I was wondering if this would be carved up with exceptions, but it's actually rather strong comparable to what state laws we have had so far per [1]
> Like the repair rules passed in Minnesota last year, Colorado’s law notably covers data center and business-to-business equipment, only without Minnesota’s vague exclusion for “critical infrastructure” equipment.
> There are some exclusions, like game consoles (due to lobbying from game console manufacturers over piracy concerns), medical devices, ATVs, and motor vehicles, which are also typical for repair rules introduced in other states like California and New York. Like Oregon’s right-to-repair law, Colorado’s HB24-1121 explicitly prohibits electronics manufacturers from using “parts pairing” to prevent replacement components from working unless approved by company software.
So what does this mean for Apple devices? They will have to back away from pairing? If yes, then it should work everywhere? Or will they agree to pay whatever fines in CO to avoid changing this elsewhere? Is there another option I should be thinking about?
My guess is they will retain "parts pairing" from a technical perspective, but frame it as an anti theft measure, and focus on preventing use of stolen device parts.
Perhaps they'll relax the restrictions on "non first party" components (likely you'll lose some functionality that aftermarket parts don't actually support), but use pairing to lock out parts from stolen phones.
I suspect that part of their strategy is to try to make stolen iPhones less attractive to thieves, and effective parts pairing would likely reduce the market for stolen phones stripped for parts.
Of course, if you can "blank" off a stolen part to appear as an unofficial one, that doesn't work! That idea is therefore likely to face challenges.
The challenge will be what is really meant by parts pairing - to some extent if you want to do some features securely (say touch ID), you probably want to pair the reader to the secure enclave with a shared AES key and similar. There could be tooling to reset and re-establish that pairing on an unlocked device.
Legislation often struggles to define exactly what is required though, so it will certainly be interesting to see how Apple responds.
Fine let me take my phone to the official store, do some authentication and let them give that configuration of components the stamp of approval. That way they know that I am aware of all the parts that comprise my phone and want them to work. If some component turns out to originate from a phone that was reported stolen then fine, it's not part of their remit to act on that and not my problem either, assuming I bought it fair and square. (Assuming common law or similar, ymmv)
Under the law, the rightful owner of stolen property can demand its return. If it's currently installed in your phone, that's your problem, even if you bought it "fair and square" - that just gives you a claim on the merchant who sold you stolen goods.
The exception to this is currency: if you're fairly paid with stolen money, you get to keep the money, regardless of whether the rightful owner is able to proof that it was originally theirs and stolen.
Which law is that now? As I'm sure an expert like you knows, this will vary by jurisdiction.
The fact that somebody may take a replevin claim against me because the digitizer in my phone was removed from their stolen phone does not, imho, have any bearing on Apple's rights and responsibilities with regard to me as a customer.
Depends on here you live. In some places, buying stolen parts is illegal. In those places, they would probably have a defense, since it would not be “fair and square”.
Not sure what fair and square means wrt buying stolen property. In most cases you would lose possession of it, in some cases you’re actually criminally liable.
> My guess is they will retain "parts pairing" from a technical perspective, but frame it as an anti theft measure, and focus on preventing use of stolen device parts.
Isn't that just what they already do? Apple has consistently framed the parts pairing as being about theft deterrence. I don't believe them for a second (and nor should anyone), but that is certainly what they claim.
They also use the United States Customs to seize repair part shipments to undermine independent repair operations. Louis Rossman has some excellent videos on this.
I'm not GP, but I agree entirely with them. I believe apple is doing it to maximize the value of official parts, and to make it as hard as possible for people to do self-repairs and for third party shops to do repairs. They want you fully in their walled garden, and that includes their retail stores.
I don't doubt at all that they see the theft deterrence as a significant benefit. I wouldn't even doubt that internally they justify many of their actions based on theft deterrence.
However, if it was only about theft deterrence, I would expect to see some things be a little bit different. If they actually supported customers repairing their devices, or third-party stores, there would be differences in how they approach this. We have plenty of history of Apple's behavior to know how they feel about self-repair and third-party stores, without even considering the theft deterrent actions.
How utterly and incredibly serendipitous for Apple, that they are able to solve the problem of theft, and it just so happens to also accomplish a ton of their other goals that they have been working on for a long time!
This is pretty vague. You claim there would be “differences” if it were actually about theft deterrence and that it accomplishes “a ton of other goals” but don’t give an example.
The problem with most of the theories about Apple having ulterior motives about parts pairing is that there’s no evidence that parts sales are even a blip on their revenue, not to mention a profit center. I have trouble imagining what those motives might be besides securing devices and restricting use of black market parts.
A specific goal Apple has is to "ensure the user experience" of repairs, aka ensure that you are only use Apple-approved parts. Their "anti-theft" conveniently also locks out "unauthorized" third party parts. This is not a conspiracy, they have openly said this in the past. They usually refer to the third party parts as "counterfeit" but that's only a small percentage and they have a history of going against legitimate sellers. And yes there absolutely is evidence of them caring about parts sales. They actually train US CBP on how to "recognize" counterfeit Apple parts and they give them instructions on how to proceed when they find them. What other corporation gets that much say/power with law enforcement?
What is it about Apple that makes you trust them so much? Is it so hard to believe that a company formed around a ruthless businessman would continue to be ruthless? Or why would you believe that after Jobs died they suddenly changed?
Nothing you describe is anti-consumer. Counterfeit or poor quality replacement parts from third parties harm Apple customers. All those efforts improve the reliability of repair service for users and deter criminals and counterfeiters.
The only serious potential issue I see with all of these restrictions is if they make 3rd party repairs too cumbersome or cost prohibitive. If not, then I see no downside, other than losing the ability to use cheap but sketchy replacement parts.
there’s no “maybe” about it, people forget that this was legislatively mandated at the time, and considered a positive step to prevent muggings and phone theft (which were drastically reduced by these measures). And this was actually done over the objections of the tech industry at the time.
Apple has already announced they are killing parts pairing as it is currently implemented. They will, however, block the use of parts which came from a parent device marked as stolen.
This makes perfect sense and is a Good and Right thing to do. It properly devalues stolen goods while allowing a third party repair shop industry to exist that purchases "for parts" broken devices from some users and more cheaply repairs others' using said parts.
The main thing potentially missing is there has to be a way that the shop can verify the given device's parts are not marked stolen prior to purchasing it "for parts"...
That seems like a hard problem for a phone that won't boot. You'd only be able to verify the device's serial from the labels. To validate each component you'd have to take the device apart.
Stolen phones are blacklisted by serial and IMEI2, so the label will cover the vast majority of cases (unless they’re putting stolen parts inside of a legitimately purchased case…?)
> unless they’re putting stolen parts inside of a legitimately purchased case…?
Which they have no reason to do unless the device is functional (and then the parts could be identified in software), because they could just as easily fill a non-functional device with cat litter or old newspapers instead of going through the trouble of sourcing functional stolen parts.
I assume they will just price their repair parts accordingly. Maybe this will drive 3rd party development of compatible parts, and then consumers will decide to pay for the Apple OEM part or the knock-off.
I think you nailed it. The voting population generally disapproves of 'car culture'. Foolish trends like removing catalytic converters and running super loud exhausts for single digit horsepower gains or hooning on public roads don't do its image any favors. But the most basic reason is just that the industry lobby that wants to lock down cars is much stronger than the independent/shade tree mechanic lobby that doesn't.
> Foolish trends like removing catalytic converters and running super loud exhausts for single digit horsepower gains or hooning on public roads don't do its image any favors.
And there is so much more.
One of my pet peeves was idiots lifting their trucks but doing nothing with their headlights or worse getting "brighter" headlights. It is possible to be stuck in traffic and be practically blinded by the truck behind you in your mirrors.
This kind of behavior is why I have no problem with manufacturers moving towards digital camera-based sideview mirrors. Plenty of experience being blinded especially at night, very grateful for the "flip up" trick on the rearview that cuts brightness.
Don't worry, the Chinese got this trend covered with the 1000000 lumen headlights (actually producing about 1000 which is far less than the normal 1500).
One of the many drawbacks of EVs is their lack of repair-ability and modability compared to ICE counterparts. This bill could be been an good way to change that.
EV's are mechanically much simpler that ICE and need less repair. The problem is all the computers which is really an all modern cars problem people blame on EV's.
Agreed. There's already a lot of legislation around automotive (and it's pretty good) so maybe they wanted to steer clear of that to avoid legal conflicts with other state's laws. The dealer lobby is also particularly litigious, so perhaps they want to avoid going down that path when it's not really necessary at this time.
Medical devices and aircraft should NEVER be the exemptions.
Those are two category of product that have one of the longest lives of consumer goods, and have serious external guardrails and regulations around their safety.
There are MANY 50 year old aircraft flying around still, the average GA fleet age is 35+. Part of that is that replacement parts are approved by the FAA, and not the OEM. If the FAA says I can use an Garmin transponder in my Cessna, Cessna can't brick my plane even if they have a deal with Icom. There are still aftermarket parts being sold for models that were discontinued in the 1950s. Imagine if we had to throw away every old airplane when the manufacturer went bust.
Medical devices are the same, if a third party manufacturer is selling an FDA approved replacement battery for an older hearing aid, I would be pissed if the manufacturer bricked my device for not using their battery. Or even worse, how mad would you be if the original manufacturer, and the secret signing key for their batteries, went out of business and you didn't even have the option of an expensive OEM battery.
> Medical devices and aircraft should NEVER be the exemptions.
> "if a third party manufacturer is selling an FDA approved replacement battery for an older hearing aid,"
The FDA and FAA are massive bureaucracies that are not going to get into the business of regulating electronics. Practically, medical devices and aircraft should be exempt, as things are today. Suggesting legislation should be written otherwise, is negligent at best and malicious at worst.
> The FDA and FAA are massive bureaucracies that are not going to get into the business of regulating electronics
The FAA has been in the business of regulating electronics for more than half a century. They are also in the business of certifying that replacement parts meet the same standards even when not endorsed by the manufacturer. There is a reason that a 1970 Cessna can have a modern avionics suite.
Medical devices include the likes of x-ray machines. I don't think I would relish the idea of my dentist saving a buck on maintainance and calibration. I think a more precise follow-up bill that covers things that aren't life threatening (like hearing aids) would be more appropriate.
Forcing an x-ray to be serviceable is not the same as making it legal for an amateur serviced machine to be used.
There are also all sorts of existing legal remedies for things like this. If you blast someone with x-rays through negligence like letting an amateur fiddle with the x-ray machine, you will have some serious legal issues regardless of whether or not the OEM is legally required to sell replacement parts.
You can have one law that says that medical machines must be repairable, and then you can have another law that says that medical machine repairers must be trained, or that repairs have to be inspected.
This is already a common thing in life or death services, yeah, anyone can do the work to wire their own house (since its an open standard), but that doesn't mean that a qualified electrician and inspector doesn't have to put their names that the work has been done to a safe standard.
>anyone can do the work to wire their own house (since its an open standard), but that doesn't mean that a qualified electrician and inspector doesn't have to put their names that the work has been done to a safe standard
That is not universally true in the US--and is probably widely ignored even in jurisdictions where it is theoretically true.
Would the availability of such things as documented, published, manufacturer-supplied methods for maintenance and calibration of dental x-ray machines increase the likelihood of your dentist trying to save a buck on these tasks, compared to the unavailability of these things?
I'm pretty sure malpractice insurance would love to not pay the doctor if they are caught doing anything like this. That threat alone would prevent doctors from doing stupid things.
To heck with that. My right to reverse engineer and fabricate parts for an airplane that I own is ALREADY enshrined in federal law, and our aviation user groups are funded and motivated to protect this privilege. It is as applicable to American Airlines (they have used it, for example, to produce replacement MD-80 tailcones) as it is to a dude with a Cessna.
What are your thoughts on the artificial eye company that shut down, possibly leaving patients with non-working and non-repairable implants in their head [1]?
Woohoo. CO got "documentation, parts, embedded software, firmware, [and] tools" for multiple product categories.
More R2R rights are needed:
1. Either the UL or EPA needs to grade devices for repairability and TCO
2. a. Repair parts and b. phone-home cloud features should be disclosed how long they will remain on the market
3. a. When parts are no longer available (NLA), it should be legal to produce compatible replacements including circumventing DRM, b. when cloud features are no longer available officially, API endpoint(s) shall be modifiable to point to other servers
4. Schematics should be made available for electronic products from businesses with 500+ employees
5. It should be illegal to brick parts and devices based on their age, the current time, or by model, or for installing third-party parts
> CO got "documentation, parts, embedded software, firmware, [and] tools" for multiple product categories.
I remember when Tesla was first forced to comply with MA's R2R laws. It was like something out of Hitchhiker's Guide...
There WAS a website where you could order parts, in theory. Except every single part on the site was either "Unavailable" or "Call Tesla", even down the simplest commodity bolts...
There WAS somewhere you could go to look at the documentation / service manuals. You did have to make an appointment, though, and you did have to pay a fee, and there was a time limit, and you couldn't bring any electronic devices with you, only a legal pad and pencil...
Consumer Reports is a media company assigning gold stars to products their writers like. The EPA (or FCC, or ____) is a 3-letter with a nominal ability to enforce certain standards among devices presenting their mark. The purported accountability of a EPA/FCC/UL/whatever mark is key here.
Would be nice to have a law saying anything with a reasonable expectation of wear must be user replaceable.
For example, every modern Mac will turn into e-waste within a decade since that SSD has to wear out. I don't care how high of a quality SSD you use, it just won't last forever.
My 2-year-old MacBook Air would be the perfect computer if I could just put a larger SSD in it, but I can't. So I'm already looking at buying a new computer.
How many SSDs have you worn out in your personal computers? They've been affordable for over a decade, so I assume you must have exhausted the write endurance on at least one drive, right?
The abysmal storage capacity inside MacBooks is a somewhat uniquely-Apple issue, its not so oppressive in most other laptops (though, most also use modular storage)
Most R2R arguments address hardware wear (like battery/SSD degradation and physically broken parts that need to be replaced) rather than expandability and future-proofing (like increasing the size of your SSD/RAM or installing a faster CPU)
I agree with right to repair where a company should make every effort for a customer to repair their device. But only so long as it doesn't regress technology; someone can replace a battery or screen etc, but I would never expect a regular or even technically inclined person replace a fine pitched BGA in a device.
At some point in the future we're going to get to the point where these things become fully integrated: solid state battery, display elements, silicon all printed into one solid glassy chunk.
Maybe I am missing something. As an owner of device or equipment, being able to repair is very basic right to the property. Why is it a big deal? Would love to be enlightened.
You can have a right in principle but companies must actively take measures to make parts and documentation available for it to
actually be possible to avail yourself of that right. The big deal is over which purposes and to what degree governments should be able to compel companies to offer this to their customers, support resale of used parts, support business that broker parts, etc. There are a lot of messy details and tradeoffs.
While well-intentioned, I wonder if this will lead to something like the "sesame" debacle[1], in which is becomes far cheaper and easier for companies to deliberately design digital devices so as to be absolutely unrepairable -- even by the manufacturers themselves -- rather than provide parts and instructions for 3rd parties to effect repairs.
Apple already did this. They've been doing it for over a decade. They don't do component-level repair, they do assembly swaps, because it's cheaper to make the customer pay $500 to replace a board with 100 soldered-on components than to pay $50k/yr more for a skilled technician to replace just one. Then they handcuff their vendors to make sure as many chips as possible on the board can only be bought by them.
The reason why Louis Rossmann is - or, at least, was able to fix your MacBook is because Apple's vendors were breaching their supplier agreements. Apple worked around that by putting Apple logos on all their components and getting Customs to seize any parts shipments coming out of China.
Why are you singling out Apple here? I can't think of any consumer product where the manufacturer does board-level repair. My washing machine dies? They replace the whole board. TV dies? replace the TCON board. My aircon stops? They replace the whole board. ECU in my car starts throwing errors? They replace the whole unit. What company sends out a repairman with a soldering iron?
Samsung still charges $300 for a new board for their washing machines, half the cost of a new machine.
It's actually an even BETTER candidate for board-level repair as they have easier to hand-solder, off-the-shelf through-hole components, and yet they still don't do it.
Design For Manufacturing + Design For Obsolescence
!=
Design For Durability + Design For Repair + Design For Low TCO
Recall how the GDR's unbreakable beer mugs failed to sell in the West and became lost to time because restaurant vendors insisted on selling "cheap", inferior, fragile products breaking regularly to ensure profits.
> because restaurant vendors insisted on selling "cheap", inferior, fragile products breaking regularly to ensure profits
I prefer thinner, lighter glassware. Even if it breaks more often. The fact that these products didn’t do well in households should be Exhibit A for why restaurants’ profit concerns weren’t to blame.
Design For Obsolescence isn't often the goal ... just a side benefit. Not that it doesn't happen.
The goal is usually something like: ensure we meet durability requirements X, while minimizing costs.
Now in practice that might very much amount to the same practical impact, such as the product will break after the designed lifetime, but maybe not if it happens to be cheaper to use a simpler, cheaper component that actually is more durable. But probably there is some component that is the weak link that only meets the minimum design specs. And this yet one more reason why Repair is important, because many of the components are perfectly fine!
People already steal beer mugs...buying very expensive ones that don't break would just be a target for thieves requiring you to replace them even more frequently than glass ones.
This has been the status quo. Soldered SSDs, ram, keyboards that die from a speck of dust. It's the lack of oversight that's allowed companies to do as they please.
The market largely self-regulates this. If you want systems with replaceable components built to high quality standards, they exist, but there are costs. They might costs more, not be cutting edge, not have the nice integrated form factors. But plenty of third-party-reviewers, brand reputation from customers, and fierce competition reigns in much of the worst practices of industry. But things move fast enough that it requires either relying on a reputation for quality or detailed review to get what you want. And the mainstream buyers don't care about soldered components (at point of purchase). They might care about resale value, but really doesn't hinder the current market too much, given how fast things deprecate relative to repairability. All of this is basically self-regulated by a highly competitive global market.
There are two reasons this often results in a market failure.
One is when the market is too concentrated. So e.g. when substantially all of the SoCs in smartphones are made by just three companies, none of them have to provide adequate drivers or documentation unless the others do, and then their devices become e-waste as soon as they themselves stop updating the binary blob drivers for newer kernel versions, because the kernels the old blobs are compatible with have published security vulnerabilities. A better solution to this would be to break them up / stop letting them buy each other, but state-level governments have little ability to break up multi-national corporations and national governments have failed to do it, so here we are.
The other is when the rule is to protect customers other than the original purchaser. In many of these markets one customer buys the product new, with a warranty, and then sells it to someone else when the warranty expires. The original customer doesn't care about repairability because all their repairs will be under warranty, and may not even care much about resale value because they're affluent, so the OEM can sell them a device that isn't repairable. But that screws the customers in the second-hand market who need to make out-of-warranty repairs, and it's those who the law is trying to protect.
I think you mean to say the market is "supposed to" self-regulate this.
People don't notice early enough that it will cause problems, and they don't have equivalent options available that are more repairable but only marginally different in price and capability.
Brand reputation reigns in "the worst", but pretty bad things still happen, and being unrepairable and non-upgradable isn't "the worst" so it keeps happening.
> being unrepairable and non-upgradable isn't "the worst" so it keeps happening.
Because it isn't collectively valued relative to other things, like have the most performant device. The bundle of things people value includes repairability ... but not that much. As I said, you can buy repairable and upgradable system, they just tend to be last-generation tech and cost more. Buyers just don't value it more. But clearly they value it some, which reaches that equilibrium of reigning in the "worst" as you say.
The price premium for those niche options is orders of magnitude higher than it would be in a highly competitive market. People avoiding those options makes sense. The market is not competitive enough to consistently offer moderately important things like repairability in an accessible way, especially because it's hard to tell at a glance. The market is failing here.
If it was there at a fair price, lots of buyers would pick it.
But because the actual cost is quite low, we can have a good outcome by forcing it on companies, to also fight their perverse incentive to make disposable hardware.
> If it was there at a fair price, lots of buyers would pick it.
I don't think this is true. Lot's of folks on a forum like this would pick it. But the social norms around repair have degraded significantly (in large part no doubt, to it not being a cost-effective option). But my main point is that it will take more than just availability. And thus there is no market pressure, so it doesn't appear to me that this is indeed a market failure, instead it looks like the market responding to the demand.
Let me illustrate further, if a top provider of electronics and appliances, but not fully market dominate in many niches, say LG, pledged and followed through on their pledge to ensure the repairability of their products, and remained price-competitive, would they gain significant market share over their competitors? In phones? In appliances sold at a big box store? Or would people choosing an Apple device, or GE Fridge still choose those options because of features and market clout and ignore the repairability? I predict they'd gain some marginal sales, but really wouldn't incentivize change amongst their competition.
Now there are markets where the dynamic is different. Farming equipment, where there are some strong challengers to Deere and one of the things they sometimes use to different is repairability. There the market failure I'd be concerned with is the vertical alignment of dealers with service.
I’ve done it. I bought a TV off Craigslist for $20. Backlight was dead. Bought a $50 led strip from eBay, pulled the Tv apart and replaced the LED. At the time, this was like an $800 TV I “got” for $70 dollar plus an evening of work.
In my opinion, if the screen isn’t physically damaged (like having a WiiMote chucked at it), then it’s basically a plug and play electronic component that needs to be replaced. Besides removing the TV casing, it’s only marginally harder than swapping out components just a gaming PC.
It’s essentially just pulling some ribbons, swapping the components, then putting everything back in place.
Wow - thanks for the info - I never would have guessed that!
So, can you replace the electronics by connecting to a different screen? For instance, from a different model, assuming the same resolution, like say put Samsung electronics together with an LG screen?
In theory, I suspect that there's a _lot_ of standardization going on among products from the same manufacturer, but less so among different manufacturers.
That's refreshing. TVs are very popular curbside decorations. I always thought about taking them home and fixing them up but could never convince myself I had the time or patience.
I've fixed my own TV. Samsung built the power supply with bad capacitors. It was easy to source the parts, and easy to replace the parts. (I'll probably end up fixing it again, soon -- there's a problem with what is doubtlessly a zebra strip that results in a lack of green subpixels for a one-pixel-wide vertical band when turned on, that eventually clears up. It just needs smooshed in the right spot.)
Amusingly, it was still under extended warranty when the power supply problem first started, but by then the company that sold me the warranty had gone out of business.
And Samsung eventually lost a class action lawsuit about this exact capacitor issue, but when I found out about that it was already too late to file a claim.
So much for the invisible hand of the free market (and legal corrections thereof) keeping things in check.
It's about as difficult as fixing any other household appliance, which isn't very difficult as long as it isn't hideously cheap and Apple wasn't involved.
can we please get a law like this that for games that prevents gaming companies from completely shutting a game past its EOL or forces gaming companies to add LAN to games they intend to shut servers for
> Like the repair rules passed in Minnesota last year, Colorado’s law notably covers data center and business-to-business equipment, only without Minnesota’s vague exclusion for “critical infrastructure” equipment.
> There are some exclusions, like game consoles (due to lobbying from game console manufacturers over piracy concerns), medical devices, ATVs, and motor vehicles, which are also typical for repair rules introduced in other states like California and New York. Like Oregon’s right-to-repair law, Colorado’s HB24-1121 explicitly prohibits electronics manufacturers from using “parts pairing” to prevent replacement components from working unless approved by company software.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/29/24166894/colorado-right-t...