Memes

If you use genuine parts and tools, you can replace those parts yourself without issues (Apple Repair Kit).

Having worked at an Apple Store I might be biased but can also give you another perspective:

Often, people would enter the store…

1. complaining that their phone didn’t work although they just had it fixed. Most of the time, they went to some cheapo repair store where they got an even cheaper parts installed which caused the problem. Locking parts to your phone and only allowing replacement in an authorized store / through Apples own repair programs does prevent that.

2. having issues accessing their phones after something happened. They only then realize that most of their lives is on that phone and that it would be advisable to keep it secure and to keep (encrypted) backups of their photos and other files. Making the replacement of TouchID sensors harder (again, only authorized repair shops, authentic parts) helps improve their security. You can pay with a phone, you have all your contact’s infos on there, all your personal and maybe professional pictures and mails, …

People expect quality from Apple and don’t understand what could happen when they don’t use genuine parts. The fingerprint sensor could be faulty / easier to trick / manipulated. What then? Whom would they blame? At first Apple. And then the go angry to the next Apple Store where the reps have to explain everything to them…

The problem is that the user base is more varied and much bigger then, let’s say, Oppo‘s. When you compare iPhone sales to the numbers of an other single smartph

why Apple might choose this way. They sell many more phones and have to give support to many more phones than any other competitor. And they actually do give support. Also, their user base expects higher quality and better safeguards for their data from Apple then from other manufacturers.

Sorry for keeping it short and not addressing every one of your points. It would take me too long and I have things to do.

But it boils down to the following: Apple-„dislikers“ mostly think the worst of every decision Apple makes. Think the company is only out for the money. In reality, that’s only partially true. Apple thinks a lot about the costumer. For example, I was never asked to upsell a costumer but give them advice based on their needs. If this was, in the end, to go to the next electronics store and buy an android phone that was fine as well. As long as the costumer feels that Apple has their best interest at heart this was fine.

Apple does think about the costumer, but making money (in the long term) is always an afterthought. So these restrictions you mentioned do benefit most of Apples consumers, as they don’t want to check if the replacement parts are safe to use from a security and / or safety standpoint. They expect them to work. Period.

And that’s the last thing I’m going to mention: Apple devices work longer than most android devices. That’s build quality for one (yes, iPhones also have their problems. If you look at those problems compared to the amount of phones sold you’ll see that those problems are small compared to the competition). Apple has also been providing 4-5 years of Softwareupdates (to the latest OS and also security updates to older OSes if you stayed on them). Android manufacturers had to be forced by (EU) law to provide 3 years. And still not even to the latest OS version.

As the EU is mainly looking to improve the ecological footprint, they and most critics don’t really consider that Apple has been actively working on recycling their products for many years now. Apple really does want to make an ecological impact. The build quality and software support make their devices great hand-me-downs. Their recycling and efforts do the rest.

Please be advices that we talk about phones right now. Repairability and software support of macs is a completely different case. And as I said before, of course making money is important for Apple and often a nice side effect. I would argue, though, that it’s not always the main driving force behind Hardware / repairability decisions (and I also rejoice that my next iPhone will have USB-C ;-)).