Fight the Right (to Repair)
Last night your iPhone stopped working. It goes on but the screen is a series of lines that jump around in no discernable pattern. Now cut off from social media you borrow your girlfriend’s phone to find the closest repair shop and head into town to get it fixed. When you get there a guy with a pair of microscope-like glasses comes out of the back room at takes a quick look at your phone. “Can’t help you chief, that’s an iPhone. You have to take it to Apple.” You ask him where the closest Apple repair store might be and get, “Don’t know boss, you might try looking it up on your iPhone,” laughs and walks back to the ‘private’ area in the back.
Apple does not let just anybody work on iPhones, and along with a number of prominent farm equipment companies, game console companies, and a host of others, it can be near impossible to get certain items repaired without using a company repair location. This was even the case for car repairs until 2013 when Massachusetts passed a ‘right-to-repair’ law that was eventually adopted by car manufacturers, who had been allowing only their own repair shops access to diagnostic and similar tools.
There have been some improvements, such as Apple’s reversal of a very unpopular mandate that stated that any DIY repairs would void the warranty, although that still left the user to order the parts and hope that they were able to make the repair themselves. However, if you are not that handy and actually need to bring your iPhone to an Apple store for repair, it might not be as easy as you think. While California has 54 Apple retail stores and New York 22, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, , Nebraska, New Mexico, and Rhode Island, have but one in the state, and six states have none, so visiting an Apple store to get your iPhone looked at could be a bit of a haul.
Apple does offer various replace or repair functions that would require no transportation, but under relatively strict rules that allow them to make all decisions as to under what venue the repairs are made , and of course, there is a bit of a delay with most, in that if you don’t still have the original box you will have to wait until Apple sends you one with a shipping label, at which point you take the phone to your local UPS or Fedex store, ship it to Apple, wait for the notice about the cost to repair, authorize the repair, and wait for the repaired phone to be returned. Apple has for years insisted that the limited repair options are to protect the consumer from repairs done by inexperienced repair personnel or from inferior parts, which is a valid point, however, since you have already paid Apple for the phone, shouldn’t it be your decision as to where and who repairs your iPhone?
If President Biden gets his way, that could be the case, as word that the White House is preparing an executive order that will mandate the FTC to draft new legislation that will ‘give consumers the right to repair or use independents’ to repair products. While the legislation is aimed toward companies like Caterpillar (CAT) or Deere (DE) that tacitly force farmers to use company repair depots by limiting diagnostic tools (they say its not true but surveys disagree) or companies like Nintendo (7974.JP) that do not supply certain parts (joysticks, etc.) to outside repair shops, it is expected that the legislation will also mention phones, which will potentially be the first ‘right-to-repair’ mandate supported by a President.
Should such an executive order be signed, it would be in addition to state-by-state rules, most of which have little real influence over the industry, but we can be assured that Apple and others will be spending lots of dollars lobbying to keep any potential congressional legislation from limiting their repair monopoly, with potential scare tactics that have been used in the past, such as citing claims that it could be easier for criminals to perform cyber-attacks if unauthorized repairs are made, although no proof of such a claim has ever been given. In the long run it’s a losing battle for companies that limit repair options, but even with the potential for a rallying cry behind and EO, it’s not going to be an easy encounter, so for the time being pack those sandwiches and thermos, because the trip from Spokane to Boise is 6 ½ hours..
Apple does not let just anybody work on iPhones, and along with a number of prominent farm equipment companies, game console companies, and a host of others, it can be near impossible to get certain items repaired without using a company repair location. This was even the case for car repairs until 2013 when Massachusetts passed a ‘right-to-repair’ law that was eventually adopted by car manufacturers, who had been allowing only their own repair shops access to diagnostic and similar tools.
There have been some improvements, such as Apple’s reversal of a very unpopular mandate that stated that any DIY repairs would void the warranty, although that still left the user to order the parts and hope that they were able to make the repair themselves. However, if you are not that handy and actually need to bring your iPhone to an Apple store for repair, it might not be as easy as you think. While California has 54 Apple retail stores and New York 22, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, , Nebraska, New Mexico, and Rhode Island, have but one in the state, and six states have none, so visiting an Apple store to get your iPhone looked at could be a bit of a haul.
Apple does offer various replace or repair functions that would require no transportation, but under relatively strict rules that allow them to make all decisions as to under what venue the repairs are made , and of course, there is a bit of a delay with most, in that if you don’t still have the original box you will have to wait until Apple sends you one with a shipping label, at which point you take the phone to your local UPS or Fedex store, ship it to Apple, wait for the notice about the cost to repair, authorize the repair, and wait for the repaired phone to be returned. Apple has for years insisted that the limited repair options are to protect the consumer from repairs done by inexperienced repair personnel or from inferior parts, which is a valid point, however, since you have already paid Apple for the phone, shouldn’t it be your decision as to where and who repairs your iPhone?
If President Biden gets his way, that could be the case, as word that the White House is preparing an executive order that will mandate the FTC to draft new legislation that will ‘give consumers the right to repair or use independents’ to repair products. While the legislation is aimed toward companies like Caterpillar (CAT) or Deere (DE) that tacitly force farmers to use company repair depots by limiting diagnostic tools (they say its not true but surveys disagree) or companies like Nintendo (7974.JP) that do not supply certain parts (joysticks, etc.) to outside repair shops, it is expected that the legislation will also mention phones, which will potentially be the first ‘right-to-repair’ mandate supported by a President.
Should such an executive order be signed, it would be in addition to state-by-state rules, most of which have little real influence over the industry, but we can be assured that Apple and others will be spending lots of dollars lobbying to keep any potential congressional legislation from limiting their repair monopoly, with potential scare tactics that have been used in the past, such as citing claims that it could be easier for criminals to perform cyber-attacks if unauthorized repairs are made, although no proof of such a claim has ever been given. In the long run it’s a losing battle for companies that limit repair options, but even with the potential for a rallying cry behind and EO, it’s not going to be an easy encounter, so for the time being pack those sandwiches and thermos, because the trip from Spokane to Boise is 6 ½ hours..
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