Apple’s Cement Overshoes

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses Apple's war on repair and the company's efforts to make its products difficult to repair, leading to increased e-waste and forcing customers to buy new devices. It also covers the independent repair sector's efforts to work around Apple's tactics and the ongoing fight for "Right to Repair" legislation.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Apple's War on Repair

1. What are the three fronts of Apple's war on repair?

• Apple hides repair documentation and treats its error codes and manuals as trade secrets.
• Apple only sells parts to its authorized service depots, which have to gather customers' personal information and wait for Apple's approval before performing repairs.
• Apple goes to great lengths to keep refurbished parts out of the stream of commerce, including abusing trademark law and customs regulations, and striking an exclusivity deal with Amazon.

2. How does Apple try to lock its parts to its devices? Apple uses software locks that prevent a new part from being recognized by a device unless the device gets a cryptographically signed unlock code that proves the repair was done by an official repair tech.

3. What are some of the workarounds that independent repairers have found to overcome Apple's tactics?

• Evading customs controls
• Acquiring parts harvested by on-shore refurbishers
• Sourcing interoperable third-party replacement parts
• Relying on iFixit's repair manuals and independently produced tools

4. What is the impact of a thriving repair sector on the economy?

• Fixing a ton of e-waste creates 200 local, high-paid jobs, compared to 1 job for landfilling and 15 jobs for recycling the same ton of e-waste.

[02] The Fight for Right to Repair

1. What is the "Right to Repair" legislation, and how has Apple fought against it?

• Right to Repair legislation requires companies to facilitate independent repair by supplying manuals, diagnostic codes, and parts to independent repair technicians.
• Apple has led the fight against Right to Repair bills in 18 states, successfully getting all 18 bills killed.

2. How has Apple tried to create the illusion of supporting repair?

• Apple introduced a "certified independent repair program" that was designed to be cumbersome and useless, with strict restrictions on the types of repairs allowed and the parts that could be used.
• Apple then announced a "home repair program" that provided an overly complex and expensive process for customers to repair their own devices, making it impractical for most people to use.

3. How does the author view Apple's "home repair program" as a form of "repairwashing"? The author argues that the home repair program is a way for Apple to claim it supports repair, while actually making the process so difficult and expensive that it discourages customers from actually using it, allowing Apple to continue pushing customers to replace their devices rather than repair them.