This is a potential huge win for consumers, small repairs shops, and the right-to-repair movement, both for Apple users and for the industry precedence it’s likely to set:
♦ Apple today unveiled a Self-Service Repair program that will enable customers to perform their own repairs using genuine Apple parts and tools. The program will be available early next year in the US and expand to additional countries throughout 2022.
♦ Apple will begin by offering parts, tools, and manuals to individual owners of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 beginning next year. Customers will be able to use parts to fix the mobile-phone display, battery, and camera to begin with. The ability to perform repairs on additional iPhone features will be available later in the year.
♦ Apple’s new online parts store will offer more than 200 individual parts and tools, enabling customers to complete the most common repairs on iPhone 12 and iPhone 13. Consumers will be able to use an online manual to determine the part or parts they need.
♦ The iPhone program will quickly be followed by a similar one for Mac computers featuring M1 chips, according to Apple.
♦ Until now, access to genuine Apple parts, tools and manuals had been reserved for some 5,000 Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASPs) and 2,800 Independent Repair Providers.
♦ Apple would like people to believe it made its decision to allow repairs on their own, but it came only after regulatory involvement in three continents, dozens of proposed bills, and investor proposals.
♦ It remains unclear whether Apple will sell their repair tools and genuine Apple parts at “market competitive” rates or at some Apple marked up rates. It’s also not clear that they will price the parts at a fair level when selling direct to the consumer, and not charge lower overall rates at their own facilities to push most repairs their way anyway.
♦ While this is a potential major win for consumers and independent businesses, it’s too soon to say for certain that Apple policies and prices will be attractive and not make this a ‘consumer advantage in name only’ program. More details are needed from Apple on this.
If this does trend in the technology industry, it could be a huge boost for sustainability by reducing the massive and growing annual volume of e-waste and reduce the critical need for the ITAD industry and data security specialized organizations like NextUse.