France is investigating Apple over allegedly planning obsolescence for iPhone by restricting repairs, prosecutors and an association claimed on Monday.
The probe into purported misleading commercial practices and planned obsolescence has been under way since December, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
It follows a complaint filed by the Halt Planned Obsolescence (HOP) association.HOP said it hoped the investigation would demonstrate the iPhone maker was “associating the serial numbers of spare parts to those of a smartphone, including via microchips, giving the manufacturer the possibility of restricting repairs by non-approved repairers or to remotely degrade a smartphone repaired with generic parts.”
The association called on Apple “to guarantee the right to repair devices under the logic of real circular economy.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple in December 2022 made Self Service Repair available in France, alongside Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom — providing repair manuals and genuine Apple parts and tools through the Apple Self Service Repair Store. Customers who wish to complete their own repairs will be able to perform many of the most common repairs for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and Mac notebooks with Apple silicon.
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