I think their ultimate goal is to basically sell repairs as a service. That is, as the other commenter replied, we’ll let you repair your stuff as long as you use our parts and our tools and procedures, which change every year and are super marked up.
In other words, the catch is they see that right to repair is gaining steam, and they want to perform some regulatory capture by making it seem like they support it, but it’s really just a smokescreen for them to co-write the laws to support their bottom line.
Edit: and of course, they don’t want every state to do what California did, because one state may sneak a really pro consumer right to repair bill through, and then Apple is stuck having to support that state specifically, which basically means that everyone would have that level of access. So, preempt everything by pushing for a federal law so states don’t make their own, which ultimately saves a lot of lobbying dollars.
What’s the catch…
I think their ultimate goal is to basically sell repairs as a service. That is, as the other commenter replied, we’ll let you repair your stuff as long as you use our parts and our tools and procedures, which change every year and are super marked up.
In other words, the catch is they see that right to repair is gaining steam, and they want to perform some regulatory capture by making it seem like they support it, but it’s really just a smokescreen for them to co-write the laws to support their bottom line.
Edit: and of course, they don’t want every state to do what California did, because one state may sneak a really pro consumer right to repair bill through, and then Apple is stuck having to support that state specifically, which basically means that everyone would have that level of access. So, preempt everything by pushing for a federal law so states don’t make their own, which ultimately saves a lot of lobbying dollars.
The fact that you have to use their tools and their parts to have a fully-functional phone after the fact