BOSTON — One of the biggest sellers of smartphones and laptops ranks at the bottom of a new dashboard analyzing the repairability of their products and whether the company supports digital right-to-repair policies.
The scorecard, published by the US Public Interest Research Group, ranks the best laptop and cellphone manufacturers based on their average repair scores and their support for laws such as Massachusetts legislation that would require digital electronics manufacturers to make repair tools and information available to product owners and freelancers. repair shops.
The scorecard gives Apple a score of 3.16 out of 10 for the repairability of its laptops and 2.75 out of 10 for the repairability of its cellphones. Salem Techsperts owner Andy Harding said locking down information and parts for Apple iPhones often prevents him from saving his customers “a lot of money”.
He pointed to a component called a flexible earpiece that helps run the iPhone 10’s Face ID feature. If it’s damaged by water, the device won’t turn on, he said.
Several of his customers, he said, have gone to Apple to have their devices repaired, but “Apple told them they had to buy another device and it’s not repairable when they told me. bring”.
“Of course I unplugged the earphone cable, which takes 30 seconds and the phone reboots, but I can’t fix that part because Apple programmed it to be encrypted with the card itself- even,” he said. “That means if you replace it with another spare, it won’t work, you’ll lose Face ID.”
He said he supports so-called digital right to repair legislation in Massachusetts because “I want Apple to give me the tools I need so I can help consumers.”
A request for comment to Apple’s media department went unanswered.
Opponents of the bill say cell phones, laptops or other complex electronic devices should be handled by trained people. At a hearing in early October, opponents said most manufacturers already provide product repair and support.
Entertainment Software Association government affairs director Matt Lenz said the bill could affect video game console producers like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo and promote pirated video games. All three console makers offer repair services, he said, beyond the warranty period to keep the devices in good working order.
At the October hearing, he said parts of the console protect creative works and prevent illegal modifications to devices that could lead to pirated games.
“Once the consoles (technological protection measures) are disabled, two disturbing things can happen. First, the gaming experience for players is diminished, sometimes dramatically, which could be considered a fault of the console or game,” he said. “And two, any number of illegal games copied from the Internet could be played on the console.”
The Consumer Protection and Professional Licensing Committee reported favorably on the bill on Feb. 10 and it now sits before the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which is chaired by Democratic Westport Sen. Michael Rodrigues.
Kevin O’Reilly, Right to Repair Campaign Director for the US Public Interest Research Group, discussed a French ranking system for the repairability and durability of electronic devices. Part of the measure requires the European Union to create labels for consumer products to help people who buy electronics.
Rated out of 100 and then compressed on a scale of 1 to 10, the rating system examines everything from availability of repair documentation, ease of disassembly, availability of spare parts, affordability of spare parts and device-specific categories. This score is then displayed as a label on the product.
This system was taken into account in the dashboard published last week. O’Reilly said the scorecard particularly focuses on ease of disassembly “because that’s more universal of the different ratings that the French repair score gives.”
The scorecard gives Dell, Asus, Lenovo and Acer laptops between 6.5 and 7.9 out of 10, Hewlett-Packard a 6.39 and Microsoft a 4.6. For mobile phones, Motorola took first place with 7.77, Samsung 5.69 and Google 4.64.
“Nobody walks into the store and says I’m going to buy something that I can’t fix today. That’s not something consumers want to do,” O’Reilly said. “But increasingly, the products we buy are hard to fix, and there’s no way of knowing whether you can actually fix them or not.”
