Wired
On Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook attended the hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Judicial Subcommittee and explained a series of questions that everyone was concerned about. As part of the ongoing antitrust investigation, Congress also shared a series of emails, which revealed the company’s thoughts on the App Store’s share policy, insights in negotiating deals with Amazon, and repair rights with independent third parties Dispute.
According to the regulations, companies should allow consumers to repair equipment themselves, and companies such as Apple should provide repair parts and manuals to all repair points, not just Apple authorized service providers.
Apple has lobbied strongly to oppose the “right to repair”, but judging from the content of the email, the company’s position and future direction are still uncertain.
For example, in April 2019, the “New York Times” wrote a column in support of fighting for the’right to repair’, but Apple also racked its brains to justify it.
The email wrote: The bigger problem is that our policies around all of this are not yet clear. We are currently discussing two aspects, and no one knows the way forward.
Later in 2019, iFixit found the iMac repair manual on the Internet and raised questions to Apple, but unfortunately did not receive any response.
However, according to e-mails shared by Congress, this matter did trigger discussion within the company. Apple’s public relations executive said:
Due to the lack of overall strategic guidance, the current incident is clearly still hanging in the air. On the other hand, we are making some changes.
For example, actively expressing their opposition to the legislation of the’right to repair’ to 20 states, but still lacks how to use the updated policy to guide the company’s position and conduct effective coordination.
Facts have proved that Apple released the iMac repair manual of the EPEAT green certification standard, but not all the company’s teams are aware of or approve of this. In the end, this manual was not deleted, but the company did not give any further explanation.
At present, many states in the United States have enacted maintenance rights and interests bills, but companies such as Apple and John Deere are still lobbying to prevent the passage of related bills, while continuing to use customer safety as a major excuse for restricting maintenance policies.
In order to persuade California lawmakers not to pass the maintenance rights bill, a lobbyist even took apart an iPhone and explained how customers would hurt themselves if the lithium-ion battery was punctured.
Apple also stated that the company wants to assure customers that its products can be repaired safely and properly, which is another reason why it does not open repair rights to all independent third-party repair shops.
Finally, while opposing the maintenance rights legislation, Apple is also taking some measures to appease those who demand to expand the scope of maintenance.
In August 2019, the company launched a plan to provide genuine parts, tools, training and maintenance manuals to independent maintenance parties, but only if they are willing to sign complicated contract terms.
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