Apple Planning to Fight Proposed 'Right to Repair' Legislation

[MikeLW]

You ain’t forced to buy any products at all. You weren't forced to use Internet Explorer either but that was a problem wasn't it?
Apple monopolises the money in the smartphone market which puts them in an advantageous position due to buying power. It ain’t just about numbers of units sold, the govt are looking at what’s best for the consumer.

Apple by no stretch of the imagination monopolizes the smart phone market - you have many other choices. They do make a huge share of the profits, but I would say that's because they make fantastic products and have great marketing. It's not because they force you do do anything.

Much of what the government does is done to justify the government and make it bigger. All those good hearted people who want to "help" me can just stay out of my business, thank you very much!

And you were never forced to internet explorer. You always had the option to use something else, but the operating system which was made by Microsoft defaulted to a Microsoft browser which makes perfect sense. All those government lawsuits against Microsoft decades ago were ridiculous - especially in hindsight.

 

[H2SO4]

I don't accept the comparison. Should intel have to redesign their chips so you can repair them if they fail? Should Intel be prohibited from putting the video controller on the motherboard because you can't separately replace them? I don't want innovation stifled.

There's a big, practical difference in Car or a Refrigerator vs a smart phone. You can make a part in an appliance a little bigger and no one may notice, but start changing what's inside your phone to meet some arbitrary regulation and you have a very different device. Please keep the government out of my phone innards - I like it just the way it is and the bureaucracy isn't going to make it better. BTW, The car dealers won't sell you OEM chips so you can repair the motherboard of the entertainment system controller...they'll just sell you the new controller.

And thanks for the reminder... I need to get to the car dealer so they can fix the stuff some smaller shop screwed up.

Oh please. The car manufacturers have had to redesign things for decades to meet new regs. I can buy an entire ECU for my car yes but just to make your argument sound even more ridiculous, who one earth wants to buy an A10 processor on its own?
[doublepost=1487162549][/doublepost]

Apple by no stretch of the imagination monopolizes the smart phone market - you have many other choices. They do make a huge share of the profits, but I would say that's because they make fantastic products and have great marketing. It's not because they force you do do anything.

Much of what the government does is done to justify the government and make it bigger. All those good hearted people who want to "help" me can just stay out of my business, thank you very much!

And you were never forced to internet explorer. You always had the option to use something else, but the operating system which was made by Microsoft defaulted to a Microsoft browser which makes perfect sense. All those government lawsuits against Microsoft decades ago were ridiculous - especially in hindsight.

That is one of the most short sighted replies I have ever seen. Without those good hearted people you wouldn't have health and safety laws that try to prevent exploding batteries etc.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

iFixit laughs at your legislation.

Even if you're able to purchase replacement parts that doesn't mean that Apple is going to suddenly change the complexity of their design to make it easy for you to slide a case apart and swap things around. It's still going to be manufactured with incredibly tight tolerances and processes like heavy use of glue that lead to thinner and water resistant designs or soldering in RAM on motherboards. Repairability index will remain at 0 or 1 or whatever it is today.

Anyone want to buy a used iPhone under this world of little Johnny swapping screens and batteries in his bedroom after school?

 

[69Mustang]

Who is forced to buy/use Apple products? Don't like it then buy a product that is user serviceable. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the smartphone market and no one has to use iOS.

This proposed law, and laws like them, have absolutely nothing to do with making products user serviceable. How can a thread full of people read the article and totally miss what the content is actually about? Some of the yahoos I understand their confusion. But you?

Idiotic. This is about trying to force Apple to sell things they don't want to sell.

Tee hee. Idiotic is right. Not the proposed law; your comment. Apple has no problem selling OEM repair parts (or providing access to those parts being purchased). As long as you let them audit your finances, get a line of credit with them, and promote AppleCare you can buy to your hearts content. Also, this proposed law is not about Apple. It affects Apple but ain't about them. As many have said, it's just like the auto industry. Imagine if you had to take your car to Ford or an authorized dealer for repair and maintenance when your neighborhood mechanic could do just as good a job (or better) but they don't have access to OEM parts.

 

[kdarling]

This is just like the way Apple constantly fights to make it illegal to jailbreak your own phone.



Apple became Big Brother years ago.

 

[69Mustang]

iFixit laughs at your legislation.

Even if you're able to purchase replacement parts that doesn't mean that Apple is going to suddenly change the complexity of their design to make it easy for you to slide a case apart and swap things around. It's still going to be manufactured with incredibly tight tolerances and processes like heavy use of glue that lead to thinner and water resistant designs or soldering in RAM on motherboards. Repairability index will remain at 0 or 1 or whatever it is today.

Anyone want to buy a used iPhone under this world of little Johnny swapping screens and batteries in his bedroom after school?

For the love of Jeebus. Reading comprehension is at an all time low in this thread. This has nothing to do with Apple making phones easier to repair. How are so many people in this thread coming up with that conclusion? There is abso-freaking-lutely nothing in the OP that makes that idea even a remote possibility. Read for more than words. Read for understanding.

Apologies thisisnotmyname. I'm ranting on your post, but my rant is less about your post and more for all of the wrong headed misreading in this thread. Oh, and iFixit? Hate to throw water on your hot take, but they don't arbitrarily throw out low scores. In fact, the only iPhone to ever get a low score was the original iPhone. Just to drown your hot take completely, according to iFixit's scores, Apple has made the iPhone even easier to repair. Outside of the original iPhone's score of 2, the lowest repairability score for any iPhone is a 6 and every iPhone from the iP6 forward has received a score of 7.

 

[drewsof07]

This is ludicrous. Apple has a right to sell you a device and limit OEM parts for "home repairability". Why are so many people opposed to technological progress? Can you imagine where we would be if POLITICIANS dictated what repairable meant?

Using adhesives increase the durability and make products smaller and more compact. Why would you think screws, shock mounts, and a ribbon cable are more efficient then directly connecting memory to a board? Everything will be printed at the molecular level someday. Will the same people crying on here be demanding that Apple keep components large enough to be manipulated by pliers and screw drivers?

Absurd. If you want a computer you can repair at home with Craftsman tools, buy a Dell from 1999. No one is stopping you from living in the past.

Take two seconds to research. Right to repair is not about dictating manufacturing processes, it's about making sure someone outside the OEM can produce or acquire replacement parts during the product's usable life. With most Macs being classified as "legacy" within 5-7 years now, you can't even pay Apple to repair them and are left to the likes of questionable overseas eBay stores to scavenge parts. I would be more than happy with limiting access to these parts until after a reasonable period from product release, but consumers deserve options. We're not asking Apple to give us these parts for free. Parts would be manufactured to their spec by third party vendors and sold directly to repair shops or consumers. Tell me again why that would be so terrible?

 

[dilbert99]

buy a random battery, change it urself and let it explode in ur face and then cry like a baby and if u r in america, start a lawsuit? sorry but this is just one of many scenarios. how about touch id? what about casings? poor quality displays are already being used in many countries and i have seen how this can cripple/dead an apple device. u can argue its ur choice but how about the bad press apple gets from this if you originally thought "u got a genuine part?"

Talk about a strawman argument. What has having access to genuine Apple parts and service manual got to do with random batteries.

Poor quality displays? Again if you have access to genuine spare parts there is no issue.

I already get my car serviced by a non dealer garage which I trust. How is that any different? I have to trust that company more than I would have to trust a third party phone repair company. A car needs to be safer than a phone.

As for bad press that is no different to any other company out there.

 

[fischersd]

Honestly, the "right to repair" thing strikes me as a little silly. It seems a lot of the parts we want can be found.
We've seen the tolerances on the devices become so small, the percentage of us that can take these apart with any degree of success is pretty small. I think you're setting up a lot of ignorant consumers up for failure...many of which will think that maintenance manuals will by like the "for dummies" series. Heh....maybe there will be an iPhone repair for dummies book?

An interesting wrinkle in this (not in the US), but other areas of the world have some laws that force OEM's to replace devices that are out of warranty for manufacturer's defects - I see opening up the world of repairing these also enabling a whole group of people to defraud the OEM's. (eg. disconnect the part, plug it into a power source with much higher voltage and amperage and voila, you have a defective OEM part - put it back together and put in your claim). It doesn't matter if there's indications that I opened it as I have the "right to repair" and was investigating the problem. The two policies won't be able to co-exist in those regions...not without causing the OEMs a lot of grief.

 

[mdelvecchio]

Tim Cook hates Apple customers more than he hates the Mac.

But not as much as trolls here hate Apple.

seriously this faux outrage is childish. Apple builds devices to be small and awesome, not to be user serviceable. and i'm completely OK with that. do you expect circuitry component makers to make their stuff user serviceable? electron microscope makers? etc.

service shops are good enough for me.

 

[drewsof07]

But not as much as trolls here hate Apple.

seriously this faux outrage is childish. Apple builds devices to be small and awesome, not to be user serviceable. and i'm completely OK with that. do you expect circuitry component makers to make their stuff user serviceable? electron microscope makers? etc.

service shops are good enough for me.

This is also about the service shops... Who can't get replacement parts unless they meet Apple's ridiculous Service Provider requirements, and then can only get parts as long as Apple deem the product serviceable. The consumer has no choice but to buy a new one, why would we not support consumer-centric legislation that won't harm Apple?

 

[MikeLW]

Oh please. The car manufacturers have had to redesign things for decades to meet new regs. I can buy an entire ECU for my car yes but just to make your argument sound even more ridiculous, who one earth wants to buy an A10 processor on its own?
[doublepost=1487162549][/doublepost]

That is one of the most short sighted replies I have ever seen. Without those good hearted people you wouldn't have health and safety laws that try to prevent exploding batteries etc.

Yes, the government stopped the exploding battery problem before it happened...no, wait, they didn't. The free press reported the problem and Samsung (after screwing up a couple of times) dealt with it. The free market fixed it. I'm not saying that nothing the government does has value, but those that believe every time they don't like something or it doesn't seem fair (boo-hoo), that the government should just jump in and create new rules and laws to fix it. EVERY law/regulation that the government puts on the books makes us a little less free to live our lives the and engage in commerce the way we want to (remember all those years where the government stopped planes from falling out of the sky by prohibiting me from reading my Kindle on take off?) That's not to say that some regulations aren't absolutely necessary, but let's be incredibly selective and not trying to fix something that doesn't need fixing.

...and as far as innovation goes, the automative industry sucks. I don't want the heavy hand of government micromanaging businesses that are successful and forcing them to divert resources to deal with regulations instead of innovation (or profit for that matter - since I invest in these companies.)

 

[Agent007]

People like Tim Cook are so concerned with the ethics of Donald Trump but, meanwhile, they pull this ****.

 

[NT1440]

This is just like the way Apple constantly fights to make it illegal to jailbreak your own phone.

Sigh.....source?

Illegal, really?

 

[69Mustang]

But not as much as trolls here hate Apple.

seriously this faux outrage is childish. Apple builds devices to be small and awesome, not to be user serviceable. and i'm completely OK with that. do you expect circuitry component makers to make their stuff user serviceable? electron microscope makers? etc.

service shops are good enough for me.

You don't seem to understand what this proposed law is about. It's not about anything you said.

 

[trifid]

ELI5 (explain like I'm 5 years old)

Apple currently sells genuine orginal iphone batteries and screens to 'authorized' shops

Legislation would let independent shops and individuals to be able to purchase these same parts from Apple.

The end.

 

[Macaholic868]

I can't help but laugh at some of these posts complaining about politicians "forcing" Apple to sell things it doesn't want to sell. Repair guides and replacement parts are ALREADY available for sale from Apple. All this law does is to prevent Apple from only selling them to businesses that are a part of Apple's Authorized Service Provider program. Apple would have to open up the sales of these items to anybody who wants to buy them.

It's no different than what car companies are required to do. Anybody should have the option to take their Apple devices for repair to any business or individual who they believe can repair it. If you don't want to take a chance then you're free to continue to go to an Apple Authroized Service Provider or direct to Apple. Just like you can choose to take your car to an independently owned and operated repair shop versus getting raped over the coals at the nearest dealership (which might not be so near if you happen to live in a rural area).

The fact that there is any opposition to this by consumers what so ever speaks loudly as to why the middle class is disappearing. Too many people bend over and take whatever BS large corporations are selling without thinking about it.

If this law passes in all 50 states Apple will still make billions per quarter and Tim Cook will still be paid millions of dollars a year so opponents of this can relax.

 

[kdarling]

This is just like the way Apple constantly fights to make it illegal to jailbreak your own phone.

Sigh.....source?

Illegal, really?

You cannot be serious.

Apple has fought for years against the DMCA exemption allowing jailbreaking.

They use the same kind of weasel like scare tactic phrases, which they also spout when opposing any other lessening of their total control over devices they sold to people, from app stores to NFC. E.g.

"Apple's goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience. As we've said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably."

And yet, wait a second... opening up jailbreaking hasn't affected people who do not do so, one tiny bit.

Same goes for this law. It doesn't stop anyone from continuing to go to Apple stores or authorized repair centers if one is nearby. For a lot of people, that's not an option.

 

[NT1440]

You cannot be serious. Why is it that the biggest Apple fans are also the most ignorant of what Apple does? Oh wait, that's self explanatory.

Apple has fought for years against the DMCA exemption allowing jailbreaking.

Not one of those links provides what I've asked for. Where did Apple fight to make jailbreaking illegal? Voiding a warranty for jailbreaking (no matter how asinine that is) is not making it illegal.

Does anyone have a link to any court filings or documents where Apple has called for or supported jailbreaking being illegal. Insinuation from the likes of Gizmodo using those very weasel words you're complaining about to give the impression that Apple has campaigned to make jailbreaking illegal is not proof.

Where are the briefs, where are the court filings? Hell, where are the court cases? Being against a practice is not the same as fighting in the courts/lobbying to make that practice illegal.

 

[kdarling]

Does anyone have a link to any court filings or documents where Apple has called for or supported jailbreaking being illegal.

---
https://www.copyright.gov/1201/2008/responses/apple-inc-31.pdf

Apple petition to keep jailbreaking illegal under DMCA.

 

[NT1440]

View attachment 688689

---
https://www.copyright.gov/1201/2008/responses/apple-inc-31.pdf

Apple petition to keep jailbreaking illegal under DMCA.

Thank you, that is a worthy concrete example.

I'm just getting tired of the lazy "journalism" going on in the tech world these days where issues are conflated to further overarching narratives (if that makes sense).

 

[joy.757]

This is insane. I get that they want money. But, just NO.

 

[H2SO4]

Yes, the government stopped the exploding battery problem before it happened...no, wait, they didn't. The free press reported the problem and Samsung (after screwing up a couple of times) dealt with it. The free market fixed it. I'm not saying that nothing the government does has value, but those that believe every time they don't like something or it doesn't seem fair (boo-hoo), that the government should just jump in and create new rules and laws to fix it. EVERY law/regulation that the government puts on the books makes us a little less free to live our lives the and engage in commerce the way we want to (remember all those years where the government stopped planes from falling out of the sky by prohibiting me from reading my Kindle on take off?) That's not to say that some regulations aren't absolutely necessary, but let's be incredibly selective and not trying to fix something that doesn't need fixing.

...and as far as innovation goes, the automative industry sucks. I don't want the heavy hand of government micromanaging businesses that are successful and forcing them to divert resources to deal with regulations instead of innovation (or profit for that matter - since I invest in these companies.)

LOL, miss the point why don't you. I didn't say they stopped the battery exploding. I said that they TRY to stop things like this with measure they put in place.

 

[deyerseve69]

I don't think Apple forbade you from fixing your stuff yourself, that is if you can actually do it.

The proposed rule here is to force manufacturers, including Apple, to sell the components to anybody, not just their authorized service providers. I can understand any companies being wary of this. Imagine if random Chinese companies can get a hold off Apple's original parts easily.

 

[kdarling]

Thank you, that is a worthy concrete example.

I'm just getting tired of the lazy "journalism" going on in the tech world these days where issues are conflated to further overarching narratives (if that makes sense).

I totally understand and support you in that. No one dislikes lazy tech journalism more than me.