Apple keyboard, but the only backlit ones come on laptops. I'm using a Logitech now, with the option of charging it all the time, else the lights dim themselves to conserve battery.
Yes, I was 19 once. And three times after that. But there we go again, stuff designed for 19 year-olds.
Yes, my bad. I totally agree with that it does indeed suck. I've had to replace the C cover of my laptop before for reasons not related to the keyboard (a screw post broke because Dell had the bright of idea of attaching a metal screw post to the body with plastic). I ended up fixing that issue, but the keyboard that was installed in the C cover was noticeably shittier than my old one.
I'm now on a Framework 13, and it's been pretty fun so far.
No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one. They exist. Others have already mentioned Framework, but there are other options that aren't that far down the spectrum either.
One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other.
I say this as a framework owner who would never buy something as irreparable as a macbook. Regulation is not the answer here.
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