“Apple is planning to fight proposed electronics ‘Right to Repair’ legislation being considered by the Nebraska state legislature, according to a source within the legislature who is familiar with the bill’s path through the statehouse,” Jason Koebler reports for Motherboard.
“The legislation would require Apple and other electronics manufacturers to sell repair parts to consumers and independent repair shops, and would require manufacturers to make diagnostic and service manuals available to the public,” Koebler reports. “Nebraska is one of eight states that are considering right to repair bills.”
“According to the source, an Apple representative, staffer, or lobbyist will testify against the bill at a hearing in Lincoln on March 9… The source told me that at least one of the companies plans to say that consumers who repair their own phones could cause lithium batteries to catch fire,” Koebler reports. “Manufacturers have lobbied hard against right to repair legislation in the past. Last year, a bill headed through the New York statehouse was killed in part due to lobbying from Apple and IBM, among other manufacturers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We can see both sides. We’ve repaired and replaced batteries in Apple devices in the past, but certainly it can be dangerous to mishandle/damage lithium batteries during the process.
