Apple turning the thumbscrews on Louis Rossman?

[gnavigator1007]

He had good reason to be worried.  His concern resulted in the preservation of his entire channel.  Last night I read a good bit about this Kilpatrick Townsend law firm he mentioned and their history representing Apple in IP matters.  Specifically Apple Computer Inc v. Psystar Corporation.  They managed to set some very dangerous legal precedent with that case that I could see being used against repair shops in the future.

[Fraser]

Brumby,

A very good precis of the situation IMHO 

If Apples, or any companies, Solicitor came knocking at my door, I feel sure I would also go into controlled panic mode.

My father once shared some good advice with me ..... Panic Slowly 

I hope everything pans out OK for Louis.

Fraser

[zapta]

Day 2.  The lawyers say "We want to talk" and he hears someone refer to his use of a schematic in one of his videos.  Then someone at the back calls out: "We're fans of your channel."

That's a good sign. Of course the lawyers are not fans of his repair channel. it's more likely that their guidelines from Apple are to dial down the intimidation level, for PR and 'messaging' reasons.

Now that a large community follows this issue, they will factor it as well into their considerations. This is how things work behind the scenes.

[imidis]

Apple has always been a control freak regarding their stuff, I'm pretty sure they aren't fans of his channel. Whatever their intentions are, I'm sure it's not good.

[rx8pilot]

Apple has always been a control freak regarding their stuff, I'm pretty sure they aren't fans of his channel. Whatever their intentions are, I'm sure it's not good.

'Control Freak' may be a strong term for a company that spends $billions on development and expect $billions in revenue. With that much money in play, they have a very big reason to constantly search for budding challenges before they get big enough to be a problem. That is business - not control freak.

I stumbled across this guys channel a few months ago and was immediately put off by his constant declaration of how stupid everyone is and how clever he is. If you can get past the rambling, you find a dark message. If you get past his dark message, you may learn something about repair. My wife's iPhone was damaged yesterday - screen shattered. I am going to take it directly to Apple and pay the premium because it will have a guaranteed outcome. I could fix it myself or try one of a million 'professionals', but I am completely swamped with work and just want it to be done and move on. According to Louis, that makes me an incompetent fool that is wasting money while feeding the criminal price premiums Apple charges.

[helius]

Obviously, the vendor-authorized technician is not the only one who can stand behind their work and give a guaranteed outcome.

[imidis]

Apple has always been a control freak regarding their stuff, I'm pretty sure they aren't fans of his channel. Whatever their intentions are, I'm sure it's not good.

'Control Freak' may be a strong term for a company that spends $billions on development and expect $billions in revenue. With that much money in play, they have a very big reason to constantly search for budding challenges before they get big enough to be a problem. That is business - not control freak.

I stumbled across this guys channel a few months ago and was immediately put off by his constant declaration of how stupid everyone is and how clever he is. If you can get past the rambling, you find a dark message. If you get past his dark message, you may learn something about repair. My wife's iPhone was damaged yesterday - screen shattered. I am going to take it directly to Apple and pay the premium because it will have a guaranteed outcome. I could fix it myself or try one of a million 'professionals', but I am completely swamped with work and just want it to be done and move on. According to Louis, that makes me an incompetent fool that is wasting money while feeding the criminal price premiums Apple charges.

https://channelprograms-a3t.apple.com/webGMACC/gotowelcome.do?method=gotoWelcome&affliationType=AAR&region=CAN&langCode=EN

https://www.apple.com/support/assets/docs/products/programs/aasp/aasp_application_au_2013.pdf

[ataradov]

https://www.apple.com/support/assets/docs/products/programs/aasp/aasp_application_au_2013.pdf

ESD protection measures  | Preferably located on ground floor with glass frontage.

[Richard Crowley]

Obviously, the vendor-authorized technician is not the only one who can stand behind their work and give a guaranteed outcome.

Right.  Apple's "guaranteed" is to simply refuse to repair and guarantee that your data is lost.

But perhaps that is all we can expect when they hire clueless Generation Z drones to staff their "Genius Bar"

[Fraser]

RX8Pilot,

Sorry to hear you do not enjoy the videos that Louis produces. With regard to your iPhone repair, I do not think you are being very fair to him. Louis does not do iPhone repairs, only data recovery. The reason ? They take as long as a laptop to repair yet the amount he can charge is almost half that of a laptop repair. Louis has produced video's detailing why the iPhone repair business is coming to the end of its natural life. He recommends that users go to Apple for the repair of their iPhone 6 as Apple have lowered their repair/replacement prices to the point that a 3rd party cannot compete.

I have not discovered the dark message that your mentioned, maybe i am not sensitive to such ? What I have found is a chap who repairs technology after having taught himself how to do it. A determined and focused young man who has managed to open a business in New York and employ staff. For that alone he has my respect. It is true that Louis does not suffer fools gladly and is plain speaking. His language can be a tad colourful but my brain just filters all that. I have worked in a male dominated technical environment so swearing is nothing new to me. Some of the motherboards that he is sent for repair are in a terrible state and Louis explains what has been done wrong to them by other tech's. Nothing wrong with that me thinks. I have met plenty of techs who I would not trust my electronics with. There are bad techs out there who can be the kiss of death to electronics. We used to nick name them KOD 

From my personal perspective I have learnt from the videos that Louis has produced. Not so much the motherboard repair videos, but more the business and life coaching. I have not discovered a 'dark side' to such with Louis.

Finally, Louis produces his videos without sponsorship and has explained why this is. He does not want donations, even though they have been offered, he does not want Patreon. He just wants to hear that he has helped others to repair equipment in a competent manner. Not the actions of a selfish person.

I created a post that summarised some of the good advice Louis has provided in his videos. I watched a lot of them !

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pearls-of-wisdom-from-louis-rossmann-worth-thinking-about/msg872701/#msg872701

So from my perspective, I would miss Louis and his videos. I hope he is around on You Tube for a long time. I do understand that he is not everyone's cup of tea though, but that is true of many of us. We like and dislike different characters.

Fraser

[ez24]

I created a post that summarised some of the good advice Louis has provided in his videos. I watched a lot of them !

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pearls-of-wisdom-from-louis-rossmann-worth-thinking-about/msg872701/#msg872701

Fraser

What surprises me you did not include ANY links to his videos ??   It would have been nice if for each topic in your pearls, you had a link to one of his videos to see what you are talking about.

PS Are you Louis ?

[Fraser]

No I am not Louis

That list of 'wisdom' was written from memory !

I watched a great many of the videos and learnt some important lessons. I thought that some of the information might be of interest to others so I created a condensed version for those without the many hours needed to watch the videos. I had not kept a log of which comments appeared in which videos so could not include that detail.

I had not set out intending to produce such a post, so sadly it only contains what I personally thought interesting and useful pearls of wisdom. Even without including URL links it took quite a while to write so I was not going to revisit the videos to identify content.

Sorry

Fraser

[retiredcaps]

PS Are you Louis ?

Louis's eevblog name is vze1lryy.

He has already commented and participated in this thread.  And yes, I believe he is the real Louis because his 1st post

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?u=102621

is very consistent with a video he did about finding shorts.  His first post is Dec 2014, way before any of this current stuff.

[vze1lryy]

My wife's iPhone was damaged yesterday - screen shattered. I am going to take it directly to Apple and pay the premium because it will have a guaranteed outcome. I could fix it myself or try one of a million 'professionals', but I am completely swamped with work and just want it to be done and move on. According to Louis, that makes me an incompetent fool that is wasting money while feeding the criminal price premiums Apple charges.

You made the right choice. I actually tell people to go to Apple for iPhone screen repair. I believe customers will receive the best service for the dollar that way.

On my own service website, if you scroll down to We no longer fix broken screens, you will read my reasoning why. My company is one of the few, if not the only in this business, that has been honest with the customer that the screens that have been available to third party service centers over the last year have been total garbage. I willingly and openly gave up that revenue stream so that my customers could receive the best service, from someone else.

Not only does my business website actively refer people to Apple for iPhone screen repairs, but I have received widespread criticism in the repair industry for condemning this shady middleman nonsense that was going on last year. Repair shops know that customers expect to pay high prices for screen repair when the phone is new. With the iPhone 6, Apple broke that cycle and offered $109 in-store repairs that many consumers were not aware of. Customers would walk into 3rd party repair stores expecting to pay $250 for a screen repair when the phone was still new. What I found atrocious is that rather than tell the customer that Apple does it for $109, many stores would just tell the customer "sure we'll fix it for you for $250" then send it to Apple to have them do it for them for $109, without telling the customer what their options were. Here's a , and a blog post quoting a post I made on a private repair forum two years ago.

I understand that I have controversial opinions and an odd way of presenting them. As a result, people will dislike me, and that's cool - there's a lot of people I dislike on the internet as well! All I ask is that you at least hate me for the things I actually said. :p

[vze1lryy]

In terms of the actual stuff up ahead, it comes down to benefit of the doubt. I know enough people who have been raided on technicalities(oh look there's an logo on the flex cable of the part you're putting in a device) and read about enough who were crushed by certain firms to know that this is not something to be excited about. These individuals who faced terrible consequences were far less public figures than me. They did far less of what can see perceived as "wrong" by fruity inc. than what I do. All those guys did was fix phones. I showed up in Albany repeatedly to spend time with senators and assemblypeople and explain in polite simple terms why everything the fruity inc lobbyists told them were bullshit. I put it 50/50 that I'd come to work on Friday and see a lock on the door, and if that were the case, I'd feel pretty dumb if the content on the channel were gone before I had a chance to say a word about it.

So it's less serious than that, great. I imagine, to some extent, the platform and audience I have is why I am dealing with nicey-nice versions of these requests rather than the business-as-usual wrath of satan people in our industry have come to accept. They're still making requests that, if I set a precedent of allowing to occur, would be the end of the content I create and the platform I create it from, without taking some very drastic and impractical measures. I alluded to a not fun legal mess up ahead.. not a specific lawsuit. and there still is a not fun legal mess up ahead.

Someday 50 years from now when I am old and onto something else entirely, I know we will look back and laugh at all this stupid shit I had to go through to be able to do something as mundane as teach computer circuit board repair. This is current sensing and RTC circuits and buck converters man. This is SUPPOSED to be BORING and I can't wait to live in a world where this is all boring as hell once again! No drama, no adventures to find manuals, no dumpster diving to find some chip that no one sells.

[ez24]

Louis can you tell me the brand and model of the headset you are using?  Your voice is sooo clear.

https://youtu.be/3I2wW5IJ-PA

Also can I suggest you put your Youtube channel link in your signature that goes at the bottom of the message where your name is.

thanks

[vze1lryy]

Louis can you tell me the brand and model of the headset you are using?  Your voice is sooo clear.

that headset is a shure WH20 which is a total pile of crap. In newer videos after that I have a shure SM35. In the newest videos I use a DPA4065. That is a beauty. Someone sent it to me for $45 shipping, all bent out of shape with no connector looking like a broken coat hanger. I spent half an hour bending it back into shape and put a connector on it and it is a dream. DPA makes some good stuff. It's incredibly expensive, but if you buy one broken because of some short in the really flimsy wire they use, it is worth every penny.

Also can I suggest you put your Youtube channel link in your signature that goes at the bottom of the message where your name is.

thanks

If I do that someone will say I am just posting here to shill my channel. :p

[Brumby]

I'm only guessing here ... but I suspect you might have a more constructive interaction with the lawyers than others may have experienced, due to your ability to not only see the wood from the trees, but to be able to differentiate the bark, branches and leaves.

If they have a point, I would expect you will not only be able to see it, but understand it well enough to discuss the implications intelligently and possibly work out a resolution that is satisfactory to both parties.  I have the feeling others in a similar boat would be squealing like a stuck pig, rendering them incapable or at least disadvantaged in being able to engage in objective discussion.


I just watched your video on the $25 iPhone 6 screen repair - and I am heartened by your comments about the difficulties faced by women in tech.  Spot on - but there's one point I would like to extend...

While it shouldn't be, sadly, the discrimination is real and perpetuated through another subtle process.  If a man had written that article, he would have been personally labelled an idiot or stooge.  The gender based reflection upon other male journalists would have been nil.  However, since it was a female, the discriminatory attitude shows through in there being a significant portion of the 'idiot' reaction not reflecting on the single person, but to women - and not just journalists.

In my experience of the best part of 3 decades in the IT industry, I have not seen any gender based differences between the capabilities of men and women - but a lot of differentiation which derives from aptitude and confidence (both male and female).  In some environments, however, opportunities do seem to have had a bias towards men.

I have worked with both capable and pathetic people - and there has been no correlation to gender.

[ez24]

If I do that someone will say I am just posting here to shill my channel. :p

Thanks on the advice. 
I think more people would like to know the link than those would not. 

thanks again

[retiredcaps]

Wow, that man can ramble!

Then you may want to check out the "Failed Normal" channel and have a look at the running times of those vids, and I promise you that he's talking non stop in all of them... 

Louis uses multimeter probes wrt to the above youtube channel.

[ez24]

Louis uses multimeter probes wrt to the above youtube channel.

Very funny - now I know what to do with my probes 

[jitter]

Apple has always been a control freak regarding their stuff, I'm pretty sure they aren't fans of his channel. Whatever their intentions are, I'm sure it's not good.

'Control Freak' may be a strong term for a company that spends $billions on development and expect $billions in revenue. With that much money in play, they have a very big reason to constantly search for budding challenges before they get big enough to be a problem. That is business - not control freak.

I stumbled across this guys channel a few months ago and was immediately put off by his constant declaration of how stupid everyone is and how clever he is. If you can get past the rambling, you find a dark message. If you get past his dark message, you may learn something about repair.

Then I guess you have a different understanding of Louis's messages than I. IMHO, here's someone who is far more honest than the "average" person. How do I know that? Well, I consider myself "average" and I'm aware of the fact that there are many things Louis says that I wouldn't share.

Do I agree with him that lots of techs don't have it in them to properly repair electronics? Definitely yes because I see it at work every day. Does it make me feel better because I can? Not at all, because it's actually a frustrating situation to be in that might not end well in the long run (loosing customers, etc.).

I would agree with you that Louis has a dark side, he's open about that in several videos (the "A word on..." and similar videos). And maybe that's his way of dealing with it.
One such video that I find especially worth mentioning is this one:

My wife's iPhone was damaged yesterday - screen shattered. I am going to take it directly to Apple and pay the premium because it will have a guaranteed outcome. I could fix it myself or try one of a million 'professionals', but I am completely swamped with work and just want it to be done and move on. According to Louis, that makes me an incompetent fool that is wasting money while feeding the criminal price premiums Apple charges.

As you have understood by now, going to Apple with this repair was the recommended choice. And that's mainly what Louis is on about: CHOICE. He wants people to have a choice who does an out of warranty repair, it shouldn't only be Apple allowed/able to do that at a far higher rate.

Recently I saw this video on the Tom Scott channel, and I was wondering if things can really become this bad:

[Fraser]

I now see what people mean by the 'dark side'. It was not what I thought. I thought it meant he had a nasty side to him. Not so. I was aware that Louis was bullied and has had a very difficult life in some areas. I am very sorry to hear about his mum and school life. As I already thought, Louis is a good guy who has fought his way to where he is today with honest hard work. His video's are intended to help others without wanting a reward for his efforts.
A GOOD MAN

[nctnico]

My father once shared some good advice with me ..... Panic Slowly 

And don't say anything, get everything in writing and get a lawyer yourself!

[Macbeth]

Louis uses multimeter probes wrt to the above youtube channel.

Very funny - now I know what to do with my probes 

PMSL. I was wondering what this dark side of Louis is. Now I know - Voodoo witchcraft!