Repair Association Hits Apple Hard in Report on Environmental Regulations (Aug 3, 2017)
I saw an article pop up this morning from Mashable about Apple and its repairs policy, and then saw another this afternoon from the Verge (linked below) on the same topic, which made me wonder why, and it turns out that the answer is a new report from the Repair Association. The Repair Association is an industry body made up of device repair companies and environmental and other organizations, and as such has a clear point of view on device repairs: they’re a good thing, and any limitations on repairability are a bad thing. I had a long Twitter exchange this morning with the author of the Mashable article about this topic, and the thrust from my side of the conversation was that the framing here is all wrong. Yes, Apple does place restrictions on who can repair its devices and how, and it also increasingly designs its devices in ways which make them harder for third parties to repair, but as I’ve said before in the context of iFixit and other repair companies’ reviews of Apple devices, this isn’t done to thwart repair companies or customers, and it isn’t a money grab.
The big shift in Apple’s design over recent years has been increasingly tight integration of components, which has been a key enabler of making devices smaller and more powerful, something that’s been a part of iPhone and iPad design from the start but which has more recently spread to the Mac line as well. This definitely makes repairs harder, and Apple also places restrictions on how screens can be repaired because they’re integrated with the Touch ID sensor that controls device unlocking and Apple Pay among other things, and repairing them without access to special tools stops Touch ID from working. Again, that’s a side effect of Apple’s security-centric design and not a deliberate strategy to frustrate would-be repairers or customers. Apple opposes some of the stricter standards and regulations proposed by states and various bodies because they’re often designed to prioritize repairability over functionality, sometimes in ways which seem directly aimed at the way Apple designs its products. Meanwhile, Apple has made enormous strides in its environmental efforts over the last few years under the leadership of Lisa Jackson, formerly head of the EPA and therefore no slouch when it comes to environmental protection. That’s extended from using sustainable energy to better recycling of parts with Apple’s Liam disassembly machines and so on. Apple is moving in the right direction here, and as the Verge piece at least acknowledges, none of what Apple is doing here is actually environmentally unfriendly, as the Mashable piece suggests.
via The Verge
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