The U.S. federal government is supporting a national right-to-repair bill to reduce repair costs and allow consumers to fix their own devices with Apple being forced to offer.
For Apple, which made its devices complex and costly to repair, this is a massive shift.
The U.S. company will provide parts, tools, and manuals at reasonable prices, which aligns with the new U.S. bill.
The new bill is part of an extensive plan of the Biden Administration, which aims to boost competition and lower consumer prices in the smartphone market.
The White House praised California, Colorado, New York, and Minnesota for already passing the laws and the other 30 states that introduced similar laws.
The California law, which could be the blueprint for other states, requires that businesses make parts, tools, and documentation needed for repairs of consumer electronic devices and appliances obtainable to autonomous repair shops and customers for sensible prices.
Prior to the law, manufacturers frequently made it difficult to access spare parts, manuals, and tools necessary to fix items from smartphones, National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said. For consumers, repair costs were high, and often, they would discard and replace the device instead of fixing it.
Brainard said that self-repairing consumer electronics could save Americans $49.6 billion a year and reduce the e-waste of U.S. by 7 million tons a year.
It could also boost business for small repair shops.
Apple has been giving spare parts to repair shops since 2019, but the California law also makes it provide diagnostic tools to them, a requirement Apple said it will do across the US as it does in California.
Despite the positive advances Apple seems to be making for customers, some critics and consumer groups say Apple’s previous efforts had some limits that made it hard for repair shops to compete with Apple’s own services.
Nathan Proctor, who leads right-to-repair campaign efforts for an advocacy group called US PIRG, said his group will follow the adoption of the U.S. laws carefully to see if the reality of the laws actually helps consumers.
“It’s really going to depend on people’s experience in the real world – that’s what we care about,” Proctor said. “We’re going to keep watch-dogging Apple and the other companies.”
