This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
This isn’t Apple being nice.
This is Apple wanting to sell things in California, combined with Apple not wanting to manufacture two separate versions of their devices for the US market.
This is also why everyone gets USB-C iPhones now, instead of only the EU.
In this case, they managed to delay the bill long enough that they now have a bunch of programs in place to actually profit from third-party repairs of their devices. This gives them an advantage over their competitors, so they are now in support of this bill.
I'm glad for the EU, California, and other places that are big enough to force this sort of stuff nationally or globally.
Every so often the phrase "where California goes the nation follows" comes true. I had a feeling about this one, but not so soon nor decisively.
I am out of the loop on this one. I am probably wrong, but......Wasn't the bill nullified by the fact apple has the sole right to supply the replacement parts? Or does the bill work as intended where replacement parts can be sourced elsewhere as well as documentation being made available?
I have no idea, but I'm grateful for a step in the right direction. It feels like there haven't been many of those in recent times.
My point was that it may have been made useless. I seem to remember Louis Rossman complaining about it, but I have no idea over which issue. There is no point in having a right to repair act if it can still be abused in some way shape or form by large manufacturers.
I think the problem with this one was that manufacturers can hold all the cards on the cost of buying replacement parts. This would open up the issue of people being gouged. I was hoping that someone could give me more accurate information on the issue.
Apple »claims« they will honor ‘right to repair’ – just like they claim their latest devices are ‘carbon neutral’
this is a ruleset though, and it's likely much cheaper for them to produce one SKU for the US rather than two, a california rule abiding one, and a rest of the country one.
Their carbon neutral claims are a stretch, but they did massively reduce their carbon footrprint in addition to using offsets. The majority of the reduction is from using green energy at their factories and no longer using air shipping.
Apple saying they will honor like they're in control and have a choice.
Well, didn't they play a huge role in the genesis of this law? I think they have some way to continue ignoring costumers.
They had the choice of not doing business in California, which is what they had threatened to do with previous right-to-repair and other consumer protection laws. In this case, they found a way to make money off it if so they are supportive of this bill now since they have successfully delayed it long enough to have an advantage over their competitors.
Not by choice
Didn't they influence the creation of this law? I'm still sceptical of its effectiveness.
Yes, thats what Louis Rossman said. I get my news from Louis 🤣
That's what the smart ones do I hear
It is not wise to solely take news at face value. I always do a little digging into something whenever I hear any news on it myself.
I'd say that from what I've seen, Louis isn't interested in spreading disinformation.
But I would also still do a little digging; it's just a healthy way to process the content you consume. If you aren't willing to audit your opinion, then your opinion holds little water in an objective conversation.
He's definitely not and I would agree with the sentiment that he is a reliable source of information, but remember that all people make mistakes sometimes. Treat the news as a notification, not a source of information.
What really makes him credible is he literally calls himself out in videos when information changes or he makes mistakes.
He also tells viewers and readers all the time to come to their own conclusions and do their own research.
He also comes clean and informs his viewers if it turns out he made a mistake which I appreciate
Same thing happened with net neutrality, California put NN into law, and the rest of the country followed because it doesn't make sense to build a separate Internet for California.
I understand this as the California Effect and similarly the Brussels effect. While both do change company policies, I do understand that many companies are going to continues to try and avoid a regulatory ruling as there is so much status quo market loss on the line for them.
This article describes how they'll be trying to use MOUs with nongovernment bodies to mollify consumers and regulators.
Too bad I still need a hammer and chisel to replace the keyboard on my MacBook and don't even get me started on removing the battery which I need to do first
They get to sell their parts without having to pay all of the repair people and probably getting out of a certain amount of warranty liability. Win-win-win for them.
And people repairing their own stuff is always a good idea. People learning how to maintain their electronics is never a bad thing! Everyone should pick up a soldering iron at some point. :)
While in complete agreement that it's good the option is there, have definitely interacted with plenty of end users who, for various reasons, really should never.
Hey, some people learn from their mistakes. Hell, my first PC build (23 years ago…) was DOA because I had inadvertently bent a pin on the CPU, and it got smashed when I tightened down the cooler. That was an expensive mistake, but one I certainly learned from.
Thank god PGA is officially dead, finally. My first Ryzen cpu came in the mail with bent pins, I spent fucking hours straightening all of them. Worth it tho, got 5 years of life out of it between me and my brother before it was finally allowed to rest and spend the rest of it's life on a shelf(it still works, its just slow).
Not that I fully disagree, just that there's a reason they didn't do it before. Probably more profitable to not have repairable devices. Not that they won't try to make the best of the current situation, as you said.
Also, it would likely be more expensive to produce a line of repairable products just for one state and do different for the others, so this is the best way of spinning this.
What does this mean regarding their components pairing? Will they still force indepent repair shops to go through apple to validate a repair by requesting a new pairing for the replaced part? Will it be free? Will it depend on whether the part is a genuine apple part? A salvaged one? A third party part?
you now have the right to repair with only their parts, which is progress, albeit minimal and expensive
Here, you can buy a screen for 80% of the cost of a new iPhone.
4 choices: don’t sell in CA, fight the law, make a separate phone to meet R2R laws that are likely going to become more prevalent, release a press report portraying magnanimity towards R2R and make the bare minimum effort to meet the law.
The last is the only real answer.
they saw the writing on the wall and decided to get ahead of it, by agreeing to locked down firmware apple only replacement parts, which isn't a full right to repair, but it does extend the life of an apple device, if you pay the apple tax
Damn this is huge.
We need Louis Rossman to do his best recreation of the skeptical Fry meme in response to this.
