Apple’s stance on the right to repair has now become more accommodative, with the company now supporting used parts for iPhone 15 repairs that can include the camera, display and battery. Components that did not require “configuration,” TechCrunch reports, already worked in a similar fashion.
While Apple’s move is welcome to many, it does answer a series of questions: If your iPhone breaks, should you have the right to fix it? If you want to fix your iPhone, should you be able to do that yourself, or be forced to go to the manufacturer? And if you are going to fix your iPhone yourself — or pay a third-party to help — should you be able to use whichever parts will work? The answer is increasingly yes to those queries.
Long gone are the days when fixing something you bought was possible with a wrench and some grit. Modern electronics are incredibly complex, and are often built in such a way that prevents certain elements of consumer choice. Repair has therefore become more difficult, and therefore easier to control. Consumers having more authority over fixing their iPhones, regardless of what it is and who built it, moves some of the gravity of control to the purchaser over the manufacturer, which many will cheer.
Apple pushed back vocally against criticism of parts pairing, and has recently backed laws in several states that enshrine consumer repair options. Regardless of how you view Apple’s prior stance and if it was disconsonant with its present posture — it seems that momentum has shifted in the market back toward more consumer choice, and control. Viva la device owners.