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Signed into law last month by Governor Gavin Newsom, the Right to Repair Act guarantees everyone access to parts, tools, and manuals needed to fix their electronic devices — something industry-backed research shows can reduce both waste and carbon emissions but which Apple, the world’s most valuable company, has aggressively lobbied against for years.
As device detectives at repair guide site iFixit.com soon discovered, the iPhone 15 is riddled with software locks that cause warning messages to pop up or functionality to be lost if parts are replaced with new ones that weren’t purchased directly from Apple.
Despite the environmental benefits of increased repair access, some of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla, have spent millions convincing lawmakers not to support it.
John Deere has even claimed that greater repair access will allow farmers to tamper with the emissions controls on their tractors in violation of the Clean Air Act — a notion the Environmental Protection Agency recently refuted.
Wiens pointed to Nest’s decision to disable the Revolv smart home hub in 2016 and the demise of the company that made the SmartDry laundry sensor last year as examples of how manufacturers can turn expensive pieces of hardware into useless bricks by dropping software support.
With the European Parliament currently weighing another new regulation aimed at making repair more attractive to consumers, advocates are pressing EU lawmakers to take a more aggressive stance on these issues, including calling for a full ban on parts pairing.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Signed into law last month by Governor Gavin Newsom, the Right to Repair Act guarantees everyone access to parts, tools, and manuals needed to fix their electronic devices — something industry-backed research shows can reduce both waste and carbon emissions but which Apple, the world’s most valuable company, has aggressively lobbied against for years.
As device detectives at repair guide site iFixit.com soon discovered, the iPhone 15 is riddled with software locks that cause warning messages to pop up or functionality to be lost if parts are replaced with new ones that weren’t purchased directly from Apple.
Despite the environmental benefits of increased repair access, some of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla, have spent millions convincing lawmakers not to support it.
John Deere has even claimed that greater repair access will allow farmers to tamper with the emissions controls on their tractors in violation of the Clean Air Act — a notion the Environmental Protection Agency recently refuted.
Wiens pointed to Nest’s decision to disable the Revolv smart home hub in 2016 and the demise of the company that made the SmartDry laundry sensor last year as examples of how manufacturers can turn expensive pieces of hardware into useless bricks by dropping software support.
With the European Parliament currently weighing another new regulation aimed at making repair more attractive to consumers, advocates are pressing EU lawmakers to take a more aggressive stance on these issues, including calling for a full ban on parts pairing.
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