Slowly but surely, though, consumers and third parties outside of vendor-sanctioned circles have been pushing to change this through so-called “right to repair” laws. These pieces of proposed legislation take different forms—19 states introduced some form of right to repair legislation in 2018, up from 12 in 2017—but generally they attempt to require companies, whether they are in the tech sector or not, to make their service manuals, diagnostic tools, and parts available to consumers and repair shops—not just select suppliers.
It’s difficult to imagine a more convincing case for the notion that politics make strange bedfellows. Farmers, doctors, hospital administrators, hackers, and cellphone and tablet repair shops are aligned on one side of the right to repair argument, and opposite them are the biggest names in consumer technology, ag equipment and medical equipment. And given its prominence in the consumer technology repair space, iFixit.com has found itself at the forefront of the modern right to repair movement.
All repair information for mobile devices, computers, etc. ought to be publicly available and free for everyone to use, no exceptions. The behaviour of companies like Apple is deeply amoral, unethical, anti-consumer, and just generally scummy.
It’s important that the right to repair almost certainly will have the consequence of voiding one’s warranty should anyone other than Apple or an authorized repair person do it. Apple has a vested interest in making sure that an Apple consumer have the most ideal experience when using their product. For Apple, this means controlling the much of the process (Including repair) unlike the anything goes approach of their competitors.
To those that insist that Apple reverse this policy, it’s important that they realize that the superior customer service Apple offers after the sale will almost certainly suffer if not be completely mitigated as a byproduct from it as it would mean the domino affect of lesser returns… more shoddy repairs which lead to greater warranty claims which result in reduced profit which result in shoddy production etc etc etc. all of which turns Apple products into just another also-ran.
I would suggest that if you don’t like the policy, simply don’t buy Apple products rather than trying to mitigate the advantages that differentiate Apple and its products.
The above comment is Apple PR Certified™.
Ha, no kidding. Seriously, all anyone has to do is watch one of the many Louis Rossmann videos on youtube to see that Apple is terrible at repairs, and are constantly ripping people off. Like the video about a macbook that won’t turn on. Apple store will replace the motherboard, Louis will re-seat and fix up the keyboard connector (since the power button is part of the keyboard) and it powers on like a champ. 1200 bucks vs however much he charges to put it on his bench.
Don’t you know, when a big company says something, it MUST be true! Because PR intention is the same as effective action!
Thom Holwerda,
I try not to make wrong assumptions about a person, but it’s kind of irrational for a real consumer not to be able to share a single real criticism about a company. Sometimes you’ve got to wonder if the person is astroturfing, which would explain a lot!
haus,
This should be no different than cars, where the warranty must stay intact regardless of where you service your car as long as the 3rd party didn’t cause the damage. In a similar vein, it’s stupid to void warranty on hardware due to software mods, as long as they allow devices to be easily restored to factory defaults, then there’s no real issue, only fabrications they make up to justify voiding your warranty. 🙁
Let’s put “superior customer service” in quotes, because sometimes apple’s repair service uses less qualified technicians who are unwilling or unable to perform low level repairs and overcharge customers to replace the entire board instead. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that apple actively interferes with competing repair shops. So instead of being competitive by becoming better, they withhold information and parts from 3rd party shops in an attempt to make them worse.
In terms repair, I’ve got to agree with Thom 100%: “The behaviour of companies like Apple is deeply amoral, unethical, anti-consumer, and just generally scummy.”
Oh boo hoo, Apple will be just fine with consumer right to repair laws. If you have any specific concerns as a consumer, then say what those are. Otherwise simply opposing an owner’s rights to have their devices repaired independently comes off as pretty pathetic TBH.
Mature consumers should vote with their feet. How about that?
The iSheep buy that stuff and then moan that they got screwed over.
Do you really think it’s an Apple problem? Where is the service manual for the latest Samsung Galaxy?
Having device schematics information will certainly bring more competition into repair market. But third party services would still require components to perform repairs, If components are not available or device could not be fitted with some sort of replacement, schematics would do no good.
BlackV,
Of course, what makes it so bad today is that not only is apple refusing to provide parts, but they’re actually requesting the government to block shipments of things like compatible batteries to 3rd party repair shops through customs. They could work with the repair shops to ensure they can get genuine apple repair parts and official repair schematics (which apple could sell for a profit btw), that would be a good thing all around. But instead apple sends it’s lawyers out to completely kill off 3rd party repair services at supply lines, which is highly unethical. Right to repair should address all these things, hopefully legislators don’t go and screw it up though.
Hired to Fight Apple for Louis Rossmann’s Batteries
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygWXBmM0FD0