Kobo wants to extend the life of its latest generation of e-readers. The Clara BW, Clara Color and Libra Color will last a long time with a new initiative by Rakuten. Rakuten Kobo is partnering with iFixit, the leader in the technology repairability space, making it easy for customers to fix their e-readers and replace common components. A series of repair kits will be available in the next month or two. Customers will be able to replace their batteries and other standard components. The company has just released a dedicated page for the repair kits, and more information will be
The partnership between Kobo and iFixit means the iFixit will provide official repair kits to fix the most common components like batteries, for newly produced readers (Libra Colour, Clara Colour and Clara BW,)
For the moment the official page is almost empty, until the products are out.
You know, I was thinking the same thing. It’s always iFixit: Motorola, Nokia, and now Kobo. But I don’t see how a company with a mission like iFixit can turn into bad guy (enshittify?). Am I too optimistic?
Just looked it up and iFixit is not publicly traded so the potential for enshitification is much lower, but still possible. If iFixit goes public I will lose all faith in them.
Web bloat, ads and trackers is an example of inaccessibility that I can think of for the treasure trove that is iFixit especially since they started accepting full guides by external contributors (which means also guides that could have ended up on a more accessible website). Videos should be backed up and not simply embedded youtube that can have georestriction or be down for any reason. We should have the guides distributed like we would wikipedia…in general, they/we can do better.
My other gripe with iFixit is their sponsor aspect, pretty much any big company outside of Apple has a big fat logo on their website, as an Ally to repair. It’s cheap PR while they continue to produce massive amounts of ewaste. Why promote them indefinitely for a single collaboration if they don’t apply those principles to the remaining 99% of their catalogs?
But I still read their blog (via RSS) and use and suggest their guides, contributing when I can. They have been and still are a big catalyst for Right to Repair.
You know, I was thinking the same thing. It’s always iFixit: Motorola, Nokia, and now Kobo. But I don’t see how a company with a mission like iFixit can turn into bad guy (enshittify?). Am I too optimistic?
Just looked it up and iFixit is not publicly traded so the potential for enshitification is much lower, but still possible. If iFixit goes public I will lose all faith in them.
Web bloat, ads and trackers is an example of inaccessibility that I can think of for the treasure trove that is iFixit especially since they started accepting full guides by external contributors (which means also guides that could have ended up on a more accessible website). Videos should be backed up and not simply embedded youtube that can have georestriction or be down for any reason. We should have the guides distributed like we would wikipedia…in general, they/we can do better.
My other gripe with iFixit is their sponsor aspect, pretty much any big company outside of Apple has a big fat logo on their website, as an Ally to repair. It’s cheap PR while they continue to produce massive amounts of ewaste. Why promote them indefinitely for a single collaboration if they don’t apply those principles to the remaining 99% of their catalogs?
But I still read their blog (via RSS) and use and suggest their guides, contributing when I can. They have been and still are a big catalyst for Right to Repair.
Money corrupts.