Motherboard:
In recent weeks, an Apple representative and a lobbyist for CompTIA, a trade organization that represents big tech companies, have been privately meeting with legislators in California to encourage them to kill legislation that would make it easier for consumers to repair their electronics, Motherboard has learned.
According to two sources in the California State Assembly, the lobbyists have met with members of the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, which is set to hold a hearing on the bill Tuesday afternoon. The lobbyists brought an iPhone to the meetings and showed lawmakers and their legislative aides the internal components of the phone. The lobbyists said that if improperly disassembled, consumers who are trying to fix their own iPhone could hurt themselves by puncturing the lithium-ion battery,
Apple is on the wrong side of this issue and it makes them seem anti-consumer.
UPDATE: The Right to Repair Bill has been pulled and Motherboard has updated its story with a statement from the bill’s sponsor.
I mean, technically true.
But the odds don’t seem high enough to matter.
(Equally, I don’t trust CA legislators to write a law to “make it easier to repair” that won’t be awful, damaging nonsense.
Because they’re incompetent idiots, like all legislators.)
Easy to repair for the average consumer means more unnecessary trade-offs, more cost and less innovation.
I mean… puncturing these batteries can be very dangerous.
I disagree that Apple is on the wrong side of this. There are so few user serviceable parts on modern hardware because components are integrated so tightly now. I would never want to try and repair and iPhone and I worked as an Apple Authorized Technician 20 years ago. It’s a fool’s errand for most people to try and repair most modern electronics and comparisons to things like car repair is a totally false equivalency.
You are playing up the stereotype to hyper levels there. California’s legislature has its faults, but they have done a great job of ridding us of the damage done to this State by republican administrations before Jerry Brown took over for his latest terms of office. Once the democrats were in control, we got rid of our massive debt and have been running a surplus for several years now. They, like all politicians, are vulnerable to this kind of nonsense like Apple’s overblown (though not without some merit) claims. But they are definitely doing a lot of good for the state now and will continue to do more and better things as long as the trickle down, all regulations are bad, fundamentalists are kept out of office in large numbers.
When I say “not without merit” I talk with a bit of experience. I was disassembling a 2015 MacBook Pro this past weekend that was subjected to a coffee deluge through the keyboard. I got it stripped down to the point of removing the touchpad, but at that point you have to remove the batteries. I was following iFixit’s video instructions, but turns out I had not gotten the super duper glue remover from iFixit, or the hot pads that soften the glue. And iFixit, not some lobbyist, warned that it is easy to puncture the batteries if you don’t remove them correctly that could lead to injury.
Now I do understand that iPhone batteries are not the same. But the concern about puncturing batteries is real. And you can bet, just like if they make an idiot-proof battery remover, someone will come up with a better idiot to puncture the thing.
Eh. In theory, I’m all for right to repair. I grew up with a dad who’d take stuff apart, fix it and make it work. But those things were nothing like today’s electronics. I’m not sure you can make an iPhone or any other modern smartphone that is as packed full of stuff as they are and that’s truly easy to repair by someone without the right tools and some practice. And, well, it’s mostly chips. What’s really to repair aside from the screen and the battery?
Now… I’d like to see them stop the proprietary fasteners, etc. And I think if lawmakers want to pass right to repair laws they also need to put the risk of that repair on the person doing it. No suing Apple if you DO puncture the battery and hurt yourself, etc. Right to repair means also taking responsibility for the process and the results.
Finally, I think companies shouldn’t be on the hook for fixing a botched repair job. If someone wants to try replacing the battery themselves, great but if they break something or damage other parts of the phone the manufacturer shouldn’t then be on the hook to fix their screwup.
Not really. If you want to DIY then fine (I have), but Apple shouldn’t be forced to help you or design for you to do so.
I agree with this completely. Trying to repair most modern hardware is foolhardy, but the biggest realistic risk is a cut to the hand or dead hardware… and the dead hardware is a lot more likely.
Apple’s argument sounds condescending. I wish they’d gone into this with something a bit more pertinent.
We already have a right to repair—or at least, a right to try to repair. Doesn’t mean repairs will be easy. Doesn’t mean we’ll be competent to perform such repairs. But no legislation can change that.
What people are actually looking for is to impose obligations on manufacturers: Stock repair parts beyond the time it’s profitable to do so. Change the way devices are designed and manufactured so they’re easier to repair (ignoring the tradeoffs in device cost, size, etc. this entails). Honor warranties even after consumers or third parties have repaired, attempted to repair, or replaced parts.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people look at the title of the legislation and think, yeah, that sounds good, who wouldn’t want the right to repair? Who would want children left behind? They don’t think about the tradeoffs and costs involved, or whether the legislation is even likely to meet its stated goals.
And harder-to-repair means more discarded electronic waste in landfills.
That’s the choice of each individual. It’s not Apple’s fault that someone won’t recycle their electronics.
Of course. But while Apple itself is professing some sort of concern for consumer safety, they’re also simultaneously generating more potentially toxic trash.
THEY aren’t generating more trash. They’re making products.
We need to stop blaming companies and technology for our choices. It’s a thing that’s been going on ever since tech became a part of our lives and it strips people of both agency and responsibility.
“Oh, I just can’t put my phone down! Tech companies design it so it’s adddddiiiccctiveeeee…” or “I don’t need this old phone so I’m going to toss it in the trash and not recycle”. Both are BS. Apple in particular gives you an easy way to recycle their electronics if you’re at all close to an Apple store. If someone is too damn lazy to do that it’s on that person, not Apple.
Whether they (or you) acknowledge it or not, companies that manufacture anything are participants in an ecosystem that requires more forethought on everyone’s part than “Oh, it’s someone else’s problem now. The taxpayers will clean that up.”
Especially after decades of such “corporate citizens” having helped erode the oversight that might have dealt with consequences to a better degree.