Steve Posted November 17, 2021 Share Posted November 17, 2021 Apple has traditionally been one of the worst tech companies when it comes to the right to repair their products, but, starting next year they will be offering parts, tools, and manuals for sale direct to consumers. This will start with screens, cameras, and batteries for the iPhone 12 and 13, but they will be extending the program to other products, such as Mac computers, and making more parts available as time goes on. What's also cool is that if you return the broken parts to them, they will recycle them and give you a credit towards your purchase. They are not doing this entirely out of goodwill. There's a bunch of legislation and new laws being drawn up around the right to repair, but it's good that rather than try and continue to fight it, they've basically backed down, because it's now likely that other manufacturers will do the same thing. Obviously, it also remains to be seen how much the spare parts, tools, and manuals will cost, but still - this is definitely a step in the right direction IMO. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deft Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 Decent enough news, but it's not going to make the fuckers much easier to fix, unless the tools are magical. I remember failing to fix an iPod mini once upon a time. OK I'm not the most skilled electronics whizz but holy moly fair play to anyone who can legitimately fix something like that without destroying some of it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savwar Posted November 20, 2021 Share Posted November 20, 2021 Bad news for ifixit.com I've replaced screens on older iphones and replaced usb ports on various android devices and stuff... but things definitely got way harder over the last few years. But yeah, the pricing could be mental. Those modular phones never really took off did they. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted November 22, 2021 Author Share Posted November 22, 2021 Hopefully this coincides with repairability factoring into the design process a bit more, cos you're absolutely right about the difficulty that's often involved. They often use weird screws and sometimes shit is glued together so you basically have to prise the device open. To be fair to Apple, they have already made some improvements in this area. iFixIt gave the new Macbook Pro a 4/10 for repairability, compared to 1/10 for the previous model. For example, the battery is no longer wedged under the logic board, and it has a couple of tabs you can use to pull it out, so you haven't got to carry out brain surgery to replace it. Obviously, 4/10 is still not great, but it's better than 1/10 at least! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted December 6, 2022 Author Share Posted December 6, 2022 Quote Apple is rolling out its self-repair service to the UK and seven other European countries on Tuesday. iPhone 12 and 13 users, and some Macbook owners, will be able to fix their own devices by buying parts and tools and watching online tutorials. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63866869 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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