There are still many unanswered questions regarding Apple’s recent announcement that it would soon be offering a self-service repair program—which would allow customers to repair their iPhone devices—and what this could mean for the right-to-repair movement.
IEEE Spectrum recently spoke with Kyle Wiens, co-founder of iFixit, which provides repair parts and guidance for Apple devices among others, about Apple’s announcement last month that it would provide users with options to repair their devises themselves.
Spectrum: Take a moment to describe the situation before a couple of weeks ago, when Apple announced a change of policy on self-repair. Suppose I bought a new Apple phone and I sat on it and cracked the screen and decided I wanted to repair it. What could I do?
Wiens: Apple basically provided no option for that. They’ve gone out of their way to prevent people from doing that kind of repair. So your option is to go to a third party—an organization, like iFixit. We’ve been working in spite of Apple. Apple’s known for going after independent parts companies for trademark violations and that kind of thing. Apple did not make any service information available. They designed the product to be glued together, so it’s hard to work on. They don’t sell parts. That’s been the state of things.
Read the full article on IEEE Spectrum.
