Apple Begins to Support Consumers’ Right to Repair

Apple has
announced
an upcoming enhancement to its repair processes that will enable customers and
independent repair providers to utilize used Apple parts in iPhone repairs.

The company says the new process — beginning with select iPhone models this fall
— is designed to maintain an iPhone user’s privacy, security and safety while
offering consumers more options, increasing product longevity, and minimizing
the environmental impact of repairs. Used genuine Apple parts will now benefit
from the full functionality and security afforded by the original factory
calibration, just like new genuine Apple parts.

“At Apple, we’re always looking for new ways to deliver the best possible
experience for our customers while reducing the impact we have on the planet,
and a key part of that means designing products that last,” said John
Ternus, Apple’s SVP of
Hardware Engineering. “For the last two years, teams across Apple have been
innovating on product design and manufacturing to support repairs with used
Apple parts that won’t compromise users’ safety, security or privacy. With this
latest expansion to our repair program, we’re excited to be adding even more
choice and convenience for our customers, while helping to extend the life of
our products and their parts.”

Apple will now extend its Activation Lock feature — requested by customers and
law enforcement officials to limit iPhone theft by blocking a lost or stolen
iPhone from being reactivated — to iPhone parts to deter stolen iPhones from
being disassembled for parts. If a device under repair detects that a supported
part was obtained from another device with Activation Lock or Lost Mode enabled,
calibration capabilities for that part will be restricted. And to simplify the
repair process, Apple says customers and service providers will no longer need
to provide a device’s serial number when ordering parts from the Self-Service
Repair Store for repairs not involving replacement of the logic board.

Anisha Bhatia, Senior
Technology Analyst at data and analytics company GlobalData, calls the move a
positive one.

“OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] have come under pressure by governments
as the Right to Repair movement has gained tremendous momentum in the
EU
and the US. Apple’s enhancement of its repair process to utilize used Apple
parts is a win for the Right to Repair movement, while still allowing the tech
giant to maintain control over repair revenues,” Bhatia said in a statement.
“Simplifying its repair process for both customers and service providers [will
make] iPhone repair less bothersome, which in turn will increase circular
economy income for the tech giant.

“Sustainability is a hot-button topic right now, and sustainable devices with
increased longevity potential are likely to generate brand loyalty for both
telcos and OEMs that offer it as a differentiator.”

Part of the new policy addresses the increasingly contentious practice of
parts pairing — the process of confirming whether a repair part is genuine
and gathering information about the part — which has long stymied third-party
repair shops and self-repairers. Apple says parts pairing is critical to
preserving the privacy, security and safety of an iPhone; and the new policy
enables the reuse of parts such as biometric sensors used for Face ID or Touch
ID. Beginning this fall, calibration for genuine Apple parts, new or used, will
happen on a device after the part is installed; and future iPhone releases will
have support for used biometric sensors.

This is the latest move in Apple’s slow acceptance and support of facilitating
consumer repair of its devices. After being sued for planned-obsolescence
strategies
(ex: “Batterygate” and iPhone
updates
that slow down older models) and years of opposing such bills in various states,
including New
York
and
California,
the tech giant reversed
course
in 2023 when it publicly supported California’s SB
244
— a right-to-repair bill that would make it easier for the public to access the
spare parts, tools and repair documentation needed to fix devices.

But Apple’s support for the bill wasn’t reflected in its product design: The
iPhone 15 — released last fall — seemed impervious as
ever
to independent repairs or parts replacements without jumping through the usual
hoops, and paying Apple more money.

Some right-to-repair
advocates
are calling this newest move the bare minimum, and that it merely reflects the
increasing pressure Apple has faced from
shareholders,
lawmakers, federal
regulators
and the public to end restrictions that limit consumers’ ability to fix their
devices.

That pressure has come in the form of a growing number of ‘right-to-repair’
consumer-electronics bills popping up across the
US,
increasingly focused on the practice of parts pairing — which, while it may
improve device security, enables manufacturers to disable some functions of a
device if owners make repairs with an unauthorized part, making many independent
repairs untenable. Last month, Oregon passed the first right-to-repair law
banning parts
pairing;
and Colorado could be close behind.

And Apple’s new policy doesn’t apply to aftermarket parts — a distinction that
frustrates right-to-repair
advocates:
As Kyle Wiens, CEO of
iFixit — a global repair community that provides
replacement parts, toolkits and repair guides for consumer electronics from
companies including Alphabet/Google, Fairphone, HP,
Logitech,
Microsoft and more — told
Wired:
“This is a strategy of half-promises and unnecessarily complicated hedges
designed to deflect attention from legislators intent on banning the practice
altogether.”

And Nathan Proctor,
senior director of the right-to-repair
campaign at the Public Interest
Research Group,
said
Apple’s move is a drop in the bucket of change that’s needed: “Let’s be 100
percent clear: This move is because of state lawmakers pushing back on [parts
pairing] — a fully untenable, unethical practice to begin with. I’m glad it’s
started to be restricted; but we need laws that prevent this from happening on
any device from any manufacturer — not just a couple of phones from one
manufacturer.”