California Announces Right to Repair Bill

[Maura]

MacRumors reports that California has announced that it will be teaming up with several other states to introduce a new Right to Repair bill, which will mean that smartphone manufacturers will have to offer repair information, replacement parts, and diagnostic tools to owners of smartphones as well as independent repair businesses.

The plans were announced by California Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman, who said that the California Right to Repair Act will give consumers the ability to choose where they want their smartphone to be repaired, stating that this sort of choice is “a practice that was taken for granted a generation ago but is now becoming increasingly rare in a world of planned obsolescence.

Executive director of Californians Against Waste, Mark Murray, said that smartphone manufacturers and home device makers are “profiting at the expense of our environment and our pocketbooks.”

Seventeen other states have already launched their own Right to Repair bills, including Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Apple and its competitors have been actively campaigning against such bills in some of the states in question.

Image: iFixit

Source: California to Introduce 'Right to Repair' Bill Requiring Smartphone Manufacturers to Offer Repair Info and Parts

 

[scifan57]

Now we'll see owners suing the manufacturer after they've ruined their device as a result of a botched self-repair.

 

[Brian 244]

Now we'll see owners suing the manufacturer after they've ruined their device as a result of a botched self-repair.

That's the argument made by the manufacturers but one of the real reasons is that making a repairable device with user replaceable parts is a lot more expensive than the current "glue and solder all the things" practice.

Also it is more profitable for the manufacturer to sell you a new widget vs replacement parts for the old widget.

The other sad truth is that our culture has grown away from repair and into a disposable culture. If it breaks,turf it and buy a new one. Even if the right to repair became a thing , only a small niche of the public would actually find it beneficial.

 

[scifan57]

That's the argument made by the manufacturers but one of the real reasons is that making a repairable device with user replaceable parts is a lot more expensive than the current "glue and solder all the things" practice.

Also it is more profitable for the manufacturer to sell you a new widget vs replacement parts for the old widget.

The other sad truth is that our culture has grown away from repair and into a disposable culture. If it breaks,turf it and buy a new one. Even if the right to repair became a thing , only a small niche of the public would actually find it beneficial.

Making an iPhone easily repairable will also result in a much larger device.

 

[Brian 244]

Making an iPhone easily repairable will also result in a much larger device.

The iPhones lack of repairability is more from proprietary screws and lack of documentation. For screen replacement and battery replacement ( the 2 main things that need to be repaired ) a few design tweaks and they would be quite easy to do.