Remember that scene in The Big Bang Theory where the gang wants to upgrade the hard drive in their DVR, but Sheldon is hesitant because it’ll void the warranty? I hate to say it (actually, I’d love to say it), but that is complete malarkey. Despite the show’s insistence that “This little orange sticker is all that stands between us and anarchy,” those little orange stickers are unenforceable and completely illegal thanks to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975. This law forbids companies from voiding the warranty on a device that the owner opened up and repaired or modified themselves. As long as a repair or modification doesn’t damage other components, companies have no grounds to void your warranty, even if you break the sticker seal. The FTC has recently taken action against a handful of large companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo—all three of which have since updated their warranty policies. That just scratches the surface, though, and there are still millions of devices out in the wild that have these stickers attached, scaring owners out of fixing their own stuff. Luckily, the FTC is still on the case, hosting a workshop later this year, which will focus on how manufacturers are keeping device owners out of their own stuff and limiting repair options. But for now, we still have to deal with these stickers on newer and older devices alike. Last year, we ran a couple of campaigns asking our community of fixers to take pictures of these warranty-voiding stickers on their own devices. And oh boy, there were more stickers than a middle schooler’s Trapper Keeper. The Big Tech Companies That Use These StickersCrucial
Toshiba
Samsung
PNYAsus
Western Digital
Seagate
MSI
AMDKingstonAcer
We’re positive there are more companies out there that tack these stickers onto their products. So if you have a device around your house—or see one out in the wild—that uses a warranty-voiding sticker, let us know by tagging us (@iFixit) on Twitter or Instagram and using the hashtag #voidifremoved. via Tumblr Warranty-Voiding Stickers Are Illegal, But These Companies Are Still Using Them
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Top image by Johan Viirok/Flickr Last Week, The New York Times’ editorial board endorsed the Right to Repair movement. While spurred by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) support for a farmer-focused repair bill, the Times’ board went further. “Owners of consumer electronic products deserve the same protection as farmers,” the Times wrote, and they also saw “a clear need for a national and enforceable standard.” The Times’ editorial posted Saturday. By Sunday night, free-market advocates had a response ready… kind of. Jeffrey A. Tucker, Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research, claimed that the Right to Repair movement is “not the free market at work,” but instead “government intervention that steals the language of market competition to invalidate property rights and contracts.” He couldn’t be more wrong. The backup for Tucker’s claims is muddled, sometimes contradictory, and seemingly written as a knee-jerk response to the New York Times’ sudden appearance in the Right to Repair debate. It’s too bad, because many, or most, of the best arguments for Right to Repair are free-market arguments. Here’s why we think free market advocates like Tucker—and many repair professionals— should be comfortable with what the Right to Repair movement is really trying to achieve. Right to Repair Does Not Interfere with Warranties or ContractsTucker suggests that allowing owners and third parties to fix fixing devices could be “an invitation to scam artists” to mess up devices with no concern, since the customer could then fall back on their warranty to have a company fix the issue. Right to Repair legislation, he later writes, could impose “a legal obligation to comply with a warranty no matter what.” Here’s something about Right to Repair that’s very easy to explain and understand: Right to Repair does not interfere with any company’s warranty. Warranties, with rare exceptions, are conditional, limited, and spelled out clearly, under the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act of 1975. But warranties can cover as much or as little of your product as the company likes, so long as they stick to that contract. You agree to those terms when you buy the thing. Nobody advocating for Right to Repair—not iFixit, not The Repair Association, not Sen. Warren, nor the New York Times—thinks that John Deere should be forced to fix the tractor you’ve turned into a Mad Max prop, or that Apple has to repair your iPhone after a cheap eBay battery exploded. Warranties are a set of promises, usually very limited, that a company will repair or replace your device if it fails in unexpected ways. Instead, Right to Repair is about allowing people other than the product maker to fix the thing you own outside the warranty. It has very little to do with the company’s obligations under their own warranty. Suggesting that the Right to Repair movement is trying to turn warranties into idealistic consumer fantasies is misdirection. Failed Markets, Not Fake MarketsTucker introduces a car analogy (not uncommon in technology discussions) to suggest a law is not needed. He ends up proving how effective such laws can be instead:
Tucker is right that local shops are the place to take your car for most fixes. That’s largely due to the foundational laws of the Right to Repair movement, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and the Motor Vehicle Owners’ Right to Repair Act of 2012 The 1990 Amendments demanded that every U.S. car be able to monitor its own emissions by 1996. In order to do that, repair shops needed a standardized way to interface with the car’s monitors. Thus was born the OBD-II port, which ensured that you don’t have to pay a ransom for every Check Engine light. But cars continued to get more complicated, and companies more secretive, after 1996. Massachusetts residents responded by voting in a repair-minded ballot initiative in 2012. After that, the major trade groups representing car makers agreed to incorporate the initiative as a national standard, rather than wait for a patchwork of state bills to follow. Now repair shops can access the same diagnostic tools and data as dealerships, beyond just the OBD-II port. Before this legislation and the more-even playing field it created, car makers had what Tucker himself describes as “a very obvious economic incentive … to exaggerate the dangers of unapproved repairs.” So, certainly, we invite people to think about their broader right to repair as it relates to cars. Right to Repair Scales Back Other Overreaching Regulations Like CopyrightSome free market advocates argue that Right to Repair is pushing for overreaching regulations. We’d argue the opposite. Copyright law, as it pertains to software, is an overreach that Right to Repair laws work to scale back, making the market freer for average consumers. We’re not the only ones that think so. Reason, a libertarian magazine, wrote about this misuse of copyright in June 2018, after Eric Lundgren was sentenced to prison for cloning Windows restore CDs. Reason quotes Kit Walsh, attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on the clash between strict copyright restrictions on software and living with software all around us:
Writing at the blog Being Libertarian, Alon Ganon details the many ways Apple has intruded to stop third-party repairs, while simultaneously refusing to fix many of their products’ inherent design flaws (including “Flexgate” and its many variants). Ganon ends on this call to action:
Demanding that companies stop putting artificial limits on your ability to make your stuff work better and last longer is not intrusive regulation. It’s giving people the freedom to work toward something better. That’s why the Times endorsed the movement, and why we fight for it. via Tumblr Right to Repair Is a Free Market Issue Dadaism, while an often unheard of movement, has had a huge impact on modern artwork and literature across the globe, especially witty writing. This short-lived movement was born out of the need to rebel against nationalism as European artists were forced from their homes in the early 20th century. The harsh realities of World War […] The post Witty Writing and the Principles of Dadaism appeared first on WTD. via Tumblr Witty Writing and the Principles of Dadaism When you drop your phone, time tends to slow down. It slips out of your hand and makes a beeline for the concrete, your heart dropping into your stomach as you grit your teeth and hope. It’s not the end of the world if your screen breaks, though. Here’s what you can do to bring your iPhone back to its former glory. How to Fix a Cracked or Shattered iPhone ScreenFirst things first: you probably want to get that screen fixed. You have a couple of options, but the cost can vary a lot depending on whether you have AppleCare+. Fix It Yourself for LessIf you have an iPhone 8 or older, we sell complete iPhone Screen Fix Kits that come with all of the tools and parts you need to replace the screen yourself, and they’re much cheaper than what Apple charges. For instance, our iPhone 8 screen replacement kit is only $79. The same repair done by Apple would cost you almost 90% more. Granted, you have to do the repair yourself, but replacing the screen on an iPhone is actually pretty easy. There’s a bit of adhesive you have to get through, but from there it’s just screws and connectors. Not only will you feel accomplished at the end of the repair, but your wallet will thank you. We also sell iPhone screen replacement kits for older models, all the way down the iPhone 4S, which Apple weirdly charges more to replace than the iPhone 8 Plus. You can do it yourself for $39, compared to the $199 Apple would charge you. We sell replacement screens for the iPhone X (as well as the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max), but unfortunately, they’re not cheaper than Apple’s out-of-warranty cost. So if you end up cracking the screen on your newer iPhone, your best bet is to just go straight to Apple. There is one caveat: Replacing the screen yourself will disable True Tone, which automatically adjusts the color temperature of the display based on the ambient light in your current environment. It’s not a crucial feature by any means, but it’s definitely something you should know if you want to go the DIY route. Get It Repaired by AppleUnfortunately, the free AppleCare warranty that comes with every iPhone doesn’t cover accidental damage—which, sadly, includes cracked screens. So unless you purchased the more all-inclusive AppleCare+ insurance, it’ll cost you a pretty penny to get your screen fixed by Apple. Without AppleCare+, a screen repair costs around $149 for older phones like the iPhone 7 and 8, but that cost goes up as the phone gets bigger and more complex--up to $329 for the iPhone XS Max. If you did spring for AppleCare+, the repair is much cheaper—just $29 for any iPhone model. Unfortunately, you can only take advantage of that service twice, and you still have to pay as much as $199 to get AppleCare+ in the first place. Still, depending on the model, that up-front cost will save you money even if you end up shattering your screen just once in that two-year period. How to Use Your Broken iPhone In the MeantimeEven if you have a plan to get your screen fixed, chances are you’ll have to wait at least a little bit—whether it’s for your Genius Bar appointment to come around, or for your replacement screen to ship to your front door. Most of the time, you can probably get away with using your iPhone like you normally would, depending on where your screen cracked and how severe the damage is—the capacitive touch function will likely continue to work just fine. Sometimes, though, the glass will be damaged to the point of posing an injury risk for your fingers. If that’s the case, you can take some clear packaging tape and stick a layer on top of the screen to smooth down any jagged edges that could potentially slice your finger open. This is something you’ll want to do anyway when it comes time to replace the screen, depending on where the bulk of the damage is. If the screen won’t register touch input, or your home button stopped working because of the drop, things get tougher. There is an iOS feature that lets you simulate the home button on the screen, but that only works if touch function is working. If touch isn’t working at all (or is only partially working), there are a handful of things you can do to make the phone usable. Siri can perform a number of actions using just your voice, and you can tell her to turn on VoiceOver to hear a description of what’s happening on-screen. You can also plug in a USB keyboard with an adapter, which will at least allow you to enter your passcode and get important information backed up through iTunes. How to Protect Your Newly-Replaced ScreenShattering your screen is a wake-up call: it’s time to start protecting your phone. If you haven’t already, you should probably invest in a good case and screen protector. A good case not only protects the phone from incurring dings, scuffs, and scratches around the body of the device (upping its resale value later on), but it can also absorb a lot of the shock that comes from dropping a phone onto a hard slab of concrete. Plus, a lot of cases have a small lip that extends past the surface of the phone, so even if your device landed flat on its face, the case’s lip edge would prevent the screen from making contact with concrete. And it’s one feature that you should absolutely have with whatever case you decide to go with. Obviously, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cases available on the market. If you want something that looks really great, I personally am a fan of Apple’s leather cases and have used them for years (and through plenty of accidental drops). There are lots of other great cases out there, too, from companies like Silk, tech21, Spigen, and Speck. If you’re looking for the ultimate protection, OtterBox is known for having some of the toughest cases around, with lots of different styles and levels of protection to choose from. They may not be the cheapest, mind you, but they’re still much cheaper than a repair would cost further down the line. A case can protect your screen from a lot of falls, but not all of them—if your screen takes a direct hit, it’s still in jeopardy. That’s where screen protectors can save the day, especially tempered glass options. While they’re really just meant to protect the screen from scratches and general wear and tear, I’ve seen first-hand the impact (no pun intended) that tempered glass screen protectors can make on a dropped phone—the screen protector will often crack while leaving your phone’s actual screen unscathed. Of course, I wouldn’t rely on just a screen protector to save your phone from a drop, so your best bet is to pull double duty and get both a case and a screen protector for your iPhone. I’ve had both installed on all my iPhones since day one, and even after many accidental drops on concrete, I’ve never dealt with a broken screen. via Tumblr What to Do When Your iPhone Screen Breaks Imagine you’re on a canoe trip and you’ve taken thousands of photos of your journey. Suddenly, your phone falls into the lake and becomes water damaged. You didn’t have an internet signal to back up your photos through iCloud (or the feature was turned off). So what do you do? That’s what happened to Josephine and Dave Billard while on vacation, according to a CBC News report this week. The Canadian couple’s capsized canoe water-damaged their iPhone 6 Plus with 8,000 photos. Alas, like most of us, they had no backups. Willing to do whatever it took to get their photos back, the Billards contacted Apple and were told that there was nothing they could do. Fortunately, the Billards were able to track down microsoldering expert Jessa Jones, founder of iPadRehab and a friend of iFixit. She offers data recovery services for situations just like this, where data cannot be accessed until the device is bootable. Jones was able to use her steady hands to repair the board at the micro level—something you don’t see every day—and got the damaged iPhone to limp through boot up. Lo and behold, the thousands of photos were still there. While the phone is no longer reliable enough for daily use, she was able to get it running long enough to transfer the photos. A Closer Look at How The Magic HappensRepairing a damaged logic board requires a detective’s forensic nose and a steady hand. Just like how you’d replace a broken screen or headphone jack, Jones replaces individual damaged components on the logic board. In a more detailed CBC video, Jones discovered that the water damage was in non-essential areas of the iPhone’s logic board. Recovering the photos required making the phone usable again, replacing a few individual chips that controlled functions like USB, touchscreen, and the display. A closer look at the iPhone 6 Plus logic board, much like the one Jones repaired for the Billards. We asked our own VP of Business Development, Chris Bross, about this. Bross has spent more than 20 years in the professional data recovery industry, so he was able to provide more specifics as to how this kind of data recovery works. “You need to repair the phone to a point of limited functionality” to recover the data, Bross says. “The phone doesn’t have to work perfectly, you just need to repair it well enough so that it can limp through a power boot to a login screen.” As both Bross and Jones explain, Apple has a security feature that prevents you from simply yanking out the storage chip and slapping it into another phone. As long as that storage chip isn’t damaged, then the data is still there—you just need to get the device booted and unlocked to recover it. There is an Achilles’ heel to this approach: If the chips that handle the passcode, Apple ID authorization, or any other security features become damaged, then you’re completely out of luck. “If [certain] chips are broken or fractured that are integral to the security stack, then you’re not getting the data,” Bross explains. All that is to say: It’s absolutely possible to recover data from an unresponsive, damaged iPhone, as long as you can fix it to a point where it boots up and unlocks. However, Apple’s answer to these situations is somewhat…lazy. Your Data, Your ProblemWe reached out to Apple for a comment on this story, but they did not respond. So I asked an Apple support representative whether photos could be recovered from an iPhone that took a bath, and I received the same answer as the Billard’s: “If [the photos] weren’t synced on iCloud.com or we can’t get it to connect to a computer, we don’t really have another way that we can retrieve the photos.” The Apple support rep told me that Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers “don’t have the tools to try and recover that data.” I was told that I could try going to a third-party store, but “that’s not authorized by Apple.” When asked, my rep wouldn’t recommend any specific data recovery providers. So it seems that although Apple is aware that it’s possible to recover data from damaged devices (Jones estimates that 95% of water-damaged devices are recoverable), they’re not willing to help customers who have that problem. Not only is Apple mostly ignoring data recovery options, Jones says that her responses on Apple’s support forums are being deleted due to “questionable advice” suggesting that data recovery is possible. Apple may not be ready to endorse independent data recovery providers, but censoring well-meaning forum contributors is questionable at best. Bottom line: Don’t get into this situation. Back up your iPhone. You can use iCloud on your iPhone (Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > iCloud Backup) or iTunes on your computer. But sometimes, even the best of us need an extra hand—which is why data recovery is such an important service of last resort. Apple just seems to be ignoring it completely. via Tumblr Apple Won’t Tell You How to Get Your iPhone’s Data Back—So Here’s How The iPad Air 3 is out—and so is our iPad Air 3 teardown. We also made some pretty awesome teardown wallpapers that you can use on your own iPad Air 3. The innards of the iPad Air 3 aren’t anything to write home about—it’s built much like the iPad Pro 10.5” on the inside, save for the extra speakers and the camera bump. Overall, though, this is a tough one to repair, as the screen and battery are glued down pretty well, and the battery connector is stuck underneath the logic board (requiring the use of a battery blocker). The good news? You don’t need to bust out your iOpener to look inside your own iPad Air 3—use these teardown wallpapers instead! Just open up this page on your iPad, tap on a wallpaper to view it at full resolution, and then save the image to your photos. You can set it as your wallpaper by selecting “Wallpapers” in the Settings app—“Choose a New Wallpaper” lists your recent photos, including downloads. Both “Still” and “Perspective” work, but we like “Still” a little bit more. Click on the photos below to see them in full resolution. iPad Air 3 Internal Wallpaper: iPad Air 3 X-Ray Wallpaper: All content here is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. via Tumblr iPad Air 3 Teardown Wallpapers It’s official: we’ve reached peak iPad. Yesterday, we tore down the iPad Mini 5 and found a couple of minor design updates with a smidge of new silicon. Today, we took apart the iPad Air 3 and found that it’s basically built like an iPad Pro 10.5” on the inside, minus the surround sound and camera bump. These days, the non-Pro iPad lineup is just frankensteined components and designs from other iPads. Too bad all this mishmashing manages to leave out almost all the good stuff, like modularity and battery pull-tabs. iPad Air 3 Teardown highlights:
via Tumblr iPad Air 3 Teardown: Which One Is This Again? The iPad Mini 5 teardown is in the books, which means teardown wallpapers are here! While the outside remains pretty much unchanged, Apple finally updated the internals of its smaller iPad after a long three and a half years. And aside from the new silicon, there are only a couple of small, minor changes that we noticed—most notably a new battery connector design that automatically disconnects before you can unplug the display. Other than that, everything is as glued down as it can be, making common repairs unnecessarily difficult. The good news? You can peek inside your new iPad Mini whenever you want without getting into a sticky situation, thanks to our new iPad Mini 5 teardown wallpapers! Just open up this page on your iPad, tap on a wallpaper to view it at full resolution, and then save the image to your photos. You can set it as your wallpaper by selecting “Wallpapers” in the Settings app—“Choose a New Wallpaper” lists your recent photos, including downloads. Both “Still” and “Perspective” work, but we like “Still” a little bit more. Click on the photos below to see them in full resolution. iPad Mini 5 Internal Wallpaper: iPad Mini 5 X-Ray Wallpaper: All content here is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. via Tumblr iPad Mini 5 Teardown Wallpapers After three and a half years without a refresh, the iPad Mini has awoken from its slumber with some updated internals. Despite appearances, our teardown confirmed that this is not just a shrunken-down version of the new iPad Air—it’s a reworked iPad Mini 4, with some fresh silicon for 2019. We also found a thoughtful new battery connector design that automatically disconnects before you can unplug the display—which ought to make the dreaded blown backlight a thing of the past. But even with these updates, iPads continue to lag behind iPhones in the quality of their construction. They use a lot of similar components, but the iPad Mini unceremoniously glues them together—with no sign of the elegance or serviceability that we’ve come to expect from iPhones. Battery and screen replacements are the two most common repairs, and the iPad Mini makes both unnecessarily difficult—the battery lacks pull-to-remove adhesive tabs, and the display requires a tricky removal of the home button if you want to keep Touch ID after your repair. iPad Mini 5 Teardown highlights:
via Tumblr iPad Mini 5 Teardown: Size Is Not the Problem Today is World Autism Day, and for the entire month of April we’re supporting Autism Speaks by pledging to go blue for Autism Awareness Month! Last year, the CDC announced that approximately 1 out of 59 children is diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ASD symptoms come in many forms, but some experience sensory overload or have trouble communicating—in fact, one third of people with autism are nonverbal. Those with ASD can also be hyper-focused and meticulous, making them savant and ideal employees. That’s why major tech corporations like Microsoft and HP have developed programs to create a more inclusive workplace and hire people on the spectrum. And speaking of tech jobs, Forbes named electronics repair to be one of the best careers for people with ASD. So what is it about tech and repair that makes it an ideal career for people on the spectrum? I interviewed a member of our community with ASD to find out. Meet Aiden!Aiden is a 15-year-old fixer in Massachusetts with mild Autism who is aspiring to be an IT professional. Aiden has contributed 25 repair guides to iFixit.com and provided 437 repair solutions in the Answers Forum, earning him over 11,700 reputation points! Last week I asked him to answer a few questions about his Autism and experience in repair. When did you start fixing things?I started fixing things… I can’t quite pin it to a specific time, but as long as I can remember. I always liked to tinker with things. When were you diagnosed with Autism and how did it make you feel when you found out?I was diagnosed back in 2015 and I had just turned 12. At the time, I don’t think I really knew what Autism was, and to be honest I was kind of indifferent. But it was good because now we had actual papers to show my school that I am in fact eligible for the Individualized Education Program (IEP). We were fighting the school trying to get an IEP, and eventually after I was diagnosed we did get it. How does your Autism affect your daily life?They type of Autism I have only affects my social skills. (also known as high functioning Autism.) So I’m just a bit awkward socially. Social interactions are always awkward for me. How does having a hobby like repair help you manage your symptoms?Repairing stuff doesn’t require much socialization. Repairing stuff is essentially just using logic to narrow down the problem, and then fixing the issue. You kinda know what to expect. With people, on the other hand, you don’t know what to expect. Why do you like contributing to the iFixit community?I like contributing because electronics and repairing them is something that interests me. There’s no need to make small talk or read facial expressions, you just provide an answer that you expect will fix their problem, and that’s it! Why do you think it’s important for people to fix before they replace?It’s always more fun to open something. Even if you fail to fix it, there isn’t much to lose. I also prefer fixing things because its cheaper. I like to see what makes things work! What advice do you have for others who want to learn electronics repair?It’s really not that scary. Just make sure you remove the power and you’re pretty much good to go! Also, don’t cut corners. Cut corners and you’ll end up fixing it again. Would you consider your Autism a super power in any way?One of my favorite things about it is that I don’t feel the need to really fit in. I can be myself as I don’t really care for the social aspect. I don’t really care if people think I look stupid, or if I might embarrass myself. I’m always eager to participate! What’s one thing you wish everyone understood about Autism?Not all people with Autism are the same. And chances are, you probably know someone who has Autism, but just hasn’t told you! It’s not always obvious like people imagine it is. Support Autism Speaks by sharing this story, donating, or wearing blue during the month of April to further Autism understanding and acceptance around the world. via Tumblr Autism Speaks and Repair Listens |
Marianne HughesTech Writer. |