'Built like a tank': Apple's HomePod speaker gets 1 out of 10 score in repairability

0. phoneArena posted on 12 Feb 2018, 08:00

Apple's new HomePod smart speaker costs the whopping $279 to repair, and the latest teardown from the crafty folks over at iFixit comes to show why. The reason Apple is asking 80$ of the HomePod's actual $349 cost to fix it if anything happens, is that it got a repairability score of 1 out of 10 on the iFixit scale. How come?

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posted on 12 Feb 2018, 09:06 2

6. Cat97 (Posts: 1351; Member since: 02 Mar 2017)

I tought only miniatural smartphones need glue and adhesives, the normal-sized things can use screws...

posted on 12 Feb 2018, 10:05 1

9. NarutoKage14 (Posts: 1213; Member since: 31 Aug 2016)

Screws make things easy to repair which means less profit for Apple from lower Apple Care and new device sales.

posted on 13 Feb 2018, 00:18

20. worldpeace (Posts: 2565; Member since: 15 Apr 2016)

Apple the glue company..

posted on 12 Feb 2018, 10:24

10. DnB925Art (Posts: 1152; Member since: 23 May 2013)

TBF, I doubt the HomePod will need to be moved very often. For most people, once it's placed in a location, it'll probably stay there for quite some time. I have 3 Google Home Minis, 3 regular Google Homes and 1 Google Home Max and most have been in the same location when I first set them up. I've moved only 2 speakers: when I got my Home Max, I put that in the kitchen/living room, then moved the regular home that was in there to the master bedroom and moved the mini that was in the master bedroom into the master bathroom. None of my Homes have ever fallen off.

posted on 12 Feb 2018, 11:09

12. antroid (Posts: 298; Member since: 24 Jan 2018)

I'm not surprised, I guess this is the main reason why it cost so much to fix it.

posted on 12 Feb 2018, 11:19 2

13. japkoslav (Posts: 1011; Member since: 19 Feb 2017)

It only shows, how Apple solves "right to repair" legislation.

posted on 12 Feb 2018, 13:45 1

16. Penny (Posts: 1813; Member since: 04 Feb 2011)

Sigh.

General rant incoming for anybody who thinks companies should be required to meet some bogus "level" of repairability:

Apple has the right to make the internals of their product as fancy/complicated as they like. That is within the creative control of their designers and engineers, NOT the consumers.

The consumer can choose to buy the product or not buy the product. If the consumers prioritized repairability, then this would eventually be the direction Apple's engineers would strive for.

The consumers drive the market, the suppliers fill their needs. Exercise your power as a consumer. Do not believe for a second that such hare-brained restrictions as imposing repairability requirements won't affect the company's ability to engineer toward their vision.

That's not to say we shouldn't have the specific right to repair what we buy, but just that we shouldn't require some level of repairability. You should absolutely have the right to break your own belongings.

posted on 13 Feb 2018, 00:59 1

22. worldpeace (Posts: 2565; Member since: 15 Apr 2016)

They deliberately make it hard to repair, so they can charge sheeple $279 for repair (That's 80% of full price of a new one).

They can make it easier to fix by using less glue and more screws, and retain all of it's features and sound quality, but they can't charge $279 if it's easy to fix..

posted on 13 Feb 2018, 00:45

21. worldpeace (Posts: 2565; Member since: 15 Apr 2016)

"unpopulated SMD pads"
Yeah, beta hardware with beta software..
They decide to remove something and add it in HomePod 2..

posted on 13 Feb 2018, 01:08

23. janis (Posts: 394; Member since: 10 Mar 2014)

1/10 usability as well

posted on 13 Feb 2018, 02:12

24. SIGPRO (Posts: 2625; Member since: 03 Oct 2012)

Apple just sucks! My friend brought her macbook to the store because it broke.
They wanted to charge her 1000 euros for the repairs.
And they did not even open it, they only tried turning it on.
I said f**k it under the bus! They are just thieves!

So now she will also ditch her iPhone, she was not happy with apple for a while now.

posted on 13 Feb 2018, 03:00

25. 47AlphaTango (Posts: 679; Member since: 27 Sep 2015)

LOL! How it reach 1000 euros in the first place? How did she broke her macbook in the first place?

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