Wiens’s Whine

2012.06.18   prev     next

KYLE Wiens, CEO of iFixit, in Wired:

The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable
...
We [at iFixit] disassemble and analyze new electronic gizmos so you don’t have to ...

We don’t have to, Kyle.

The Retina MacBook is the least repairable laptop we’ve ever taken apart ... the battery is glued to the case, requiring customers to mail their laptop to Apple every so often for a $200 replacement.

“Every so often?” How often is that? I bought a MacBook before they all had illuminated keyboards, and the battery seems to be holding up fine. I use the thing every day; it’s my main computer.*

The design pattern has serious consequences not only for consumers and the environment, but also for the tech industry as a whole.

Where “tech industry as a whole” means “third-party computer repair and customization companies,” I take it? Apple stores: ever been to one? The Genius Bar: ever seen it? Apple Care: ever heard of it? I’m guessing Apple’s not going to have too terribly much trouble effecting repairs to the their own computers. They just might have thought of that.

It was up to us: Did we want a machine that would be stuck with 2GB of RAM forever? Would we support laptops that required replacement every year or two as applications required more memory and batteries atrophied?

Prior to using Apple’s non-upgradeable devices, I typically had to upgrade my RAM “every year or two.” Right.

[W]e voted with our wallets and purchased the device despite its built-in death clock.

Apple’s products have a death clock. I.e. they don’t last forever. (Kind-of like Wiens’s non-upgradeable business.)

We have consistently voted for hardware that’s thinner rather than upgradeable. But we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

We don’t have to, Kyle.

*Update 2012.08.27 — Oops; I just noticed that if I click on my battery indicator, it says “Condition: Replace Soon.” Point to Wiens, I guess, but if I hadn’t happened to click that, I probably still would be thinking all was reasonably healthy in my battery department.

Update 2014.11.10 — Over two years later, here’s Wiens on The Tech Night Owl LIVE With Gene Steinberg:

For me this is a really interesting case where they had a product that was upgradeable and usually when they’re making it less upgradeable or less repairable there’s some kind of reason that you can point at and say, aha, that’s why they did it that way? ’K, they made the iPad harder to get into because they wanted to make it thinner? Ah, with the Mac mini it seems very clear that it was an intentional design decision where they are making it a less productive product for the consumer for no reason other than purely locking them out.

I would say that it’s very clear that Kyle Wiens is intentionally bad-mouthing Apple for no reason. But I think I know the reason.

Update 2015.10.01 — Wiens’s latest whine: Apple yanked his app from the App Store and terminated his developer account when he — wait for it — tore apart a pre-release, developer-kit Apple TV, and told the whole internet about what he found there, after explicitly agreeing (as a condition of receiving the device) to do neither of those things.

Update 2015.12.03 — Wiens’s argument for what his company did — the same argument for which John Gruber gives iFixit some credit for “a certain purity of action” — is that tearing things apart is in iFixit’s nature, so Apple should have expected no less. The fatal flaw in this defense is that it directly implies that Apple should have refused iFixit’s request (as a then-in-good-standing iOS app developer) for a pre-release product, simply on the grounds that iFixit can’t be trusted to obey the NDA, because tearing things apart is their nature. What kind of deafening whine would Wiens have delivered if Apple had done that?! Would anyone (even Gruber) have given Apple a pass on such an offensive decision?

Update 2016.04.30 — Wiens again, on The Tech Night Owl LIVE:

They [Apple] are the biggest, most profitable company in the world. They gotta stay profitable, and that involves some element of planned obsolescence, of forcing us into a[n] upgrade cycle every couple years. I mean, they’re not making enough money off of iPads because people aren’t replacing them frequently enough. So limiting the storage is one of the few techniques they’ve got to force people into an upgrade cycle.

I’m always amazed at how many intelligent people really seem to believe that a company would have anything to gain by purposely making its products short-lived (or otherwise unnecessarily limited) just so that customers will have to come back and buy another one. Does Apple have a secret agreement with Samsung, and with all its other competitors, to do the same? Do they send mafia hit squads to obliterate any upstart that doesn’t play ball with this cartel?

Apple makes all its product decisions based on its best knowledge of what will be good for its customers, period. Wiens either isn’t thinking this through, or he’s just grasping for some way to slam Apple, out of bitterness that they’re not bending over backward to keep third-party modders like him in business.

Update 2017.10.10 — He’s at it again, this time in a Bloomberg interview:

[W]hen you take your [iPhone] into a repair shop — it might be $50 in labor. And if your phone needs two or three battery swaps over its lifetime, that’s $150 in labor ...

I’ve owned three iPhones in my life, and I’ve had their batteries replaced exactly zero times. Wiens seems to be living in some bizarro world, disconnected from reality.

Update 2017.10.24 — In an IEEE article with Gay Gordon-Byrne, Weins is now aggressively pushing for legislation that would (presumably) force Apple to stop optimizing its products for its customers, and start optimizing for aftermarket fixers/modders like Wiens.

Update 2018.11.12 — Latest MacBook Airs include Apple’s T2 chip, which gives the Mac a similar level of security against malware/hacking that iOS has enjoyed since iPhone 5S. However, it does cause problems with some third-party repairs/mods, as the T2 chip can’t know that a software or hardware component was modified with the user’s consent. This leads Wiens to openly speculate:

It’s very possible the goal is to exert more control over who can perform repairs by limiting access to parts. This could be an attempt to grab more market share from the independent repair providers. Or it could be a threat to keep their authorized network in line. We just don’t know.

See also:
Why So Many Computer Guys Hate Apple

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