In recent weeks, an Apple representative and a lobbyist for CompTIA, a trade organization that represents big tech companies, have been privately meeting with legislators in California to encourage them to kill legislation that would make it easier for consumers to repair their electronics, Motherboard has learned.
According to two sources in the California State Assembly, the lobbyists have met with members of the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, which is set to hold a hearing on the bill Tuesday afternoon. The lobbyists brought an iPhone to the meetings and showed lawmakers and their legislative aides the internal components of the phone. The lobbyists said that if improperly disassembled, consumers who are trying to fix their own iPhone could hurt themselves by puncturing the lithium-ion battery, the sources, who Motherboard is not naming because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said.
Apple employing the ever effective think of the children argument. In typical Apple-fashion, anti-consumer, scummy, and full of lies.
I dunno, maybe people should just vote with their wallets?
Maybe people should be motivated by and wield influence with something better than money.
Scummy and anti-consumer for sure, but not a lie…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUFxlf4fXjo
I used to do screen replacements on iPhones for friends and family, probably did about 15 of them with zero issues. Then I did a battery replacement on an iPhone 6 and it caught fire just from bending it a bit…
Thank you. I’m glad someone was quick to reply with such a video. Apple is not wrong with that statement.
haus,
Except stabbing a lithum ion battery with a conductive spear is clear user negligence, haha.
I’d like to make the point that one can defend a biased viewpoint by cherry picking videos. He’s a video that shows the opposite of galvanash’s link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEZIgdfQ91E
I don’t deny there is a real risk for LI battery fires, typically when the current or temperature gets too high, but we need to be rational about how we approach the facts and consider the risks against the backdrop of the billions of products with servicable LI batteries that have not caught fire.
For example, there have been lots of documented incidents of iphone battery fires, here are a few…
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/apple-faa-investigating-after-iphone-catches-fire-mid-flight-n543516
https://preview.abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/iphone-catches-fire-counter-inside-store-las-vegas-55123052
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Apple-iPhone-6-Plus-catches-on-fire-awakens-sleeping-owner_id90620
https://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20140131/NEWS/140139937
Did apple stop selling iphones because they were proven dangerous? No, the company continues to sell iphones and blames the users for fires:
https://www.gizbot.com/mobile/news/apple-iphone-x-catches-fire-blast-while-updating-firmware-apple-is-yet-to-respond-055383.html
To be clear, I don’t think apple should stop selling iphones unless there’s systematic defect (as was the case with samsung batteries a few years back). However I hope that everyone can agree that it would be disingenuous for apple to cherry pick the data depending on whichever outcome it wants to present. Right now apple not only refuses to sell components to 3rd party repair shops, but they actually use the government’s power to block competing repair parts at customs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVL65qwBGnw
This is very abusive, so I hope lawmakers will at least compel apple to cease it’s restrictions on competing repair shops.
Just to be clear, I was in no way defending Apple’s stance on 3rd party repair. I was just pointing out that saying “consumers who are trying to fix their own iPhone could hurt themselves by puncturing the lithium-ion battery” is absolutely not a lie…
I didn’t even puncture it. I know what I’m doing and was being extremely cautious. The adhesive that holds the battery in place is supposed to be easily removed by pulling it out from the bottom edge – its supposed to stretch out and release. It broke, which happens pretty often with iPhones.
I used a plastic tool with no sharp edges to try and ease it off the adhesive after heating it a bit from the back. It seemed to be coming up at first, but I guess I applied a bit to much pressure and it bent a *tiny* bit in the middle. Heard a weird noise, put the phone down, and 3 seconds latter it started to smoke and bubble…
I saved the phone by just jamming my tool under the battery when I realized what was happening and popping it out right before it started to flame… It didn’t burn like in that video thankfully, it just kinda of popped and fizzed a few times before flaming out – I probably only rupture a tiny area inside of it.
My reason for posting, is because if you DO manage to get one of these things to really start burning it is **really** hard to put out. They things can burn at almost 1000F, they are dangerous AF. If it happens to burn while in the phone the phone is 100% toast…
Fix your phones yourself, or have 3rd parties do it, I’m all for it. Just be careful is all and be ready for something to go wrong.
galvanash,
Who knows, it could have been a marginal battery to begin such that it may have been a fire risk even if hadn’t caught fire for you. We don’t really know apple’s safety tolerances and they’re not likely to publish them. I’ve handled several lithium ion batteries and never had an issue, but obviously that means very little. That’s the thing, we can’t really draw a definitive conclusion from such a small sample size. It’s statistically possible you were just unlucky. It’s bound to happen even if it does not represent a widespread problem. For all we know, the risk of iphone replacement battery fires could be comparable to the risk of iphone battery fires in new phones. That’s why it’s important to have more data.
I looked up replacement iphone batteries on amazon and searched through a couple hundred reviews for battery fires and I didn’t find a single reported fire incident, which tells me that either very few people are experiencing fires, or the buyers who did died from a battery fire before they were able to write a review. 🙁
Yeah, thanks for sharing your experience, it’s certainly good advice to be prepared just in case!
If a battery catch fire from just being bent a little bit, you should ask yourself about QC in the first place, not if it’s safe of not to do it yourself. Lead batteries of cars are filled with strong acid, yet you can replace them by yourself, implying a bit of common sense safety measures. Why cellphones’ batteries shouldn’t be refused more protection ? I use my old HTC phone which features hardened plastic packaged batteries to prevent mechanical stress. What about iPhones ?
That’s not a reason not to replace them. That’s a reason to recall them. If it blew up that easily, its a product flaw. It’s possible the battery would have caught on fire eventually anyway. If they aren’t safe to replace, they need to make the unit thicker, and add extra safety
It’s only a flaw if the battery isn’t designed with external protection in mind. If the battery relies on the case to prevent it blowing up, then that’s fair enough, so long as the case remains in place. Crap for the customers who want a replaceable battery, but if that’s what they want, they shouldn’t buy Apple gear anyway.
The other side of it is, maybe Apple batteries are safer, and it’s only a 3rd party battery of dubious QC that’s the danger. It’s unfortunate, but the general trend for people who don’t really know what they’re doing, is to go with the cheapest option. Customers who aren’t tech-savvy replacing their own batteries are far more likely to buy a $10 unregulated rip-off battery than a $50 official Apple part. And then complain that Apple make crap hardware when it ignites in their hand.
daedalus,
You bring up a valid point that poor quality batteries can potentially be an issue. My other post is awaiting moderation, but I tried to emphasize the importance of letting data drive our conclusions instead of making assumptions. To the extent that this is a real problem, hopefully legislators will recognize that apple’s policy here, which is to limit the distribution of official OEM batteries, exacerbates this problem by significantly increasing the difficulty of buying OEM replacements from 3rd party repair shops. Customers should be allowed to buy official batteries even when they go to repair shops other than the apple store.
Is the second link working for anyone else?
https://www.assembly.ca.gov/media/126-video/audio
“Player cannot load because there are no sources available.”
Did the video get pulled? I’m curious about what was in it. In any case, I hope the government finally puts an end to apple’s restrictions on 3rd party repair shops.
On the other hand, I know someone who accidentally shattered the back of their iPhone and cut their finger when they picked it up. Also, their power cords have always frayed in the same spots, and they have never fixed that issue.
If Apple actually cared about the safety of replacements, they’d make the batteries removable.
They’re so full of it
If Apple cared about the safety of their customers, they wouldn’t manufacture AC adapters that gave users electric shocks. I mean seriously, I’ve been using AC adapters of numerous forms for 40 odd years (musician), and have never had an electric shock, so this indicates true lack of quality control.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/26/apple_recalls_threeprong_plugs/
Sure batteries canblow up, and I think companies have sold defect equipment as well. Including Apple them self. Yeah, sure, think about the kids that will be missing their parents after suicide from producing Apples shit.
Sure, I could hurt myself while trying to repair an iPhone. I could also hurt myself putting up shelves, or just getting up and walking down a steep flight of stairs. Should we make those things illegal, too?
Seriously, Apple. If you’re going to bs, do a better job. I’d have more respect for you if you just told the truth and said it’s in our professional interest to keep our secrets. At least that would be honest and not a vacuous pretense of altruism.
This reminds me of when phone companies said it would be impossible to people to hook up their own phones because it would kill telephone line technicians. Tim Wu wrote about it in his book The Master Switch.
Self repair injuries are possible. Electronic devices contain capacitors, batteries, and other sensitive electronics that shouldn’t be tinkered with by any random person; however, I suspect Apple’s motivation is centered around selling more hardware. The same way Apple Support will tell you all data on an iPhone dropped in the water is gone forever; they even go so far as to lie about the fact that anyone who knows how to do micro-soldering can probably fix the phone enough to get it to boot and recover your data.
My main point is that we need laws to protect the rights of people to repair their own property. It’s true that you can injure yourself when repairing a car engine, but does that mean only the factory should be allowed to repair it? What if the factory says they will not repair it, does that mean we should all buy a new car when a spark plug dies? Maybe we should send our car to the scrap yard when the oil needs to be changed? (this is a reference to a chip in the iPhone that causes a short when you use an uncertified charger, and the iPad therapy YouTube channel calls this an “oil change” for iPhones; however, Apple insists its impossible to repair this issue.)
imthefrizzlefry,
+1.
We need policy which encourages companies to be successful by making better products and offering superior services rather than abusing the rights of competitors to serve those markets. Unfortunately many huge corporations make the shift at some point in their timelines towards blocking competitors and restricting owner rights because that’s more advantageous to their bottom line. Lawmakers should find a way to address this more preemptively so we don’t have to continually face the same problems over and over.
Ha! From where, precisely, do these lawmakers get their money, though?
Somehow, I think you know the answer…