avon b7

MplsP said:

blitz1 said:

Xed said:

avon b7 said:

No doubt upcoming EU directives came into play on these changes. 

Show your work.

Here you are:

On Tuesday, [European] Parliament adopted its position on a stronger “right to repair” for consumers, with 590 votes in favour, 15 against, and 15 abstentions. The proposal aims to encourage more sustainable consumption, by making it easier to repair defective goods, reducing waste and supporting the repair sector.

Within the legal guarantee period, sellers would be required to prioritise repair if it is cheaper or equal in cost to replacing a good, unless the repair is not feasible or inconvenient for the consumer. MEPs also propose to extend the legal guarantee by one year once a product has been fixed.

“unless the repair is not feasible or inconvenient for the consumer” - it’s hard to classify any smartphone repair as convenient and I’d argue that the skill involved makes them infeasible for the majority. 

This is where the 'design for repair' angle comes in. We already know that the updated batteries directive may well make smartphone manufacturer design for consumer replacable batteries with commonly available tools.

There are a lot of studies underway looking deeply into better design practices with repair in mind. There is also the issue of 'design protection'. 

It's a multi-pronged initiative and Apple has been consulted along the way (along with all major industry players) so it knows where regulations are headed. 

It will probably not be in manufacturers' best interests to make things not feasible for repair as they may end up paying more in the long run. 

There is a proposal for devices to carry repairability labels so consumers can know up front how repairable a device is. That is due for 2025. 

Xed said:

avon b7 said:

No doubt upcoming EU directives came into play on these changes. 

Show your work.

"Summary

Unfortunately, the US has gone off the rails with regards to foreign policy, and technology related foreign policy is an important part of that. Along with agriculture which is also in line for a BRICS related shock.

Both main parties have little to no clue about the intricacies of the technology world and I am yet to see anyone with a coherent stance on policy decisions. It's just doubling down on more of the same. 

You would have thought the tariffs ideology would have been abandoned after the billions that had to be ploughed into US agriculture under Trump but here we are with Chinese EV tariffs. 

It's all very 'old school' and causing a huge amount of self harm to US interests at home (and abroad). 

A certain independence for semi-conductor production and associated subsidies to make that happen are common goals around the world. The EU has been following a similar goal for years now. So is China. 

However, TSMC made it clear from the outset that chips manufactured on US soil would cost a lot more than the same chips produced elsewhere. That's assuming qualified staff can be found to get the plants up and running. There is no way that any iPhone produced on US soil will be competitive and imposing import tariffs will just slow down the industry as a whole. 

Apple can only do so much. No doubt there have been abuses along the way but you implement protocols to weed out problem cases within the sourcing, refining, manufacturing and assembly industries. You audit and present the results. That is how it is.

future man said:

Advice to Ireland- withdraw from the EU!  From uncontrolled immigration and crime issues to economic dictation, the EU best served itself and its unelected bureaucrats than its member countries who have surrendered their sovereignty to Brussels! 

Weird in the extreme. 

The Eurobarometer system tracks how EU citizens see things and has years of surveys to pull data from.

You will find that, on the whole, EU citizens are happy being in the EU and support its goals. 

In the case of Ireland specifically, I'd say you'd be hard pushed to scrape together a significant amount of people to vote to leave. 

That said, years of high tech companies in and around Cork has led to locals feeling pushed out due to things like the cost of housing. On the other hand those companies provide job opportunities to the local population too. 

You're never going to satisfy everyone but most EU citizens are perfectly happy with the EU. 

Uncontrolled immigration cannot be stopped. Just ask Great Britain post-Brexit. So much for leaving the EU on the immigration card. 

It doesn't matter if you have a wall or a sea. People will find a way. 

"We always pay all the taxes we owe wherever we operate and there has never been a special deal"

Part of the investigation suggesed that Apple was effectively deciding for itself how much to make available and then paying what Apple itself said it, ehem, 'owed'.

That resulted in the 0,005% for one particular year. 

Then Tim Cook came out and said "Apple has values". It's a shame no one bothered ask him to define them with regards to taxation. 

And then, according to him, it was "political crap". 

That begs the question "what kind of crap was it when you paid 0.005% in the EU and funnelled taxation away from the countries that generated the income?" 

As for there never being a special deal, we know that Apple has admitted one in the past but claimed it was so long ago that no one remembered the details. 

Not dissimilar to when high ranking executives get hauled before Congress and suddenly 'lose' their memories. 

Apple has changed its ways over the years but only under pressure. 

In fact, there was a cut-off point for the investigation that led to this situation which meant it could not consider some of those earlier years. 

Of course way back then, Apple was a smaller company and that it why things didn't pop up on the radar for so long.