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Apple Must Explain Why It Doesn't Want You To Fix Your Own iPhone, California Lawmaker Says (vice.com)
A California state lawmaker says she hopes to make Apple explain specifically why it has opposed and lobbied against legislation that would make it easier for you to repair your iPhone and other electronics. Motherboard reports: Last week, California assemblymember Susan Talamantes-Eggman announced that she plans to introduce right to repair legislation in the state, which would require companies like Apple, Microsoft, John Deere, and Samsung to sell replacement parts and repair tools, make repair guides available to the public, and would require companies to make diagnostic software available to independent shops. Public records show that Apple has lobbied against right to repair legislation in New York, and my previous reporting has shown that Apple has privately asked lawmakers to kill legislation in places like Nebraska. To this point, the company has largely used its membership in trade organizations such as CompTIA and the Consumer Technology Association to publicly oppose the bill. But with the right to repair debate coming to Apple's home state, Talamantes-Eggman says she expects the company to show up to hearings about the bill.
"Apple is a very important company in the state of California, and one I have a huge amount of respect for. But the onus is on them to explain why we can't repair our own things and what damage or danger it causes them," Talamantes-Eggman told me in a phone interview. Talamantes-Eggman told me that the bill she plans to introduce will apply to both consumer electronics as well as agricultural equipment such as tractors. Broadly speaking, the electronics industry has decided to go with an "authorized repair" model in which companies pay the original device manufacturer to become authorized to fix devices.
"Apple is a very important company in the state of California, and one I have a huge amount of respect for. But the onus is on them to explain why we can't repair our own things and what damage or danger it causes them," Talamantes-Eggman told me in a phone interview. Talamantes-Eggman told me that the bill she plans to introduce will apply to both consumer electronics as well as agricultural equipment such as tractors. Broadly speaking, the electronics industry has decided to go with an "authorized repair" model in which companies pay the original device manufacturer to become authorized to fix devices.
Can I get an iphone that's more durable and has a removable battery?
I'm willing to accept it being double the weight and thickness; I bet with the extra structure they can also improve its durability and let me keep my damned headphone jack.
Everyone is aware of the planned obsolescence angle, but nobody seems to have noticed that particular irony of California (i.e. the state containing Hollywood) being the one asking for a right to repair. Lots of hardware makers are either in bed with content companies, or are one. As long as DRM is still legal, this results in an unavoidable conflict of interest.
DRM is always what these companies are really talking about, whenever they use the word "security." They mean they want to keep the machine's master's interests secure against the great adversary: the machine's owner.
DRM and right-to-repair are fundamentally incompatible. You can't implement DRM and also be owner-maintainable, because from an owner's point of view, DRM implementations are bugs (or malware, depending on how strict you want to be about the implementor's intent), and bugs need to be fixed.
I think California will cave in on this, and their legislators will eventually realize that it's necessary that people have adversarial relationship with their computers. The only way this can be avoided, is if DRM ceases to be a thing. And the only way that's going to happen, is if it's outlawed.
Expect this bill to die, for much more inflexible reasons than wanting to protect planned obsolescence. They simply can't allow people to be in charge of their own computers. It's not happening.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Can't-make-a-911-call example is a joke compared to what might happen if I don't bother to tighten the lug nuts on the wheel that I'm allowed to change on my car. All the dead and injured people on the highway are why you want to call 911.
Yet we're still allowed to repair cars.
Pretty much the only way you're going to have a phone failure be as bad as the routine auto repair risks that we already accept, is to take that phone on a plane and have an overly-rapid battery discharge. So use such an example next time.