00:00SPEAKER- Looking a little puny there.
00:02SPEAKER- Look man, it's not been great.
00:04SPEAKER- Feeling a little bit green around the gills.
00:06SPEAKER- The thing that has happened with my daughter
00:08SPEAKERreturning to school after a year and a half away.
00:11SPEAKER- Oh no, I don't like where this is going.
00:13SPEAKER- Is that it's basically like the thing that happened
00:16SPEAKERwhen she went to kindergarten and she had never been exposed
00:19SPEAKERto mass quantities of other children.
00:22SPEAKERIt's just everybody's always like a little (sniffing)
00:26SPEAKERlittle sniffly, it's not great.
00:29SPEAKER- Well yeah, but now there's the added wrinkle of
00:32SPEAKERnobody has left the house for 18 months, right?
00:34SPEAKERLike have our immune systems atrophied in that time?
00:37SPEAKER- I assume that I should be living in a bubble now.
00:39SPEAKER- Right, like we're not out there handling bus rails
00:42SPEAKERand opening like public doors and like being exposed
00:45SPEAKERto all the germs and stuff that keeps your immune system
00:48SPEAKERon its toes, right?
00:49SPEAKERI'm just, I'm not, I am no epidemiologist here,
00:52SPEAKERbut I kind of just assume that our immune systems
00:55SPEAKERare losing their edge a bit through lack of exposure.
00:57SPEAKER- I haven't looked at subway turnstile in 20 months.
01:02SPEAKERI mean, you gotta keep those defenses up, man.
01:04SPEAKER- Keep it sharp.
01:06SPEAKER- Yeah, no, I feel, and like the thing is,
01:09SPEAKERI don't know if it's 'cause I'm two years older now,
01:11SPEAKERbut it's hitting hard.
01:13SPEAKERLike I feel it now.
01:15SPEAKER- I don't think two years should be enough
01:16SPEAKERto make that big a difference
01:17SPEAKERwithout some other external factor.
01:19SPEAKER- I mean, I've mostly sat on my ass and done nothing
01:21SPEAKERfor the last two years too.
01:23SPEAKER- That's the external factor, that's what I mean.
01:24SPEAKERThat's the real, the whammy there.
01:27SPEAKER- God, also it is almost two years, isn't it?
01:30SPEAKER- Yeah, it's not, look, it's been a long road.
01:33SPEAKERBeen a long road.
01:35SPEAKER- I've seen alarming speculation out there
01:38SPEAKERand it is just speculation.
01:39SPEAKERLike nobody knows better than anyone else, right?
01:41SPEAKERBut like here and there, I will see people saying like,
01:44SPEAKERyeah, full normal is not actually coming back
01:47SPEAKERuntil like 2023, 2024.
01:48SPEAKER- I mean, in terms of supply chain?
01:51SPEAKER- Well, I'm sure that's part of it.
01:52SPEAKERThis was more in the context of like,
01:54SPEAKERwhen will people stop sequestering at home?
01:56SPEAKERLike when will everyone who should be back in an office
01:58SPEAKERbe back in an office?
01:59SPEAKEROh dude, I'm sure some people who are sequestering at home
02:02SPEAKERare never gonna stop sequestering at home.
02:04SPEAKERI would put those people in a different category then.
02:06SPEAKERI would say like their lives have permanently changed, right?
02:08SPEAKERThey made an actual policy change,
02:10SPEAKERbut maybe a better way to describe it, I think,
02:13SPEAKERis when will it be considered safe to do so
02:16SPEAKERby everyone again?
02:17SPEAKER- Oh, like I, so Bob Wachter who works at UCSF
02:20SPEAKERand is an epidemiology guy, doctor, just to be clear,
02:24SPEAKERto cite references, posts about this a lot.
02:28SPEAKERAnd his thing is that he watches like the local numbers
02:31SPEAKERto see which way the trend lines are going
02:33SPEAKERto decide whether he's gonna do things like
02:36SPEAKEReat at a restaurant or have poker night with his friends
02:38SPEAKERwithout masks off and stuff like that.
02:42SPEAKERSo like, I feel, I don't know,
02:45SPEAKERlike are the kids gonna be in school next year
02:47SPEAKERwith masks off?
02:48SPEAKERI bet in Florida, they probably will,
02:49SPEAKERbut probably not here.
02:51SPEAKERI don't know.
02:52SPEAKERIt depends on what happens post Delta, I guess.
02:56SPEAKERIt's weird, we should maybe have Kishore back on
02:57SPEAKERto talk about like how things are going.
02:59SPEAKER- Oh, that is- - It's been almost a year.
03:01SPEAKER- I was going to say that is-
03:03SPEAKER- We usually do that in April, I guess.
03:04SPEAKER- That is the biggest kind of wake up call
03:06SPEAKERI think I've had on this whole thing
03:08SPEAKERis if we have Kishore back for his third annual appearance
03:11SPEAKERon the state of things.
03:13SPEAKERLet's finish this cold open with something a little cheery.
03:17SPEAKERDo you got anything else? - Yeah.
03:18SPEAKEROkay, so I went to the drive-in last night.
03:20SPEAKER- Okay.
03:22SPEAKER- The drive-in movie theater.
03:23SPEAKER- Yes.
03:24SPEAKER- I drove my car into a movie theater.
03:26SPEAKERI didn't, like not a Grandpa Simpson style,
03:28SPEAKERlike you're supposed to drive the car in there.
03:30SPEAKER- Okay, yes.
03:31SPEAKER- Yeah, and we saw the Ghostbusters afterlife.
03:34SPEAKER- Oh.
03:35SPEAKER- It's the first time I've seen a movie
03:36SPEAKERin the presence of other human beings
03:37SPEAKERin like two years now, 18 months.
03:39SPEAKER- Okay.
03:40SPEAKER- That was cool.
03:41SPEAKER- Do they still play the audio of the movie over your radio?
03:45SPEAKER- Well, so this is, I did not know this
03:47SPEAKER'cause when I went to a drive-in movie theater
03:49SPEAKERthe last time, you hooked the little,
03:52SPEAKERwhat my father describes as the window breaker,
03:55SPEAKERthe little box into your car
03:58SPEAKERand like somebody leaves their window up a little bit,
04:00SPEAKERit has a hook on it, you hook it on the glass
04:02SPEAKERand then when you forget to take it off when you leave,
04:04SPEAKERit rips the cord out and it shatters the glass
04:06SPEAKERin your window usually. - Sure does.
04:08SPEAKER- So, but we just tuned to 97.2.
04:12SPEAKERI had to learn how to use the radio in the car,
04:13SPEAKERwhich we haven't apparently done yet, so.
04:15SPEAKER- And then you find out how good the speakers in your car are.
04:18SPEAKER- Well, we listen to music in the car all the time.
04:20SPEAKER- Well. - They're okay.
04:20SPEAKER- I know, but most radio music doesn't have the,
04:24SPEAKERlet's say the base response of a lot of feature films.
04:27SPEAKER- Did you go to drive-ins a lot though?
04:28SPEAKER- I don't think I have ever been to a drive-in in my life.
04:30SPEAKER- Okay, it was fun.
04:32SPEAKERLike A, I hadn't been to the drive-in
04:35SPEAKERsince I was in high school 'cause we had a,
04:36SPEAKERlike that was one of the big theaters in town.
04:38SPEAKERWe had two drive-ins near where I grew up.
04:40SPEAKERThere's one over on the way to Asheville, actually,
04:42SPEAKERthat's like probably halfway.
04:46SPEAKERBut we would go, like a group of friends would go,
04:51SPEAKERand they just charged 10 bucks a car.
04:54SPEAKERSo the goal was to pack as many people
04:56SPEAKERinto one car as you can. - Damn.
04:58SPEAKER- And then you take like blankets and stuff
05:00SPEAKERyou need to lay out on the grass in the summertime.
05:02SPEAKER- Use the blankets to drape over the cases of beer
05:04SPEAKERand the floorboards.
05:06SPEAKER- Like you piled people over the cases of beer
05:08SPEAKERand the floorboards. - Fair.
05:10SPEAKER- Look, somebody who had a pickup truck
05:12SPEAKERwas gold in this case.
05:13SPEAKERYou could fit like, for the amount of time it took
05:15SPEAKERto drive through the check-in gate
05:17SPEAKERand then have them jump over the sides
05:20SPEAKERas you're rolling into your spot in the line.
05:22SPEAKERLike it was like, you know, maybe five minutes.
05:25SPEAKERYou could pack 10, 12 people in the bed of a pickup truck,
05:27SPEAKERno problem. - They somehow fit 20 people
05:29SPEAKERinto the bed of that pickup truck.
05:30SPEAKERI mean, they're all standing, but I'm sure it's safe.
05:32SPEAKER- Look, and we thought we were getting away with something,
05:34SPEAKERbut really, in reality, they were charging like $4
05:36SPEAKERfor a hot dog, which was roughly $130 in 2021 money.
05:41SPEAKER- It's the accessories, that's how they get you.
05:43SPEAKERNot just in the wallet, but apparently also in the stomach.
05:46SPEAKER(upbeat music)
06:14SPEAKER- Welcome to "Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod."
06:16SPEAKERI'm Will. - I am Brad.
06:18SPEAKERHow are you feeling?
06:19SPEAKERAny better after the music?
06:21SPEAKERIt's been so long.
06:22SPEAKER- The music helps.
06:23SPEAKERI, you know, Brad, if you put,
06:25SPEAKERif you made a musical lineup and said,
06:28SPEAKER"Here are five songs,"
06:30SPEAKERwhich one is the theme song for our podcast?
06:32SPEAKER- Oh, no.
06:33SPEAKER- I might not be able to pick it out.
06:34SPEAKER- Really?
06:35SPEAKER- I don't ever listen to the edited show.
06:36SPEAKER- Oh, dude, I hear it every week.
06:38SPEAKER- Yeah, you do the, you put the music in.
06:39SPEAKER- In fact, I am so obsessive about making sure
06:42SPEAKERthe cues and the ducking are just so
06:45SPEAKERthat I hear it like 10 times over.
06:47SPEAKER- Yeah, and I, the last time I heard it
06:48SPEAKERwas probably when I added it to Spotify or something.
06:50SPEAKERI was like, "Oh yeah, okay, sounds okay."
06:52SPEAKER- Remember, it's got that delightful little,
06:54SPEAKERI don't think it's actually a square wave,
06:55SPEAKERbut it's that NES-y kind of square wave synth.
06:58SPEAKER- Do, do, do, do, do.
06:59SPEAKER- Yeah. - There you go.
07:00SPEAKER- So you know it. - Do, do, do, do, do.
07:03SPEAKERSomething, I don't remember how to go after that, but yeah.
07:06SPEAKERSo yeah, I feel okay.
07:07SPEAKERI'm fine.
07:08SPEAKERI'll be able to talk through this.
07:09SPEAKERAnd I'm really excited about our guest this week
07:11SPEAKERwho is an old friend.
07:13SPEAKERWe used to have him on during the time
07:15SPEAKERthat I was attested fairly regularly
07:17SPEAKERto talk about taking stuff apart or repairing things.
07:21SPEAKERKyle Wiens from iFixit has been championing Right to Repair
07:26SPEAKERsince before it had a name, I think, probably.
07:30SPEAKERAnd we're gonna talk to him this week
07:34SPEAKERabout Apple's and Microsoft
07:36SPEAKERand the kind of rest of the industry,
07:37SPEAKERkind of state of the union of where we are
07:39SPEAKERon Right to Repair and how he's feeling
07:41SPEAKERin the wake of Apple saying,
07:43SPEAKERyeah, we're gonna sell parts for the iPhone
07:45SPEAKERto normal people.
07:46SPEAKER- A landmark move, you might call it.
07:48SPEAKER- Yeah, welcome to the show, Kyle.
07:49SPEAKERWe're so glad to have you here.
07:50SPEAKER- Yeah, excited to be here.
07:51SPEAKERThis is gonna be fun.
07:53SPEAKER- So, so it's kind of a big week for Right to Repair
07:56SPEAKERwith Apple embracing, seemingly embracing people
08:01SPEAKERwho want to fix their own devices
08:04SPEAKERthat previously been inaccessible to them.
08:06SPEAKERAnd I have to say, having known you for a long time now,
08:10SPEAKERlike I feel like this ball is kind of in your court.
08:13SPEAKERThis is a lot of work on your end
08:15SPEAKERthat kind of nudged them over the last 10 or 12 years
08:17SPEAKERinto this direction.
08:19SPEAKER- This is the thing.
08:20SPEAKERI've been a broken record on this for a very long time.
08:23SPEAKERYeah, I mean, just tell us how to fix our stuff.
08:28SPEAKER- So let's, I mean, I kind of want to start with your story
08:32SPEAKER'cause we'll talk about what Right to Repair is.
08:34SPEAKERI mean, and it's shockingly broad at this point
08:37SPEAKERfrom like farm equipment to the phones
08:40SPEAKERthat we all carry around with us every day.
08:42SPEAKER- Hospital equipment.
08:44SPEAKER- Yeah, like there's so much stuff that's closed with an SLA
08:48SPEAKERor with a license that comes with the hardware
08:51SPEAKERthat then prohibits the people
08:52SPEAKERwho are actually purchasing the hardware
08:53SPEAKERfrom fixing it when it breaks.
08:56SPEAKERAnd like you've done the whole thing.
08:59SPEAKERYou've talked to Congress, you've yelled at Apple,
09:03SPEAKERyou just went out and started writing manuals,
09:05SPEAKERgetting, helping the community write manuals.
09:07SPEAKERLike how did this all start for you?
09:11SPEAKER- At the very beginning, it was, I dropped my iBook,
09:14SPEAKERdating myself a little bit on my laptop.
09:16SPEAKERI dropped my iBook on the power cord
09:19SPEAKERand this was pre MagSafe, also dating myself.
09:22SPEAKERAnd the power cord was a little bit loose.
09:25SPEAKERAnd so it was clear it was just needed
09:27SPEAKERa little bit of solder to fix it.
09:29SPEAKERSo like, okay, well, I'll just open it up myself.
09:31SPEAKERAnd I started trying to take the computer apart
09:33SPEAKERand very quickly got lost.
09:35SPEAKERAnd so I looked for a service manual online
09:37SPEAKERand couldn't find anything.
09:39SPEAKERAnd I am, I guess, young enough that I assume
09:41SPEAKERthat any information in the world,
09:43SPEAKERif it exists, it's on Google.
09:46SPEAKERAnd so this was odd.
09:47SPEAKERIt was like this first kind of cognitive moment
09:49SPEAKERwhere I was like, there's information that I know exists
09:51SPEAKERthat's not on Google.
09:52SPEAKERAnd I did some more investigation
09:54SPEAKERand learned that the service manuals had been posted online,
09:56SPEAKERbut they had been taken down with DMCA, legal threats.
10:01SPEAKER- So Apple had actively reached out
10:02SPEAKERto people who posted the documents and said,
10:05SPEAKER"Hey, we're not gonna allow this.
10:07SPEAKERThis is our copyrighted material.
10:08SPEAKERYou gotta take it, you gotta put it away."
10:10SPEAKEROne of the questions I've had in my back pocket was like,
10:12SPEAKER"What was your relationship with Apple like before?"
10:14SPEAKERBut I guess that probably answers the question.
10:17SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, prior to this,
10:18SPEAKERI had actually worked at an Apple authorized service center.
10:20SPEAKERSo I knew what everything looked like,
10:22SPEAKERbut yeah, it really struck me wrong.
10:25SPEAKERLike you're going out of your way.
10:26SPEAKERLike you're actually paying expensive people money
10:29SPEAKERto take my freedom away and make it harder for people
10:33SPEAKERto fix their stuff.
10:33SPEAKERAnd after that, we learned it wasn't just Apple.
10:36SPEAKERWe had Toshiba has sent lawyers after people.
10:39SPEAKERLike this has kind of been the norm to use legal threats
10:43SPEAKERto prevent people from knowing how to fix their things.
10:45SPEAKER- Was there, did they have a justification for that
10:49SPEAKERbeyond just the lawyers,
10:51SPEAKERlike too many lawyers were in charge or?
10:54SPEAKER- I mean, the high level is this is our proprietary
10:56SPEAKERcopyrighted information and you are not authorized.
10:59SPEAKERYou don't have the right to distribute it.
11:01SPEAKERWhen you get into the details,
11:03SPEAKERthey'll have other reasons that they'll say
11:05SPEAKERfor why we shouldn't fix our things.
11:06SPEAKERBut that's, I mean, they have us all legal argument, right?
11:09SPEAKERI mean, we paid people to write it.
11:10SPEAKERIt's our copyrighted material.
11:12SPEAKER- It's funny to watch their rhetoric change with the times
11:15SPEAKERbecause now you'll see them say things like,
11:17SPEAKER"Oh, unauthorized repair people might access your data
11:20SPEAKERwhile they have your device open."
11:21SPEAKERYou know, and it's like,
11:22SPEAKER"Oh, the data is a big scary word right now."
11:23SPEAKERSo it's almost like some of it almost comes off
11:26SPEAKERas like fear mongering, honestly.
11:27SPEAKER- Right, and let's not talk about the Apple service center
11:31SPEAKERin Elk Grove that took a woman's iPhone
11:35SPEAKERthat they had sent, she'd sent them for service,
11:37SPEAKERtook the nude photos that they found on her phone
11:39SPEAKERand posted them to her Facebook account.
11:41SPEAKER- Oh my God.
11:42SPEAKER- Wow.
11:43SPEAKER- Wow, so yeah, like it's been really interesting
11:49SPEAKERwatching this kind of the tide change
11:52SPEAKERon right to repair over the last few years.
11:54SPEAKERSee, I touched on tractors, the hospital stuff,
11:57SPEAKERlike they're a tractor, you can buy a tractor today
11:59SPEAKERthat has software on it that basically prohibits you
12:01SPEAKERfrom fixing your broken tractor,
12:03SPEAKERwhich like growing up on a farm when I was a kid,
12:07SPEAKERthe number of times we had to wrench
12:10SPEAKERon the old Ford tractor to keep things going,
12:14SPEAKERlike that's unthinkable really, right?
12:18SPEAKERLike it's part of farming is that you have to work
12:21SPEAKERon your stuff.
12:21SPEAKER- You have to, the ground is mean to you and your equipment,
12:26SPEAKERright, things break all the time.
12:27SPEAKERIt's just a normal part of life is that you're tinkering
12:31SPEAKERwith and you're fixing things.
12:32SPEAKERAnd I think, I mean, this kind of comes down
12:34SPEAKERto the fundamental worldview differences
12:37SPEAKERthat Apple wants to have control
12:39SPEAKERover every last piece of your life.
12:41SPEAKERAnd part of this is this design intent,
12:43SPEAKERthis idea that we're going to design the flawless experience
12:47SPEAKERand then you're gonna live within that experience.
12:49SPEAKERWell, if you need to go outside of that designed experience,
12:52SPEAKERit's a problem.
12:53SPEAKERI remember for a long time, Apple was like the last one
12:56SPEAKERto add a flashlight natively to iOS.
12:59SPEAKER- Yeah.
13:00SPEAKER- Android had it, everybody had it.
13:01SPEAKERAnd I'm convinced the reason is that Apple's designers
13:03SPEAKERhad never needed a flashlight in their lives.
13:07SPEAKER- That's entirely possible.
13:10SPEAKER- It's just outside of their worldview.
13:11SPEAKERWhat, you live somewhere where you don't have illumination
13:14SPEAKERon demand at all times, right?
13:15SPEAKERAnd I think this is the case for farmers.
13:18SPEAKERJohn Deere wants to lock things down like Apple has done
13:21SPEAKERand they're taking some degree of freedom
13:24SPEAKERand self-determination away from farmers.
13:26SPEAKER- It's interesting to hear you mentioned them
13:28SPEAKERtrying to design the flawless experience
13:31SPEAKERcompared to something you posted on Twitter this week
13:33SPEAKERafter the Apple news came out about essentially
13:35SPEAKERwhat you're doing by repairing devices
13:37SPEAKERis really just pushing back against entropy.
13:39SPEAKERAnd entropy is such an unstoppable force
13:42SPEAKERthat even Apple's product designers
13:44SPEAKERcan't hope to ever stop it.
13:45SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
13:46SPEAKERSo it's like the very idea that they could make
13:48SPEAKERa flawless experience that never needs repair
13:49SPEAKERis so inherently absurd on its face, right?
13:52SPEAKER- Everything decays.
13:53SPEAKERI've been watching the Apple TV show "See" lately
13:56SPEAKERabout the future and guess what?
13:58SPEAKEREverything broke in the future.
14:02SPEAKERSociety runs down, this is the natural state of things.
14:05SPEAKER- One of our favorite quotes on the show
14:08SPEAKERis the Hitchhiker's Guide quote
14:10SPEAKERfrom I think "Mostly Harmless" where Douglas Adams said,
14:13SPEAKER"The only difference between something that can't fail
14:16SPEAKERand is designed to eventually fail
14:17SPEAKERis that when the thing that can't fail does fail,
14:19SPEAKERyou have absolutely no hope of recovering from that failure."
14:22SPEAKERSo it's important.
14:25SPEAKERAnd just to be clear, Kyle, thank you.
14:27SPEAKERI mean, I say this every time I talk to you, I think,
14:28SPEAKERbut like over the years, your site has helped me fix
14:32SPEAKERso many things that I've broken
14:35SPEAKERor that like my boss poured coffee in her MacBook
14:37SPEAKERand I just busted out the screwdrivers, the pentalobes,
14:40SPEAKERpopped that thing open, ran rubbing alcohol over it
14:43SPEAKERand closed it back up and she was back in business
14:47SPEAKERand the IT department was never the wiser, so.
14:51SPEAKER- Well, appreciate that, happy to help.
14:53SPEAKERI always say we just wanna be useful.
14:55SPEAKERSo that's my kind of interest.
14:57SPEAKERI have a question for you guys then.
14:58SPEAKERSo having used iFixit, now you have Apple is coming out
15:02SPEAKERand saying they're gonna have service manual
15:04SPEAKERon apple.com for the iPhone.
15:06SPEAKERSo what are you gonna use, Apple or iFixit?
15:08SPEAKER- I mean, honestly, there is an element of like habit
15:11SPEAKERand trust that's built up over the years, right,
15:13SPEAKERof like that's like looking at the iFixit tear down
15:15SPEAKERis definitely my habit, right?
15:17SPEAKERLike that's the thing I'm used to doing
15:18SPEAKERand I generally trust it, right?
15:20SPEAKERSo like I might actually still stick
15:22SPEAKERwith the grassroots thing over the corporate thing,
15:24SPEAKERat least at the beginning, you know?
15:26SPEAKER- Well, and the other thing for me is the Apple guides
15:29SPEAKERare much less useful if they don't provide the,
15:31SPEAKERif they don't also make the tools available.
15:33SPEAKERSo like if I can't buy the shim
15:34SPEAKERthat you use to lift the iPad screen off,
15:37SPEAKERthen like I got to get the guitar picks out
15:40SPEAKERand let it rip the way I've been doing it
15:41SPEAKERfor the last 10 years, so.
15:43SPEAKER- They're going to sell the tools,
15:45SPEAKERbut they're going to recommend
15:47SPEAKERtheir very expensive fixtures.
15:49SPEAKERSo that's, I think, probably an underappreciated aspect
15:52SPEAKERof what iFixit does is that we don't just figure out
15:55SPEAKERa repair process for the thing,
15:57SPEAKERwe figure out a repair process that is affordable
15:59SPEAKERwithin the context of the repair.
16:02SPEAKER- Well, and you also do a really lovely job
16:05SPEAKERkind of telling me as a user how much trouble
16:09SPEAKERI'm gonna be in with this,
16:10SPEAKERlike how difficult these are gonna be.
16:12SPEAKERSo like, hey, is there glue involved
16:14SPEAKERin getting a screen off or something like that?
16:16SPEAKEROr, you know, hey, the one Joy-Con is way easier
16:19SPEAKERto open and swap out than the other one
16:21SPEAKERbecause of the way the IR sensor works out.
16:23SPEAKERI think the, is it the right side that has the IR?
16:25SPEAKERI can't remember, but yeah, like that stuff,
16:28SPEAKERI feel like that's the kind of thing
16:30SPEAKERthat'll take Apple a few iterations to do
16:32SPEAKERif they bother to like take feedback
16:35SPEAKERfrom the community that uses this stuff.
16:37SPEAKERSo, and frankly, you know, I love your tools.
16:41SPEAKERI have, there's always the screwdriver
16:43SPEAKERthat lives on my desk is one of these bad boys,
16:45SPEAKERwhich is my all-time favorite, so.
16:49SPEAKERSo let's see, there's been, like there's been,
16:54SPEAKERdo you think that this Apple stuff
16:56SPEAKERis a result of legislative movement?
16:59SPEAKER- Yeah, absolutely, they wouldn't have budged otherwise.
17:02SPEAKER- Right.
17:04SPEAKER- I've been trying at this for 18 years, right?
17:06SPEAKERThe only thing that's budged these companies
17:07SPEAKERhas been the threat of legislation.
17:09SPEAKERI tried, there's this voluntary, a green standard,
17:13SPEAKERof a green sticker for computers is called EPEAT.
17:16SPEAKERAnd I tried getting involved in getting it throughout a table
17:19SPEAKERand working on saying, can we do this in an incentive way?
17:21SPEAKERCan we make this nice?
17:22SPEAKERCan we give you extra points
17:23SPEAKERif you design things to be repairable?
17:25SPEAKERAnd we sat across the table from Apple
17:27SPEAKERand they systematically shot down every attempt
17:30SPEAKERat compromise over the last 10 years.
17:32SPEAKER- So where do things stand legislatively?
17:34SPEAKERI mean, is action imminent at this point?
17:36SPEAKERLike, is the ball rolling enough that they really,
17:39SPEAKER'cause you know, Microsoft also has commissioned
17:40SPEAKERthis investigation, which we'll talk about later.
17:43SPEAKERLike the companies seem like they are trying
17:44SPEAKERto get out ahead of something.
17:45SPEAKERIs that something pretty close?
17:48SPEAKER- The political winds are at our back.
17:51SPEAKERBut the kind of the timing of this is legislation,
17:54SPEAKERstate level legislation usually happens
17:56SPEAKERbetween January and April.
17:58SPEAKERAnd this year, the FTC report sort of eviscerating
18:01SPEAKERthe manufacturer's arguments came out in May.
18:04SPEAKERSo it came out right after all the state legislation
18:06SPEAKERwas done.
18:07SPEAKERAnd so we're expecting come January, all the states
18:09SPEAKERwill introduce bills again, but they'll introduce bills
18:11SPEAKERwith the feedback from the Federal Trade Commission
18:13SPEAKERand the support of the Biden administration.
18:16SPEAKER- Okay, so yeah, I mean, I guess let's talk like that.
18:21SPEAKERWhat exactly is Apple is saying,
18:22SPEAKER"Hey, we're gonna sell parts."
18:24SPEAKERAnd I think they're starting with a limited run,
18:27SPEAKERwhich like I'm always amazed that you have screens
18:30SPEAKERfor brand new phones basically available for purchase.
18:35SPEAKERThe moment I dropped, like I dropped an iPhone 6
18:37SPEAKERlike three days after I got it
18:39SPEAKERand hadn't bought AppleCare.
18:40SPEAKERSo I was like, well, time to hit iFixit
18:42SPEAKERand find out where I can get this.
18:44SPEAKERAnd you guys had the hardware.
18:46SPEAKERLike I always wondered how that works.
18:48SPEAKERBut it has to be nice that now we're also gonna be able
18:50SPEAKERto get like the hardware directly from Apple too.
18:53SPEAKER- Yeah, you'll be able to get hardware from Apple.
18:55SPEAKERI don't know that I will, and offered to sell me parts.
19:00SPEAKERBut yeah, I mean, we get it from all over the place.
19:02SPEAKERWe have aftermarket parts sources.
19:05SPEAKERUsually when it's brand new products,
19:06SPEAKERwe're parting things out.
19:08SPEAKERSo we'll buy new machines, we'll part them out,
19:09SPEAKERand that'll be our part supply for the first year or two
19:12SPEAKERuntil we can get a factory spooled up to do it.
19:15SPEAKER- That makes sense.
19:19SPEAKERI always feel like one of the things that I like about iFixit
19:22SPEAKERand these days you can go on AliExpress,
19:24SPEAKERyou can go to Amazon even and buy like your,
19:28SPEAKERlike I've replaced so many Joy-Con sticks for people
19:30SPEAKERat this point that it's become a joke
19:31SPEAKERamong my friend group and my daughter's friends are like,
19:36SPEAKER"Hey, can you fix my switch for me?"
19:39SPEAKERBut I like buying the iFixit sticks
19:41SPEAKERbecause I know that they're gonna be good
19:43SPEAKERand you don't always get that from the other places.
19:45SPEAKERSo I appreciate that.
19:49SPEAKER- It's always shocking to me.
19:50SPEAKERWe'll sell something for $25
19:52SPEAKERand you can get it on eBay for six.
19:56SPEAKERIt's like, okay, cool.
19:58SPEAKERBut maybe the difference between $6 and $25 is not worth
20:02SPEAKERthat amount of your life frustration.
20:04SPEAKERI will be blown away.
20:05SPEAKERWe see repair kits on eBay and Amazon.
20:08SPEAKERWe'll look at them and they're like,
20:09SPEAKERthere is no way that would ever work for anyone.
20:12SPEAKERNot like it'll work half the time,
20:13SPEAKERbut like that tool will never work.
20:16SPEAKER- Oh yeah, oh yeah.
20:17SPEAKERWell, and like if I'm doing,
20:20SPEAKERmy feeling on that is if I'm doing the work
20:22SPEAKERto replace something,
20:23SPEAKERlike if I'm replacing a switch and a mouse that's broken
20:26SPEAKERand it's gonna be 20 minutes of disassembly
20:29SPEAKERand an hour of me cursing and de-soldering badly,
20:33SPEAKERlike I don't wanna have to do that twice if I buy the bad,
20:35SPEAKERlike I wanna buy the thing that's gonna make sure
20:37SPEAKERI don't have to do that work twice, so.
20:38SPEAKER- I'm curious, have you been fixing mice?
20:40SPEAKERI'm sitting here, I've got my Yeti Blue,
20:43SPEAKERwhich is Logitech, I've got my Logitech mouse.
20:45SPEAKER- So I had Logitech G Pro,
20:48SPEAKERwhich has the camera switch that they ship with now,
20:52SPEAKERbut it's notorious for failing
20:53SPEAKERafter a couple of hundred thousand clicks
20:54SPEAKERand it failed right on schedule.
20:57SPEAKERSo I ordered some switches from,
20:59SPEAKERsome KLH switches from China and mouse switches
21:02SPEAKERand got a much more satisfying, let's listen to this click.
21:07SPEAKERIt's a good click.
21:07SPEAKER- My bad.
21:09SPEAKER- Little higher actuation too.
21:10SPEAKER- Was that a reasonable experience?
21:13SPEAKER- It was, if I had had a reflow station,
21:16SPEAKEReven if I had bought like a cheap reflow station,
21:18SPEAKERit would have been about a 20 minute job.
21:19SPEAKERIf I, because I did not and I was trying to use a solder,
21:22SPEAKERlike even a good solder sucker,
21:24SPEAKERit's three connectors.
21:25SPEAKERIf you don't do that a lot, it's kind of hard work
21:28SPEAKERand it was really, really tight,
21:30SPEAKEReven with a good soldering iron and a decent sucker.
21:33SPEAKERSo yeah, it was a pain.
21:35SPEAKER- Okay.
21:36SPEAKERWell, hopefully it gets better in the future.
21:38SPEAKER- I would love that.
21:39SPEAKERI mean, the thing is there's a board in most of the mice,
21:43SPEAKERespecially the newer ones that are multi-plane boards.
21:45SPEAKERThis is a total diversion, but the multi-plane boards,
21:49SPEAKERthe board that the switches are soldered on
21:51SPEAKERwould be an easy replacement.
21:52SPEAKERAnd you could sell that board with the switches on it
21:55SPEAKERand just swap the new board in and be fine,
21:57SPEAKERprobably, I think.
21:57SPEAKERSo anyway.
21:59SPEAKER- So if we could circle back around to the Apple stuff,
22:01SPEAKERI wanted to ask, I mean,
22:02SPEAKERyou touched on tooling a little bit earlier,
22:05SPEAKERbut when I think of iPhones and iPads, I mean,
22:08SPEAKERthose are some of the most tightly assembled,
22:10SPEAKERdensely packed electronics I can think of, you know, glue.
22:13SPEAKERAnd, you know,
22:15SPEAKERdo you see them providing maybe more streamlined tools
22:18SPEAKERto the consumer to get those things open
22:20SPEAKERthan what you would find at like the Genius Bar?
22:22SPEAKEROr do you think they will just be providing
22:23SPEAKERexactly the same tooling for service
22:25SPEAKERthat the actual employees are using?
22:29SPEAKER- We don't know.
22:30SPEAKERMy gut feel is it will be exactly the same thing
22:32SPEAKERthat they're selling to the IRP program right now,
22:35SPEAKERtheir independent repair provider program.
22:38SPEAKERAnd those tooling, I mean, they're expensive fixtures.
22:40SPEAKERI don't know the exact price,
22:42SPEAKERbut it's like a big metal block with suction cups.
22:45SPEAKERAnd if Apple provides kind of the same setup and says,
22:50SPEAKERokay, well, the same things we're providing at IRP,
22:53SPEAKERyou can also buy it yourself.
22:54SPEAKERIt would not make sense for anyone to buy those tools
22:57SPEAKERto do a repair.
23:00SPEAKERYou're gonna spend far more on the tools
23:01SPEAKERthan you do on just a single part.
23:04SPEAKER- The things that to me would make the repair process
23:08SPEAKERa lot easier are the things like the tiny ribbon cables
23:11SPEAKERthat you have to get in with a quarter of an inch
23:13SPEAKERof clearance between the screen and the board
23:15SPEAKERas you're closing it back up and stuff like that, you know,
23:18SPEAKERlike putting all the ribbon cables on one side of the device
23:22SPEAKERit turns out makes opening it and fixing it
23:24SPEAKERinfinitely easier than when you put half on one side
23:27SPEAKERand half on the other side.
23:29SPEAKERIt's just little stuff like that,
23:30SPEAKERor even building tools that make getting those,
23:34SPEAKERthey're almost like friction fit ribbons back in
23:36SPEAKERwould make things a lot easier, so.
23:39SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, we like to say,
23:41SPEAKERI mean, what we're trying to do is designing an experience
23:44SPEAKERthat anyone can follow.
23:45SPEAKERIt has to be affordable so that we can include a kit, right?
23:48SPEAKERWe'll sell, let's say a battery is $25,
23:50SPEAKERwe'll sell a kit with all the tools for $30, right?
23:52SPEAKERSo I gotta get all the tools that you need to buy that
23:55SPEAKERat $5, including our margin.
23:58SPEAKERAnd then that process has to be easy for you.
24:01SPEAKERAnd so that's something that, you know,
24:03SPEAKERwe're doing our darndest to design an experience
24:06SPEAKERthat works for people within the constraints
24:08SPEAKERof the hardware that we have.
24:10SPEAKERAnd I think a good example, well, so with the iPhone,
24:13SPEAKERI think we're pretty successful, it's overall a good kit.
24:15SPEAKERWe also have repair kits for the iPad
24:18SPEAKERand that's much harder.
24:21SPEAKERI don't generally recommend the iPad repair
24:25SPEAKERfor a first time fixer.
24:27SPEAKERIt's like, get your feet wet with some other repairs first
24:32SPEAKERand build your patients up.
24:33SPEAKERAnd then, you know, you can take on the heating
24:35SPEAKERthat is involved.
24:37SPEAKER- Maybe repair something that doesn't require
24:39SPEAKERheating up the device before you open it.
24:41SPEAKER- Yeah, I've taken a handful of iPads apart
24:44SPEAKERand each one has been terrifying
24:46SPEAKERand is not something I would like to repeat.
24:49SPEAKERDo you feel like that's getting better
24:50SPEAKERin the post Johnny Ive era?
24:51SPEAKERLike are the new MacBooks better
24:53SPEAKERthan the previous gen MacBooks?
24:55SPEAKER- Well, the iPad hasn't changed,
24:56SPEAKERbut the new MacBook was definitely better.
24:57SPEAKERSo one of the things that we like about the iPhone design
25:00SPEAKERis it's got the stretch release adhesive on the battery.
25:04SPEAKERAnd we've been hoping and Apple's been gluing the batteries
25:07SPEAKERdown for a reason, why don't you use the stretch release?
25:09SPEAKERWell, the new MacBook Pro that everyone's excited about
25:12SPEAKERof all the ports also has stretch release adhesive.
25:15SPEAKERSo it went from, we have been giving
25:17SPEAKERpretty much every MacBook since 2012 on,
25:21SPEAKERwe've given a one out of 10 on our repair score.
25:23SPEAKERThey haven't been scoring very well.
25:25SPEAKERThis one, we upped it to a four out of 10,
25:28SPEAKERwhich is really, yeah.
25:29SPEAKER- Yeah.
25:33SPEAKERSo they're gonna-
25:33SPEAKER- I should note, it's a four.
25:36SPEAKERYou can buy a framework that will be a 10.
25:38SPEAKER(laughing)
25:41SPEAKER- Baby steps.
25:43SPEAKER- What are the, it seems like if I had to guess,
25:47SPEAKERI would say that screens and batteries
25:49SPEAKERprobably are the things that people want to replace the most
25:53SPEAKERin their devices.
25:55SPEAKERIs that fair or is there other-
25:56SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, the battery is a consumable.
25:58SPEAKERSo it's like the toner in your printer
26:03SPEAKERor the tires on your car.
26:05SPEAKERAre you gonna replace the tires on your car?
26:07SPEAKERAbsolutely.
26:08SPEAKERI'll do it every 30,000 miles or whatever it is.
26:10SPEAKERLike that's just normal, right?
26:11SPEAKERSo the battery in your phone is every 500 cycles
26:13SPEAKERor call it two years.
26:16SPEAKERSo that should just be inevitable.
26:18SPEAKERLike every single phone manufactured
26:20SPEAKERis going to need a new battery every so often.
26:22SPEAKERThat's just a given.
26:24SPEAKERBeyond that, you've got the screen,
26:30SPEAKERobviously very common glass.
26:32SPEAKERWe got the thing that we take in and out of our pockets
26:33SPEAKERall day that's made of glass.
26:34SPEAKEROf course, we're gonna drop and break it sometimes.
26:37SPEAKERAnd then increasingly cameras are definitely a number three.
26:42SPEAKERAnd then you have other things like ports and buttons.
26:44SPEAKER- Yeah, I saw the thing yesterday or today
26:47SPEAKERabout motorcycle vibrations killing phone cameras.
26:51SPEAKER- Yeah, he saw Brian Chen's tweet.
26:53SPEAKERDid you see the Apple ad?
26:55SPEAKER- Yeah, why would they do an ad?
26:56SPEAKER- I don't know, I hadn't seen that ad before.
26:58SPEAKERSo just for everyone who's not like living on Twitter
27:02SPEAKERlike Will and I are.
27:03SPEAKERSo Apple has a pretty fantastic ad
27:06SPEAKERof this motorcycle courier in Spain.
27:08SPEAKERAnd he's driving around with his fancy iPhone 13
27:11SPEAKERand it looks awesome.
27:12SPEAKERBut he's got his iPhone strapped to his handlebars.
27:14SPEAKERAnd those of us in the repair world will watch it.
27:16SPEAKERWe just kind of twitch.
27:18SPEAKERWe're like, well, you did what?
27:20SPEAKERBecause you don't wanna strap your phone
27:23SPEAKERto the handlebar of a motorcycle.
27:25SPEAKER- Why is that Kyle?
27:26SPEAKER- Because the camera, the optical stabilizer in the cameras
27:29SPEAKERhold on with basically little tiny wires and it vibrates
27:32SPEAKERand it breaks the wires and your camera
27:33SPEAKERjust kind of droops and falls and it's sad.
27:36SPEAKER- Yeah, it's funny, Brian had tweeted about this years ago
27:40SPEAKERwhen he killed his couple of phones
27:42SPEAKERon his motorcycle before.
27:44SPEAKERAnd I think Apple's, they released a very carefully worded
27:49SPEAKERrelease today that said basically get a stabilized mount
27:53SPEAKERif you're gonna put your phone on your handlebars.
27:54SPEAKER- Did they release that today?
27:56SPEAKER- Yeah, it was part of that tweet thread that Brian posted.
27:59SPEAKER- Yeah, well, that's not, they've said that before.
28:01SPEAKER- Maybe, okay, so maybe that's it.
28:02SPEAKER- Yeah, but I still, I mean,
28:04SPEAKERit seems like advertising malpractice for them to be,
28:09SPEAKERbecause I mean, this has happened, I have a friend here.
28:11SPEAKERI mean, I know it's happened to Brian twice,
28:13SPEAKERbut I have a friend here in SLO who, you know,
28:16SPEAKERjust had a scooter, not a crazy motorcycle.
28:19SPEAKER- Yeah.
28:20SPEAKER- And it's because I mountain bike
28:21SPEAKERand I strap my phone to my mountain bike all the time
28:23SPEAKERand it's fine on a bicycle, but not on the motorcycle.
28:25SPEAKERThe vibration of the engine is what does it.
28:27SPEAKER- Really specific.
28:28SPEAKER- Yeah.
28:29SPEAKER- Let's see, the other thing I've seen recently
28:32SPEAKERas a result of this announcement is a lot of people
28:33SPEAKERcome out and said, "Hey, this is something
28:35SPEAKERthat only like a fraction of a single percentage
28:38SPEAKERof users are actually gonna take advantage of.
28:40SPEAKERDoesn't really matter because of that."
28:42SPEAKERDo you have a response to that, Kyle?
28:45SPEAKER- Well, it's totally gonna come down
28:46SPEAKERto their implementation on their pricing.
28:48SPEAKERI mean, if you can make repair affordable,
28:50SPEAKERlike, I mean, you know, we'd say,
28:52SPEAKERso right now Apple's battery replacement for a phone
28:56SPEAKERis say $69.
28:57SPEAKERYou'd get an iFixit kit for $25 and do it yourself,
29:00SPEAKERnot have to deal with waiting in line.
29:02SPEAKERLike a lot of people are gonna take advantage of that, right?
29:04SPEAKERWhere if you make the battery available for $69
29:07SPEAKERand you have to buy another $200 in tools,
29:10SPEAKERis anyone gonna take advantage of that?
29:12SPEAKER- Probably not.
29:13SPEAKER- So it totally depends on how they shape the program.
29:17SPEAKER- Oh, so you think they might even require you
29:19SPEAKERto have purchased the tools in order to get the hardware?
29:21SPEAKER- I don't know, I have a feeling no,
29:24SPEAKERbut I have a feeling the instructions are gonna say,
29:25SPEAKER"Use this $200 tool."
29:27SPEAKERSo then you're gonna have to figure out a different way
29:29SPEAKERif you don't follow their instructions precisely.
29:32SPEAKER- Well, and I think my hope too is that we'll see,
29:35SPEAKERbecause they're opening up repair
29:37SPEAKERto a larger group of people,
29:39SPEAKERmy hope is that we'll see them actually
29:42SPEAKERlike designing the hardware going forward.
29:44SPEAKERSo it's easier for users to repair as well.
29:46SPEAKER- Yeah, that would be the hope.
29:47SPEAKERAnd that's, I mean, we saw like in clear design intention
29:51SPEAKERwith the MacBook Pro design.
29:53SPEAKERAnd I would say also the iPhone design mechanically
29:56SPEAKERis one of the better smartphone designs
29:58SPEAKERon the market for repair.
29:59SPEAKER- Well, since they switched the 10
30:00SPEAKERwith the two screws on the bottom,
30:02SPEAKERit's been so much easier to get open.
30:03SPEAKER- Yeah, two screws on the bottom,
30:04SPEAKERflips open from the side.
30:07SPEAKERYeah, there's some adhesive that you have to work on
30:09SPEAKERthat's involved in the waterproofing.
30:10SPEAKERBut the design is, it's not designed for users to repair,
30:13SPEAKERbut it's designed for geniuses at Apple stores
30:17SPEAKERto swap the batteries and the screens very quickly.
30:20SPEAKERIt's not designed to do other repairs,
30:23SPEAKERbut those are the priority components.
30:26SPEAKER- Do you think, what do you think is gonna happen
30:28SPEAKERwith the warranties and this?
30:30SPEAKER- Yeah, we've been living in this world
30:32SPEAKERwhere generally opening this device voids your warranty,
30:35SPEAKERright, like how does that square with,
30:36SPEAKERin your mind, how do you think that squares
30:38SPEAKERwith this change of policy?
30:39SPEAKERAnd like, do they have any legal grounds
30:42SPEAKERto amend warranties or is that kind of set in stone
30:44SPEAKERonce a product sells?
30:45SPEAKER- No, the warranty situation is set in stone.
30:47SPEAKERSo manufacturers cannot legally void your warranty
30:49SPEAKERif you do repairs.
30:51SPEAKERAs a matter of fact, the Federal Trade Commission
30:53SPEAKERhas sent a number of companies letters
30:55SPEAKERtelling them to stop doing things like that.
30:57SPEAKERThey sent Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo,
31:00SPEAKERall letters telling them to drop the warranty void
31:03SPEAKERto remove stickers from the game consoles.
31:06SPEAKERAnd Apple has actually always been good on this point.
31:09SPEAKERTheir warranty says, you can repair it yourself if you want.
31:12SPEAKERIf you damage anything in the process of repairing it,
31:15SPEAKERthat can void your warranty.
31:17SPEAKER- That's fair.
31:18SPEAKER- This is settled US law.
31:19SPEAKERIt's the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act
31:21SPEAKERthat was passed back in the '70s that says,
31:25SPEAKERand it was, I mean, you see this more often with cars.
31:28SPEAKERYou buy a brand new Corvette
31:29SPEAKERand you put bling and rims on it.
31:30SPEAKERGMC can't void your warranty
31:34SPEAKER'cause you upgraded your tires.
31:36SPEAKERIt's the same thing with electronics.
31:38SPEAKER- Okay, okay.
31:39SPEAKERGot one last Apple question before we move on here.
31:41SPEAKERIs it safe to assume that the iPhone
31:43SPEAKERis probably the smallest device
31:44SPEAKERthey will opt into this program?
31:45SPEAKEROr the start of the watch and the AirPods
31:47SPEAKERgoing to remain disposable from here on out?
31:50SPEAKER- Well, I mean, we need to pressure them to change things.
31:53SPEAKERAnd so I would say, no,
31:55SPEAKERwe should get them to include all of their products.
31:58SPEAKERThe AirPods in particular,
32:00SPEAKERI think the AirPods are the Apple product
32:01SPEAKERthat people have the biggest problem
32:02SPEAKERwith battery obsolescence on.
32:05SPEAKERWe did just pop open the new AirPods 3.
32:07SPEAKERWe've got a video up this week,
32:09SPEAKERbut they did, the battery is no longer soldered in,
32:12SPEAKERwhich is interesting.
32:14SPEAKERSo the whole case is welded,
32:16SPEAKERultrasonically welded together.
32:17SPEAKERSo you have to destroy the case to get in.
32:19SPEAKERBut once you have the case open,
32:20SPEAKERthe battery does have a little connector on it.
32:22SPEAKERSo who knows, maybe they could improve
32:24SPEAKERthe exterior mechanical design,
32:26SPEAKERand then it might be possible to change the battery.
32:28SPEAKER- This is kind of a sore point around here.
32:30SPEAKERMy girlfriend has an older Apple watch
32:31SPEAKERthat the battery is bulging in so much,
32:34SPEAKERthe screen is slowly popping out of the case.
32:35SPEAKERI'm sure you're familiar,
32:36SPEAKERbut I think I'm pretty sure
32:37SPEAKERit was your battery replacement guide that said,
32:39SPEAKER"Hey, this is hard enough
32:41SPEAKERthat you might actually want to think about
32:42SPEAKERjust taking it in."
32:44SPEAKER- Yeah, although by the point,
32:45SPEAKERtime that it's bulged and it's popped it open,
32:48SPEAKERthat actually, the repair's a lot easier now.
32:50SPEAKER- Interesting, okay, that's the hard part.
32:52SPEAKER- The hard part is opening it,
32:53SPEAKERso if the battery's done the opening for you,
32:55SPEAKERmaybe you're all right.
32:56SPEAKER- I'm gonna look into that then.
32:57SPEAKER- Yeah, always getting the screen off
33:00SPEAKERis always the hard part for me
33:01SPEAKERon the glued stuff, it seems like.
33:03SPEAKER- Yeah, we call these expanded batteries,
33:04SPEAKERwe call them spicy pillows.
33:06SPEAKER(laughing)
33:08SPEAKER- I like that when you,
33:09SPEAKERI took a phone in that was still under warranty
33:12SPEAKERthat had a puffy battery at one point,
33:14SPEAKERand I just literally watched the genius walk back
33:17SPEAKERand put it in the sandbox,
33:18SPEAKERand he was like, "Yeah, okay, here's your new phone, enjoy."
33:25SPEAKERWhat's up with Microsoft?
33:26SPEAKERSo they're doing, they're evaluating, it seems like?
33:29SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, this is a,
33:31SPEAKERI mean, we've seen this broadcast from Microsoft
33:33SPEAKERa little bit where they, you know,
33:35SPEAKERthey redesigned the Surface laptop,
33:37SPEAKERit went from a one out of 10,
33:39SPEAKERno, a zero out of 10 on our scorecard,
33:41SPEAKERwhere it was impossible to replace the battery
33:43SPEAKERwithout destroying it, to a five out of 10,
33:46SPEAKERa substantial redesign,
33:47SPEAKERthey're using magnets on the case,
33:48SPEAKERit's straightforward to open,
33:50SPEAKERthey went back to modular storage,
33:52SPEAKERso you can separate the storage from the device,
33:54SPEAKERwhich is huge, not just for repair, but for recycling,
33:57SPEAKERand so that's a big win.
33:59SPEAKERAnd then there was a shareholder initiative
34:02SPEAKERwhere some shareholders were asking Microsoft
34:05SPEAKERto be more repair friendly
34:08SPEAKERand maybe put a report together,
34:09SPEAKERlaying out how it jives with their climate commitments,
34:12SPEAKERand normally companies just squash
34:14SPEAKERthese shareholder initiatives,
34:15SPEAKERyou always hear about them getting voted down,
34:17SPEAKERno, in this case, Microsoft negotiated
34:21SPEAKERwith the organization to put together and said,
34:23SPEAKERyou know what, you're right, we're gonna do what you say,
34:25SPEAKERand we're gonna put the other report
34:27SPEAKERon how we can integrate repair into our process,
34:30SPEAKERand we're gonna work on providing parts and tools to people,
34:34SPEAKERso kind of similar to Apple's about face here.
34:37SPEAKER- So are you relatively bullish on that report?
34:40SPEAKERI mean, this might be overly cynical,
34:42SPEAKERbut when I first saw that news story,
34:43SPEAKERthat the language around it, you know,
34:45SPEAKERwe're gonna investigate the environmental impact
34:47SPEAKERof, you know, like, you would probably agree
34:50SPEAKERthat some healthy skepticism around corporate messaging
34:52SPEAKERis warranted, but in this case,
34:54SPEAKERdo you take them with their word?
34:55SPEAKERDo you think this has a good chance of actually panning out?
34:57SPEAKER- I mean, Microsoft signed an agreement,
34:59SPEAKERthe NGO was called As You Sow that did it,
35:02SPEAKERand they have a lot of credibility,
35:04SPEAKERso Microsoft has a signed agreement with them,
35:06SPEAKERand, you know, they've demonstrated other signs,
35:08SPEAKERis, yeah, I wanna see the proof is in the pudding, right?
35:11SPEAKERBut we've got a redesigned product there,
35:14SPEAKERthey just announced their new Surface Laptop SE for schools,
35:18SPEAKERit's a $250 laptop, and I guess repairability
35:21SPEAKERand making repair parts available to schools
35:23SPEAKERis a big part of that program.
35:26SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a big, I know at my daughter's school
35:29SPEAKERspecifically, they're, like, the number of Slack Chromebooks
35:31SPEAKERthey have to have around to cover accidents
35:34SPEAKERand just wear and tear that the kids put on them
35:37SPEAKERis pretty substantial, so being able to fix those on site
35:40SPEAKERwould be really nice.
35:41SPEAKER- Would be really nice, yeah, and I mean,
35:43SPEAKERit's a, I think, a chink in the armor
35:45SPEAKERof the Chromebook companies, because Acer and Asus
35:48SPEAKERdon't do a good job with parts supply chain at all.
35:50SPEAKER- Yeah.
35:52SPEAKERWhat do you, the other thing is the new consoles
35:56SPEAKERseem to be much easier to open,
35:57SPEAKERlike each successive generation of Xbox
35:59SPEAKERhas seemed easier to work on than the previous generations.
36:04SPEAKER- Yeah, the trick there is the optical drive
36:08SPEAKERis the thing that, at least with the consoles
36:12SPEAKERthat still have optical drives, we still have this problem
36:14SPEAKERwhere the optical drive is cryptographically paired
36:17SPEAKERto the main board, and so we sell a optical,
36:21SPEAKERwell, when we sell optical drives for these consoles,
36:23SPEAKERwe have to sell the optical drive
36:24SPEAKERand the main board together, so instead of it being,
36:27SPEAKERlike, a $99 repair, instead, you know, I fix this,
36:29SPEAKERlike, $250, and I'm out of stock,
36:31SPEAKERbecause we don't get very many main board
36:33SPEAKERand optical drives that we can sell,
36:35SPEAKERso this is totally a pain in the neck,
36:39SPEAKERbut I have hope, so we haven't been able to break them apart
36:44SPEAKERand sell them individually because it was actually illegal
36:46SPEAKERbecause of section 1201 of the DMCA
36:49SPEAKERthat says it's illegal to break digital locks.
36:51SPEAKERWell, we, along with Public Knowledge, a think tank in DC,
36:56SPEAKERapplied for an exemption to that law for game consoles,
36:59SPEAKERand we just got that exemption a couple weeks ago.
37:02SPEAKER- Oh, nice.
37:03SPEAKER- So it is now legal if you can break the lock
37:06SPEAKERcombining the optical drive on an Xbox or a PlayStation
37:10SPEAKERwith the main board,
37:11SPEAKERyou could separate them and then repair it.
37:14SPEAKER- So do you think this could be as simple
37:16SPEAKERas, like, the old TiVo hack where you would bless a drive
37:19SPEAKERand TiVo would be like, "Oh, yeah, this drive's cool with me,"
37:21SPEAKERand do that with the firmware on the optical drive then?
37:23SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what we want.
37:24SPEAKERNow, the catch is it's legal,
37:27SPEAKERbut nobody has made that software tool,
37:30SPEAKERso my challenge to everyone listening to this
37:32SPEAKERis if you know any security researchers,
37:36SPEAKERnow it's time we need to break the lock
37:37SPEAKERand figure out how to do it.
37:38SPEAKER- Well, and the cryptography probably is pretty scary
37:40SPEAKERat this point.
37:41SPEAKER- It's gotten pretty good, yeah.
37:42SPEAKER- Sure.
37:43SPEAKERGame consoles are an interesting example
37:45SPEAKERbecause, like, with the phone, as you pointed out,
37:46SPEAKERthings like batteries are inherently expendable, right,
37:49SPEAKERor consumable.
37:50SPEAKERLike, those things are designed to run out after a while,
37:53SPEAKERbut on a game console, I guess there are fewer parts
37:57SPEAKERthat, to me, seem obvious for frequent replacement.
37:59SPEAKERLike, what do you see Microsoft offering
38:01SPEAKERinside an Xbox Series X, for example,
38:04SPEAKERlike optical drive and maybe fans seem--
38:07SPEAKER- It's, I would say it's the storage
38:09SPEAKERand the optical drive first.
38:11SPEAKER- Okay.
38:12SPEAKER- And then, but after that, it's things like power supplies.
38:14SPEAKERI mean, do you know about the Xbox ant thing?
38:17SPEAKER- Oh, it's like the PlayStation Cockroach thing?
38:20SPEAKER- Yeah. - What?
38:20SPEAKER- Yeah.
38:21SPEAKER- Oh, no.
38:22SPEAKER- Just Google Xbox and ants.
38:24SPEAKER- Okay.
38:25SPEAKER- And you'll just see hundreds of pictures of,
38:27SPEAKERit turns out that the resin that they use attracts bugs.
38:30SPEAKER- Interesting.
38:31SPEAKER- To the power supply.
38:32SPEAKER- Oh, wow.
38:33SPEAKER- I had that problem with a cable modem years and years ago.
38:35SPEAKERIt became utterly infested with ants
38:36SPEAKERto the point that Comcast just took it back
38:38SPEAKERand quarantined it.
38:40SPEAKERThey were nesting in there.
38:41SPEAKERInteresting.
38:42SPEAKER- So, I mean, this is where I talk about, you know,
38:43SPEAKERwe're fighting a war on entropy.
38:45SPEAKERLike the whole world wants to tear your electronics
38:48SPEAKERback into constituent atoms and it's up to you.
38:51SPEAKERYou're the caretaker.
38:52SPEAKERIt's up to us to keep our stuff running.
38:54SPEAKER- Do you think we could get to a point where,
38:57SPEAKERsay every single PCB in an Xbox Series X is on a parts list
39:01SPEAKERthat you could buy like daughterboards for wifi
39:03SPEAKERor any kind of granular stuff.
39:04SPEAKER- I'd love to see that.
39:05SPEAKERI think that's a question, you know, ask Microsoft.
39:09SPEAKERLet's continue to push.
39:10SPEAKERI mean, if we get right to repair legislation passed, right?
39:13SPEAKERThen they'll need to.
39:15SPEAKER- What's going on with the rest of the industry?
39:17SPEAKERYou said, I mean, I know Acer and Asus
39:19SPEAKERare notoriously challenging in terms of aftermarket parts,
39:24SPEAKERbut how are like Google and Samsung on the phone side?
39:27SPEAKERThey both sell a bunch of phones it seems like.
39:29SPEAKER- Yeah, Samsung has been really bad.
39:31SPEAKERAnd, you know, they've got proprietary diagnostic software
39:34SPEAKERthat they don't make available.
39:36SPEAKERTheir authorized shops have it, other folks don't.
39:39SPEAKERWhich is really fundamentally anti-competitive.
39:42SPEAKERLike the U-Break iFix shops are,
39:44SPEAKERwell then now they're a Shurian,
39:46SPEAKERbut they are certified by Samsung.
39:48SPEAKERSo they have tooling.
39:49SPEAKERThe repair shop across the street from them doesn't have.
39:53SPEAKERAnd it's unfair because there are ways
39:56SPEAKERthat they can do a better job with the repair
39:57SPEAKERthat an independent shop just can't do.
40:00SPEAKERSo Samsung has been particularly bad.
40:02SPEAKERGoogle, we'll see, Google just released a tool
40:05SPEAKERfor the Pixel 6 to recalibrate the fingerprint sensor.
40:08SPEAKERSo where Apple has, you know, not made that available.
40:11SPEAKERGoogle's like, you just go to, I think, is it,
40:14SPEAKERit's pixelrepair.withgoogle.com
40:17SPEAKERand you click install fingerprint calibration sensor,
40:19SPEAKERplug your computer in and you just hit the,
40:21SPEAKERor your phone into your computer and it just through Chrome,
40:24SPEAKERit just calibrates the new part.
40:25SPEAKERIt's exactly what we wanna see.
40:27SPEAKER- Wow, that's awesome.
40:28SPEAKER- I'm pretty optimistic about Google
40:31SPEAKERand pretty pessimistic about Samsung right now.
40:33SPEAKER- I mean, it seemed like Google started,
40:35SPEAKERwhen they started selling Pixel phones,
40:37SPEAKERthey started off a little rough.
40:38SPEAKER'Cause I remember I like, I smashed back glass on my phone
40:40SPEAKERand it was gonna be basically cheaper
40:42SPEAKERto just get a new phone than to fix the back glass.
40:46SPEAKERBut each, it seems like each generation,
40:47SPEAKERthey've got a little bit better about making,
40:49SPEAKERat least making the parts more replaceable
40:52SPEAKERif they don't make them available themselves.
40:56SPEAKER- Yeah, that's the hope.
40:58SPEAKERWe do, I mean, we sell parts
40:59SPEAKERfor just about every Pixel and I fix it.
41:01SPEAKERI've got my, my Pixel 3a, the headphone jack
41:05SPEAKERis a little wiggly.
41:06SPEAKERSo I've actually got the part right here.
41:08SPEAKERI was gonna put it in this weekend.
41:10SPEAKER- It's a cobbler's, cobbler's son has no shoes, right?
41:15SPEAKERAny other offenders?
41:16SPEAKERAnybody else you wanna call out as good or bad here, Kyle?
41:20SPEAKER- I mean, let's talk about framework, pretty cool.
41:24SPEAKERSo, I mean, 'cause we haven't had a, you know,
41:27SPEAKERlike a 10 out of 10, you know,
41:29SPEAKERlike super awesome computer that we can recommend.
41:32SPEAKERI don't know what you're recommending to your friends,
41:34SPEAKERbut if you want a repairable, upgradeable laptop
41:36SPEAKERthat's kind of flagship quality, that's sleek,
41:39SPEAKERthere hasn't been one.
41:40SPEAKERSo having framework come along, you know,
41:43SPEAKERNirav, the CEO used to be at Apple
41:45SPEAKERand then he was one of the,
41:47SPEAKERI think founding Oculus team members.
41:50SPEAKERAnd now he's, I mean, it's a really great laptop
41:53SPEAKERwith modular ports, configure it how you want.
41:56SPEAKERIf you always want, you know, an HDMI port,
41:58SPEAKERyou can set it up.
42:00SPEAKERI wish my laptop had a single USB-A port.
42:04SPEAKERThat would be nice instead of just USB-C.
42:08SPEAKER- Look, I've just gone back full desktop
42:10SPEAKERsince the pandemic started.
42:11SPEAKERI, you know, when do I leave the house on my laptop?
42:13SPEAKER- Yeah.
42:16SPEAKER- Anybody else who's, anybody, like on the console front,
42:19SPEAKERwe talked about the Xbox a little bit.
42:21SPEAKERWhat about Sony and Nintendo?
42:23SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, so what we've seen on iFixit
42:26SPEAKERhas been just a massive spike in game console repair interest
42:29SPEAKERacross the board since the pandemic started.
42:31SPEAKERI mean, I dare you to buy a PS5 right now.
42:37SPEAKERSo that continues to be the trend, but,
42:41SPEAKERand I mean, we have seen like Sony every time,
42:44SPEAKERand that's the new console.
42:45SPEAKERThey do a teardown ahead of iFixit.
42:46SPEAKERThey beat me to it every time.
42:47SPEAKERI don't know how they beat me.
42:49SPEAKERThey're just so sneaky and fast.
42:52SPEAKER- They must have guys in New Zealand.
42:54SPEAKER- Yeah, they must have guys in New Zealand.
42:56SPEAKERSo I don't know.
42:57SPEAKERI mean, we've seen, you know, mechanically they're fixable,
43:00SPEAKERbut we haven't seen any kind of ecosystem support
43:03SPEAKERfrom any of these companies yet.
43:05SPEAKERAnd that's really where I think we're gonna need to get.
43:07SPEAKER- I mean, but you are able to get things like Joy-Con pads
43:10SPEAKERand Joy-Con.
43:11SPEAKER- Not from the manufacturers.
43:12SPEAKER- Oh, okay.
43:13SPEAKER- Yeah, we go to aftermarket manufacturers.
43:17SPEAKER- Do you actually, we did an episode about controllers
43:21SPEAKERand stick drift a few months ago
43:23SPEAKERand cited you folks pretty heavily.
43:25SPEAKERI mean, do you have any updated feelings
43:26SPEAKERon where analog joystick drift is at in particular?
43:29SPEAKER'Cause it seems like such a pervasive issue.
43:32SPEAKER- I mean, the only option has to be
43:34SPEAKERmake the parts interchangeable, right?
43:38SPEAKERIt's a consumable, just like a battery.
43:41SPEAKERI think, I don't quite understand
43:44SPEAKERhow we've gotten to this point.
43:45SPEAKERAnd like now we're finally talking about joystick drift.
43:48SPEAKERI mean, even, you know, iFixit,
43:49SPEAKERwe hadn't been talking about it a lot
43:50SPEAKERuntil the last couple of years,
43:53SPEAKERbut it seems like it's just a fundamental component
43:55SPEAKERof the technology.
43:56SPEAKERThese things wear out, it's just entropy.
43:57SPEAKERIt's okay, it's a wear item.
44:02SPEAKERYeah.
44:03SPEAKER- I mean, it seems like the low profile ones are worse.
44:05SPEAKERThe low profile ones that use the capacitive touch pads
44:07SPEAKERare worse than the ones that used pots in the old days.
44:10SPEAKERSo I don't know.
44:13SPEAKERWe have a few minutes left.
44:14SPEAKERCan we talk about e-waste?
44:15SPEAKER'Cause this is like, there's two sides of this.
44:18SPEAKEROne is it's nice to buy something and then use it longer.
44:21SPEAKERYou know, I went through the,
44:24SPEAKERfor years I was reviewing every new phone when they came out.
44:27SPEAKERSo I always had the new thing.
44:29SPEAKERAnd I think I replaced an iPhone 10 last year,
44:34SPEAKERwhich is the longest I've had a phone
44:35SPEAKERsince smartphones were a thing.
44:37SPEAKERAnd it was surprisingly good up until the very last year,
44:40SPEAKERlike everything was working great.
44:42SPEAKERI was really pleasantly surprised by that experience.
44:45SPEAKERAnd as a result, I didn't put three phones in the landfill
44:48SPEAKERin that time period, right?
44:54SPEAKERI mean, we all have, I think,
44:55SPEAKERprobably e-waste recycling days around us.
44:58SPEAKERDo you know what happens to that stuff?
44:59SPEAKERIs that something you bring that into?
45:00SPEAKER- Yeah, so e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream
45:02SPEAKERin the world.
45:03SPEAKERYou know, as we talk about the internet of things,
45:06SPEAKERthat means there's electronics in all of our things.
45:09SPEAKERThere's precious metals that go into it.
45:10SPEAKERSemiconductors are hugely resource intensive.
45:13SPEAKERAnd then they need specialized facilities to recycle.
45:15SPEAKERSo you don't wanna put your electronics in a blue bin.
45:19SPEAKERYou gotta send them
45:19SPEAKERto a specialized electronics recycler.
45:23SPEAKERGoodwill or Best Buy or other folks
45:25SPEAKERwill collect electronics for you
45:26SPEAKERand then recycle it properly.
45:28SPEAKERWhere they go is a facility
45:30SPEAKERwhere they're manually separated and processed.
45:32SPEAKERIf there's parts in there that are possible to be repaired
45:35SPEAKERor resold, they do that.
45:37SPEAKERAnd then they go into a shredder.
45:39SPEAKERBut I would say before they go into a shredder,
45:41SPEAKERthey remove the batteries.
45:42SPEAKER'Cause if you run a battery through a shredder,
45:45SPEAKERyou get a spark and oftentimes there's aluminum,
45:48SPEAKERthere's metal dust.
45:49SPEAKERIt can cause explosions and fires and it's bad.
45:51SPEAKER- And any idea what happens to that post-shred material?
45:54SPEAKERIs that literal waste at that point that's just-
45:56SPEAKER- No.
45:57SPEAKERSo if it's plastic, it goes to, you know,
45:59SPEAKERthey'll turn it into park benches or whatever.
46:03SPEAKERThe aluminum and the steel all gets recycled.
46:06SPEAKER- Okay, sure.
46:07SPEAKER- So the electronics recyclers do a great job
46:09SPEAKERand there is definitely material recovery.
46:11SPEAKERThe metals are pretty much infinitely recyclable.
46:15SPEAKERThe plastics are down-cycled.
46:17SPEAKERThey go to lower grade material.
46:19SPEAKERBut then you have trace amounts.
46:21SPEAKERYou have things like the indium in the screen
46:24SPEAKERand honestly the lithium and the graphite and the batteries,
46:28SPEAKERthe neodymium and the magnets
46:30SPEAKERand the microphones and speakers,
46:31SPEAKERall of that is lost in the slag.
46:34SPEAKERSo there's, out of all the elements on the periodic table,
46:37SPEAKERabout 50 of them are in your smartphone.
46:39SPEAKER15 of those are recoverable and recycling
46:41SPEAKERand the others are lost in the process.
46:44SPEAKER- Okay, so it sounds like people who may have been skeptical
46:47SPEAKERabout whether seeking out e-waste-specific recycling
46:50SPEAKERcan rest assured that it's actually being done ethically.
46:52SPEAKER- You absolutely need to send it to a specialized recycler.
46:56SPEAKER- You know, certainly you hear certain stories about like,
46:58SPEAKERoh, this plastic that was supposedly being recycled
47:00SPEAKERwas actually just shipped to another continent
47:02SPEAKERfor 20 years or whatever.
47:03SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, even there it's better
47:06SPEAKERthan sending it to the blue bin or the landfill.
47:09SPEAKER- Okay.
47:10SPEAKER- So we, now the challenge that we have
47:12SPEAKERwith informal recycling in developing countries
47:15SPEAKERis definitely an issue.
47:17SPEAKERI've been to many of these,
47:18SPEAKERI mean, I went to a particular spot in Accra, Ghana
47:24SPEAKERcalled Agbogbloshie where if you've seen photos
47:28SPEAKERof like children burning electronics,
47:29SPEAKERthis is often where they are.
47:31SPEAKERAnd I met the kids who were burning the electronics
47:32SPEAKERand I asked them, why are you doing that?
47:33SPEAKERAnd they said, well, we're mining the cables
47:35SPEAKERfor the copper inside them.
47:36SPEAKERAnd we sell it and we make about five bucks a day,
47:39SPEAKERwhich is a good wage there.
47:42SPEAKERSo that kind of informal recycling happens,
47:45SPEAKERbut it's not particularly electronics
47:48SPEAKERthat we're dumping here that's causing that,
47:49SPEAKERit's Africans, Ghanaians use a lot of electronics
47:52SPEAKERand when they're done with them,
47:53SPEAKERsomeone needs to recycle them.
47:55SPEAKERAnd Ghana doesn't have the domestic electronics
47:58SPEAKERrecycling infrastructure that we do in developed countries.
48:02SPEAKER- Okay, it still seems like the best thing to do
48:05SPEAKERif you have something is to find somebody else
48:07SPEAKERwho can use it.
48:08SPEAKER- Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
48:09SPEAKERFind someone, find another life, get your friend,
48:12SPEAKERfix up your old laptop and give it to a kid
48:15SPEAKERwho can use it for school.
48:16SPEAKERLike manufacturing these electronics
48:19SPEAKERis so resource intensive,
48:20SPEAKERwe need to get the maximum possible utility out of it.
48:23SPEAKERAnd just to put this in a climate change context,
48:26SPEAKERif everyone in the US were to use their phone
48:28SPEAKERfor just an extra year,
48:30SPEAKERit's the equivalent of taking 600,000 cars off the road.
48:34SPEAKER- Wow, wow.
48:36SPEAKER- It's a huge amount of raw material energy input
48:39SPEAKERinto manufacturing these semiconductors.
48:41SPEAKER- Is there, on that front,
48:43SPEAKERare there categories of product
48:44SPEAKERthat we should just absolutely avoid?
48:46SPEAKERLike I look at things like battery backups
48:48SPEAKERand I think, oh man, this is an incredibly handy thing,
48:50SPEAKERI use it all the time.
48:52SPEAKER- Yeah.
48:53SPEAKER- But is the impact of this worse than, you know,
48:58SPEAKERjust plugging my phone into the wall more often or whatever?
49:01SPEAKER- I mean, yes, it is worse.
49:03SPEAKERI mean, in general, the less that we have the better, right?
49:06SPEAKER- Yeah.
49:07SPEAKER- But then when we are going to buy things,
49:10SPEAKERlike I've got some like really nice desktop speakers here,
49:12SPEAKERI decided to invest in nice speakers for my computer,
49:15SPEAKERbut I'm gonna hang on to them
49:16SPEAKERfor the next like 15 years, right?
49:18SPEAKER- Yeah.
49:20SPEAKERSpeaking, yeah, Brad is still using
49:22SPEAKERthe Cambridge sound work cube speakers
49:24SPEAKERthat he bought in 1998 or something.
49:26SPEAKER- The core doesn't quite reach my camera,
49:27SPEAKERbut I have had these since about 1999.
49:29SPEAKER- Yeah, and there's, you know, you buy a speaker,
49:31SPEAKERlike it should last forever, right?
49:33SPEAKER- Yeah, speakers don't get worse, you know,
49:35SPEAKERand like speaker design is fairly timeless, right?
49:37SPEAKER- This is why I yell at Sonos every time
49:39SPEAKERthey make a speaker that doesn't have an analog input,
49:41SPEAKER'cause it's like, look guys,
49:42SPEAKERyou're making a speaker that could last for 50 years,
49:45SPEAKERbut then you're putting your proprietary app on it,
49:47SPEAKERlike doesn't matter how good you are at software,
49:49SPEAKERit's not gonna last more than 10 years.
49:50SPEAKER- So I've got two Sonos soundbars,
49:52SPEAKERand that is a thing that I worry about all the time,
49:54SPEAKERis if this company goes away and this is such a black box,
49:57SPEAKERlike what am I even gonna do with this thing
49:58SPEAKERif I can suddenly no longer access it?
50:00SPEAKER- But if it had an analog input,
50:01SPEAKERthen it doesn't matter if it stops being a smart speaker,
50:04SPEAKERyou can still use it.
50:06SPEAKER- This is the thing I've always wanted,
50:08SPEAKERI want somebody to make open source pucks,
50:11SPEAKERopen source board designs that we can just pop out
50:14SPEAKERof all the smart speakers that are gonna get end of life
50:16SPEAKERin the next two years, the first gen ones,
50:18SPEAKERand just put your open platform voice thing in there,
50:23SPEAKERor just make it a normal speaker.
50:25SPEAKER- I expect Will and Brad to make it happen.
50:27SPEAKER(laughing)
50:30SPEAKER- Anything Brad?
50:31SPEAKERConsidering I just retired a pair of 15 year old monitors,
50:33SPEAKERI am with you in spirit.
50:36SPEAKERSo this has been fantastic,
50:38SPEAKERthank you so much for taking the time,
50:39SPEAKERwe really appreciate it.
50:40SPEAKERAnd if there's anything else, let's see,
50:43SPEAKERanything we've forgotten,
50:44SPEAKERanything we should have hit that we didn't here?
50:48SPEAKER- I would just say stay tuned,
50:49SPEAKERwe're gonna need everybody's help
50:50SPEAKERto get right to repair over the finish line,
50:53SPEAKERso be prepared to call your legislator,
50:55SPEAKERyour local state reps come January,
50:59SPEAKERand support your local bill.
51:00SPEAKERIf we get enough of us rabble rousing,
51:02SPEAKERand then making noise, we could have one big push,
51:05SPEAKERand then get these laws across the finish line.
51:07SPEAKER- And you all will post about that on iFixit,
51:09SPEAKERand iFixit Twitter, and all the relevant places, I assume?
51:12SPEAKER- Absolutely, yeah, follow us, iFixit, and I'm @kayweens.
51:16SPEAKER- Awesome, thank you so much, Kyle,
51:18SPEAKERit's always a pleasure to chat with you, my friend,
51:20SPEAKERand I hope you have a,
51:21SPEAKERI really appreciate you taking the time.
51:23SPEAKER- Thanks, guys.
51:24SPEAKER- Brad, we've reached the portion of the show
51:26SPEAKERwhere we thank the patrons.
51:27SPEAKER- It's my favorite portion of the show, did you know that?
51:30SPEAKER- I didn't know that, it's true.
51:32SPEAKERSorry, Kyle.
51:33SPEAKER- Thank you, patrons.
51:34SPEAKER- Well, look, I mean, that was a great interview,
51:37SPEAKERto be fair, Kyle is very interesting,
51:39SPEAKERand I didn't realize until I started researching this episode
51:43SPEAKERlike exactly what an institution iFixit is.
51:45SPEAKERI mean, I use it, but it was when I saw like,
51:49SPEAKERoh, the New York Times quoted him about this Apple thing,
51:52SPEAKERand oh, he's testified in front of Congress.
51:54SPEAKERI was like, wow, this is like,
51:55SPEAKERthey're making some stuff happen.
51:57SPEAKERThis is not just some tear-down guides.
51:59SPEAKER- Well, I mean, it is just tear-down guides.
52:00SPEAKERThat's the thing.
52:01SPEAKERIt's tear-down guides and parts and kits and hardware.
52:04SPEAKER- At the core, yes, but there's an element
52:07SPEAKERof like visible activism to it is what I'm saying.
52:09SPEAKER- Yeah, like that is, it is not just a place
52:13SPEAKERwhere Kyle sells you hardware
52:16SPEAKERthat can fix your broken phone.
52:17SPEAKERHe's also doing the work on the other side
52:19SPEAKERto make it easier for him to get the hardware
52:21SPEAKERto sell you potentially, I guess, I don't know,
52:24SPEAKERand make it easier for everybody to get access to that,
52:27SPEAKER'cause he actually believes in,
52:29SPEAKERI mean, I believe in what he believes in.
52:32SPEAKERI believe that it's right to fix stuff and reuse it
52:36SPEAKERrather than chuck it in the trash.
52:37SPEAKER- Yes, but as interesting and inspiring
52:39SPEAKERas that conversation was,
52:41SPEAKERthis is your favorite part of the show.
52:42SPEAKERI mean, they're the reason we're here.
52:45SPEAKER- That's true, so I guess thank you, patrons.
52:47SPEAKER- Yeah, thank you.
52:48SPEAKER- Sorry, I'm a little delirious today.
52:50SPEAKER- It's okay, and you didn't take the suit of Ed.
52:53SPEAKER- No, I did not.
52:54SPEAKERIf I took the suit of Ed, I'd be bouncing off the walls.
52:57SPEAKER- If you would like to support the show,
52:59SPEAKERwe are 100% listener supported.
53:02SPEAKERFor two bucks a month,
53:03SPEAKERyou can get in and join the TechPod Discord,
53:04SPEAKERwhich is full of wonderful nerds
53:07SPEAKERwho talk about a massive variety of things
53:09SPEAKERfrom the latest video games.
53:12SPEAKERI've been enjoying the inscription,
53:14SPEAKERthe inscription spoiler chat,
53:18SPEAKEReven though I haven't finished the third act of the game yet
53:21SPEAKERfor reasons that's been busy.
53:22SPEAKER- Oh, you gotta finish that game.
53:23SPEAKER- I know, I know.
53:24SPEAKERThe second act, I wasn't a huge fan of.
53:26SPEAKERThe third act's pretty good.
53:27SPEAKER- Yeah, it gets better.
53:28SPEAKERIt closes very strong.
53:32SPEAKER- But we talk about networking, music production,
53:34SPEAKERand audio stuff, and setting up home servers,
53:39SPEAKERand all the kind of stuff that we talk about in the podcast
53:40SPEAKERis happening every day in the Discord.
53:42SPEAKER- Once again, this morning,
53:43SPEAKERthe residents of the Linux channel
53:45SPEAKERhelped me build some obscure thing off of GitHub
53:47SPEAKERthat I couldn't quite get over the finish line myself.
53:49SPEAKERThere you go, and that's always fun.
53:52SPEAKER- But as always, we wanna thank
53:53SPEAKERour executive producer tier patrons,
53:55SPEAKERincluding Krista Bona, Andrew Slosky, #BunnyCrimes.
54:00SPEAKERI think Bunny Fiend has rebranded, but I'm not sure.
54:03SPEAKER- That is very fiendish.
54:05SPEAKER- Jacob Chappell, Joel Krauska, Twinkle Twinkie,
54:08SPEAKERDavid Allen, and James Kamik.
54:09SPEAKERThank you all so, so much.
54:10SPEAKERWe really appreciate it. - Yes, yes, thank you.
54:12SPEAKER- And thanks to all of our patrons.
54:13SPEAKERThis is the week that we remind everyone, also.
54:16SPEAKER- Oh, yeah.
54:17SPEAKER- That we turn Qs into As next week.
54:19SPEAKER- That's right, get 'em in.
54:20SPEAKER- If you're on the Patreon, if you're a patron,
54:23SPEAKERyou can go in the Discord to the Qs into As channel.
54:27SPEAKER- Qs, questions seeking answers.
54:29SPEAKER- Questions seeking answers, that's right.
54:31SPEAKERQuestions seeking answers channel,
54:32SPEAKERand post your question there, we'll see it.
54:36SPEAKERIf you're not, you can send an email to techpod@content.town.
54:39SPEAKERThat's techpod@content.town.
54:41SPEAKERAnd if you wanna find out how to support the show,
54:43SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/techpod.
54:45SPEAKERAgain, it's patreon.com/techpod.
54:49SPEAKER- I have to tell you, for being slightly delirious,
54:52SPEAKERthat was one of the tightest,
54:53SPEAKERhere's all of our socials and contact info
54:56SPEAKERand ways to support us pitches that I've ever heard you make.
54:59SPEAKER- Well, look, I usually try to put one at the beginning
55:01SPEAKERand one at the end so I don't hit 'em all at once,
55:02SPEAKERbut I was like, God, I gotta get all this stuff in here
55:05SPEAKERright now 'cause I'm gonna forget if I don't.
55:07SPEAKERSo yeah, that's it, that's the show this week.
55:08SPEAKERThank you to Kyle so much.
55:10SPEAKERMake sure you check out iFixit.
55:11SPEAKERIf you don't know about it already,
55:13SPEAKERit is an incredible resource for everyone
55:16SPEAKERwho has things that break.
55:17SPEAKERAnd as you and Kyle pointed out adroitly,
55:20SPEAKERentropy is the enemy of all of us.
55:23SPEAKERSo if we can fight entropy,
55:25SPEAKERthere's no better thing you can do with your life
55:27SPEAKERthan to fight entropy, I think.
55:27SPEAKER- We gotta stick together.
55:28SPEAKERThat's the only way we're gonna win.
55:30SPEAKER- Yeah, so check out iFixit.com.
55:33SPEAKERYou can find, we'll post Kyle's Twitter
55:35SPEAKERand iFixit Twitter in the show notes,
55:37SPEAKERso you can find them there.
55:38SPEAKERAnd we'll be back next week with some cues
55:41SPEAKERthat we will turn into A's.
55:43SPEAKERThanks for listening, everybody.
55:44SPEAKER(upbeat music)