EU Approves New Regulation for Smartphone Batteries - Must be User-Replaceable by 2027

[claes]

My apologies if this is off-topic or seen as getting the last word, please delete if so!

Where did I suggest taking an iPhone to an Apple store for repair? Third party repair shops exist for a reason.

This is besides the point, but right here:

Well yeah Apple supports their phones 5+ years so unless I'm trading it in or upgrading of course I'm going to take it to get the battery replaced if it needs it, this is a fairly routine procedure.

If Apple provided a 5+ year warranty for batter replacement I think no one would have issue with your reasoning.

Apple makes parts available for repair so I'm not sure why you think this is a "right to repair" issue. Also not sure why you think $150 is expensive to replace a battery in a device costing $500-$1000?

With all respect I do not think you are familiar with right to repair both as a set of policy demands and in terms of existing regulation and frameworks meant to enhance a consumer’s right to repair.

Some of the main tenants include a consumer’s ability to access manuals, to purchase parts and tools at fair market value, and for companies to produce products that are repairable without technical knowledge. Most manufacturers do none of these things, and being able to go to a specialist and pay for their expertise and labor is very much the opposite of the right to repair.

To put the legislative piece we’re discussing into a broader context, it follows from the EU’s 2017 recommendations that member states enshrine the right to repair to it’s citizens — this legislation is an example of that campaign.

This is all part of a consumer campaign to enshrine these rights, which is like “voting with your dollar” but with a much higher success rate.

Right to repair - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

No one buys a car and expects the repairs to be cents on the dollar so it's a strange that you expect tech repairs to be vastly cheaper ratio wise than said cost of device.

They do though. It is actually legally mandated in the US and the EU that car batteries are replaceable by the end user, which is why they aren’t glued into the chassis and use universal standards that created a battery aftermarket where a consumer has a choice in car battery rather than being tied to the manufacturer’s proprietary standard.

In the US car manufacturers are mandated to provide the same repair manuals they provide to their mechanics to repair shops and consumers. Given that a dealer can charge you $200+ to perform a replace a spark plug that would cost $10-$20 and twenty minutes of time, or $350 for a $100 battery and thirty minutes of time, I’d say yes, it is cents on the dollar. Why should I have to pay an expert $150 to replace a $20 battery? Why should it take an hour?

Edit: also no one is forcing you to buy any of their products, if you have an issue with their business, dont buy from them; it's a very simple concept, voting with your wallet.

Or appeal to them to make their products more repairable, as the right to repair campaign attempts to do with some success. For example, Apple didn’t sell parts to third-party repair shops until 2019, due to pressure from the campaign. As of 2021, Apple began selling parts and manuals to end users without a certification as well. There’s still the problem of the designs themselves, which this legislation seeks to address, and things like part pairing, which legislation like those passed in states like New York and Massachusetts attempt to address, but it is a step in the right direction.