California, the home to many of tech’s biggest companies and the nation’s most populous state, is pushing ahead with a right-to-repair bill for consumer electronics and appliances. After unanimous votes in the state Assembly and Senate, the bill passed yesterday is expected to move through a concurrence vote and be signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.
Excellent news from California, and I’d like to congratulate everyone involved in the effort getting this passed. Much like consumer protection laws from the EU, such laws from California also have a tendency to benefit consumers far beyond the borders of the original jurisdiction.
Thom Holwerda,
I glad to see some representatives taking the issues seriously. However I do wonder how effective it will be. If the industry finds ways to follow the letter of the law while making repairs extremely expensive and restrictive.
Here’s a snazzy labs video comparing cheap unrestricted ifixit repairs versus apple’s process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1MOHS48jRY
I don’t know if anything in california’s law will address this. but apple doesn’t allow consumers or repair shops to simply stock up on parts so that they can perform same day fixes. They have to order parts from apple for a specific serial number and when the repair is complete they have to call up apple, be on hold for 20 minutes, verify the serial numbers in order to unlock the DRM that’s blocking the repaired part from working. The entire process is in the video. And as others have shown apple’s DRM blocks consumers and repair shops from performing repairs with authentic & working donor parts/stock. Furthermore many parts aren’t available individually and apple forces repair shops to buy & replace things that aren’t even broken.
You can bet this totally cumbersome process was invented by apple to say they comply with “right to repair” while ensuring that it’s not remotely competitive. Rather than making their own service competitive, apple executives thought this would be better so that nobody else is competitive.
So with this in mind:
1. I hope no other manufacturers start copying apple’s repair model, although I’m kind of worried that they will.
2. I hope some of these laws will do something about anti-repair agendas.