TheStemGroup

Wow, looks like a whole herd of industry shills! Just so you know, you arguments are pure bullshit and anyone with a head will see through them. For the record, I'm an "Uncle Joe" who owns a 3rd party repair company. I have 25 years experience fixing Apple products. I've worked for a number of dealerships in the past and even had my own Apple Authorized Dealership. I choose to do third party repairs after the corporate stores opened up so I could help more customers. I always direct customers to Apple for warranty situations, but for clients out of warranty, I can offer more economical yet completely safe repairs for more things then any "authorized" dealer could or would. My business is also able to help customers with much older products that Apple simply doesn't have the parts for.  Because the Apple Store are often hand tied because of reasons, I'm able to help customers out in a bind.. for instance if they screw up and lodge a SIM card in their port.. Apple would make them buy a new phone, I can have it out of there in 5 minutes. I agree fully there are fly by night repair joints out there, I fix several issues from these fools, but don't get in your head that Apple is the only people able to fix them, and don't think for a second is there to help you to the absolute best of their abilities. 

For all those defending Apple here, you know nothing of us 3rd party repair businesses. This program was supposed to FINALLY be Apple working WITH us to ensure customers were had options and where properly taken care of. It was SUPPOSED to provide us the OPTION of providing customers original OEM parts as well as maintaining our various options such as 3rd party parts.

It was never going to allow us to provide warranty care, it was never intended to make us into an Authorized Apple Repair facility, it was supposed to give us options that only helped Apple and their customers.

Being able to access custom tools wasn't a big thing as they are readily available everywhere, but having access to genuine software tools is a boon, and only helps customers in the end.

This clauses basically strip EVERYTHING this program was supposed to be. As stated in the contact, even though we are supposed to be independent, we aren't allowed to provide 3rd party parts... which is how this industry works, period. Having to provide records of customers is a privacy violation, and fines for doing what we do? Come on!

I myself have 25 years repairing Apple equipment, I've been an Apple Certified Tech, I've worked at a number of dealerships, I've OWNED my own Value Added Dealership... I know how suffocating Apples rules can be... and this is no different.

I chose to open a 3rd party repair place because of those oppressive rules, it allows me to serve customers in much better ways then Apple does. Don't get me wrong... I tell all customers under warranty to go to Apple, I'm upfront to customers about their choice using 3rd party parts.

But, being able to repair 10-12 year old computers and devices, replace screens for customers that were denied by Apple because of a dent in the case, makes me very happy, and allows me to provide the proper level of customer support.

Great example, a year ago, a custom walked in with a 20 minute old iPhone 8... his SIM card go stuck in the phone... Apple refused to do anything about it, gave him the option of a $800 replacement for his 10 minute old phone. I opened it, popped out the SIM card inside of 5 minutes....

THAT is the kind of customer service Apple is trying to prevent companies like mind from doing!

www.thestemsupport.com
Rick Gold - Owner

fred stein said:

When pixel was first launched it was to the penny (and performance wise) a near perfect match to iPhone.

Did you just compare the Pixel to the iPhone as being a perfect match? Did you forget the sub par specs compared to virtually EVERY other premium phone out there??

I am finding Appleinsider very pro-Apple corporate and very Anti-Apple User as of late.. have to wonder why! I own one of those 3rd party repair depots you folks continually throw under the bus like we are mouth breathing luddites. Let me tell you of my over 20 years of experience supporting and fixing nearly every single product Apple has brought to market. From LC series to Xserves, 3GS iPhones to Retina MacBook Pros. I have more knowledge then the vast majority of those Genius bar folks. I have worked for multiple authorized dealers, I've even owned my own Value Added Reseller even. I started a "3rd Party Repair Depot" solely because of the ridiculous restrictions Apple puts on repairs. I have to ask, at what point are you going to finally think Apple has gone to far? How about instead of spouting off about rules and such, you try to identify with the customer for a second. No matter what the customer did, there should be some solution from Apple. That iMac Pro situation mention is absolute highway robbery! It is completely unacceptable that Apple refuses to fix that thing. Regardless of who touched it, there is no way they should simply deny service all together. It would hurt absolutely NO ONE to repair that unit and charge the customer up the backside for it. This is why companies and parties like me are in support of Right To Repair Laws... because companies are becoming very overbearing when it comes to repairing their stuff. WE as the public bought it, WE should have the right to have it fixed. Now, I'm not an idiot, if a customer brings in a DIY repair, I tell them straight up, there is a chance you may have damaged it further, so there is no promise I can fix it... but AT LEAST I TRY. You can talk about tolerances and such till you are blue in the face, deal with all the issues and charge the customer for it... but don't be a@@holes about it. I'm sorry, but a chip and a small dent WILL not affect the battery. No will the speakers or microphone. What will? A damaged docking connector a broken screen perhaps. But this is like refusing to replace the customers taillight because there is a dent in the front bumper. For the record, there are plenty of 3rd party outfits out there not worth a salt, but there are others like myself that have even more expertise then the Apple Stores themselves. I have another fellow out here that is an absolute magician with micro-soldering, he can resurrect pretty much any liquid damaged system, he has circuit board diagrams and devices he's made himself that allow him to help customers FAR more then the Apple Store ever will. It's time Appleinsider give 3rd party repair depots the respect many of us deserve.

tipoo said:

maestro64 said:

it is now coming down to software optimization. pure processor power is not enough, unless the underlining code is optimize around the processor users will never see the performance. Even though the benchmarks try to work directly with the processor they can not they still have to interface with the operating system to execute code on the processor. The only way to eliminate the operating systems is to remove and replace it with the benchmark software which we know is not happening.

This is why Apple has the advantage and will always have the advantage. Google can not optimize their software to work with all the versions of processors.

Apple is shipping the widest ARM cores out there at 6-issue, everyone else is still playing with 4-issue. Nvidia tried 7 but their binary translation attempt made performance too weird. 

Since core complexity goes up exponentially with width, Apple is also spending twice as much silicon per core, or at least were last year as the competition. 

Point being it's not just some ambiguous whole banana optimization, Apple is shipping the most advanced ARM CPU cores in a phone period  regardless of OS. For the Exynos Anandtech does mention it's a pre-release scheduler so some of it could be software, but even if things were perfectly optimized it would not be as good per clock as Apples wide core. 

I've been looking for more in depth information regarding Apple silicon, where did you get the info on the piplines in the A series? So you are saying these procs can't handle 6 instructions at once per pipe?