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Re:Apple Sued an iPhone Repair Shop Owner in Norway and Lost by eesmith on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:40PM (#16833267)
Actions like fighting right-to-repair bills in many states.

While you may have the right to do that yourself, they don't want you to have the right to hire someone else to do it for you.

They also don't want you to have the right to get those parts for your iPhone.

Apple goes after producers and technicians, and not so much end-users. For one, I think end-users have rights, like the first-sale doctrine, which makes it harder for Apple to do anything to you other than terminate your warranty coverage.

Though I think they really would have preferred if they could sue you for jailbreaking an iPhone - they lost that court case.

Re:Apple Sued an iPhone Repair Shop Owner in Norway and Lost by snowwrestler on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:51PM (#16833352)
I agree with all that. I wonder though... how is it that I can buy parts from IFixIt? I'm honestly asking--I read the linked story about Norway and I don't see how what iFixIt does is different... except that they don't do the repairs themselves. But it was the parts shipment that Apple objected to.

I think the legality of jailbreaking was actually decided by the Library of Congress DMCA exception process.

Re:Apple Sued an iPhone Repair Shop Owner in Norway and Lost by eesmith on Friday April 13, 2018 @04:21PM (#16833586)
You are right, it was not a court case but a LoC exemption. Thanks for correcting my error!

iFixit was part of that effort. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8q89wb/how-to-fix... describes more about the company's history. I found it interesting.

https://es.ifixit.com/Answers/View/121003/The+replacement+ba... says (concerning a battery)

> The iPhone 4 Battery we sell is made to the same specifications as an Apple OEM part, but cannot be classified as 'OEM' because they are not made by Apple. Apple doesn't like to sell their OEM parts to anyone, so they are extremely hard to find. Our parts are brand new, fully tested, and made to the same quality as Apple OEM parts. They also come with a 6-month warranty."

Re:Apple Sued an iPhone Repair Shop Owner in Norway and Lost by wuliwong on Friday April 13, 2018 @05:13PM (#16833954)
I'm just hearing about this "right to repair" thing. It sounds from this article that the "right to repair" also includes forcing Apple to sell their parts to be used by anyone for repair. If that is the case, I think it is going to far. I don't think Apple should be forced to sell their parts to anyone. But I do believe that anyone should be able to repair any item they own or pay anyone else to do it.
Re:Apple Sued an iPhone Repair Shop Owner in Norway and Lost by eesmith on Saturday April 14, 2018 @02:23AM (#16836178)
When you buy something, you do have pretty broad rights to repair it.

The problem is, they are becoming less and less effective.

If you have no documentation or repair manuals, then it's harder to fix. An authorized repair site might know what error code 59276 means, but do you?

Apple famously started using a pentalobe screw, seemingly for the goal of making it harder for people who aren't at authorized service centers to carry out repairs. If a company uses non-standard parts when standard parts would work, this makes it harder for you to repair your own items.

In the pentalobe case, third-party vendors sprang up to sell the specialized screwdrivers, so it became less of a barrier. But imagine if the new screw were covered under patent that prevented substitutions .. and only authorized repair centers could buy the correct screwdriver.

Companies are using their rights under other laws to make it harder for you do to your own repairs. For example, farmers are turning to foreign hackers because farm equipment companies use the DMCA to prevent farmers from using anything other than authorized repair technicians from fixing the equipment. This equipment is increasingly reliant on DMCA-protectable software.

As you saw in this case in Norway, Apple wants to use its trademark power to prevent people from buying parts which would otherwise be legal

Are there any requirements would you force upon Apple in order to ensure that people have a reasonable ability "to repair any item they own or pay anyone else to do it?"

Make not mistake - it's also well-established law that the government can force companies to sell to people they might not otherwise want to sell to.