- cross-posted to:
- android@lemdro.id
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- android@lemdro.id
- technology@lemmy.ml
The Android phone maker says go ahead, fix your own phone.
The right-to-repair movement continues to gain steam as another big tech company shows its support for letting people fix their own broken devices.
Google endorsed an Oregon right-to-repair legislation Thursday calling it a “common sense repair bill” and saying it would be a “win for consumers.” This marks the first time the Android phone maker has officially backed any right-to-repair law.
The ability to repair a phone, for example, empowers people by saving money on devices while creating less waste,” said Steven Nickel, devices and services director of operations for Google, in a blog post Thursday. “It also critically supports sustainability in manufacturing. Repair must be easy enough for anyone to do, whether they are technicians or do-it-yourselfers.”
In the Oregon repair bill, manufacturers will be required to provide replacement parts, software, physical tools, documentation and schematics needed for repair to authorized repair providers or individuals. The legislation covers any digital electronics with a computer chip although cars, farm equipment, medical devices, solar power systems, and any heavy or industrial equipment that is not sold to consumers are exempt from the bill.
Google has made strides in making its Pixel phones easier to fix. The company enabled a Repair Mode for the phones last month allowing the protection of data on the device while it’s being serviced. There’s also a diagnostic feature that helps determine if your Pixel phone is working properly or not. That said, Google’s Pixel Watch is another story as the company said in October it will not provide parts to repair its smartwatch.
Apple jumped on the right-to-repair bandwagon back in October. The iPhone maker showed its support for a federal law to make it easier to repair its phones after years of being a staunch opponent.
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Makes sense because google certainly doesn’t support their own shit lol
It almost doesn’t even matter for Google products: I’ve had more Google products die due to lack of software support rather than any sort of hardware issue…
Their phones keep on updates for longer than any other androids. Crap thing is they use cheaper apu’s so I still don’t want one.
As a former Pixelbook user, I agree 100%. A firmware update crippled my touchscreen, and the touchscreens of quite a few other users, from the look of their support forum.
Rather than investigate and issue a fix (which they haven’t in years, also according to their support form), they literally told me to buy a new laptop. WTF?
Well, I sure did. I got a Framework. Now I can fix it whenever I want with ease, and with every part readily available, too!
Thanks, Google!
I remember back in /r/Pixel on Reddit that Google had a mid tier or higher customer service rep in the subreddit. Why? Because their regular customer service sucked so bad they needed someone in /r/Pixel to do damage control. If a person wasn’t in the subreddit, they’d basically be left twisting in the wind.
I had my OG Pixel XL get compromised and my Google account stolen. Asking to get it back was basically “Fill out this form and we might get back to you at some point. You won’t receive any communications from us except to tell you your account has been recovered. And there’s no way for you to talk to a real human.”
Oof.
🤔 What’s really going on? Very time I see a big company back something good. I get a funny feeling.
They have to because of the EU. So now they will get a good story out every time a state in the US “forces” them to do so.
Apple did the exact same thing a few months earlier.
I bet it’s sth like when apple came with their repair program…
My feelings exactly
Companies see the writing on the wall with all the right to repair legislation going around, so they’re trying to make themselves look good now instead of fighting it anymore. At least publicly.
Yeah. I have no doubt behind closed doors they’re still trying to
bribesorry I mean “lobby” the politicians to repeal right to repair, or in some way cripple the legislature
Enemy of my enemy is my friend
Android has always been easier to repair, apple is notoriously against repair.
Force policy to cut out a large portion of your competition’s revenue strategy (Apple authorized repair only)
I mean there have ever been Android phones with a back that came off and an easily replaceable battery. Apple NEVER did that.
That’s a Samsung S4 in the stock photo. Those things were like Lego, I used to have a few that I’d swap out parts to keep running. I changed out screens, charging ports, cameras. And you could swap batteries on the fly. Those were better times.
I used to have a few that I’d swap out parts to keep running
I still use a S3 as alarm clock and only had to replace one battery… used it as daily driver until ~2017 too.
"We’ll make our phones almost impossible to fix yourselves, much like cars that place the easily changeable battery under light fixtures and other metal pieces of the engine!
But please, by all means, fix your own phones!"
Your battery is still in the engine bay? Must be nice.
Google doesn’t really sell phones, this is just a cheap way to match Apple.
You don’t see them backing open access anywhere else. In fact, they’re trying to lock down all the client software to stymie ad blockers.
They made a big deal of being the first manufacturer to officially offer parts through ifixit, but a replacement kit for the internal display on the Pixel Fold is over $900 USD. It’s almost the same price as a brand new 512 GB Pixel 8 Pro, but that will have a warranty and is guaranteed to be waterproof, unlike a repaired phone.
Got any non-folding examples? I’m not surprised to hear a low volume folding screen is $$$.
I guess the pixel I’m currently typing on doesn’t exist.
They have a ~0,7% market share.
Still a lot of phones though.
Aren’t they like the only company that actually saw in increase in phones sold?
…match Apple? I think you’re confused.
Apple recently dropped their longstanding opposition against right to repair.
I think they saw the writing on the wall in the EU.
They absolutely have not. They have, however, pretended to do so on numerous occasions. It’s a fucking bamboozle every time.
When I see original OEM components available on Apple’s websites, and the option to download software to register/calibrate the new components, I’ll eat my fucking hat.
Until then, Apple can lick my balls.
E: turns out this person was correct, though not in the way they thought, but because Google is also doing a bamboozle.
Their components are still software locked. Regardless of which way you take, if you want to do it correctly, you gotta go through apple.
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Until they publish the schematics and drivers for device components for usage in making the device software last as long as possible, those are just empty words. Yeah, sure I can finally replace the broken camera sensor, as I should be able for years, but I must buy whole another phone if I want something slightly different in the OS image.
Problem is I imagine a lot of their hardware is under NDA so they’re unable to. I appreciate what they’re trying to do but a lot of hardware companies sadly won’t allow them to publish a lot of things. I do wish there was more open-source hardware (and I say that as a huge open-source advocate)
Companies like Fairphone would love to open their drivers so distros like PostmarketOS could add support that then mainline Linux can be ported. But they can’t somehow.
I guess Apple would have a much better time in that having their own design and being much bigger in influence.
We need regulations that prohibits such actions.
We already have patents to protect companies, they don’t need to keep their software and schematics secret.
You are allowed to unlock the bootloader and install a custom ROM though, so at least once my Pixel 6 Pro is out of support I can flash lineage or graphene onto my phone
That’s really basic and not even the minimum for actual long-term support. Remember those ROMs needs to hack together pices of binary blobs and drivers scattered around stock ROM and do many patches. Basically any new Android version is doing the work once again, that LineageOS and other projects automated. And after the end of official updates they are stuck with untouchable firmware package.
What should be done is adding the support to the upstream Linux kernel itself. Like AMD and Intel are doing on desktops, thanks to that we can have almost lifetime updates, multiple choices of OSes and have one image for all devices instead of doing seperate builds. Or at least provide documentation and drivers so the community can do it.
Don’t get me wrong it’s not perfect and I 100% agree with what you’re saying, but it is vastly better compared to some other OEMs (Samsung comes to mind) who uses shit like e-fuses to make sure your phone is never able to use a banking app again or the multiple companies that don’t let you unlock the bootloader at all.
Recently I read that Xiaomi new “HyperOS” won’t allow bootloader unlock at all unless you have max level of support on their community forums and even then only 3 devices a year🤦
It’s literally a policy in the EU for new devices so nothing newsworthy here.
It’s newsworthy because common sense doesn’t apply to the USA.
If R2R doesn’t pass in the USA, hardware is going to be region locked by software, like game consoles in the 90s and 00s. So only the EU will be able to use replacement hw.
It’s good news, even if i think , because we know how Google work, there’s a catch
This is good news but, I gave up my last phone after 3 years because they stopped security updates. My new phone was marginally faster and worse in many ways.
I once had a phone with a replaceable battery, headphone jack, IR blaster (so it was also my TV remote) and SD slot.
I feel after this we gained waterproof phones.
(although I only once dropped my phone in water and it was before waterproof phones and it still worked 48 hours later, so I don’t care that much for waterproof phones).
Anyway I feel we just got downhill after this phone, my current pixel has no: headphone jack, IR blaster, SD slot, replaceable battery, etc.
I wonder what would happen when a major smartphone maker would make a phone with all those features again.
Sony flagship phones (xperia 5 and xperia 1 lineup) still have a microsd slot and a headphone jack
What’s the opposite of slander, propaganda?
Well, slander tends to be fictitious, so its inverse would just be facts that paint someone in a positive light.
Sure ;)
Still waiting for the other shoe to drop with Google phones being accessible and user friendly
Looks like a Samsung S3 or S4 in the thumbnail :D
S4
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They know it will hurt Apple more than them.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The right-to-repair movement continues to gain steam as another big tech company shows its support for letting people fix their own broken devices.
Google endorsed an Oregon right-to-repair legislation Thursday calling it a “common sense repair bill” and saying it would be a “win for consumers.” This marks the first time the Android phone maker has officially backed any right-to-repair law.
The legislation covers any digital electronics with a computer chip although cars, farm equipment, medical devices, solar power systems, and any heavy or industrial equipment that is not sold to consumers are exempt from the bill.
The company enabled a Repair Mode for the phones last month allowing the protection of data on the device while it’s being serviced.
That said, Google’s Pixel Watch is another story as the company said in October it will not provide parts to repair its smartwatch.
The iPhone maker showed its support for a federal law to make it easier to repair its phones after years of being a staunch opponent.
The original article contains 291 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 42%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
