In a historic about-face, Apple publicly supports right-to-repair bill (grist.org)

submitted 10 months ago by 111@zerobytes.monster to c/technology@beehaw.org

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[-] Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi 32 points 10 months ago

I wonder if that means there's a loophole in the bill.

[-] AdminWorker@lemmy.ca 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The bill requires that manufacturers of electronics and appliances make parts, repair tools, and documentation available to the general public, for devices first sold on or after July 1, 2021. For devices costing between $50 and $99.99, manufacturers must provide repair access for at least three years after the product is no longer manufactured; for those costing more than $100, that number rises to seven years. In its letter, Apple lists a few bill provisions that were crucial for the company’s support, including language that clearly states manufacturers only have to offer the public the same parts, tools, and manuals available to authorized repair partners, and the bill’s exclusive focus on newer devices.

The support is equal to cutting the teeth off the bill.

all parts for repair have to be through apple
all repairs need to be done in based on official channel (official software probably because that is "authorized")
the bill only applies to new models, and only for the support period of 3 years.

Or some garbage like that that I am missing. The same thing was done when we didn't want isps to control the net and coined the term "net neutrality" then the isps rebranded it to mean isp controls if you are neutral on the net... Sigh.

[-] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 10 months ago

They support this because they are already doing this, any other things would make them change it up. It is better than nothing though, and other manufacturers will be playing catch up (which Apple won’t mind either).

[-] RickRussell_CA@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

Hard to say. The bill is neutral on the question of vendor-locked parts, it only says that the company has to make the real parts available to product owners as they would make them available to authorized repair centers.

I mean, it would be nice to mandate that the vendor can't implement technology to prevent the installation of third-party clone parts, but I don't know how you would structure that, legally.