The AirPods Pro “could have been easily made repairable with minimal effort.”

  • Nogami@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    74
    arrow-down
    41
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I don’t care about earphones. Make a fridge or a washer, or a car that lasts a decade without paying for repairs to impress me. They make much more environmental impact than earphones.

    Besides for every set of apple pods there’s 10,000 Chinese knockoffs with even less environmental responsibility in th or production.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      39
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Make a fridge or a washer, …that lasts a decade without paying for repairs to impress me.

      They exist, but they’re brands you’ve possibly never heard of and are typically sold as “Commercial grade” appliances. They are significantly more expensive, look much more plain/utilitarian and usually far fewer features. If thats what you’re looking for you can buy them, just be prepared to pay 5 to 10 times more than your normal big box store choices.

      or a car that lasts a decade without paying for repairs to impress me.

      There are cars available that are more reliable today than any other time in history. There was a time just a few decades ago when having 100,000 miles on the car would mean its time for the scrappers. Now those same mileage cars are still selling for 5 figures.

      • avapa@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, part of the reason cars back then were so serviceable was because they broke down all the time. A modern car with regular servicing can last very long mechanically. The amount of electronic creature comforts, safety devices etc. are often what drives up repair costs and lead to some cars becoming uneconomical to repair. Cracked windshield? That’ll be 1000 bucks because the rain sensor for your automatic wipers will have to be recalibrated. Dead headlight? $2000 because we can’t replace individual LEDs, have to take the front of the car of to replace the whole headlight assembly and calibrate the adaptive front lighting system so that it follows road curvature again.

        • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          Which leads to insurance companies writing off vehicles long before their time due to cost alone, and vehicles still only last 100k miles.

          Yeah, they’re more reliable than ever, but we’re still scrapping them after the same amount of use due to cost alone.

          I’m so bitter about my last car. It probably had 200k left in it but the cunts were too cheap to fix it so in scrap it goes! Economy of waste.

      • glimse@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        All of my kitchen appliances are consumer-grade and they’re working great 10 years later with no repairs at all

        • Coreidan@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Sounds like you’re using stuff made 10 years ago. Too bad stuff TODAY isn’t made like it was 10 years ago.

          • glimse@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Well, who could say that their appliances lasted 10 years except someone who has owned them 10+ years? Also that’s the EXACT same thing I heard when I bought them to replace my 20+ year old set lol

            Appliances are expensive but there’s lots of info out there to help making your decision on what to buy. I spent a bit extra for my fridge because the model below it had bad reviews

            UPDATE: I went to get the models because I’m talking them up and I actually purchased them in 2014 so I’m a bit fat liar when I said 10 years, sorry. They’re all GE slate kitchen appliances and an LG washer/dryer. I have issues with the fridge but they’re not mechanical - turns out I just hate freezer drawers and internal water filters.

    • wwaxwork@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Would you pay what it costs to make. Because they make them, but you’re not going to find them at Best Buy on an 18 month payment plan. They’re going to start at $7k on steep sale for the smallest model if you’re lucky and work their way up in price. Everyone wants long lasting products, they just want them in made in China out of plastic component prices.

      • Quokka@quokk.au
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        But we’re not paying what it costs to make them, we’re paying marked up profit earning prices.

        If we purely paid materials/labour/etc they’d be cheaper than the shitty consumer models we have today.

      • Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think that’s one of two separate ways to solve some of the problems. Yes, there’s long lasting, industrial style, built like a tank and made to last that costs a lot as one solution. But there could also be cheaper products that wouldn’t last as long except that when something does go wrong you could buy a fairly cheap replacement part and swap it out using readily available tools. Both solutions can and should exist and would serve different markets.

      • Coreidan@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I remember a time in history where appliances were made to last 20-30 years AND they didn’t cost 7k.

        What you don’t understand is that the companies making products that only last a year exist solely to fleece you. The companies that turn around and sell you an appliance for 7k because they last longer than the pieces of shit from china are ALSO fleecing you.

        You got it all wrong. We want to go back to the time when companies were doing business without fleecing the fuck out of you. All we want are fair prices for a fair product. That idea died a long time ago in the dumpster fire that we call “capitalism”.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          We want to go back to the time when companies were doing business without fleecing the fuck out of you.

          [Citation needed] When was that time in history?

          • Coreidan@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Back when china wasn’t the world’s factory. You’re probably too young to know what that’s like since that trend largely started in the 80s but really became mainstream late 90s early 2000s.

            Some of the best stuff ever made came from the US back when we were actually making things. We were really strong in this department post WW2 but since then corporate America has slowly but surely completely sold out to china, so now everything is super cheap crap that’s marked way up but built to last a year or two.

            It may be hard to believe today with our fucked up economy, but there used to be a time (1950s-1990s) where quality stuff was made and it actually lasted 15 years and was affordable as well. My parents are only now throwing away old stuff from back then. The new stuff today is not the same at all.

      • Nogami@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s only if loaded with wifi and other crap. It’s totally possible to make a mechanical washer with a metal gear transmission that will last 10 years for $1,500.

    • Arbiter@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Just because something else is worse does not excuse the AirPods from being non-repairable.

  • Coreidan@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    arrow-down
    14
    ·
    1 year ago

    I have a better solution. Stop buying apple products. The more you buy the more you enable and validate apple’s bullshit business practices.

    You have a choice but for some reason you keep landing on the worst choice while simultaneously complaining about how bad it is

  • Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Could there be a star rating on products like with the energy star rating? Start with 5 stars and for every egregious anti user repair sin take a star off? Would probably go into negative stars? Not user openable with standard tools, dock a star. Glued not screwed together, dock a star. Uses proprietory parts when standard alternatives are readily available, another star gone. Non user replacable battery, you’re now knocking on the door of a big fat ZERO stars!

      • Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes, I love what they do but I think it’d have to be independant / not tied to commercial interests to be adopted widely.

      • Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I see now that France have something like this already. It’s fairly new and it’s up to the manufacturers to say how well they score on each criteria but it’s a start! French repair index

    • Nogami@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      20
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      But will it make any difference? Most cars are at least mildly user serviceable, but how many people change their own oil or even replace their own battery? Many do no maintenance whatsoever and drive it until it dies then they buy or lease a new one.

      There’s a whole industry that specializes in “a new car every 3-5 years”

      • Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        You don’t have to actually be able to do it yourself for it to be beneficial. If I am, lets just say for the sake of argument, completely hopeless and don’t know my quick web search pentalobes from my tri-points I should still be able to take a thing to a repair shop and they should be able to use standard tools to open it and use standard or at least affordable parts to repair it. We’re not talking about “changing oil is hard” because you can take your car to a workshop and they’ll do it for you. We’re talking about you can’t change the oil, you have to throw the car away and buy a new one.

        • Nogami@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          27
          ·
          1 year ago

          This is already the case for many Apple products including Macs, phones and tablets. One edge case for headphones doesn’t sway me.

  • Another Person @lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Until the EU legislates repairability it ain’t gonna happen. The current system is too profitable.

  • hahattpro@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Make self-repairable Airpod will reduce demand of Airpod, reduce revenue. It damage apple bottom line.

    • scutiger@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Oh no! Hurt Apple’s bottom line for the benefit of the environment? Won’t somebody thing of the poor, poor multinational megacorp?