They also purposely build their devices in such a way that they often can't be economically repaired, necessitating a repurchase. Check out Louis Rossman on YouTube, he owns a repair shop and rants about it all the time.

l'd love to know more vendors who support their devices for longer than 7 years.

Fairphone

100% agreed. Repair or replacement to be honest makes no difference for me. Having repaired phones, tablets, etc. in retail for years (both OEM certified for Apple, Samsung, LG, etc. and third party) there is often no way to properly repair things like a device frame which can prevent a good screen from being installed correctly.

The fact they don't have that as an option at all is a major issue.

They are, but your average person thinks of the two entirely separate.

Many people feel a refurbished device is inherently messed up and they don't want to accept a refurbished unit as a replacement for their USED and DAMAGED device. They want the one thing repaired in store and their same device back. No matter what. Even when that's simply not reasonable for practical.

I've done phone, tablet, and computer repair for over 15 years now, both OEM certified (including Apple) and entirely third party. For some people the distinction between getting their same watch back with a new screen and a refurbished replacement is massive. Even though that refurb replacement likely was a small repair as well, just something not really field repairable.

For companies like Apple, some repairs they don't do in the field only because of the time it would take. Or the part they send for those in a retail location is a full assembly instead of just what needs to be fixed.

Button not working on your phone? For many companies, they aren't going to strip that phone down and replace the button ribbon, even though that is a separate part. Those ribbon connections are often routed under the battery and around the frame. It would take an hour to disassemble and make that repair. Not feasible for a retail repair environment. If they repair it at all, they would instead just replace the entire housing with many of those small components already installed, which is a much more expensive part, but faster. In most cases though the manufacturers would instead just replace the device for time consuming repairs like that, and the device would then be refurbished at a warehouse where they can take the time for an in depth repair like that.

Thank you for helping with a drill down on that comment, instead of making fun of the commenter. You are lawful neutral. Keep up the good work.

think the difference is that Apple products can NOT be repaired

There, fixed it for you.

I recommend that you watch Louis Rossmann on YouTube. He regularly presents how Apple prohibit repairs by third parties either by adding software locks to simple parts, prohibiting parts contractors from selling spare parts, donating to anti-repair lobbying group among many other practices.

Migrating to Apple because Google didn't repair a product is a very weird move. Both of those companies are to be blamed, but Apple much more in my instances.

It’s not the same situation though. Pixel watches are unrepairable even by Google.