California, the home to many of tech’s biggest companies and the nation’s most populous state, is pushing ahead with a right-to-repair bill for consumer electronics and appliances. After unanimous votes in the state Assembly and Senate, the bill passed yesterday is expected to move through a concurrence vote and be signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.

  • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    1 year ago

    Because it doesn’t state anywhere in the law what parts must be supplied and at what price.

    Apple will simply sell the whole mainboard as one unit… and price it at $799 for an $850 phone. The phrasing is “fair and reasonable terms.” which Apple can simply say that the whole board is tied together as one item from the get go and therefore is not reasonable to separate for repairs. Further Apple gets the win of

    The bill requires repair vendors that are “not an authorized repair provider” to “provide a written notice of that fact” to customers and to “disclose if it uses replacement parts that are used” or third-party.

    So now there must be a mandatory letter when someone like Louis Rossmann repairs your phone… But Apple doesn’t have to do it, even while the first party repair people steal all your data and post your videos to porn sites.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Fortunately, “fair and reasonable” is left to the courts, not the AG, so it should be harder for them to get away with pricing nonsense.

      I’m more worried about software blocks (e.g. serialization of parts so many can’t just be dropped in), but hopefully there’s enough room in the law for a judge to set appropriate precedence.