Louis Rossman on soldered SSD

[ArkSingularity]

You are either completely disconnected from reality to make this comparison, or just on some very well done trolling. Honestly, the point at which every post included clear cut insults was the point at which I should've muted you.

He's deliberately missing the point and then waiting to try to see if he can catch you in any mistake with the details. It's not worth engaging in.

Classic texas sharpshooter. Random sample, hold the one ya need.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Ok fine so maybe the wine was talking

 

[Analog Kid]

Like this, but, if a vehicle is found to have a specific defect that is bad enough, it is covered under a recall program even if you are outside the 100k mile mark. Many of the repairs I do, I feel good about - but the ones where I am fixing what Apple should be fixing for their customer for free, I do not. There is one playlist on my channel going over design defects. Those ones, should be Apple fixing.



I put an SSD inside of a bag prior to sitting it down flat in a device that sat in a desk prior to being put in a slot on a shelf dedicated for it.

Here's the problem; false equivalence. You are comparing soldering 4 year old NANDs with 50 terabytes of write cycles onto a customer's board with putting that SSD, inside of that bag.

This level of false equivalence makes your post absurd. You actually think the two are within the realm of comparison - and you're thirsty enough for a gotcha to post that false equivalence to a public forum & sign your name to it. This is false equivalence along the lines of comparing stabbing someone to tripping over their foot, and saying "you hurt them in both cases, so clearly it's the same." It's the dune meme quote, Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.

If that's where we're at here, I don't think I have much chance of getting you to understand my perspective.

We do treat customer devices with respect - I do repairs I expect to outlast the lifetime of my business - and this shows in our customer service record, online review record, and the work that we do, that existed and can be seen on review sites via archive.org from before the first video was uploaded to the company youtube channel. We maintain that reputation that we've worked for, for over 12 years - and part of why we have that reputation is that we make a conscious decision to not perform repairs that we have reason to believe will not last. That includes soldering NANDs with high write cycle counts onto customer PCBs.


Jesus christ. you can't even tell that the magnet went onto the empty fan section without touching the board.

Again, either you are above & beyond ignorant, or you know it never touched the board but are making things up as a poorly veiled attempt at character assassination. I can't tell. Prior to going into a slot, the magnet is placed onto a hinge. Prior to me putting it on the hinge, I placed the magnet in the machine... that is not moving... on a stationary flat desk.

Look at the shape of an A2141 or A1990 motherboard - then look at where I placed the magnet. That is where the fan would go in the machine, if it were installed. That magnet never touched the board.

But that doesn't matter. You don't care about this, nor do you care about the truth. You care about winning. I've extended you every possible olive branch, and every possible bit of courtesy & understanding. You have extended every possible nitpick & gotcha, many based on false pretenses or logical fallacies.


Your posts throughout this thread have been direct insults at worst, passive aggressive jabs at best. Read your own posts; I'm not a victim, but that doesn't mean you engage in good faith either.

You claim it's virtue signalling for me to say I do not use used NANDs because I put an SSD in a bag. You are completely ignorant of what will happen in reality if we were to use 50 TB write cycle A2141 NANDs in 1000 repairs vs. that SSD being put in that bag 1000 times. One will result in many customers coming back for warranty service, and one will not. It's fine that you don't know that, because you don't do this for a living. You don't repair. You don't talk to other repair shops that repair.


I understand it fine and mention the differences. You assume I do not understand because it supports your narrative.


I do not need to be an engineer to realize a machine that regularly sends 12v to a device that operates below 3v, that holds your data, and all the necessary information for POSTing is bad engineering. This is like that parenting fallacy that you must be a parent to point out that someone who beats their children is a bad parent.


No because it's nonsensical - the amount of solder added by me is minimal, and is often a better alternative to risking pulling a pad via wicking, especially on the newer boards where the pads pull easier. If this were a regular concern every ISL9239 or LP8550 soldered on using this method would have bridges, and they don't. Further, the amount of flux here has nothing to do with solder's inclination to flow to the pad next to it.


So you think applying heat to the board unnecessarily makes more sense than flicking it loose and guiding it off the board manually? and you're lecturing me about best practices? I jab them lose and then remove them from the board. You assuming they just get left there is another bad faith argument. Again, you're going for cheap nitpicks to score cheap points.


You demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding and could never sufficiently answer my questions I proposed to you. It isn't a zombie, it is here for anyone to read. It demonstrates that while you are good at writing essays, you don't understand the concept.



That video made it to about 90k views at the time of my post. I was referring to the video regarding the NAND failure, not the entirety of the channel, because the entirety of the channel is not about one NAND flaw. This is disingenuous trolling.

You are either completely disconnected from reality to make this comparison, or just on some very well done trolling. Honestly, the point at which every post included clear cut insults was the point at which I should've muted you.

Ok, now you're inserting new responses into posts I've already replied to and just seeing every disagreement as a personal slight. We've long left the topic of interest. As you say, the details are there for anyone who wants to judge and hopefully they'll do some research and learn a bit.

He's deliberately missing the point and then waiting to try to see if he can catch you in any mistake with the details. It's not worth engaging in.

Classic texas sharpshooter. Random sample, hold the one ya need.

I'm not, and I'm not, and it's fine if you don't, but I do love a good lyric reference even when misplaced. Good on ya.

 

[l.a.rossmann]

And do you really want to go back over the Error 53 discussion? We can if you really, really, want to... Just pick it up where you decided to leave it off. If you can’t address the last points in the conversation, don’t bring it back as a zombie thinking you’re right.

Sure.

You initially said this.

Error 53 is an interesting example. Touch ID. Apple has gone through tremendous lengths to preserve user privacy and security in their biometrics and elsewhere, yet one obvious vulnerability is the sensor itself. Remember, Huawei has been essentially banned from selling equipment in the US because of concerns they would backdoor hardware, so this isn't purely hypothetical. Serializing the TouchID sensor and implementing tamper detection is an obvious step to take.

Likewise trying to maintain calibration of FaceID and ensuring that OEM parts are used in 3rd party repairs, and that those 3rd party repair houses don't undermine the customer experience of Apple's products.

The pattern I see over and over here, and in so many other areas these days is people who don't understand the technology assuming they know how things work and when it doesn't go their way they assume conspiracy rather than ignorance.

Rossmann very much included.

This implies that I do not understand error 53, or the technology involved, and how this benefits user privacy and security.

You quoted Apple's statement:

We protect fingerprint data using a secure enclave, which is uniquely paired to the touch ID sensor. When iPhone is serviced by an authorised Apple service provider or Apple retail store for changes that affect the touch ID sensor, the pairing is re-validated. This check ensures the device and the iOS features related to touch ID remain secure. Without this unique pairing, a malicious touch ID sensor could be substituted, thereby gaining access to the secure enclave. When iOS detects that the pairing fails, touch ID, including Apple Pay, is disabled so the device remains secure.

That check is separate from the check that occurs that causes error 53. The check Apple is referring to in this statement, is the check that occurs when the phone boots that prevents touchID from working on unpaired home buttons. That check is NOT the check that occurrs at the time of an iOS update that error 53s phones.

I think I understand the confusion here. Apple gave what I call a politician's answer. It's like when you ask a senator "senator mark, why did $700,000 come out of the general fund with no receipts or earmarks at the same time that your wife spent exactly $700,000 on renovations of your house?" and the politician says "thank you for that question, I genuinely believe in transparency in our accounting, and think politicians need to be MORE transparent with the people, NOT less. That's why I passed the transparency in accounting act even though my challenger veto'd it! Vote for me in 2023!"

To say it isn't security related is wrong regardless of whether Apple later made efforts to minimize the pain to customers who used unauthorized repair shops, knowingly or not.

They put out a statement on TouchID and secure enclave that had nothing to do with error 53. Their statement on the issue answers a question that wasn't asked. It's obfuscation, the politician's answer. They were asked about error 53, and gave a statement on a touchID pairing check when the phone boots, as if that touchID pairing check when the phone boots had anything to do with error 53. Their statement on error 53 refers to a separate check altogether that has nothing. to. do. with. error 53.

the hardware check was the security feature

The hardware check that causes the phone to become disabled with error 53 only occurs upon flashing an update - any update. This wasn't something slipstreamed into a new iOS version, it was there in all of them, but only awoke itself if you

a) installed an unpaired home button
b) did an update.

This isn't a security feature, it means the device would work for a week, a month, even a year with an insecure home button. A security feature would check the home button upon boot, or upon it being plugged in - not during an update.

If what they are protecting you from is so bad that they must brick the phone - then it should be something you are protected from immediately. Not later.

Checking the serialized part and ensuring it was properly installed was for security. That was the point of my disagreement. Nobody is saying the way it played out was as planned or that bricking phones in the field was some sort of security feature.

The check occurs at the time of the brick. They are one in the same. Apple's statement refers to the touchID check that disables touchID with an unpaired home button. To include this in the conversation when asked about error 53 is incredibly disingenuous.

I have no idea what you're talking about with "it's not security to wait 6 months and then brick a phone"-

We agree on something.

If you believe that this was a security feature, think that only checking hardware upon an update, and then disabling the entire device after that update is done, rather than on boot and/or the moment the hardware was plugged in was an actual security feature.

I asked a simple question, which you haven't answered, other than to say you didn't know what I was talking about.

How is a security feature that allows your phone to boot and work with an insecure button for six months prior to an iOS update a security feature?

Your claim was that I don't understand the technology, when you bring up error 53 as something I misunderstand. You didn't even see the issue inherent in Apple's statement, and thought quoting in 2023 was relevant. Because you don't understand these things. You write essays for the internet, you don't perform repairs for customers, you have minimal understanding of these systems, and as long as you're petty enough to be lying about me dropping magnets on boards in your thirst for a gotcha you probably never will.

I think you are hungry enough for a gotcha to look for anything to fight on. and I get it, but it's disappointing. Under different circumstances, we might actually get along

 

[Analog Kid]

Sure.

You initially said this.



This implies that I do not understand error 53, or the technology involved, and how this benefits user privacy and security.

You quoted Apple's statement:

We protect fingerprint data using a secure enclave, which is uniquely paired to the touch ID sensor. When iPhone is serviced by an authorised Apple service provider or Apple retail store for changes that affect the touch ID sensor, the pairing is re-validated. This check ensures the device and the iOS features related to touch ID remain secure. Without this unique pairing, a malicious touch ID sensor could be substituted, thereby gaining access to the secure enclave. When iOS detects that the pairing fails, touch ID, including Apple Pay, is disabled so the device remains secure.

That check is separate from the check that occurs that causes error 53. The check Apple is referring to in this statement, is the check that occurs when the phone boots that prevents touchID from working on unpaired home buttons. That check is NOT the check that occurrs at the time of an iOS update that error 53s phones.

I think I understand the confusion here. Apple gave what I call a politician's answer. It's like when you ask a senator "senator mark, why did $700,000 come out of the general fund with no receipts or earmarks at the same time that your wife spent exactly $700,000 on renovations of your house?" and the politician says "thank you for that question, I genuinely believe in transparency in our accounting, and think politicians need to be MORE transparent with the people, NOT less. That's why I passed the transparency in accounting act even though my challenger veto'd it! Vote for me in 2023!"



They put out a statement on TouchID and secure enclave that had nothing to do with error 53. Their statement on the issue answers a question that wasn't asked. It's obfuscation, the politician's answer. They were asked about error 53, and gave a statement on a touchID pairing check when the phone boots, as if that touchID pairing check when the phone boots had anything to do with error 53. Their statement on error 53 refers to a separate check altogether that has nothing. to. do. with. error 53.

The hardware check that causes the phone to become disabled with error 53 only occurs upon flashing an update - any update. This wasn't something slipstreamed into a new iOS version, it was there in all of them, but only awoke itself if you

a) installed an unpaired home button
b) did an update.

This isn't a security feature, it means the device would work for a week, a month, even a year with an insecure home button. A security feature would check the home button upon boot, or upon it being plugged in - not during an update.

If what they are protecting you from is so bad that they must brick the phone - then it should be something you are protected from immediately. Not later.


The check occurs at the time of the brick. They are one in the same. Apple's statement refers to the touchID check that disables touchID with an unpaired home button. To include this in the conversation when asked about error 53 is incredibly disingenuous.


We agree on something.

If you believe that this was a security feature, think that only checking hardware upon an update, and then disabling the entire device after that update is done, rather than on boot and/or the moment the hardware was plugged in was an actual security feature.

I asked a simple question, which you haven't answered, other than to say you didn't know what I was talking about.

How is a security feature that allows your phone to boot and work with an insecure button for six months prior to an iOS update a security feature?

Your claim was that I don't understand the technology, when you bring up error 53 as something I misunderstand. You didn't even see the issue inherent in Apple's statement, and thought quoting in 2023 was relevant. Because you don't understand these things. You write essays for the internet, you don't perform repairs for customers, you have minimal understanding of these systems, and as long as you're petty enough to be lying about me dropping magnets on boards in your thirst for a gotcha you probably never will.

I think you are hungry enough for a gotcha to look for anything to fight on. and I get it, but it's disappointing. Under different circumstances, we might actually get along

So, in summary, serialization of the TouchID button is for security, as I said. Apple explained Error 53 was a result of a security check that wasn't meant to affect the user but did because it ran when they didn't mean for it to, which I also quoted. They patched it enabling the phone but disabling TouchID. All of which I said, all of which is true.

You seem to agree Apple got something wrong:

In terms of why it happened, I don't think it was nefarious. Just a mistake. Occam's razor. We all make mistakes sometimes.

I also said that when people don't understand something, they assume conspiracy. Which you did. Before you understood, you gave an 11 minute diatribe about how Apple is now "taking the war" to their end users in an effort to spite independent repair shops because they're mad they aren't getting all the money from customer repairs. The security of TouchID isn't mentioned once.

I think you're the one trying to find gotchas here. I didn't say you don't understand, I said when some people dodn't understand their first instinct was to assume conspiracy-- which you did, up to and including calling it a war Apple was bringing to the user.

Am I clear in my meaning now?

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

Or, they don't. I've attempted to do battery replacements with and without AppleCare+ and, even when attempting to pay for the privilege, Apple has denied battery replacements to me because they are slightly above 80%. Only after escalating it did they go ahead.

Apple's bottom line is to get you to buy a new device. That is where the true money lies for them.

Why else would they deny this repair? Especially when I am willing to pay for it?

Not sure why you’d want to do a battery replacement if they’re above 80%.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

So, in summary, serialization of the TouchID button is for security, as I said. Apple explained Error 53 was a result of a security check that wasn't meant to affect the user but did because it ran when they didn't mean for it to, which I also quoted. They patched it enabling the phone but disabling TouchID. All of which I said, all of which is true.

You seem to agree Apple got something wrong:


I also said that when people don't understand something, they assume conspiracy. Which you did. Before you understood, you gave an 11 minute diatribe about how Apple is now "taking the war" to their end users in an effort to spite independent repair shops because they're mad they aren't getting all the money from customer repairs. The security of TouchID isn't mentioned once.

I think you're the one trying to find gotchas here. I didn't say you don't understand, I said when some people dodn't understand their first instinct was to assume conspiracy-- which you did, up to and including calling it a war Apple was bringing to the user.

Am I clear in my meaning now?

Worth adding that the point of the system is to have security integrity which means validating that no tampering has taken place or implants have been installed. And that may be via third party parts. Where and when those checks run isn’t always as straightforward as it may seem.

What is interpreted as bricking a device may indeed be a valid check. I mean before deploying a new software update is a valid place to run an integrity precondition check. I suspect they backed down here due to the amount of frankenphones on the market so they took a security hit to keep customers from complaining. I dislike that.

Personally as someone partially responsible for a fleet of corporate iPhones, I’d rather I saw an error 53 than have a compromised device. We had users on more than one occasion break the phone, have a panic and take it to an independent repairer who sticks a crap screen on it. It is then sent back to us with some denial about the whole situation. The sooner it breaks the better if you ask me.

As for non corporate users and cheap asses, meh.

 

[l.a.rossmann]

So, in summary, serialization of the TouchID button is for security, as I said. Apple explained Error 53 was a result of a security check that wasn't meant to affect the user but did because it ran when they didn't mean for it to, which I also quoted. They patched it enabling the phone but disabling TouchID. All of which I said, all of which is true.

You seem to agree Apple got something wrong:


I also said that when people don't understand something, they assume conspiracy. Which you did. Before you understood, you gave an 11 minute diatribe about how Apple is now "taking the war" to their end users in an effort to spite independent repair shops because they're mad they aren't getting all the money from customer repairs. The security of TouchID isn't mentioned once.

I think you're the one trying to find gotchas here. I didn't say you don't understand, I said when some people dodn't understand their first instinct was to assume conspiracy-- which you did, up to and including calling it a war Apple was bringing to the user.

Am I clear in my meaning now?

I see where you are coming from now.

If Apple had initially stated "error 53 was there as a factory check to ensure home buttons improperly paired never made their way into a retail iPhone box", that would've been a massively different video. The problem is twofold.

a) At the time, numerous customers were bringing us iPhones they had repaired, that after an update, gave them error 53. They would tell us they went to the Apple store and were told that an independent repair shop broke their phone.

We weren't really doing many screen repairs back then and we never did home button swaps - I was personally focusing more on motherboard repair and data recovery at that time. I'd speak with the shopowners those customers went to originally who did the repairs, and they'd say the same thing. Their customers who they replaced home buttons for would come back to them, after going to the Apple store, and hear that this was because someone else had opened, and broke their phone.

b) They didn't tell us the reality upfront - that it was a bug that they will remove. They gave a statement about security and touchID. They answered the question that wasn't asked, which implied that error 53 was about security.

Here is the problem. When the other side says something that isn't really true - that we broke their phone, and also gives a statement in response to a news outlet that doesn't answer the question - it prompts us to go "hm, this seems really dishonest of them to throw us under the bus like that - man, that really sucks!" And, you get wording like that video.

If the initial assumption from the manufacturer wasn't that we broke their phone, but rather, "hmm, let's look into what this error 53 thing is. let's escalate it up the chain. let's ask an engineer.", they might not have come out conspiratorially blaming us for their own bug. Conversely, if the person speaking to the press had the opportunity to speak to the engineers, they might have given a more accurate answer as well.

When the manufacturer's press statement seems out of touch with what error 53 actually is - and the on-the-ground employees are blaming repair shops for error 53, both of which aren't really true, you end up with what I believe is a rational "these people are against us" response.

This brings me to a prior point. What we ask for is an open dialogue. If the person making the statement doesn't even know it's a bug at the time they made the statement - how would independents? Do we have greater access to Apple engineers than Apple's own employees? They responded to error 53 by discussing security, rather than discussing it as a check from the factory that wasn't ever intended to make it into the wild where it could brick customer phones, and their support staff would tell customers that the place you took your phone to broke it which is why you have error 53.

At what point does incompetence, or ignorance, become malice? Do you see our perspective, even if you don't agree with it? This doesn't occur in a vacuum - it occurs after a long history of gaslighting, whether it was intentional or not.

Perhaps it was someone taking too much liberty when speaking to press. Perhaps it was a genius at a genius bar on 14th & 9th ave 7 years ago who made too many assumptions and decided to tell customers the worst. Perhaps it's a company culture where, you either are discouraged from asking, or can't ask a higher up what the actual problem is. I think it's something that would be best for independents, in-house repair, and the customer if it changed.

This is irrespective of my experiences speaking to politicians about right to repair. The moment I decided to bring a camera with me to every hearing was around 2015, after having an assemblyperson tell me they were told when I fix a Macbook by replacing a component I have converted it to a PC, but I give it back to the customer telling them it's still a macbook, which makes me a liar. Again, was a lobbyist told by Apple to say this? Maybe not. Maybe they were just told "we don't want this bill to pass", and they said or did whatever they had to say/do for an elderly, not-technically-savvy politician to have doubts about the bill. At some point you just grow tired of being tossed under the bus. From that point on, I brought a camera and an audio recording setup to any hearing I went to, and recorded my phone calls with any opposition lobbyists. Farmers who heard that phone call with that farm bureau higher up were quite mad - and galvanized up to show up at the legislature. They did, and they won.

This brings me back to a core point I make, when you bring up authorization and authorized repair programs. The people working on the devices who are authorized barely know how they're put together. That's bad - not just for us, not just for the authorized repair shop, but for the customer.

Personally, I'd like all of us to get along. and, I'd like us to all have an open dialogue. There are a number of issues that were identified by the independent repair community before they were recognized & recalled by Apple, with solutions applied that last & pass the test of time. This would benefit Apple. Conversely, we'd be able to better provide for Apple's customers who they are unable to, or unwilling to, provide a viable solution for, in a manner that makes the customer overall more happy with the brand, if provided with some of the very basics to do our job without having to resort to guessing, scavenging, or otherwise.

I don't expect you to like me, or approve of my work. That's fine - but I'd like people who pay attention to this back and forth to understand why we say and think the things we do, and understand where all of this comes from. This doesn't occur in a vacuum. I'm always happy to let bygones be bygones, and work with people who are willing to work with me - but there has to be some good faith in the beginning. For a long time, we haven't had that.

 

[laptech]

.......

Personally, I'd like all of us to get along. and, I'd like us to all have an open dialogue. There are a number of issues that were identified by the independent repair community before they were recognized & recalled by Apple, with solutions applied that last & pass the test of time. This would benefit Apple. Conversely, we'd be able to better provide for Apple's customers who they are unable to, or unwilling to, provide a viable solution for, in a manner that makes the customer overall more happy with the brand, if provided with some of the very basics to do our job without having to resort to guessing, scavenging, or otherwise.

I bet any independent car mechanics who happen to read this thread are going 'I hear you and feel your pain' because independent car mechanics have faced the exact same problem for decades. They find faults that are of the manufacturing doing, report to the manufacturer that they have a problem with x model of car, the manufacturer blames the independent mechanic for causing the problem and thus breaking the car. Then a few months later the manufacturer reports that there is a manufacturing defect with x model of car and thus x model needs to be returned to an authorized dealership to have the fault fixed.

 

[vertsix]

Not sure why you’d want to do a battery replacement if they’re above 80%.

Battery capacity is measured through algorithms of battery voltage behavior under a wide range of loads. 3-5% nominal difference can be categorized as the same. The iPhones in question I attempted to have battery replacements on were at 83% and 82%. Apple refused this repair initially until I pressed them on.

 

[ArkSingularity]

I bet any independent car mechanics who happen to read this thread are going 'I hear you and feel your pain' because independent car mechanics have faced the exact same problem for decades. They find faults that are of the manufacturing doing, report to the manufacturer that they have a problem with x model of car, the manufacturer blames the independent mechanic for causing the problem and thus breaking the car. Then a few months later the manufacturer reports that there is a manufacturing defect with x model of car and thus x model needs to be returned to an authorized dealership to have the fault fixed.

Having spent years working in the auto industry myself, I concur.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

I bet any independent car mechanics who happen to read this thread are going 'I hear you and feel your pain' because independent car mechanics have faced the exact same problem for decades. They find faults that are of the manufacturing doing, report to the manufacturer that they have a problem with x model of car, the manufacturer blames the independent mechanic for causing the problem and thus breaking the car. Then a few months later the manufacturer reports that there is a manufacturing defect with x model of car and thus x model needs to be returned to an authorized dealership to have the fault fixed.

Having had independent mechanics break my car worse than it was when I took it to them, YMMV on that one...

 

[laptech]

Having had independent mechanics break my car worse than it was when I took it to them, YMMV on that one...

There will always be some who will have negative experiences with independent car mechanics but the point in my post still stands.

 

[ArkSingularity]

Having had independent mechanics break my car worse than it was when I took it to them, YMMV on that one...

Going to the dealer doesn't guarantee that this won't be the case either. Reputation matters when it comes to this sort of thing, dealer or independent.

Many people don't realize that dealers are actually not "the manufacturer," but are quite literally third party retailers that are simply authorized sellers and service centers for the vehicles. They are not owned nor operated by the manufacturer (in most jurisdictions this is actually prohibited by law). They are simply third party retailers who are authorized to work under the brand name of the manufacturer whose cars they sell.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

Going to the dealer doesn't guarantee that this won't be the case either. Reputation matters when it comes to this sort of thing, dealer or independent.

Many people don't realize that dealers are actually not "the manufacturer," but are quite literally third party retailers that are simply authorized sellers and service centers for the vehicles. They are not owned nor operated by the manufacturer (in most jurisdictions this is actually prohibited by law). They are simply third party retailers who are authorized to work under the brand name of the manufacturer whose cars they sell.

Whilst correct they tend to have a smaller variety of vehicles to service and a supply of original parts and service information.

 

[Marshall73]

Shareholders want to know how much you can get from customers on an ongoing basis. They really don’t care about the one time hardware sale. That’s why you have car manufacturers offering subscriptions for extra features. In Apples case, it’s the warranties, buy a device, fear the repair cost so take a warranty for the life of the device as an annual subscription.

 

[ArkSingularity]

Whilst correct they tend to have a smaller variety of vehicles to service and a supply of original parts and service information.

This is true.

 

[tripsync]

His calm response to some really hostile comments here is really amazing imo.

Really.

You should see the ones on his Youtube videos and Reddit.

He at one point told someone "never listen to elon bootlickers" which was edited to "elon stans". Since then I believe he deleted the comment as I can't find it anymore. Either that or the YouTube comment search sucks.

Clearly he despises Elon judging by the videos he makes and anyone in the comments defending Elon will trigger Louis. So much so he loses his temper sometimes and has to go back and edit his comments later.

Then there are some posts on Reddit which are too aggressive to post on here but check his comments history. He'll call his own customers ******* tools and he even admits he'll slander someone in the "heat of aggression".

I for one will stay far away from Louis as much as possible.

 

[KaiFiMacFan]

Yeah, Rossmann should really be more respectful of those who defend Elon. They are the internet’s little punchlines, after all. Hating on Elon defenders is like shooting a dead horse in a barrel.

 

[l.a.rossmann]

The only comment I remember making on elon that was noteworthy outside of a video was in a popular comment on the removing-radar video. I'll quote it here.

Yes.

I think the reason people simp for him so much is because he is kind of like biggie from the 90s, for autistic nerds in 2022. He does what he wants, on his own terms; without caring what others think of him. He flips the bird to everyone else from politicians, the SEC, the media, which capitalizes on the populist, anti establishment rhetoric gaining traction in our times. It started with occupy Wall Street and the tea party stuff, and came to a head with Trump and Bernie Sanders in 2016. People feel like they are being screwed and they don't know exactly who is doing the screwing, but they want to lash out. People who do that lashing out for them when they are not capable of doing it themselves will earn their loyalty and appreciation.

Elon's brand is he does what he wants, he does it with swagger, and never has to face consequences for it. People laugh when he says that electric cars will be viable for cross country travel, or that vehicles will be able to drive themselves and while he is on a little bit of ********, he gets a surprising amount of it right. You can indeed take a model 3 from any point of the United States to another without having to worry about dead spots, and a surprising amount of a 27-hour road trip was able to be done with autopilot and minimal if any correction. Yeah, full self-driving on a lot of roads in suburbs or other complex roads is iffy and ********ty, but it's far further along than what you could expect to get in a Ford focus or Toyota 4Runner in 2017!

Most people wish they could be like that in their normal lives. Most of the people commenting on this video have no ability to flip the bird to anybody. They do not live lives of adventure and intrigue. Elon Musk allows them to live vicariously through him.

You're looking at this through the lens of, why do people shill for a billionaire? Why would you invest in or with somebody who exhibits this behavior? But I think that's the wrong lens to understand it by, because that is not the metric by which he is being measured.

This is kind of like asking the question, in the '90s, of would I let biggie and his friends housesit my nice suburban HOA home while I'm on vacation and look after my 17 year old daughter... that isn't the metric on which he's being judged. Or Elon.

To laugh along with this is to give a middle finger to the establishment, a middle finger so many people watching wish they could give to the judgmental sacks of **** they deal with every day in their own lives, but can't. Normal people can't flip the bird to those in their own lives who piss them off: they're shift supervisors at Costco, with 40k in credit card debt, a baby on the way, and no education. Or a person that makes their $200k or $300,000/yr to grind away doing boring work that nobody will care about, no conflict, no struggle, no narrative, no storyline, no adventure. No sticking it to the man.

That's the life of most people. Meaningless; boring. The last man.

The ability to live vicariously through somebody doing all of these things is something people identify with. Once they identify with that, and start looking up to the Elon, you start to think Elon can't do anything wrong. It starts to feel like people are insulting *YOU* when they criticize the person you are living vicariously through.

Honestly, in your heart of hearts, could the CEO of Kia get away with this ****? If the director of PR at Pontiac or head of sales at Mercury in 1996 said your car would be a robotaxi that goes up in value in a few years, they'd be a laughingstock. He gets away with it because of the cult of personality. Some of the cult of personality is earned - some of it is just right-place-right-time for this type of figure to come along.

The problem I have isn't people who like the devices or the company. But rather, when people substitute their sense of identity for the company's, and defend to the death every single thing they do no matter how bad. That drives me insane. Some of those comments I was replying to more curtly were, IMO, completely ridiculous.

 

[l.a.rossmann]

Then there are some posts on Reddit which are too aggressive to post on here but check his comments history. He'll call his own customers ******* tools and he even admits he'll slander someone in the "heat of aggression".

I love when people say "just search for it" without providing a direct quote, context, or a citation, don't you?

 

[retta283]

edit: mispost... using MR on the phone is a pain...

 

[Analog Kid]

I see where you are coming from now.

If Apple had initially stated "error 53 was there as a factory check to ensure home buttons improperly paired never made their way into a retail iPhone box", that would've been a massively different video. The problem is twofold.

a) At the time, numerous customers were bringing us iPhones they had repaired, that after an update, gave them error 53. They would tell us they went to the Apple store and were told that an independent repair shop broke their phone.

We weren't really doing many screen repairs back then and we never did home button swaps - I was personally focusing more on motherboard repair and data recovery at that time. I'd speak with the shopowners those customers went to originally who did the repairs, and they'd say the same thing. Their customers who they replaced home buttons for would come back to them, after going to the Apple store, and hear that this was because someone else had opened, and broke their phone.

b) They didn't tell us the reality upfront - that it was a bug that they will remove. They gave a statement about security and touchID. They answered the question that wasn't asked, which implied that error 53 was about security.

Here is the problem. When the other side says something that isn't really true - that we broke their phone, and also gives a statement in response to a news outlet that doesn't answer the question - it prompts us to go "hm, this seems really dishonest of them to throw us under the bus like that - man, that really sucks!" And, you get wording like that video.

If the initial assumption from the manufacturer wasn't that we broke their phone, but rather, "hmm, let's look into what this error 53 thing is. let's escalate it up the chain. let's ask an engineer.", they might not have come out conspiratorially blaming us for their own bug. Conversely, if the person speaking to the press had the opportunity to speak to the engineers, they might have given a more accurate answer as well.

When the manufacturer's press statement seems out of touch with what error 53 actually is - and the on-the-ground employees are blaming repair shops for error 53, both of which aren't really true, you end up with what I believe is a rational "these people are against us" response.

This brings me to a prior point. What we ask for is an open dialogue. If the person making the statement doesn't even know it's a bug at the time they made the statement - how would independents? Do we have greater access to Apple engineers than Apple's own employees? They responded to error 53 by discussing security, rather than discussing it as a check from the factory that wasn't ever intended to make it into the wild where it could brick customer phones, and their support staff would tell customers that the place you took your phone to broke it which is why you have error 53.

At what point does incompetence, or ignorance, become malice? Do you see our perspective, even if you don't agree with it? This doesn't occur in a vacuum - it occurs after a long history of gaslighting, whether it was intentional or not.

Perhaps it was someone taking too much liberty when speaking to press. Perhaps it was a genius at a genius bar on 14th & 9th ave 7 years ago who made too many assumptions and decided to tell customers the worst. Perhaps it's a company culture where, you either are discouraged from asking, or can't ask a higher up what the actual problem is. I think it's something that would be best for independents, in-house repair, and the customer if it changed.

This is irrespective of my experiences speaking to politicians about right to repair. The moment I decided to bring a camera with me to every hearing was around 2015, after having an assemblyperson tell me they were told when I fix a Macbook by replacing a component I have converted it to a PC, but I give it back to the customer telling them it's still a macbook, which makes me a liar. Again, was a lobbyist told by Apple to say this? Maybe not. Maybe they were just told "we don't want this bill to pass", and they said or did whatever they had to say/do for an elderly, not-technically-savvy politician to have doubts about the bill. At some point you just grow tired of being tossed under the bus. From that point on, I brought a camera and an audio recording setup to any hearing I went to, and recorded my phone calls with any opposition lobbyists. Farmers who heard that phone call with that farm bureau higher up were quite mad - and galvanized up to show up at the legislature. They did, and they won.

This brings me back to a core point I make, when you bring up authorization and authorized repair programs. The people working on the devices who are authorized barely know how they're put together. That's bad - not just for us, not just for the authorized repair shop, but for the customer.

Personally, I'd like all of us to get along. and, I'd like us to all have an open dialogue. There are a number of issues that were identified by the independent repair community before they were recognized & recalled by Apple, with solutions applied that last & pass the test of time. This would benefit Apple. Conversely, we'd be able to better provide for Apple's customers who they are unable to, or unwilling to, provide a viable solution for, in a manner that makes the customer overall more happy with the brand, if provided with some of the very basics to do our job without having to resort to guessing, scavenging, or otherwise.

I don't expect you to like me, or approve of my work. That's fine - but I'd like people who pay attention to this back and forth to understand why we say and think the things we do, and understand where all of this comes from. This doesn't occur in a vacuum. I'm always happy to let bygones be bygones, and work with people who are willing to work with me - but there has to be some good faith in the beginning. For a long time, we haven't had that.

So first, that’s a much more approachable tone versus your online presentation. “I get what they were trying to do but they really botched the execution and could have been more careful in the messaging” sounds like it's starting from a place conversation is possible.

I see your point of view. You were looking for a reason behind the reason and early in the analysis you read between the lines, and maybe a bit from unofficial sources online, and maybe from a few lower IQ Geniuses that the “problem” is people having the button repaired outside the Apple ecosystem. If I step back, I can see that’s both true and false — it’s true that it would have happened far less often inside the ecosystem so contributed to the problem. At the same time it’s not the fault of the user or the repair shop because they didn’t know this might happen to them.

So people’s indignation is probably tied to whether they think identifying the “problem” carries a moral judgement. I don’t happen to see it that way in this case, I see it as a cause leading to a failure, but the fault in my mind lies with Apple. They executed poorly.

I don’t see where Apple ever made a statement that the fault was with independent repair shops but it wasn’t until later that Apple was able to say the problem was a rogue security test that wasn’t supposed to affect users. If you want transparency, though, you also have to accept incomplete and imperfect information as it’s discovered and understand that’s what it is as you receive it. People can’t complain that Apple isn’t admitting they have a problem, or aren’t being transparent and then later complain that the early information was vague or perhaps slightly wrong.

To understand why, you need to see the scale and scope of the situation. It is really hard to wrap one’s head around big numbers because our brains think in logarithms so we intuit the difference between a billion and a million as the same difference between a thousand and 1. Sometimes that’s appropriate, but if you’re trying to understand the root cause of a low rate failure, the difference between a billion and a million is 999,000,000, not 999. So excuse my writing out numbers in long form here, but abbreviating big numbers as B, M, k just reinforces logarithmic thinking.

Let’s say 10,000 units go titsup, not all at the same time but clustered. Apple has 1,000,000,000 devices in the field, give or take. They’re selling more than 200,000,000 units a year, which means manufacturing more than 500,000 units per day. So those 10,000 units sound like a lot to a small repair shop, they sound like a lot to me now, but to Apple it’s something less than 2% of one day’s production a year and a half ago. There are a lot of things that can cause an anomaly like that and it takes a lot of time to understand what’s a phantom (Safari is snappier!), what’s real (Error 53 cockup), and what in this complicated hardware/software stack might be the cause of it.

Likewise Apple employs something close to 175,000 full time people, plus however many part timers they have. That’s somewhere between the populations of Killeen and Amarillo Texas. So when you say that someone at the Apple store told a customer that a repair shop broke their phone, it’s a bit of a stretch to blame “the manufacturer” just as it would be wrong to say Amarillo sucks because some guy was rude to your cousin.

It’s the same scale challenge when you suggest talking to the Apple engineers. Which engineers? There are 10’s of thousands of them. Which one knows the answer? Most likely no single one of them alone. And you don’t route press calls to the engineers, nor do you route repair center calls to them even from the Apple Stores. That’s just not an efficient way of solving a problem and wouldn’t get you any more information.

What I see is the path of a faint signal trying to penetrate a dense organization. For a while nobody would notice because the failure rate was so low. Then it would be enough to get attention at corporate. Someone would open the Big Book of Error Codes and find Error 53 was a hardware check on the TouchID. Maybe they’d trace the blame through the source control and find the author from the security team who would undoubtedly say “you wanted to confirm the hardware matches so nobody can hack the secure enclave, I did that.” That engineer may have had it explained to them that the people complaining that Apple’s privacy is a sham buy their pitchforks from a different store than the folks that think AppleCare is a scam and so probably don’t compare notes. Besides which, it’s affecting real customers who had no way to know better. It would get patched, which takes time. Testing takes time. Release staging takes time. Then a fix is issued.

 

[Analog Kid]

He at one point told someone "never listen to elon bootlickers" which was edited to "elon stans".

Well that's one thing @l.a.rossmann and I agree on...

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

He'll call his own customers ******* tools and he even admits he'll slander someone in the "heat of aggression".

Everyone who has customers has stupid customers. And we swear at them and call them names. Sometimes in public. If you didn't you'd probably explode from internalising all the pain.

Earlier this week I had someone propose a cost for a project from the top of his head. I thought I'd entertain this in case it came out reasonable but no, my costings as he was talking were around £780,000 for the requirements. He proposed £8,000 and suggested I could complete it in a couple of weeks. He's a ****ing tool and I told him that.