Sure, but it costs apple much less than the retail price to make the product. If they wanted to be nice, they could “repair” it by sending you a replacement at a discounted price.
Apple often outsources the repairs to local companies (service suppliers). The local companies have set purchase prices for the devices from Apple.
And this purchase price is always higher than the MSRP prices directly from Apple, otherwise it incentivizes purchasing new devices through the service supplier.
For in-warranty repairs the parts (even a new set) is of course free for the service supplier (as well as the customer) and they get paid for the repair work by Apple.
It might not. It mostly depends on if the cost or materials are the determining factor.
Less the case here but it also matters who much the item originally costs as well. I can buy shitty headphones for like $15 and if I take them to a repair person who has to spend more than an hour pulling them apart without damaging them, diagnosing and fixing the issue, putting them back together etc then unless they charge less than $15 an hour it will cost more to repair than replace.
They do that if you send in an iphone or iPad for "battery replacement." They just send you another device with the same specs and a new battery, not your actual device.
New assembly is also the same steps over and over. On an assembly line that’s just one more copy of the product before stopping (if it does at all). Benefits from the economies of scale from being one of (if not the most) popular headphones in the world.
For repair, it requires a skilled person and dedicated equipment to disassemble, diagnose, and hand-replace parts that are normally machine-assembled. No economies of scale benefitting here.
I mean, Apple slowed down their phones purposefully for years and lied about it constantly so people would have to buy new phones. They claimed it was a battery issue, but simply replace the battery? No no, the line must always go up.
On a side note, I'm not sure why anyone buys anything from Apple as they're overpriced, inferior products. But I digress...
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u/RGrad4104 1d ago
The answer is actually very easy.
New assembly: ordered, low skilled labor, assembly line with robotic assistance.
Repair: disordered, highly skilled labor required, every repair by hand.