Louis Rossmann is an independent service technician in New York City who has repaired Apple products for years.
In this video, Rossman passionately explains how he is able to effect repairs that Apple refuses to do – notably, he can fix a common faulty sensor problem with $2 worth of parts, a repair that Apple charges $750 for (Rossman charges less than half of that, and in cheaper markets, you can get it done for as little as $75).
The laptop Rossman is fixing has a retail value of $650, meaning that Apple’s repair pricing effectively turns an otherwise perfectly good machine into ewaste. Rossman doesn’t think Apple has an obligation to fix these older machines in an economical way, but he is furious that Apple has gone to lengths to prevent him from effecting these repairs – Apple has withdrawn many of the crucial diagnostic tools that independent service techs have relied on, and they’ve also managed to get third-party diagnostic tools removed by making claims under laws like the DMCA.
Rossman uses this as a jumping off point to talk about repairs to a wide range of Apple products, including phones, and demonstrates, live, how to do them; his Youtube description includes SKUs for the tools and parts needed to do your own repairs.
Rossman speaks passionately in favor of the state-level Right to Repair bills that would safeguard all types of independent service and repair, from cars to laptops to phones. 3-4% of the US GDP comes from repair and repair jobs are good, local, middle-class jobs: recycling a ton of ewaste creates 15 jobs, but repairing it creates 200.
