Mike Wuerthele

bloggerblog said:

HomePod works like crap with Apple TV and the Siri Remote. I hope they fix it very soon

darkvader said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

Like you said, repair parts that are swapped out in the field are sent to the depot for refurbishment and return to the repair part supply stream, sometimes to assist the refurbished device stream that I am about to discuss.

Entire-device swaps at the store-level are also sent to a depot for repair and assessment. Whole-devices repaired at the depot in this fashion are sent to the service swap stock, or the refurb store.

This depot refurbishment is done at the component level, by humans with equal or better skill than Rossmann's. Some will be slightly less talented, and some will be slightly more.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Rossmann and others like him exist. But to say that Apple doesn't have anybody in the service stream that has his level of skill is false.

I don't buy it.

Component level troubleshooting is expensive.  If you're Apple, boards are cheap.  I'd be amazed if anywhere in the depot repair stream Apple has anybody with Rossmann's skill, because they'd have to pay significantly more for that skill than I suspect they'd be willing to do at the volume they're dealing with.

There are a few expensive chips on any given logic board.  I'd suspect the depot process is to strip those components, drop them in almost-complete boards that come from China, send those out as the repair parts, then shred the rest of the board.  You can do it with a robot.  They might hit a few test pins first, maybe swap a fuse if it's something that easy, but I just don't buy that they're really doing much component level repair at all.

We know they don't reuse any exterior parts, repair parts from Apple are just too clean, there's never a dent or scratch anywhere, and any Mac that's been used is going to show at least tiny signs of wear no matter how careful the user is.  And machined aluminum parts aren't exactly cheap.

Is Rossmann the best ever?  Nah, there are independent repair shops in China that are certainly better.  But he's likely better than anybody in Apple's repair workflow, and he's virtually guaranteed to be better than any of the Apple techs that are ever actually going to touch a complete customer machine.  He's going to be better because those techs aren't allowed to do what he does, so they aren't going to have any experience doing it.

swineone said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

swineone said:

williamlondon said:

swineone said:

williamlondon said:

swineone said:

The average Apple tech is much less knowledgeable and skilled than quite a few independent technicianS. I would trust e.g. Louis Rossmann with my hardware over ANY Apple technician. I mean ANY. There is no technician working at Apple that could do their job as well as Louis does. BTW: I’m an electrical engineer, I design portable electronic devices, and I’ve spent quite a few hours watching Louis’ videos. He displays impressive skills. And often he has to fix a crap job done by, guess who, Apple technicians.

Bullshit. And if he wants to become a certified repair person, I'm fine with that, but your other claims are pure bullshit.

BTW, anecdotes prove nothing

Nice argument you put there, “bullshit”. I’m fully convinced by this one magical word.

Screw the actual facts, such as that Louis Rossmann quite often fixes Macs deemed unfixable by Apple. And especially, how he performs fixes much more cheaply (never mind environmentally friendly) than Apple by replacing the few targeted components that actually failed rather than whole boards at a time as the Apple technicians do — indeed, if his fixes weren’t cheaper than Apple’s, who would be crazy to hire him rather than Apple fix their devices?

Plus, he does all of these things without proper access to repair documentation and knowledge bases, and most importantly, to the parts he needs. For those who don’t know: Apple has the awful habit of calling up an IC manufacturer and throwing their weight around to require the manufacturer to create a small variation of an existing part, with a trivial and technically unnecessary change such as swapping a couple of pins around. Then Apple won’t let the manufacturer sell the same part to anyone else but Apple or provide documentation on it. Thus, repair technicians can’t get ahold of it, and must take these parts from donor boards. This is simply the most actively user-hostile move by a company that I’ve ever seen in my life. It truly sickens me every time I think of it, especially when you consider all the (lying) marketing strategy from Apple trying to paint it as a nice, friendly company that just wants to help its customers and the environment. This one example brings all that illusion down.

Anecdotes, like exceptions, prove nothing. One man is NOT better than *ANY* Apple technician. Your argument is so ridiculous, just stop.

Really? It’s impossible for one person to be better than the best in a given set of persons?

Let’s try this. Skill = playing tennis. Set of persons = { me, my wife }. One person = Roger Federer.

Your argument is that Roger Federer can’t possibly be better than me or my wife at tennis.

Now who has the ridiculous argument again?

Like you said, repair parts that are swapped out in the field are sent to the depot for refurbishment and return to the repair part supply stream, sometimes to assist the refurbished device stream that I am about to discuss.

Entire-device swaps at the store-level are also sent to a depot for repair and assessment. Whole-devices repaired at the depot in this fashion are sent to the service swap stock, or the refurb store.

This depot refurbishment is done at the component level, by humans with equal or better skill than Rossmann's. Some will be slightly less talented, and some will be slightly more.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Rossmann and others like him exist. But to say that Apple doesn't have anybody in the service stream that has his level of skill is false.

I do admit the point about Rossmann was made to shock those who somehow think the lack of Apple certification is an automatic sign of incompetence (though I'm sure he'd rank quite highly within Apple if he worked there).

Getting back to the point, though. How can the end user access these technicians so they'll, like Rossmann does, fix a fried voltage regulator for a couple hundred dollars, rather than over a thousand as Apple charges for say a logic board repair?

We can't? We have to pay full price (with markup, most likely) for a logic board from Apple which they'll turn around, refurbish and resell with even more markup?

Say I took a GM car to GM, out of warranty, to fix an issue which ultimately can be ascribed to a worn-out spark plug. GM tells me "we'll have to perform a full engine swap, and by the way, that'll be $5,000, please." Then GM turns around, replaces the spark plug (at a cost of a few dozens of dollars) and resells the engine for say $4,000. An engine which by the way probably costs $2,000 or $3,000 to make. Outraged by this, you thank GM and take this to your friendly neighborhood mechanic, and they tell you "sorry. I know it's just a worn-out spark plug, which by the way is quite similar to model XYZ1337 from NGK, but GM called up NGK and told them to use an english-unit screw thread rather than a metric-unit one for no good reason, and have an agreement in place that NGK is forbidden to sell the english-unit version. Maybe you can look for an identical car in the junkyard so we can take the spark plug out of it?"

I'm the last person in the world to demand the government step in. However, I can't help but rejoice when I see Apple being forced to do the right thing, as in this situation and also the most likely break up of the App Store 30% monopoly.

swineone said:

williamlondon said:

swineone said:

williamlondon said:

swineone said:

The average Apple tech is much less knowledgeable and skilled than quite a few independent technicianS. I would trust e.g. Louis Rossmann with my hardware over ANY Apple technician. I mean ANY. There is no technician working at Apple that could do their job as well as Louis does. BTW: I’m an electrical engineer, I design portable electronic devices, and I’ve spent quite a few hours watching Louis’ videos. He displays impressive skills. And often he has to fix a crap job done by, guess who, Apple technicians.

Bullshit. And if he wants to become a certified repair person, I'm fine with that, but your other claims are pure bullshit.

BTW, anecdotes prove nothing

Nice argument you put there, “bullshit”. I’m fully convinced by this one magical word.

Screw the actual facts, such as that Louis Rossmann quite often fixes Macs deemed unfixable by Apple. And especially, how he performs fixes much more cheaply (never mind environmentally friendly) than Apple by replacing the few targeted components that actually failed rather than whole boards at a time as the Apple technicians do — indeed, if his fixes weren’t cheaper than Apple’s, who would be crazy to hire him rather than Apple fix their devices?

Plus, he does all of these things without proper access to repair documentation and knowledge bases, and most importantly, to the parts he needs. For those who don’t know: Apple has the awful habit of calling up an IC manufacturer and throwing their weight around to require the manufacturer to create a small variation of an existing part, with a trivial and technically unnecessary change such as swapping a couple of pins around. Then Apple won’t let the manufacturer sell the same part to anyone else but Apple or provide documentation on it. Thus, repair technicians can’t get ahold of it, and must take these parts from donor boards. This is simply the most actively user-hostile move by a company that I’ve ever seen in my life. It truly sickens me every time I think of it, especially when you consider all the (lying) marketing strategy from Apple trying to paint it as a nice, friendly company that just wants to help its customers and the environment. This one example brings all that illusion down.

Anecdotes, like exceptions, prove nothing. One man is NOT better than *ANY* Apple technician. Your argument is so ridiculous, just stop.

Really? It’s impossible for one person to be better than the best in a given set of persons?

Let’s try this. Skill = playing tennis. Set of persons = { me, my wife }. One person = Roger Federer.

Your argument is that Roger Federer can’t possibly be better than me or my wife at tennis.

Now who has the ridiculous argument again?

jimh2 said:

Why do companies think they can out do a provided API? The developers must be generating billable hours.