Talk:Apple's anti-repair and anti-refurbishment practices
Latest comment: Yesterday at 19:05 by MrTuttle in topic Question
Building this article up
Our article on Apple is EXTREMELY disorganized, so this is part of a cleanup effort to reorganize the page by grouping incidents together since a lot of them are under the same banner as contributing to e-waste. I have already taken a few notes of what to add here from the existing article, but I will be adding extra information to here as well. Do at least try to give this the same amount of respect that a theme article gets, since this feels like it could be in the same boat. JamesTDG (talk) 14:34, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- I wonder whether this might be better reframed - as the practices that lead to e-waste are often anti-consumer, we should be framing them from an anti-consumer perspective rather than an environmental one. maybe 'Apple's anti-repair and anti-refurbishment practices', or something similar? Keith (talk) 15:58, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
- Its focus from the start has been from a consumer perspective, but it was just difficult coming up with a good name for the article lol JamesTDG (talk) 08:32, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
Question
I am unable to see how "Blocking 3rd-party apps" falls under anti-repair and anti-refurbishment (if we are talking about general Jailbreaking/Cydia or alternative app stores). I feel like it should stay on the main Apple article. Mr Pollo (talk) 16:25, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- Agree. The original title of this page was 'apple's e-waste [something]', but I don't think it would have fit there either. Keith (talk) 16:27, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- Well, 3rd-party apps include diagnostic tools as well... JamesTDG (talk) 16:29, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- To my knowledge, repair shops use external devices to diagnose iPhones, like here. Correct me if i'm wrong though, as I really know of that one example. Mr Pollo (talk) 16:32, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
- External hardware can be a little costly for people though, it's generally why I use Homebrewed diagnostic software for my jailbroken hardware. Additionally, the diagnostic software that is being distributed by Apple is likely only going to work on specific versions of iPhone, so someone trying to fix an iPhone 6 that has a bunch of delisted games on it could be SOL JamesTDG (talk) 02:13, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- True, though regarding the iPhone 6, (while being a good phone besides bendgate) it hasn’t been supported through software updates for 6 years. Granted with my experience delisted apps can be redownloaded through the App Store account page, though if your device is already jail broken, you can just sideload the IPAs (if the device isn’t jailbroken, sideloadly can work also). I guess it would depend on the region if they still support 3G and 2G cell signals, but not many people in North America use iPhones older than the 11, with that number apparently increasing with the 17. The diagnostic feature is for iPhones 12 and up, so maybe we can make a case for the 11 lineup as it’s still supported in iOS 26, but I would like to hear what other users think about this topic as well. Mr Pollo (talk) 13:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- You can only redownload apps, not download new ones, and only on devices where Apple still hasn't borked the App Store entirely yet. Moreover, you need to figure out how to enter the multifactor codes on Apple IDs on devices that don't know how to handle them.
- Sideloading IPAs only works if you have archived IPAs licensed to your account, which is not within what a normal user can do.
- I don't think whatever possibilities are opened by Jailbreaking can be considered relevant for the purposes of the discussion since it's not something Apple officially allows, nor is it something that can be done on all devices.
- I can still launch any software I want on my dad's Atari ST. MS Office 97 with Clippy still installs on a fresh copy of Windows 95. That should be our standard.
- I'll try to get a draft for the relevant sections into the page, then you guys can see what you think and edit or discard as you see fit. MrTuttle (talk) 19:05, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
- True, though regarding the iPhone 6, (while being a good phone besides bendgate) it hasn’t been supported through software updates for 6 years. Granted with my experience delisted apps can be redownloaded through the App Store account page, though if your device is already jail broken, you can just sideload the IPAs (if the device isn’t jailbroken, sideloadly can work also). I guess it would depend on the region if they still support 3G and 2G cell signals, but not many people in North America use iPhones older than the 11, with that number apparently increasing with the 17. The diagnostic feature is for iPhones 12 and up, so maybe we can make a case for the 11 lineup as it’s still supported in iOS 26, but I would like to hear what other users think about this topic as well. Mr Pollo (talk) 13:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- External hardware can be a little costly for people though, it's generally why I use Homebrewed diagnostic software for my jailbroken hardware. Additionally, the diagnostic software that is being distributed by Apple is likely only going to work on specific versions of iPhone, so someone trying to fix an iPhone 6 that has a bunch of delisted games on it could be SOL JamesTDG (talk) 02:13, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- To my knowledge, repair shops use external devices to diagnose iPhones, like here. Correct me if i'm wrong though, as I really know of that one example. Mr Pollo (talk) 16:32, 12 September 2025 (UTC)