This person done everything correctly, but lost True Tone because of Apple’s lunacy, irresponsibility, and deep overall hate towards their customer base.
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Apple Expands Do-It-Yourself Repair Program to M3 Macs
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I'm not. They used to be that company. They are not any more.
Check out their Trustpilot reviews.
I have two of their toolkits for ref. They aren't great quality. In fact some of the bits appear to be made of rather poor quality metals as they are showing corrosion despite being in a very low humidity environment. I have been slowly replacing them with Wera stuff which lasts a lot longer and doesn't corrode.
Their plastic guitar picks are pretty damn good though.
Edit: note I probably actually repair a lot more stuff then most of the people commenting on the right to repair debate. I can spot bad parts and bad tools a mile away and iFixit is at best mediocre.
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First, laptops/phones that get stolen and parted is a huge business (stolen in the around the world, shipped in HK/Shen Zhen) and then parted out and resold on eBay or used as "OEM" parts of some repair shops. And the ship has long ago sailed that an average joe can fix any sort of integrated electronics in this timeline.
Looking at the realities of physics, design/desirability, cost of materials, value, roi and other metrics, a company decides to make a thing. Understanding that they will NEVER be able to build a product for everyone, they lean into specific areas to make a product that provides a value for enough of the people while deemphasizing areas that they feel are not as valuable to the folks they’re targeting (like repairability).
The upshot of that is that there are products on the market made primarily for customers that care little about repairability because people who say they care about repairability will still buy products that are not repairable. Whereas, folks that value the look and feel of a device but NOT repairability will not buy a bad looking, extremely repairable device.
The upshot of that is that there are products on the market made primarily for customers that care little about repairability because people who say they care about repairability will still buy products that are not repairable. Whereas, folks that value the look and feel of a device but NOT repairability will not buy a bad looking, extremely repairable device.
Yep, that's EXACTLY why True Tone isn't working on that Mac. There's nothing wrong with the hardware, it's Apple's parts pairing, it's purely a software issue.
I've got a MacBook Air that doesn't have keyboard backlight because I swapped the screen. There's nothing wrong with the screen, nothing wrong with the MBA, but because the screen isn't paired it doesn't recognize the ambient light sensor and disables the keyboard backlight. I know exactly how to turn it back on, but I can't because Apple wouldn't enable it unless I ordered a new screen. It's definitely software, the backlight works fine at boot before I put in the FileVault password.
At some point I'll probably run a bodge wire to turn it on permanently when the computer is powered on.
So? If Apple cared, they’d come up with a solution to this — like if the part is scraped off from a Lost Mode device, then it would not work at all; there would be an option to untie the part from the device, if you are legit owner of the phone and want to scrape it for parts because some other part has died, etc.
Buy they don’t care. But they will be forced to at some point.
There is nothing simpler than replacing an iPhone battery, and I’d argue that screen replacements are also easy. Which is two primary reasons why people service their phones.
A logic board swap isn't that hard for anybody good at working with tiny parts. And no, that's not everybody. But that certainly doesn't mean they shouldn't have the right to repair it themselves or take it to a 3rd party non-'authorized' shop.
And... you say you HAD an authorized shop. Apple effectively forced you out, didn't they? I know the thing that forced out the shop I worked with was pricing, the part cost was what the Apple store was charging for parts and labor, and at the same time warranty reimbursement rate went down.
That MSRP actually doesn't seem outrageous for a motor either. I'm also very interested in blue cruise - Consumer Reports says its their Top-Rated Active Driving Assistance System.
The other thing holding me back is I want three rows - I like taking my elderly parents along with my family of four to various places, plus we always seem to have the kids' friends in the car. Hopefully they have a Ford EV three row SUV soon. I would consider Kia EV9, except a friend had real issues getting Kia Niro EV battery replaced under warranty just months after purchase. Even my friends with gas Kias like Stingers, Telluride - they sale the sales experience and the post-sales experience have been awful.
I've never had corrosion issues with mine, and I'm in a pretty high humidity climate.
It has been a few years since I've bought any, so there may have been a quality drop.
I've got a couple of their kits, and the Manta's steel isn't quite as good as the older 54-bit set, but it's not what I'd call bad. And sure, Wera is somewhat better steel, but not good enough to keep the pentalobe drivers intact, and definitely not good enough for the prices they charge.
I also need portability over almost anything else, I'm typically onsite instead of sitting at a well equipped bench, so I need a bit set instead of individual drivers.
The only reason True Tone was lost is because Apple imposes artificial limitations to prevent people from fixing things without paying Apple in some way or another. In this case I would’ve needed a “calibration tool” to pair the display to the main board.
Get bent. How many displays can be moved between machines and still work just fine? Only every single one.
The repair itself was actually quite easy. Just don’t be a ham fist and it’s fine. Learn to fix your own stuff.
The average Joe has a harder time only because companies hate consumers and design things to be anti-repair.
Second, I myself, a lowly musician, came up with a way to both prevent parts from theft rings and still allow easy recycling and repair. If I can come up with such a solution, you can guarantee Apple can and refuses to. The theft argument holds zero water.
Oh yeah, and thieves have tools to break the software locks anyway. Invalid argument all the way around.
SDD and RAM are repairs if the hard drive or RAM fail. The RAM in my 2014 MBPr failed and I have no way to repair that.
Yes, batteries in MBs are easier than late Intel age. I’ll give them that and that alone.
Perhaps reexamine that train of thought if you can really call it that. Why would companies hate consumers? Companies are in the business of making money. For a hardware business like Apple it means make a product that people want to buy, at a premium price that some are willing to pay, and at a high quality level because of that premium (and also warranties cost money). There needs to be no malicious intent in any of those steps, they see no reason to make products more self repair friendly because thats not the point of the business (lower failure rates and a good paid repair program is much more important to future sales).
Modern miniaturized electronics, especially laptops and phones in 2024, have moved so far from what it was two decades ago that very few people are actually able to fix them at home. It's a reality that shouldn't really be argued at this point.
And please share how you can prevent part from being reused? You seem so confident that your solution would work so please do share
Simple: Check the iCloud activation status of the parts altogether. If the phone they came from was deactivated before disassembly, just like selling a complete phone, then they would be accepted by the new device.
Framework laptops would beg to differ.
Engineers are smart people, and they can make modular designs if they want, even today.
I would somewhat disagree on the cost. The self service repair store sells the M1 MacBook Air screen for $307.12 when you recycle the old/broken display. Is it slightly more expensive? Sure. But I get a new screen and know it’s genuine.
I do agree it’s just a monetization move regardless. Apple definitely makes the choice to limit repair ability and cheaper (used or 3rd party) parts by disabling true tone after an “unauthorized” display swap.
M1 is old 2016 design. all new models from 2021 has removable battery with adhesive strip.
You’ve clearly never even bothered to learn anything about Framework because they are about $3-400 cheaper than MacBooks, spec for spec.
Try again.