This past week CBC Marketplace, usually a bastion of clear and trustworthy journalism released an absolute mess of a report against Apple. They then had the gaul to follow up that by bringing up the thoroughly beaten and dead horse of iPhone throttling.
“And we are totally ok with painting the company is as a negative light as possible to get clicks and views!”
It opens up with an almost cliche line, “This is the image Apple wants you to see…” followed by a sinister sounding report that gives the impression people have suddenly started claiming Apple charges a lot for their repairs.. and somehow insinuating a RETAIL company would be more interested in selling you a new product rather then fix an old one. How odd, why would a company do such a thing?
What follows is such shoddy journalism the Marketplace should be investigated by Marketplace for shoddy journalism. They bring in a MacBook with a damaged display cable… and they knew that… and knew they should anticipate that the display would need to be replaced. But lo! The repair bill came to $1,200, nearly the cost of a new laptop! The horror! But why?? They wanted to replace the display, top case and logic board because of what was discovered later to be a bent pin! That is JUST the type of corporate shenanigans CBC Marketplace was made to defend the consumer against!
Oh.. sorry?
What was that?
They completely glazed over the fact they brought in a WATER DAMAGED MACBOOK?
Well, that wouldn’t be good journalism… I thought CBC touted its journalistic integrity?
Why would they bring in a water damaged computer then complain Apple required to fix that before just quoting you on the screen. I mean, if I want to get a tire patched on my car, why would the garage mechanic care if I just ran into a pole.. JUST FIX THE TIRE, EVERYTHING ELSE IS FINE.
CBC Marketplace Then Visits The One Guy They Shouldn’t
How best to follow up then by taking the MacBook to the loudest, most ravenous anti-Apple YouTube repair video guy Louis Rossmann. LR is a bloody genius and does incredible work, but is so damned biased against Apple it’s a wonder why he even bothers working on them instead of just lighting each of them on fire. Like CBC, he also glazes over the fact the liquid sensors are tripped.. even when there clearly appears to be dried up liquid RIGHT next to the sensor!
Hey, I don’t have the laptop here, but yea… if it looks like a duck and has set off a liquid sensor.. it’s probably aquatic.
Louis defends CBC by saying the sensors can be triggered by humidity… and in the old days, inside the headphone jack of iPhone 3G’s, that was true. These days, being sealing in a well ventilated laptop, you would have to be virtually showering with it all the time to trigger those sensors, and if that’s the case, that much humidity could easily damage the laptop!
But, once that has been glazed over, back to the real problem, a simple bent pin that Rossmann deftly repairs and graciously claims he’d do that for free for anyone! AND IN 2 MINUTES! CBC then panders to him and let’s him go one about how 10-30 people a day come into his little shop from the Apple Store with similar stories! That many! I clearly have to relocate…
The report then travels to the sunny beaches of California, where we meet our good friend Kyle Weins! Now, Kyle, as head of the Right To Repair Movement has done and is doing some great work, but we are going to call out a couple things. Yes, Apple has developed its own screw, but you can get a $12 kit at Princess Auto to get past that and MANY other manufacturers security screws. Apple is hardly the only company that doesn’t want you getting in easily.
When they make the statement that the iPhone battery is glued in and never used to be is NOT true at all though. Every iPhone battery has been “glued” in, since day one. In fact, the 3G and 3GS had to be heated up via the back to get the battery out without puncturing it.. and did I mention you had to remove the screen and logic board to do so? The “glue” they talk about is not really glue either, it’s simple double sided adhesive. But, the iPhone 4 introduced a nice release pull tab that they kept in the 4S and 5! The 5s and on batteries are even easier to replace thanks to a technology from 3M that allows you tp simply pull the adhesive out. Yes, they do break.. but I’m going to bet Kyle was little rougher then needed there, hamming it up for the cameras.
This is followed by another completely untrue statement; in no iPhone ever have you had to replace your home button if the screen cracked.. ever. The home button from the original up and into the Xs series is a removable component. The problem was when people tried replacing them with ANOTHER home button, it triggered a line of security built into the fingerprint sensor, preventing the phone from booting. Now, Apple did go a little overboard when first introducing Touch ID, the so called Issue 53. This was dealt with and iPhone will boot now with another Home button installed, but the Fingerprint technology won’t work because of the security risks associated with that. As mentioned in our own article, it’s nothing like changing your tires for Aftermarket tires, it’s much more akin to changing the ignition system.
Do I think Apple should share it’s repair information more readily? Of course! I would love access to the proper manuals and diagnostic software! BUT, yes, publishing copyrighted materials to the web is going to result in legal action no matter what. Do it right, keep the fight going with the Right To Repair movement!
The Coupe De Grace
This one was infuriating… they open up with a solid granite statement of “A sneaky policy that pressured customers to buy new smartphones”, like it was a fact. Later on they soften it, but wow. Back in iOS 10.2, Apple introduced a feature that would prevent phones with spent batteries from shutting down unexpectedly… granted they didn’t communicate it very well, but the notes were there and this wasn’t some big conspiracy. It was in fact a method of letting older phones still operate efficiently.
They way they have the “hacker” in the shadow of night explaining how he uncovered some grand conspiracy and the valiant lawyer still trying to find a way to make a class action case… this horse was beat to death last year. The public won, Apple offered batteries at a discount to quell the masses.
Hopefully Apple learned to communicate a little better as a result, but a conspiracy it was not!
And the fact they mention planned obsolescence and Apple in the same line could inspire me to write 2,000 more words and waste an entire day bringing my guns to bear on companies like Samsung and Google! I guess having phones that are supported for early a year isn’t “planned obsolescence” eh? But having a phone supported by OS updates for a solid 5 is?
I hope that wonderful lawyer Shana Scarlett has a Samsung S7 so she can sue the pants off them for not updating her 2 year old phone!
Conclusion
Had CBC done proper journalism and brought in a MacBook with a singular known problem and NO WATER DAMAGE, the results would have been much different. Results that probably wouldn’t have gotten as much attention.
Why am I, a 3rd party repair place defending Apple here? Because, this was shoddy journalism plain and simple. Apple does in fact have some of the best support in the market, consistently the highest in customer satisfaction. But yes, they are a very large corporation with some silly ass rules, rules that get in the way of customer service sometimes.
Great products, great support and a great 3rd party repair network!
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