“Apple has sent delegates to officially oppose the passage of a so-called ‘right to repair’ bill in Nebraska that would require the company to provide consumers and third-party repair shops access to service manuals and parts,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider.
“State Sen. Lydia Brasch, sponsor of Nebraska’s Adopt the Fair Repair Act, said Apple representative Steve Kester apprised her of the pitfalls of similar “right to repair” legislation in a recent meeting, reports BuzzFeed News,” Campbell reports. “Specifically, Kester, who handles state and local government affairs for the Cupertino tech giant, warned Nebraska will become a ‘Mecca for bad actors’ if the bill is passed. The legislation could provide hackers and other unsavory characters hardware-level access to Apple products.”
“That Apple is at odds with LB67 is unsurprising,” Campbell reports. “The company has consistently opposed similar government action, saying its products should only be serviced by qualified technicians… [and contending] that conducting repairs through authorized outlets like Apple stores and vetted shops provides customers with a consistent experience. Further, an authorized repair network helps the company control and protect its various hardware platforms. On that note, Apple told Brasch it would not oppose LB67 if phones were excepted from the legislation.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple seems to have won at least a temporary reprieve as Campbell reports that “at the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing, the chair of the Judiciary Committee concluded LB67 is unlikely to be considered this year, citing the inherent challenges of passing new legislation, the report said.”
SEE ALSO:
Apple fights tooth and nail against ‘right to repair’ laws – March 8, 2017
Right to repair: Why Nebraska farmers are taking on John Deere and Apple – March 6, 2017
Right-to-Repair is ridiculous – February 16, 2017
Apple said to fight ‘Right to Repair’ legislation – February 15, 2017
This legislation, if passed, would be at odds with what is happening in other industries. (And yes, there are other industries besides tech.)
Jaguar, for one example, sells cars with aluminum bodies and structure. If you crash your aluminum Jag, you must take it to a Jag-certified body shop to have it repaired because Jag will not sell the new sheetmetal to any shop that isn’t certified in the proper methods used to repair the aluminum cars. Sure, non-certified shops can repair the cars but only utilizing salvage panels, as AFAIK there is no aftermarket alum Jag sheetmetal and it’s doubtful there ever will be.
Same sort of issue regarding certain types of software used to diagnose and tune late model high-tech cars: the automakers consider a lot of these capabilities as proprietary and will not grant the indpendent aftermarket access. And sure, most software can be reverse-engineered if someone has the will and time.
It would surprise me if right to repair is mandated in one industry but not another.
You confused right to repair with economic opportunity. Jaguar is more than welcome to innovate the materials and construction of their products.
What should be illegal is a manufacturer restricting spare parts availability, intentionally putting locks on commodity parts to force incompatibility, or the refusal to honor a warranty for Part A when the user modded Part B.
Rhhis is a bizarre forum where people seem happy to cede freedom to profiteering multinationals but act paranoid of their democratically elected representatives, arguing essentially that unelected corporate bureaucrats should have final say on everything right down to to how you maintain your personal possessions.
Hey Apple, don’t make this complicated. It’s simple. All we (I) want is to be able to upgrade RAM and drives on ALL Macs. That’s it. Done.
And GPU cards. And aftermarket PCI expansion. And tool free battery upgrades.
@MacObserver: Please explain exactly how Jaguar is NOT “restricting spare parts availability” if they will only supply aluminum body panels to their certified repair centers.
The only reason Apple is fighting the Right to Repair bill is because of the numerous number of people who don’t study and keep installing cheap components in their Macs expecting it to work, and wondering why there’s problems.
So, Apple felt they had no choice and locked down their Macs tight-as-a-drum, with many PC manufacturers following suit.
Geeks know what they’re doing, but the majority of people who tried to repair their own stuff don’t even know what ESD is.