What Does Apple’s New Approach to Repairs Mean for the Industry?

Apple is a company that has heavily invested in its technology. The tech giant has poured millions upon millions of dollars into making sure its tech is secure, sophisticated, and steep in price.

This has also meant that in order to protect its interests, Apple has had to clamp down hard on anything that could be deemed a threat, whether it be repurposing old Apple parts into newer devices or cell phone repair shop software integrating into its services. Indeed, Apple’s aggressive stance on repairs has shown us that.

But the company seems to have started singing a new tune lately – it looks to be making provisions for cell phone repair. This is in stark contrast to their approach for a major part of 2021.

What caused this change in Apple? How did a trillion-dollar company suddenly change its stance on repairs? Is this being done in good faith, or is something else brewing under the table? We’re here to talk all about it.

The history of Apple’s fight with repairs

Since the days of Apple’s resurgence, it’s positioned itself as a lifestyle brand first and a tech-savvy one second. Steve Jobs was instrumental in shaping the company’s current image and the way that it works, aggressively defending his patent and fighting tooth and nail against the smallest implications of infringement. This practice applies to repairs of Apple products as well.

Apple maintains that to fix an Apple product, you can’t use your own parts, your own tools, your own repair shop software, or anything that is out of the Apple brand’s ecosystem. Instead, it has demanded that companies adhere to their standards and services. The issue of repairability was further compounded by Apple’s statements in legal cases where they claimed these measures are taken for safety and security reasons.

For an average repair shop, this has always been trouble. Apple phones are some of the most prevalent in the world, meaning that most of a cell phone repair shop’s business comes from fixing Apple devices. With the company’s all-out war against independent repair shops, it’s become increasingly difficult for them to properly repair Apple phones over the years.

Worse still is that Apple is known to be a trendsetter in the industry, and many companies also took umbrage with repairs just as they did. Microsoft, Samsung, and others have also made their devices more cumbersome to repair, though not to the insane degree that Apple has been playing the field.

Apple’s new direction

Not long ago, Apple announced that it would be starting up its own Self Service Repair program in 2022 for iPhones. This piece of news surprised almost everyone who was used to Apple’s egregious practices of fighting against device repairs. How did a company that seemed to hate electronic repairs and all that they stand for all of a sudden turn face?

While we don’t really know what Apple’s intentions are, there are several things that we can glean from this announcement. According to their press statement, Apple will be providing parts, tools, and manuals to people who request for them. This means that sourcing a part from a third-party is being cut down in favor of having Apple provide them for you.

Since Apple devices have been tailored to throw warnings and disable features if you use unregistered parts, you have no choice but to resort to turning to them if you want a fully-functioning phone. Using this approach, Apple can choose to price parts as high as they want, thereby either taking a sizable profit from individuals or inadvertently forcing you to upgrade instead of paying a hefty premium.

You also can’t order the parts from them beforehand and store them in your repair shop software – Apple will need you to put in a request for your specific part that works with only your device before shipping it to you.

The timing of Apple’s announcement

One of major hints at Apple’s behavior is the rising trend of regulators in the United States and abroad looking to pass right to repair laws. Because of the pandemic, the global community has been approaching repairability with increasing interest and are finally looking to pass legislation on it. This hurts Apple as it has historically been fighting any sort of right to repair law coming into place due to its own vested interest.

Interestingly enough, a company called Green Century Capital Management recently filed a shareholder proposal with Apple citing the company’s highly restrictive repair policies and taken it to the US Security and Exchanges Commission. This would bring them under government scrutiny, and to counter the argument, Apple needed to show that they have fair and balanced provisions for repair. Hence, the introduction of the Self Service Repair program.

It seems that Apple’s announcement came at the right time before any action was due to be taken on the company’s past practices. This approach lets them turn the ship around and build both a mechanism and goodwill to be able to counter such arguments and to continue rubbing against the right to repair laws.

The silver lining

Perhaps the best-case scenario here is Apple’s history as a trendsetter once again coming into play. Since companies have followed suit with Apple’s previous practices – be they in manufacturing, marketing, pricing, or policy – chances are that they will pick up what Apple is putting down and introduce programs of their own.

This overall spells good for the repair industry in general. It allows for more businesses to use their repair shop software to house parts sourced directly from manufacturers and work rapidly to fix devices. Perhaps the most important provision that should be normalized is the sharing of repair manuals and schematics. Repair shop owners and technicians go through great pains to be able to repair devices with proper schematics. Having something official will make the entire repair process a lot easier for independents and will ultimately do great for the repair industry at large.

Conclusion

With the way that Apple has operated in the past, it really is surprising to see the company approach repairability from this angle. Of course, there’s always the possibility that they’re doing this solely to cover their bases and continue their dominance. However, if others follow in the footsteps of Apple and end up creating more programs and policies that benefit consumers and independent business owners, we may yet see the repair industry evolve into something much greater in the future.1