In a historic about-face, Apple publicly supports right-to-repair bill
In a historic about-face, Apple publicly supports right-to-repair bill
The iPhone maker now says repair access "is good for consumers’ budgets and good for the environment."
I wonder if that means there's a loophole in the bill.
The bill requires that manufacturers of electronics and appliances make parts, repair tools, and documentation available to the general public, for devices first sold on or after July 1, 2021. For devices costing between $50 and $99.99, manufacturers must provide repair access for at least three years after the product is no longer manufactured; for those costing more than $100, that number rises to seven years. In its letter, Apple lists a few bill provisions that were crucial for the company’s support, including language that clearly states manufacturers only have to offer the public the same parts, tools, and manuals available to authorized repair partners, and the bill’s exclusive focus on newer devices.
The support is equal to cutting the teeth off the bill.
- all parts for repair have to be through apple
- all repairs need to be done in based on official channel (official software probably because that is "authorized")
- the bill only applies to new models, and only for the support period of 3 years.
Or some garbage like that that I am missing. The same thing was done when we didn't want isps to control the net and coined the term "net neutrality" then the isps rebranded it to mean isp controls if you are neutral on the net... Sigh.
They support this because they are already doing this, any other things would make them change it up. It is better than nothing though, and other manufacturers will be playing catch up (which Apple won’t mind either).
Hard to say. The bill is neutral on the question of vendor-locked parts, it only says that the company has to make the real parts available to product owners as they would make them available to authorized repair centers.
I mean, it would be nice to mandate that the vendor can't implement technology to prevent the installation of third-party clone parts, but I don't know how you would structure that, legally.
So nothing preventing them from locking away the “calibration” tools like they do already?
From the California Legislature's document site:
This bill would enact the Right to Repair Act. The bill would require, except as specified and regardless of whether any express warranty is made, the manufacturer of an above-described electronic or appliance product, in the above-described circumstances, and in those same circumstances but sold to others outside of direct retail sales, to make available, on fair and reasonable terms, to product owners, service and repair facilities, and service dealers, the means, as described, to effect the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of the product, as provided. The bill would also require a service and repair facility or service dealer that is not an authorized repair provider, as defined, of a manufacturer to provide a written notice of that fact to any customer seeking repair of an electronic or appliance product before the repair facility or service dealer repairs the product, and to disclose if it uses replacement parts that are used or from a supplier that is not the manufacturer.
SB 244 has been around since the start of this year, at least officially.
If anyone is interested in seeing how legislation changes over time, I implore you to look at this service; I would go as far as to say that educational instruction would be aided by directing students here.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB244
There is a lot of content in here but becoming accustomed to reading the text of legislation allows you to be more independent from mass media.