Louis Rossmann
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2020–2024
1:03:42 · 3.5M views · Sep 16, 2015
Louis Rossmann argues that Apple designs and supports its products in ways that force planned obsolescence and obstruct independent repair. He draws on his experience repairing MacBooks and campaigns for right to repair.
HN cites Rossmann for documentation of Apple's repair barriers, and some commenters credit him with changing their view of Apple. Others criticize the design choices he describes.
3 comments from Hacker News
You can't talk about right to repair with Apple products without the mentioning Louis Rossmann who has dedicated his life to shitting on Apple's horrible repair policies while simultaneously pushing through anyway and fixing them live. His work has definitely changed my views about this issue to be very anti-Apple because of how few options they actually give consumers when the majority of fixes are downright trivial. this video In one of his videos they mention how they're able to sometimes source parts and it's by workers sneaking broken boards out of the factory and if that isn't a depressing state of repairs I don't know what else could be worse. The bar is so low here, a law that just prohibited Apple from seizing genuine parts from 3rd party repair shops who salvage them from broken phones/laptops would already be an improvement.
> The only people who buy the idea of planned obsolescence are the ones who haven’t worked on products like that. So, how many Apple products Apple said could not be repaired have you repaired? this video There is nothing to "buy into", it's all in the open. There is something to be in denial about however, and you just offer an ad-hominem right out of the gate, plus the statement that phones failing when they cease to be "supported" is fine and normal; but somehow not planned, even predictable obsolescence. It's a shift from owning things that either break or last, to a constant churn, enforced by software where the hardware can't be made bad enough. Apple is hardly alone in this, but Apple is in it, for sure.
The style of issues he has to deal with are stupid design on Apple part that compromises longevity and resilience. Like really retarded, easily avoidable crap. And sheer spite. e.g. [LINK] [LINK] this video