If Apple was geniune, they would do this while lobbying for right to repair legislation.
Genuine question, do you honestly not know that Apple has provided their own recommendations for RTR laws and modifications to the current proposals or are you making some other point by saying that?
Apple and its lobbyists aren't opposed to "Right to Repair" legislation, they're opposed to the currently proposed legislation because it requires them to make concessions to the process without any kind of guidance or oversight of the repairs made using the parts that they would be forced to provide. The link shows that, even prior to the Right to Repair bills proposed in most states, Apple was already developing a framework, internally, to find a way to allow third-party repair centers to repair their products while also maintaining some level of quality control. Unsurprisingly, this is exactly the announcement that was made today.
Unfortunately, I can't find the link that I was actually looking for because any search for the info I'm looking for is immediately drowned out by the Vice article mentioned in the post I just linked or some blogspam that just links to it. Suffice it to say, if they were opposed to third parties repairing their products, they wouldn't have allowed the repairs previously and they wouldn't have planned something out like this for over a year and a half.
I may have missed calls to force Apple to sell parts. Is that actually happening? In any case, aftermarket parts exist, but Apple is intentionally annoying users with persistent messaging in their product and intentionally making their devices difficult to repair. Further, Apple often replaces devices instead of repairing. Difficult repair in not incidental to their design; they're doing it on purpose. And I wouldn't expect Apple to have oversight of an unaffiliated company. It's not their business to play regulator.
And yes, part of the bills that are being considered for a lot of these Right to Repair laws include regulations that would require Apple to sell OEM parts to third-party repair centers and that they would have to provide service manuals to them, free of cost. Apple is ok with doing that as long as they get to certify the people who get the manual to their repair standards. They're not intentionally making the devices difficult to repair. Most of the complaints that people have about their reparability have to do with their small size or software locks that, in reality, are meant to protect people's data from unauthorized access. Error 53 that everyone loves to point out as an evil Apple move was actually a software lock to prevent someone from putting a false Touch ID sensor on the device that was collecting biometric data but still relaying the lock command to the phone. Apple's security chain in that regard worked exactly as intended. They didn't expect to ever see a legitimate use for a fake Touch ID sensor but it happened when people decided that losing Touch ID was worth getting their screen repaired cheaper.
That'd be like me and you being in a secret club with a secret handshake. We've been meeting at the same bar every week for years. All of sudden, your twin brother shows up one day and, as always, I go to do our secret handshake and he can't do it. He looks like you. He comes from the same parents. I have no reason to suspect that it's not you because "you" showed up just like you do every week. But I know something's not right because he doesn't know the handshake.
It's the same thing with an iPhone. That's exactly how you know that it's not third-parties that Apple cares about and that they're not trying to actively prevent anything done by third parties. If that's all it was, an OEM Apple sensor would be fine. It's not, though, because it has nothing to do with third-party vs. first-party and everything to do with security.
An interruption in connection, or a change in device identifier on either end is cause to require an “apple-authorized” reset, or discarding/ignoring any sensitive personally identifiable information (PII), of which fingerprints are definitely PII.
If Apple wants good right to repair laws, then this is the perfect time for them to be lobbying for good right to repair laws. As a proponent of right to repair laws, I would love to have Apple at the table when the laws are being drafted. Everything that I have seen suggests this is not what is happening. Instead of lobbying for improvements to the right to repair laws, they are lobbying against them. The fact that the laws are similar to Apple's internal plan suggests that they are being well drafted despite that (perhaps because of behind the scenes lobbying, or other stakeholders with a similar position to Apple, or the drafters just have a good understanding of the industry).
Apple Tells Lawmaker that Right to Repair iPhones Will Turn Nebraska Into a ‘Mecca’ for Hackers [1]
Apple Is Lobbying Against Your Right to Repair iPhones, New York State Records Confirm [2]
[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgxgpg/apple-tells-lawmak...
[2] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nz85y7/apple-is-lobbying-...
For most cars, I can repair it myself, or I can take it to Joe down the street for him to repair it, or I can take it to a professional repair business, or I can take it to the dealership. I have the choice. Same goes for appliances, furniture, and many electronic devices. This is not a radical idea. Why does there need to be compromise on it?
And unfair to Apple? Only if only Apple or a few companies would have to do that.
Also, for replacement parts, in some markets there already are regulations. See for example https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-04-215_en.htm for a discussion on finding the right balance between the protection of a car manufacturer’s designs and consumer’s rights to buy replacement parts made by third parties (I don’t know the end result of this discussion)
I can buy genuine BMW parts with no problem, but I can't buy a genuine Apple iPhone battery, even from iFixit.
This argument is pointless; Tech companies claim that their hardware is changed the world and their selling point is that these devices are essential. They then turn around and create artificial scarcity, by disabling features for old devices and inflating the prices for repair, to make maintaining these devices more expensive than buying a new one.
I don't see, how as a consumer, am I supposed to support this position?
And please... tell me which features have been disabled for old devices. If anything, Apple is known in the industry for supporting their devices far longer than any other phone/device manufacturer. I think you're either being disingenuous with these arguments or you just really haven't done any kind of work to validate what you're saying.
This requires a leap of trust that I am not willing to make. I do not believe Apple is being truthful here.
>And please... tell me which features have been disabled for old devices.
There was this huge scandal regarding Apple slowing down phones with older batteries without notifying the customers: https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-slows-down-older-iphone-batt...
They made it right by offering cheaper battery replacements for a year and battery monitoring software in iOS. The battery monitoring software still claims my 4 year old iphone 6 is running at peak performance, and that is not true. The same battery monitoring software that would stop working if I install third-party battery. Which is also why I believe the company is not being truthful; their software clearly is lying to me right now.
>If anything, Apple is known in the industry for supporting their devices far longer than any other phone/device manufacturer.
We would need to have a semantic discussion on what 'support' is; for example, why are some older devices running iOS9+ not support ad-blocking? If there is a genuine software-design reason, that it is bad software, since I can do it on desktop computers that are two decades old, and on a raspberry pi that has a fraction of the CPU power. There are plenty of examples, but my definition of support would extend far beyond the version number on the Settings > About going up. Yours might differ.
>I think you're either being disingenuous with these arguments or you just really haven't done any kind of work to validate what you're saying.
Why would you think that I am being disingenuous at all? Do you think I have some sort of agenda? what would the agenda be?
My original comment targeted all hardware tech companies. Most want to make repair impossible or extremely difficult. Apple has been leading the charge, all the way back with Macs using the then obscure torx screws, but they are the norm now. As far as I know, Lenovo is the only company that has repairability as a design factor, even then only for their business lines.
As for not doing the work, well as you can see I have. I am disappointed, however, that you would not extend me the courtesy of assuming I am not a complete idiot. I did so for you.
IMO, having iPhones in the wild that were repaired with non-OEM parts is worse for Apple’s reputation. Right to repair includes access to OEM parts, repair documentation, and test programs.
It'd be like me going around telling people that I'm doing things on your behalf and you having no way to keep me from doing that. Individuals have legal protections against that kind of thing. Right now, that hasn't been addressed yet legally in terms of companies.
The same and been historically true of almost every other company and consumer product, to the great benefit of consumers. Why should apple be different?
Repairs are not being done on Apple’s behalf. They are being done on the consumers behalf. I don’t think your analogy makes sense. If Apple wants, they can create a certification process and emphasize that they strongly recommend going to certified repair shops, the same way car manufacturers want you go to go the dealer, but I can’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be forced to allow uncertified repair shops and sell them parts too.
They absolutely do have this problem. There's a reason that there's a stereotype around the "shady" mechanic. That example is the perfect reason why these "Right to Repair" laws aren't always pro-consumer. In fact, the auto-repair industry is one of the top 3 industries regularly cited as having strong consumer distrust and the highest number of customer complaints.
Customers have to be able to trust that the repair they're getting done is being done correctly. Apple asking for some kind of certification requirement or authorized training is absolutely pro-consumer.
And why are people going to 'shady' mechanics? It's because they can't afford the repair at a dealership or a better known mechanic. They are knowingly making the tradeoff. I don't see how removing their ability to do so is pro-consumer.
Not only that, I as a regular joe can buy OEM auto parts and fix my own car. This is also true for tons of other manufacturers in almost every product line imaginable. Apple apparently doesn't even want me to do that. I definitely don't want to live in the world where, when my dryer timer breaks, I have to call an Authorized Repairman instead of buying a $5 OEM part, or where a $1 plastic piece on my mower breaks requires me to bring it to the nearest Troy-Bilt dealer or authorized repair person. There's absolutely no reason I can see why phones should be any different.
Apple is free to have an Certified Apple(tm) Repair program and shill it left and right. I fail to see how it's pro-consumer to do everything possible to strangle everyone else out of business. Nobody thinks random repair jobs are working on 'behalf' of Apple, any more than they think your shady mechanic is working on 'behalf' of General Motors, and that when he screws up its GM's fault. Even if there are a few loons who do, that doesn't justify savaging the repair market for everyone else. Apple is just a company, and nations should regulate companies to ultimately be for the benefit of their citizens. I don't care if Apple's brand is damaged in some way by the existence of independent repair shops if consumers have better access to cheaper quality repairs, which an OEM part market provides.
If Apple wishes, they can create a network of authorized repair shops with their logo and approval, and they have a right to stop anyone from fraudulently claiming they are an approved repair shop.
They should also be required to sell genuine components of mass market items to independent shops, which will suffer their own irreparable damage to their brands with their millions of shitty repairs, if branded Apple repair services are in fact better.
Providing parts and manuals for car repairs seems like a very pro-consumer move until you look at the reality of the situation and see that people get fleeced by shady mechanics and repair shops so often that there's a stereotype around it. I'm all for accessibility but I think there needs to be some kind of accountability that goes along with it.
Also, increasingly there's authentication chips on parts like batteries and you need to somehow match them to make your phone not complain about 3rd party parts. So I assume you need some way to authorize each repair...