Apple repairs are expensive, why?

so I got link to this video why Apple repairs are so expensive so I figured I would watch it and give you some of my thoughts on it let's see what it is the guy is to say explained in today we're going to explode wait a second let me just turn off my audio while I'm listening to this let's see if there's an easy way for me to do that is there a button I can hit yeah with my laptop I used to be able to just hit a mute button and it would just automatically mute I suppose I don't have that anymore I'll just hit the button and open broadcaster and stop being a lazy bastard hey God alright let's take a look and hey guys it's Greg with Apple explained and today we're gonna explore why Apple's hey guys it's Greg with Apple explained and today we're gonna explore why Apple's repairs are so expensive because if you've ever cracked your iPhone screen and taken it to the Apple store to get it repaired you may have been shocked by just how pricey it was I recently shattered the corner of my three month old Apple watch and getting this screen replaced would have cost me $300 which is about 70% of the watches retail price so it made more sense for me to just buy a new one and stories like these have only become more common as Apple's repair prices have been on the rise now this video topic came in second place in last week's voting poll and if you didn't get to vote make sure you're subscribed that way the weekly poll will show up right in your mobile activity feed and you can let me know which a video you'd like to see next now there is something I want to make clear before we talk about Apple in particular and that is the repair cost of almost all electronics have been steadily increasing for the past decade it's certainly not a phenomenon exclusive to Apple I'm simply using Apple as a prime example since it's the company I'm most familiar with and because they do happen to charge a little more for repairs than their competition I suppose the only pushback that I would get here is that if we're talking about how the cost of repairs has been going up over the last ten years when the iPhone first came out the only option that you had was an out of warranty swap and you'd be looking at somewhere around two to three hundred dollars for that yet then they decided let's actually do things like replace the screen or replace the battery in the store so that rather than forcing the customer into an out of warranty swap like they used to do on the iPhone three 3GS and for when the iPhone five and up came out Apple decided let's offer the customer $109 or $129 screen swaps and then eventually they offered the $79 battery swap rather than just telling customers out of warranty is your only option so I would push back a little bit against the idea that all electronics repairs have been getting consistently more expensive some yes some no but a lot of the main repairs Apple actually did make an effort to start having them cost less money as a result of them actually offer and repair rather than complete replacement at the device so in order to understand why Apple's repair prices are so high today we have to begin by taking a look at how their products have developed over the years because it's very easy to look at this issue and jump to the conclusion that Apple's just being greedy and trying to make more money but it's actually much more complicated than that products like the iPhone iPad and MacBook have all changed in many ways since they were first released and some of those upgrades came at the cost of repair ability because if you were around for the MacBooks early days you'll probably remember it's user replaceable battery that could easily be swapped out and this was considered by many to be a necessary feature because that's when the MacBooks estimated battery life was just five hours about half of what it is today so many users carried around a fully charged backup to replace the battery once it was depleted and the ability to instantly charge your notebook was a huge convenience for users on the go but in 2008 Apple released the new MacBook Air that featured an honor battery and at first this decision didn't go over well with customers who could no longer enjoy the convenience of battery swapping and would be forced to pay for pricey battery replacements once it degraded but it didn't come without its benefits the battery technology used in the original MacBook Air was pretty groundbreaking for its time and it was the primary reason why the product even existed because instead of using traditional cylindrical lithium-ion cells Apple created custom lithium polymer cells that were thin and rectangular which allowed the battery to fill up the entire volume of the AERS chassis leaving no wasted space also by making the battery non removable Apple could do away with components that took a viable space for the battery and all these changes allowed Apple to squeeze in 30% more battery and make the product dramatically thinner than any MacBook before it so for Apple the benefits of a non-removable battery outweighed the drawback of more expensive replacements and repairs another good example is one area where I would push back a little bit again here and I think that I actually look at the air when it comes to battery repairs as one of the more fixable not one of the less fixable one of the aspects of the MacBook Air that in my opinion has made it more repairable than items like the retina is that the battery was screwed into the casing so if you needed to replace the battery on the old model you would just turn something with a penny the battery would pop out and you'd pop a new one in with the MacBook Air since they used those cylindrical cells you would have to actually open the bottom cover of the machine remove five screws pop the battery out screw another one in while this may not be as convenient for an on-the-go swapping the battery out it's still in my opinion does not necessarily increase the cost of repair to the end user any real amount other than the cost of a screwdriver the real issue when it comes to rising costs of repair when it comes to the battery is when we're talking about machines like the retina where they decided to glue the battery and rather than screw the battery in so it's very commonly said that we need to glue the battery in in order for the machine to be thin but if you look at the a 1369 in the a 1466 these machines are the MacBook Airs are actually slimmer than the a 1502 and a 1398 retinas and the battery is not gluten but rather it is held in with five screws and a little plastic enclosure that happens to hold all of the cells of the battery and this seems to work just fine why the glue and them and that double-sided adhesive tape that's a nightmare to to remove has to be there is beyond me I don't think that that should increase the price of the repair much if at all besides the cost of a screwdriver and five seconds of somebody's time so again I don't think that's a good example of repair costs going up over time with the iPad because when the original was introduced in 2010 it featured a non laminated display which meant the front glass was separated from the LCD panel underneath and you could actually see a small gap between the two so if you happen to crack the screen it could be replaced fairly easily and affordably since all that needed to be replaced was the front piece of glass but this changed beginning with the iPad air in 2013 it was upgraded to a laminated display where the glass and LCD panel were actually fused together into one unit and just like with the MacBook Airs battery it came with advantages and disadvantages one nice thing was at the Gabba I'm being pedantic here and I'm very sorry to do this since it drives me nuts when people do this to me but to be clear that did not happen until the iPad air to the iPad air one did have a separate glass in LCD but point taken it's a small issue laverre under the glass was no longer there so when you tapped on the display the pixels were much closer to your fingertips which made interactions feel more natural and this would become even more important when Apple introduced the Apple pencil also the laminated display allowed the iPad to be even thinner which was a big selling point of the iPad air but the disadvantage was that if your iPad screen cracked the front glass and LCD panel needed to be replaced which made the repair costs skyrocket so these examples demonstrate the struggle companies like Apple faced when this I actually don't have an issue with the Elva panels where the glass and the LCD the touchscreen layer and the LCD are fused together those panels genuinely in my opinion look better and any loss of repair ability that occurs or any increase in the cost of repair ability in my opinion is totally worth it so that you can have a better looking LCD panel I'm not trying to be such a Luddite that I'm suggesting that things should actually look and function worse just so that they could be more a parable but at the same time we could look at other companies that have an LCD in a glass that are fused together but where they don't have the entire tablet hell together with this adhesive where you're you know you're prying into things and you know just to get the thing apart and particularly if you need to access anything inside the tablet many other companies make tablets where you just pry the back off and you're able to access the battery you can access the buttons you can access the charging port without having to worry about breaking a screen that is worth half the cost of the device while you're making your way in but just to be clear I'm not 110% against this just for the hell of it there is a point to be made there that some of those screens in my opinion do look better you know I'm not going to look at something like the iPad air to screen and say that that doesn't look better to me than the original iPad - that wasn't an error like the iPhone 4 screen and say that doesn't look better than the three to make it worth being less repairable I'm trying to create the most appealing product on the market because the reality is for most customers a thin and light device will always be more desirable than a thicker heavier device with a removable battery and non laminated display so what isn't much of a surprise that companies like Apple don't make repairability a priority when designing products but there's more to the story than this because so far we've discussed why parts have become more expensive but there's actually another element that has a far greater influence on repair costs and that's labor because if you think about it Apple products with the exception of the Mac Pro are all made in China where labor is cheap and assembly lines are efficient so labor costs per unit is kept to a minimum but when you go to an Apple store to get something repaired you're essentially hiring a worker from your home country to dissemble and reassemble your device by hand which can be a very time-consuming and challenging process especially with something like the Apple watch which wasn't designed to be taken apart and that's why his screen replacement for the Apple watch is actually more expensive than the iPhone 10's priced at $300 compared to 280 it isn't the display itself that's pricier but rather the labor now I want to discuss an issue that makes sense I I understand that especially when you're talking about something like the Apple watch where you have to worry about re liquid proofing it after you fix it something like a watch is going to be used in worse situations than a phone because at least the phone is gonna be since somebody's pocket or their bag when it's raining outside whereas the watch is gonna be on their wrist they're gonna be sweating constantly when they're going running you need liquid resistance more in a watch than you do in other devices and re liquid proofing it after repair and also when it comes to a watch the device itself is three hundred dollars and ninety percent of what you see of that device is the screen so of course it's going to be expensive to fix it when the part that's most likely to break is also most likely the most expensive part of the watch and so I understand why the watch cost some money to fix now the fun part because this looks familiar too that's been brought up a lot lately where Apple's Genius Bar workers incorrectly diagnose issues with products and this is resulted in users paying exorbitant repair fees for services they don't even need in fact back when my Series three Apple watch was experiencing random shutdowns employees at my local Apple store advised me to purchase a battery replacement for $80 since it must be degraded or faulty but I decided against it and after leaving my watch on its charger for over 24 hours I never had an issue with it shutting down again now I don't mean to suggest that Apple employees are maliciously misleading users into purchasing repairs they don't need I just think when you have people working in a fast-paced retail setting decisions have to be made quickly and when wrong decisions are made it comes at a significant expense of the users so considering how pricey it can be drag that anybody who has come to my store as a most of the people who have showed up and said hey I won't have a conversation with you or something they'll realize that the every single person at the phone is balancing two or three phone calls while they're balancing two customers in front of them while they have two or three machines in front of them I don't I'm not going to let people off the hook here because retail is fast-paced and blah no I I live and breathe New York City Manhattan speed retail where you have a line out the door a little 300 square foot space five people in the store five phone calls at a time man and no just no all right and we'll continue repair an Apple product I'd like to see more deliberate care taken by the company to ensure issues are being correctly diagnosed I should also point out that Apple puts a lot that's actually fair I you know what I probably should have listened to the whole thing before opening my mouth he again he gives the retail people a little more credit than I would I make mistakes my mistakes are typically not in the realm of your machine that has a net worth of $1,300 because it's in a 1398 from 2013 will cost two thousand to fix again my mistakes are not I make mistakes my mistakes are not in that realm i but I understand he's saying that some mistakes we made and I'll definitely give credit here for him saying I'd like to see them actually properly diagnose issues like that kid that came to the store where he said they said I needed a new graphics chip and he had an air like that that happens a lot and that's something that I would not be doing a video on if it wasn't something where for the past five years people have been coming to my store and saying things like that or like that woman that had the issue with the Wi-Fi card where they wanted to replace half of the machine and it was it was like an i/o board and a Wi-Fi card it's just it's I get I agree with the second part I don't agree with the first part I don't think that the fast-paced retail environment is necessarily an excuse for it and dare I say it if you look at the amount of people in an Apple Store versus the amount of customers there and then you look at the amount of staff I have versus the amount of incoming customers I'd say the ratio is actually against me more than them meaning I think that I should be screwing up more than then they are anyway let's continue lot of pressure on their retail employees to attach AppleCare warranties on to as many product sales as possible and although they don't earn a commission employees do receive perks or punishments depending on how many Apple Care warranties they sell I've even heard of workers being fired for failing to meet monthly sales goals for Apple care and this shouldn't be too surprising considering Apple care as part of Apple's services business a business the company has been growing aggressively for years in fact Services is Apple's second largest source of revenue ahead of the iPad in the Mac and this leads many to believe Apple's trying to encourage sales of Apple care by showing customers how expensive repairs are out of warranty and while I believe there might be some truth to this you also have to consider that most of Apple's repair prices aren't that much more than their competition and as I mentioned before I think it has more to do with how modern devices are being made and how much labor is required to make the repair but I think the most concerning part of all this is Apple's stance on their customers right to repair because under the current system only Apple authorized repair shops have access to apples training official repair literature and opportunity to buy genuine parts directly from Apple the problem is third-party shops have to pay a fee to become authorized and are only allowed to make basic repairs in fact one shop owner said if I became Apple certified I will lose 75% of my opportunities to do repairs on things and would have to send that business to Apple for a small finder's fee and because Apple has a monopoly on the majority of repairs their costs tend to be higher than necessary so several countries in u.s. state I'm glad that he's bringing up the fact that if you want to become Apple certified even if you do pay the exorbitant fee to become Apple certified even if you do go through and redesign your entire store to look the way they want it to even if you follow all their standards even if you sell the minimum number of devices that you're required to sell in order to remain authorized which in my opinion is insane because I am a repair facility if I had to sell you know fifty thousand dollars a month worth of Apple devices in order to remain authorized I have an incentive now to not fix things but sell you a new one but I digress every manufacturer sadly does that but it the and I went over that in this video titled how authorized repair facilities are forced to screw the consumer and I go into how it's not just Apple but every company doing this sadly but I to go back on track here I'm glad that he brings up that it doesn't make any financial sense to become authorized and that if you become authorized if you jump through all those hoops that I tried to point out that are not worth jumping through that you're still stuck with a with a business model where you can't do a lot of repairs if your Apple Authorized and there's a blown backlight fuse nothing you can do if your Apple Authorized in the display connector has a missing pin not much you can do you you have to turn away a lot of this business and and that doesn't make sense to a lot of shop owners even if you actually do get the certifications and authorizations at the end of the day all the things that I'm doing on my channel you can't do that you're just not gonna be allowed to and I'm glad he brings that up now one thing to bring up is when he says that a lot of companies across the board are posting repair prices that are similar to Apple if you have a flagship Samsung smartphone and you have a broken screen you are going to pay a rate comparable to what you would pay if you had a flagship Apple smartphone to get that fixed but at the same time there are other repairs that are going to be a that are not going to be priced at that rate they've been just just like the Appl of how lenovo let's say with the p f-- handles liquid damage with the p 50 in a video that I went over and titled I'll link it in the description below how Apple vs. Lenovo handles liquid damage and I was quite surprised with how Lenovo handled my liquid damage and they not saying that's how everybody should do it but they're a little bit further away from the hole I see a red sticker that's $2,000 thing now let's just continue on to the rest here eights are trying to pass right to repair laws which would make it easier for people to repair their own devices by forcing manufacturers like Apple to reveal repair information to the public it would also require them to sell spare parts directly to users and third-party repair shops that way we'd have more options when it comes to making repairs rather than being forced to go to Apple and pay whatever price they're asking now this sounds like a reasonable law to prevent companies from monopolizing repairs of their products but companies like Apple have been lobbying against this kind of legislation for years their main argument is that being the sole provider of most repairs protects their intellectual property protects consumers safety and protects device security and while there may be some truth to that I think companies like Apple can implement systems that give their users more control and more choice when it comes to who repairs their products and the fact that most tech companies oppose this concept only adds to the suspicion that they're making a significant amount of profit from overpriced repairs so while the cost of parts and labor are a major reason for high repair prices there are other contributing factors like the fact that almost every major tech company has a virtual monopoly on most repairs made to their devices and this appears to be an important source of revenue as they're investing heavily and lobbying against laws that would make it easier for users to repair their own products I just wish Apple considering their prominence in size what stand up for users control over the products they own as this could help push the entire industry to the democratization of product repairs now I want to speak to my viewers who were interested in pursuing a career in computer engineering that's actually a very fair viewpoint on everything and honestly I understand why it is companies like Apple would oppose right to repair laws I understand why any company would want the government out of their way and I'll be honest with you if companies like Apple and companies you know other other companies decided to say you know what fine give us six thousand bucks a year we'll give you access to the schematics we'll sell you chips that you want we're not giving you access to the secret sauce or any of that but which which we're not asking for anyway but here six thousand bucks a year take or ten thousand bucks a year here's your access you can now buy chips at reasonable prices you have access to all the schematics and the Diagnostics if they did that I would not want the government involved at all I'd say I would toss out my right to repair legislation everything in a second but that's not going to happen but I am I totally understand why a company does not want the government up in their business because the government ruins everything that they touch they ruin you know they ruin education they ruin health care they ruin retirement they have the government touch it and they manage to screw it up the only reason that people are even clamoring over things like right to repair as is is because we don't want to be in a situation where somebody like Henry coos B sends screens to China says fix these for me so I can reinforce them has the Apple logo crossed out gets them back and is still told that they're counterfeit like where people are just trying to survive but which is why that they're advocating to their government for this legislation so that they don't wind up on the other end of the government acts where the company uses the government to say repair is illegal which is where it's heading but just to be clear if companies would say you know here six thousand bucks a year pay that will give you a will give you a little USB dongle like zxw that gives you access to all the schematics if you want to buy an iso nine two four zero so that you could actually fix that machine that was on stream tonight rather than tell the customer it's a doorstop here fifteen bucks you can buy the chip I don't even care if they're paying $0.99 for it I'll pay them fifteen or thirty bucks for the one chip so I can make my two to four hundred bucks if that were the case I would toss right to repair legislation off a cliff the next day but unfortunately that's not the world we live in and I want to say this because I believe that a lot of repair minded individuals are with me there and if we're eventually going to really to achieve some sort of compromise if we're ever going to actually get somewhere I think that at some point we would have to unilaterally disarm meaning Apple is going to have to stop pointing the gun and saying if you import a battery this is gonna happen to you and I'm going to have to disarm and say I am NOT going to use the power of the government to screw you and to eventually come to a conclusion that is positive for everybody involved let's see and I think the rest of this video may be shilling but just in case it's not I'll check it out and the best way to achieve that goal is to develop a strong foundation of skills in math science and problem-solving but you don't have to wait until college to start learning there's actually a website called brilliant that helps you learn how to solve okay so the rest of the video is shilling so I'm not gonna go through that hey everybody's got a shelf or something you know I've stored out Rossman groom calm folks stored out Rossmann group comm so that's it that's my thoughts on this for all the people that were linking me to it it's actually far more reasonable than I thought it was going to be I was reading through a lot of the comments and things that people were sending me and I really thought this was gonna be something awful it really wasn't the guy is he actually seems very reasonable in his approach and his suggestions and yep let's see what it is I haven't shat

Channel: Louis Rossmann

Views: 627,392

Rating: 4.8406205 out of 5

Keywords: macbook, logic board repair

Id: j_K42D3dKrA

Length: 26min 30sec (1590 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 15 2019