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One thing I dislike about this decision is, that it conflates the limitations for third parties repairing an iPhone with the ability to repair a device at all.
by _ph_ 3y ago
One thing I dislike about this decision is, that it conflates the limitations for third parties repairing an iPhone with the ability to repair a device at all. Yes, in an ideal world it would be easy and cheap to repair a device. Good points have been raised in the discussion, why this might be limited by necessity. Like theft-protection and just technical questions of calibration of part.
But from an environmental perspective, it makes a huge difference whether something can be quickly repaired or not. Who can do the repairs is an important question, but it is secondary to the first. I am not happy with iFixit not distinguishing bad repairability and having to go to Apple for a repair.
I find it ok to withdraw like one point for the tie-in to the manufacturer, but the new score puts it on a level with devices which just have to be thrown away.
This is also a disservice to the customer, as while the Apple prices might be quite high, they seem to be related closely to how difficult a certain repair is to do. Improvements there are a benefit to all customers. The new scoring system hides this and actually reduces the pressure onto the manufacturer to improve repairability.
- paulmd 3y agoyup, I think the right-to-repair movement has unthinkingly adopted a lot of attitudes from a couple key proponents with business interests in component-level repair. board-level repair is fine, and is probably necessary to get some of the economies of scale in assembly and distribution. but you'd think it doesn't count for some reason.