Even Steve Wozniak supports the "Right to Repair" movement

[jsilva]

In context: Apple is widely known for how strict it is regarding third parties repairing its devices, but lately, it's loosened up a bit on that subject. However, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak doesn't agree with the company's current repair policies and believes that the right to repair should be better recognized.

In the last couple of years, Apple started to give access to iPhone parts to third parties in the US, so they could perform repairs with genuine components. Then, it expanded this program to Canada and Europe, introduced Macs to its independent repair initiative, and even added a repairability score on the official French website.

That shows the situation is somewhat improving, but there's still room to become even better. When someone buys a device, you should have the right to do whatever you want with that device, as it doesn't belong to the manufacturer anymore. However, most companies fear users will violate their proprietary rights once they open up their devices.

To fight against companies that believe a consumer shouldn't repair the device he owns, the "Right to Repair" movement was formed. Since its creation, it has amassed an incredible number of supporters, including Steve Wozniak, who came out in support of the "Right to Repair" movement.

Louis Rossman, YouTuber and Right to Repair activist, had put a request on Cameo, a video-sharing website that lets users ask for personalized videos from celebrities. In this request, Louis asked for Steve Wozniak's opinion on the "Right to Repair" movement, which he did...

"I am so busy with so many other things in my life that I haven't really gotten involved in that area. But I'm always totally supportive and I totally think the people behind it are doing the right thing," Wozniak says. He then followed to explain why companies oppose "Right to Repair," stating that they do it because it gives them "power, control, over everything." For those companies, this power and control translate into profits.

Apple's co-founder added that limiting third parties and consumers' repairs is hurting innovation. Back when Steve Jobs and Wozniak created Apple, every electronic device you bought would come with all of its circuits, schematics, and designs detailed on a manual bundled in.

Louis Rossman made a video thanking Wozniak, where he also mentions that he has found a company and an individual willing to fund the movement with a "few million dollars," but they would only fund if "someone else goes first." That "someone" was Steve Wozniak. With his support, Louis is hoping to be funded with $2 million from undisclosed sources to create a campaign, which he believes is essential to pass a law on the "Right to Repair."

Masthead credit: Kilian Seiler

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/90369-even-steve-wozniak-supports-right-repair-movement.html

 

[Reehahs]

What would also help is if the manufacturer is making the design obsolete and no longer supports it with parts, then the schematics for service parts should be put in public domain.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I've never cared about voiding warranty when it comes to opening things up.

Sometimes I just like to see how it all works together, so I pull things apart, look at it all and then put it back together. Granted, I'm not unsoldering things or mucking with circuitry and such things, but sometimes I'm just curious how it's all put together.

When my last washing machine started having issues I pulled it all apart just to see how it all went together, then I put it back together. I knew the bearings were going, but I wanted to see how it all looked. About 2 weeks later the bearings finally seized and we got a new machine, but I thought it was fun taking it apart.

Over the years I've pulled part numerous VCRs, DVD players, various parts from things under the hood of cars/trucks. I've dismantled failed HDDs and PSUs, I've had fun pulling apart GPUs and laptops to clean and repast.

I think the most entertaining one was pulling apart of a flat screen monitor and replacing the bulging capacitors on the power board. The monitor itself, I used for 6 years. I then passed it along to my brother and he used it for about 3 years before getting something newer. To my knowledge he has it in a closet and it still works as good as the day he got it.

You can't learn if you can't play with them and I think that's one of the main things these companies want to do - keep others from learning and figuring this stuff out. There are a lot of brilliant people out there, but stupid crap like companies preventing folks from repairing things puts a lot of people at bay from fixing small issues because companies want you pay big bucks for new, shiny items instead of a handful of dollars for a small part to fix what was broken.

 

[Avro Arrow]

This is why I like PCs over Macs and always will. The IBM PC set the stage for industry standards in computers, standards like PC/XT, AT and ATX that we still use today for mobos, psus, drive sizes, etc. which allow for competition in manufacturing in an open market so costs are kept reasonable.

What Apple calls "Vertical Integration" is what I call "a totalitarian captive market".

 

[terzaerian]

I'm not sure what's more of a shame, that Wozniak didn't have more of an influence over Apple than Jobs did, or that he's wasted his talents and loyalty on Apple over literally anything else. Either way technology would have been improved. More evidence this is the dark timeline.

 

[terzaerian]

This is why I like PCs over Macs and always will. The IBM PC set the stage for industry standards in computers, standards like PC/XT, AT and ATX that we still use today for mobos, psus, drive sizes, etc.

What astounds me most is that IBM's alleged mistakes, as much as their successes, shaped PC standards with equal importance, towards the better, in making the platform more open, more repairable, more flexible, more extensible. It's really remarkable.

 

[m4a4]

In the last couple of years, Apple started to give access to iPhone parts to third parties in the US, so they could perform repairs with genuine components.

Yeah... if you actually look at the program, it doesn't do much of anything. It's more of a "see, we're doing something" type of program, than anything useful.

I'm glad Woz took the time to respond to Louis as long as he did.

 

[Geralt]

This is why I like PCs over Macs and always will. The IBM PC set the stage for industry standards in computers, standards like PC/XT, AT and ATX that we still use today for mobos, psus, drive sizes, etc. which allow for competition in manufacturing on an open market so costs are kept reasonable.

What Apple calls "Vertical Integration" is what I call "a totalitarian captive market".

Hateful Apple.

Apple, Microsoft and Adobe are the UNholy trinity among the companies! Hateful like hell!

 

[Lew Zealand]

I'm not sure what's more of a shame, that Wozniak didn't have more of an influence over Apple than Jobs did, or that he's wasted his talents and loyalty on Apple over literally anything else. Either way technology would have been improved. More evidence this is the dark timeline.

Third option: Woz had a bad accident early in his Apple career (1981) which resulted in some amnesia for a while and maybe a little brain damage, leaving him a different person from the one before the accident. He was less involved in the company he co-founded afterwards, so any long-term influence as the engineering brains of Apple was perhaps never truly realized.

 

[terzaerian]

Third option: Woz had a bad accident early in his Apple career (1981) which resulted in some amnesia for a while and maybe a little brain damage, leaving him a different person from the one before the accident. He was less involved in the company he co-founded afterwards, so any long-term influence as the engineering brains of Apple was perhaps never truly realized.

This does little more than further prove my my point that we're living in the dark timeline.

 

[punctualturn]

"a totalitarian captive market".

Nvidia: hold my beer.

 

[punctualturn]

I'm not sure what's more of a shame, that Wozniak didn't have more of an influence over Apple than Jobs did, or that he's wasted his talents and loyalty on Apple over literally anything else. Either way technology would have been improved. More evidence this is the dark timeline.

I truly despise the lack of recognition that the current Apple Corp shows towards The Woz.

The snake oil salesman Jobs would had die penniless if it wasnt for The Woz. His attitude and work ethics were already an issue even before Apple was founded.
Yet the drones only have praises for him and act like The Woz is a nobody.

Hateful Apple.

Apple, Microsoft and Adobe are the UNholy trinity among the companies! Hateful like hell!

You forgot Intel, Qualcomm and Nvidia.

 

[arrowflash]

This is why I like PCs over Macs and always will. The IBM PC set the stage for industry standards in computers, standards like PC/XT, AT and ATX that we still use today for mobos, psus, drive sizes, etc. which allow for competition in manufacturing on an open market so costs are kept reasonable.

What Apple calls "Vertical Integration" is what I call "a totalitarian captive market".

And the open environment created by the IBM PC architecture is obviously seen as a huge mistake and a pesky hurdle to overcome by most of the tech industry nowadays. That's why they've been doing everything in their power to kill it (by pushing things like ARM CPUs in the last few years) or at least make it less open (by introducing standards such as TPM and secure boot).

It's a war against consumers that we can't allow them to win. Probably the only thing keeping them is all the money Intel and AMD still make with x86 CPUs.

 

[punctualturn]

t's a war against consumers that we can't allow them to win.

When you have consumers rabidly defending companies like apple, intel and specially nvidia in the way they do, you can safely say that we already lost that fight.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

TPM?

Captive Market?

That was "your" choice

 

[3volv3d]

Recently been wanting a, can't believe I'm saying it, a laptop. A dirty piece of kit that.
As bad as anything Apple.
Apple products and laptops, are IMO (from 2004 lol) majoritarily for people who want something to just work and throw it away when it doesn't. Buy new.
So the right to repair thing does seem a little out of their demographic. They want a throw away society and landfills filled with their silicon.
But its no longer 2004. Many more people are learning programming and tinkering with devices. And our planet can't take a throw away society and an iPhone that's battery is designed to fail in 2 years just to create a sale.
Unfortunately if something's built to last you either pay a premium so the business has money to stay afloat, or you have to keep churning out a larger population each year to make more customers so CEOs can get a fatter bonus each year.
Ah capitalism. Ya fudged either way.

 

[captaincranky]

This news about Steve Wozniak doesn't surprise me in the least, The few things I've heard about him or seen him in public, (Dancing with the Stars), he's always presented as a down to earth, affable, and likable kind of guy.

You know, the kind of guy Steve Jobs masqueraded as while he was in public, not the tyrant he was in private.

I always got the impression that Jobs was Wozniak's, "evil twin"..

I get a kick out of of Apple's TV ads. They barely mention the product name. It's just a bunch of sonic and visual triggers, engineered to let their customers, sheep, addicts, call them what you will, believe how hip, and tuned in to fit their "needs" they absolutely are.

My fondest hope is that one day they'll rename "Madison Avenue" for what it truly is, "the ministry of propaganda".

Don't believe me? here, have a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Apple is not only controlling their hardware and software but also the user experience. They believe you should have to pay (more) to have the "apple experience" and I agree with them.

My iPhone 12 Pro Max is the greatest device I've ever owned and the 13 will only exceed it.

A 4K camera with a great battery life, a web browsing computer with several hundred apps...

I would NEVER trust the average repair guy to fix it - especially when it comes to the use of "genuine parts" or the waterproofing seal.

As far as I'm concerned, the moment you have a non-Apple repairman open it: your warranty with apple ends.

 

[m4a4]

Apple is not only controlling their hardware and software but also the user experience. They believe you should have to pay (more) to have the "apple experience" and I agree with them.

My iPhone 12 Pro Max is the greatest device I've ever owned and the 13 will only exceed it.

A 4K camera with a great battery life, a web browsing computer with several hundred apps...

I would NEVER trust the average repair guy to fix it - especially when it comes to the use of "genuine parts" or the waterproofing seal.

As far as I'm concerned, the moment you have a non-Apple repairman open it: your warranty with apple ends.

Spoken like a true Apple fanboy.
Instead of wanting competent 3rd party repair places to get around the BS Apple repair prices (where for the bigger repairs, they'll just replace the whole thing and won't be transferring your data), you'd rather listen to Apple propaganda and pay the premium. And why? Because you have the money to be ignorant?

FYI, Apple needs to legally prove that you or someone else was the cause of a broken device to refuse warranty. They can't do so on a whim (but will pretend they can) lol

 

[Avro Arrow]

I'm not sure what's more of a shame, that Wozniak didn't have more of an influence over Apple than Jobs did, or that he's wasted his talents and loyalty on Apple over literally anything else. Either way technology would have been improved. More evidence this is the dark timeline.

Waniak was the real technical genius behind Apple. Jobs was nothing more than a slick showman.

 

[Avro Arrow]

What astounds me most is that IBM's alleged mistakes, as much as their successes, shaped PC standards with equal importance, towards the better, in making the platform more open, more repairable, more flexible, more extensible. It's really remarkable.

It's funny because the IBM PC Model 5150 wasn't technically an IBM design. IBM out-sourced EVERYTHING for that computer because their own mainframe-grade hardware wasn't even remotely affordable to a single user. That's how the standards got set, by companies bidding on the IBM contract with similar specifications and IBM demanding second sources for parts to ensure that there were no hiccups in production. That's how AMD got their x86 licence, how the Epson parallel printer standard was set and why all modems used the Hayes AT command standard (which was used in both Procomm and Telix). Now we're in a place where PC builds are almost as common as "brand-in-a-box" PCs and it's all thanks to IBM.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Hateful Apple.

Apple, Microsoft and Adobe are the UNholy trinity among the companies! Hateful like hell!

You can add Intel and nVidia to that list because Intel tried to revoke AMD's x86 licence and nVidia has always kept any of their innovations as proprietary while ATi/AMD always preferred universal standards that worked with all hardware.

 

[Avro Arrow]

And the open environment created by the IBM PC architecture is obviously seen as a huge mistake and a pesky hurdle to overcome by most of the tech industry nowadays. That's why they've been doing everything in their power to kill it (by pushing things like ARM CPUs in the last few years) or at least make it less open (by introducing standards such as TPM and secure boot).

It's a war against consumers that we can't allow them to win. Probably the only thing keeping them is all the money Intel and AMD still make with x86 CPUs.

And now the Chinese are making them too by paying VIA for the use of their x86 licence. I don't think that ARM will ever supplant x86 because one of the foundational pillars of the x86 market is backwards-compatibility.

 

[Geralt]

You can add Intel and nVidia to that list because Intel tried to revoke AMD's x86 licence and nVidia has always kept any of their innovations as proprietary while ATi/AMD always preferred universal standards that worked with all hardware.

Nvidia and their expensive Gsync. Yes, you are right. So unfriendly.

 

[arrowflash]

I get a kick out of of Appllle's TV ads. They barely mention the product name. It's just a bunch of sonic and visual triggers, engineered to let their customers, sheep, addicts, call them what you will, believe how hip, and tuned in to fit their "needs" they absolutely are.

My fondest hope is that one day they'll rename "Madison Avenue" for what it truly is, "the ministry of propaganda".

Don't believe me? here, hace alook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques

It's not just Apple, nearly all ads are like that nowadays. Most ads don't even look like they're trying to sell a product anymore.

It's funny because the IBM PC Model 5150 wasn't technically an IBM design. IBM out-sourced EVERYTHING for that computer because their own mainframe-grade hardware wasn't even remotely affordable to a single user. That's how the standards got set, by companies bidding on the IBM contract with similar specifications and IBM demanding second sources for parts to ensure that there were no hiccups in production. That's how AMD got their x86 licence, how the Epson parallel printer standard was set and why all modems used the Hayes AT command standard (which was used in both Procomm and Telix). Now we're in a place where PC builds are almost as common as "brand-in-a-box" PCs and it's all thanks to IBM.

I think another factor to consider is that before the mid 1990s, nearly 90% of IBM AT-standard machine buyers were business users and corporations (or pretty much 100% until the late 1980s). I known there were plenty of proprietary, locked down designs on minicomputers and mainframes, but once PCs started becoming commodities, these categories of consumers wouldn't tolerate locked down products with closed standards and forced obsolence, not out of any idealism or principles but simply because it would increase the total cost of ownership, and they didn't want to be locked down to any vendors for maintenance and replacement parts after the warranty expired.

And now the Chinese are making them too by paying VIA for the use of their x86 licence. I don't think that ARM will ever supplant x86 because one of the foundational pillars of the x86 market is backwards-compatibility.

Nowadays that can be mitigated with emulation / VMs in the vast majority of cases, so I'm not counting on legacy backwards compatibility to preserve the x86 standard. But I hope you're right.