
Apple Sued an iPhone Repair Shop Owner in Norway and Lost - dsr12
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3yadk/apple-sued-an-independent-iphone-repair-shop-owner-and-lost
======
mattsfrey
"Apple does not ‘own’ the product after they have sold it"

I think this is the crux of the issue. The guy was importing refurbished parts
with the logos covered even. They weren't counterfeits. How does a
manufacturer have the right to sue for copyright infringement when it's just
end users reselling authentic parts? The owner even states he in no way
markets them as OEM parts.

Frankly I think it's pretty obvious apple is just trying to squeeze every cent
out of these phones and it's a really bad hat to wear.

~~~
comboy
I don't think they want to squeeze every cent. I think they just care about
the brand. They want people who bought iphone to have the best experience they
prepared for them. Even if you buy some used iphone. If somebody buys some
used iphone and it acts weird or the build quality seems imperfect because
some parts were replaced, then this person may spread opinion that iphones
suck.

I'd guess that's their reasoning. But I'm not on their side here. I think they
should be allowed to design products to make repairs as hard as possible if
they want to, but once I buy it I should be able to do whatever I want with
it. Plus there's not that much great experience to protect lately..

~~~
eesmith
At Ford™ we care about our brand. We want people who bought a Ford™ car to
have the best experience we prepared for them.

Other fuels may contain additives which make your Ford™ engine seem imperfect.
A few misguided people are tempted by the siren call of the independent fuel
suppliers to use something other than the Ford™ fuel specially made for your
needs. When things go wrong, they spread rumors that Ford™ vehicles suck, when
it was simply their misguided fault.

And that's why, as the proud owner of a Ford™ vehicle, you must go to a Ford™
gasoline station to buy Ford™ fuel. That's Ford™ fuel, available from a Ford™
station somewhere in your state.

~~~
Techowl
Wouldn't car parts be a much more accurate analogy, though? Apple isn't suing
anyone for not using Apple-branded electricity to power their phone.

~~~
lisper
No, but they are making it very difficult for anyone to use, for example, non-
Apple-branded cloud storage. And they are making it nearly impossible for
anyone to use non-Apple-approved apps.

~~~
beenBoutIT
Isn't it nearly impossible to so much as download a file from the Internet on
an Apple device, or have they changed that?

~~~
saagarjha
No, you can totally do this even on iOS.

~~~
scottmf
Ah but isn’t it true that iPhones have no right click?

~~~
saagarjha
Uh, yes. Why is this relevant, though?

------
ksk
I worry they're going to come after us programmers next. Only "authorized"
programmers will get the access code required to change anything. Microsoft,
Apple, Dell, etc will control the access codes. "Programming is hard, and
these untrained self-taught programmers can mess up your machine, they might
install malware, or they might be hackers, or they might overclock your CPU
and damage it, or they might use the system for terrorism. Really, they should
only be allowed to access the machine if they were appropriately trained by
us."

~~~
Someone1234
Isn't this exactly how iOS works currently? You literally cannot develop for
it without signing an Apple contract (even non-App store apps require a user
account/agreement).

~~~
bluescrn
And with rumours of Apple moving to ARM chips for their laptops, they could
well try to take the opportunity to lock out unsigned code entirely...

Before long they could even choose to make you buy an expensive Mac Pro or
iMac Pro, or even require an 'iOS dev kit' if you want to develop for their
platform.

And if Microsoft had succeeded in the mobile/tablet space, they'd be doing
exactly the same...

~~~
alasdair_
>Before long they could even choose to make you buy an expensive Mac Pro or
iMac Pro, or even require an 'iOS dev kit' if you want to develop for their
platform.

Hopefully this was sarcasm, since this is literally what is required right now
to develop for iOS - you need a Mac (windows is not allowed) and a $99
developer account.

~~~
bocklund
FWIW, this has gotten better. It used to be that you could only use the Xcode
simulator when developing iOS apps and had to have the $99 developer account
to put apps on real provisioned devices. Now you only need to pay to put the
app on the store.

------
linuxftw
Every time someone purchases an Apple product, they are endorsing their
practices, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

Time and time again, we have observed that patents are a tool of the haves to
prevent competition from the have-nots.

While this case may have been about 'trademark' infringement, it's clear that
if patents didn't exist one could procure genuine replacement parts that don't
'infringe' on Apple's trademarks (which in this case is obviously a dubious
assertion).

Every time a 'tech person' buys and espouses Apple products (and other patent
encumbered products), others less educated in technology suffer.

Reach for free and open source alternatives whenever viable, and try to
educate others on the important compromises they have to make when it comes to
freedom. We could lose free software and any resemblance to right to repair or
open hardware in a generation if we're not careful.

~~~
freedomben
I agree with you completely, but sadly I think time has proven that generally
speaking (there's exceptions, you and I for example) people will choose the
path of least resistance regardless of principles. This is true in other
aspects of life, such as politics (who voted for, in their words "the lesser
of two evils" instead of 3rd party last election?)

------
ivoras
After watching things like this (Louis Rossmann),
[https://youtu.be/FeUBdMU2qA0](https://youtu.be/FeUBdMU2qA0) , if I ever buy
an Apple product I'll basically treat it as unrepairable.

~~~
jammi
Yeah, but still their laptops are much more durable than the competitors';
[https://i.imgur.com/eKq8ZCG.png](https://i.imgur.com/eKq8ZCG.png)

Someone who repairs a single brand of products will have a skewed image of the
big picture. He'll basically only receive items too damaged to be repairable
by others, but he has no data on whether he receives 1/million or 1/2 whatever
and makes the assumption every single one of them are like the ones he
receive. I've watched Rossmann's every video for a couple of years on my
youtube subscriptions until he started with his political opinion and
investment recommendation talks. It's a guy who thinks his opinion is the
infallible fact and that there are no other possible explanations, and it
undermines his professional opinions as well.

I've done repairs on my own Apple products once they've been out of warranty
and it's not as bad as he makes it sound. Parts are easily accessible either
as China-clones or working spare parts from dismantled products, because
almost every model of anything Apple makes are made for a very long time and
in large volumes. You'll have a much harder time finding something like a
spare motherboard for a 5 year old random Acer laptop and such. Apple does
carry service parts for a _long time_ for their products as well and they're
accessible to the authorized service providers, but the pricing is very steep
and not really worth it unless it's the only option you have, or if it's paid
by insurance.

~~~
gruez
> [https://i.imgur.com/eKq8ZCG.png](https://i.imgur.com/eKq8ZCG.png)

> "microsoft" has the highest breakage rate

is microsoft really bad at making hardware or something? or is it all the
technically inept people thinking their windows laptop is made by microsoft?

~~~
duncanawoods
Apple sells as a luxury product to a pampered demographic which will have a
very different work life and span than a $200 Netbook.

I suspect that graph is misleading and says nothing about brand durability,
only about damage incurred to products at specific price brackets, demographic
and use cases. It would much more revealing to break down by those segments.

It also excludes breakages within service contracts so we can't tell if the
difference is simply that Apple is selling a higher percentage of AppleCare
contracts (potentially because of their high repair costs) than their
competitors.

------
agumonkey
in case you never saw them, Louis Rossman has many videos about apple
products. I can accept a bit of excentric design when you're pushing the
boundaries of style and thinness but some things are just mindblowingly
flabbergasting (fragile keyboard and rivetted to chassis; as repairable as a
renaissance painting)

~~~
mehrdadn
That guy is freaking awesome. Smart, to the point, insightful, and with lots
of integrity. Definitely worth hearing what he has to say.

~~~
agumonkey
I personally find him annoying after some time but he does have lots of
knowledge.

------
dpkonofa
This will get canned on the appeal, guaranteed. The article is a bit
misleading because they're not going after him because he's doing aftermarket
repairs. They're going after him because he's claiming that the repaired
devices are using genuine parts from Apple, which even have the Apple logo on
them, yet they weren't purchased from Apple.

This is my biggest complaint with the "Right to Repair" movement. They're
constantly conflating what Apple is fighting against (counterfeit parts and
being compelled to provide documentation and manuals without oversight) with
the valid complaint of users not being legally allowed to repair their own
devices. Apple has never been against that and isn't fighting that. They're
fighting the fact that these bills, every single one of them, wants to force
Apple to provide instructions and parts for repair shops that aren't Apple
authorized for which they can't verify or guarantee the quality fo the repair.
That's a completely understandable position and yet people keep falsely
claiming that it's simply about Apple wanting to keep people from repairing
their own stuff. That's not it at all and it's doing a disservice to the
"Right to Repair" movement to continue to do so.

~~~
atonse
It's not that simple. Until literally 3 days ago I held exactly your same view
"why don't they just become Apple authorized repair shops?"

Well, apparently Apple actually restricts the repairs you can do. For example,
if you have water damage, you aren't allowed to just fix the actual components
(capacitors, etc) that blew, you have to replace the whole board, resulting in
much higher costs and eWaste for customers. (This is from Louis Rossmann, a
well known YouTuber who fixes MacBooks). You are basically restricted to
mostly replacing boards and things like that, not fixing individual chips.

For a company that toots their horn about being Green, their policies sure
generate a ton more waste than necessary.

And I say this as someone who almost exclusively owns Apple stuff. I am
holding out with my 2015 MBP dearly for the next iteration of their laptop
keyboards that don't require a $500 repair because of a spec of dust.

All this has made me a STRONG proponent of the right-to-repair movement. If
Apple actually cared more about less flashy and sexy parts about being green,
they'd make these parts readily available.

~~~
urda
Louis Rossmann, who openly admitted to using illegally obtained schematics and
internal documents from Apple? I wouldn't be throwing that name around as a
talking point at all in this discussion.

The reason why Apple doesn't want any Joe-schmoe just yanking and replacing
caps and other components is simple: quality control. I can barely count on
two hands people I would be comfortable working on the innards of a PC, let
alone my phone and even then let alone desoldering and soldering new
components onboard.

Apple isn't doing this because they don't want people to repair their stuff,
but because for most consumers it isn't feasible without ruining the rest of
the product. These are small, compact, and complicated devices. It's not like
swapping out some RAM or a GPU on a desktop rig at all.

So yes, replace the whole board and recycle the old (as Apple does with most
of their parts).

~~~
Someone1234
> Louis Rossmann, who openly admitted to using illegally obtained schematics
> and internal documents from Apple? I wouldn't be throwing that name around
> as a talking point at all in this discussion.

So you're discounting someone's opinion because they were forced to use
unauthorized repair manuals since the manufacturer stopped producing repair
manuals for devices customers have paid for? That's the whole crux of the
issue, that people have lost the "right to repair" their own devices due to
suppressing information, suppressing reverse engineering efforts, and
suppressing compatible replacement components (and software).

Effectively you're saying that if someone supports and tries to uphold the
"right to repair" their opinions should be ignored because they did something
a large corporation told them not to.

> Apple isn't doing this because they don't want people to repair their stuff

See, I thought it was financially motivated.

> but because for most consumers it isn't feasible without ruining the rest of
> the product.

Someone has a broken device, they shouldn't be allowed to try and repair it
themselves because they could make it worse? In either case they have a broken
device. And Apple is well within their rights to refuse a repair after someone
has tried a DIY repair, but often that isn't a financial possibility which is
why a DIY repair was tried to begin with.

You don't have to go far to find an anecdote of someone who took an older
Macbook into an Apple store and the repair cost was nearly as high as a
replacement cost.

~~~
urda
> So you're discounting someone's opinion because they were forced to use
> unauthorized repair manuals because the manufacturer stopped producing
> repair manuals for devices customers have paid for?

Yes, because it's a legal case we are discussing here and that's called
"breaking the law". Failing to understand that means I cannot discuss this
article with you at all since a really important common understanding has been
missed on your part.

~~~
dang
Please don't cross into personal swipes. If you can't discuss something, it
suffices not to discuss it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
Reason077
_" Norway’s customs officials had seized a shipment of 63 iPhone 6 and 6S
replacement screens on their way to Henrik’s shop from Asia and alerted Apple;
the company said they were counterfeit."_

Wow, talk about snitches! Has anyone notified Apple about amazon.com? Pretty
sure _they 're_ selling 'counterfeit' iPhone screens too.

~~~
beenBoutIT
Apple determined 90% of the Apple chargers sold on Amazon were fakes, but it
seems to only be going after individual sellers as opposed to Amazon.
[http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2016/10/apple-
su...](http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2016/10/apple-sues-mobile-
star-for-selling-counterfeit-power-adapters-and-charging-cables-through-
amazon.html)

~~~
ikeboy
I know multiple instances where Apple made false claims about infringement - I
wouldn't trust that figure unless I see independent evidence.

I myself would estimate 10-30% of chargers sold are counterfeit, I see some
sellers that are obviously selling fakes but 90% seems extremely unlikely.

------
rootusrootus
I agree with Apple going after someone for the counterfeits, I don't agree
that it makes sense that they go after the retailer. Unless he is knowingly
making fraudulent claims that he is using authentic Apple hardware, in which
case it seems entirely appropriate to send him a cease-and-desist demanding
that he disclose he is using knock-offs.

If the parts are branded fraudulently with apple logos and such, they should
go after the supplier for that.

~~~
tim333
Yeah though the the parts in this article were "refurbished screens" rather
than counterfeits.

Talking of counterfeits, I wish the replacement part manufacturers would put
their own brand on like the Floureon battery I've got in this macbook rather
than saying genuine Apple when they are not like all the iphone battery
replacements I've come across.

------
userbinator
_By becoming “authorized,” repair companies have to pay Apple a fee (and buy
parts from the company at a fixed rate.) They are also restricted from
performing certain types of repairs_

...and likely upgrades too:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16780181](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16780181)

------
alkonaut
There are two different futures: one in which manufacturers gives this up.
Another in which every part is cryptographically signed to not be possible to
counterfeit.

You might think people would stop buying products from those who do the
latter. But no.

------
thefurman
Just stop buying apple products, please?

~~~
rootusrootus
Who should I buy from instead?

------
ricksnyke
IANAL but the appeal isn't going to fly. In the states this guy would probably
be homeless by now tho :o

------
NullPrefix
>Apple sues PCKompaniet

I assume Kompaniet is Company in Norwegian.

>Apple sues PC Company

