California last week finally passed a sweeping new “right to repair” law that should make it much easier to fix your smartphone or laptop when it breaks. Enacted by Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, the Right to Repair Act makes California the third state to pass a broad right to repair law, after New York, which passed a similar measure last year, and Minnesota, which passed its version in May.
It’s also arguably the strongest in the nation so far. While New York State and Minnesota’s laws require most electronics manufacturers to offer currently available parts, tools, and documentation to third parties, California’s requires electronics manufacturers to make those repair resources available to third parties for at least seven years after a product is no longer made, if the product was priced over $100, or three years for products between $50 and $100. California also defines penalties: as much as $5,000 a day for repeated violations of the law.
Notably, California’s legislation passed with the support of Apple, which for years fought right to repair bills. But the new law fails to stop a practice that companies (including Apple) use to throw a wrench into devices’ repairability. That technique, called “parts pairing,” ties individual parts to the devices that they’re shipped with, by adding tiny chips to each part bearing the device’s serial number. The device’s software won’t allow it to work properly unless all the parts inside it have been previously linked to each other in a factory. “It’s completely an artificial limitation to hand control to the manufacturer on who gets to decide when and where repairs happen,” says Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, a repair company and advocacy organization for right to repair laws.
Parts pairing is especially common in Apple products, and iFixit’s engineers have found that the iPhone is an especially egregious offender. Just swapping genuine Apple parts between brand-new, identical iPhones could mean both phones no longer work correctly. If you install a non-paired display, the iPhone’s software will disable the phone’s Face ID camera, and certain features like auto-brightness and color temperature shift. If you install a non-paired battery, you’ll get annoying warning messages that will pester you to the point of making the phone unusable.
The practice has also made its way to video game consoles. In the case of Microsoft’s Xbox, its optical drive comes paired to the console itself. But because Microsoft hasn’t yet offered replacement drives, a broken drive has typically meant a broken machine. (Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.)
Last year, Apple began offering a “self-service repair” program that allows third-party repair shops to obtain paired parts through Apple. But technicians have complained that the Cupertino giant makes them jump through unreasonable hoops, like handing over customers’ personal information, agreeing to years of audits, and signing NDAs just to get the parts—a process Wiens calls “quite obnoxious.”
That slows down third-party repairs significantly, says Aaron Peranowski, a University of Michigan law professor and prominent right to repair advocate. It means local shops can’t keep bins of spare parts in stock and have to navigate Apple’s process each time they need something: “Instead of that repair taking 20 minutes, maybe it’s going to take a couple of days.”
Apple’s parts documentation also warns that “Repairs performed by untrained individuals using nongenuine parts might affect the safety and functionality of the device.” (Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
But independent technicians say it’s really about putting them out of work. “The situation has gotten so bad that several repair professionals have told us they’re leaving the business entirely rather than navigate the labyrinthine maze of obstacles that Apple has erected,” Wiens wrote in a blog post last month.
The alternative for a technician is to attempt a difficult and unauthorized maneuver: unsolder the ID chip from a paired part and resolder it onto a replacement part, a technique that Wien says “takes a couple thousand dollars of equipment and a few months of specialized training”—and most shops won’t do this, leaving customers with few options.
Without laws to stop it, there’s a danger that more manufacturers could start parts pairing, says Wiens. “Unfortunately, where Apple leads, others follow. So it’s really important that we draw a line in the sand and say, ‘No, this has to stop.’” Wiens says a number of states are working on bills that address parts pairing, that he expects will be introduced as early as next January.
But by that time, it’s possible manufacturers will have found other ways to undermine repairability. “Technology changes way faster than the law is able to keep up with,” says Peranowski. “We can talk about parts pairing today, but in the coming years there’s going to be some new techniques and new products on the market with their own sets of issues. So that means we’re probably just going back to the drawing table. And it’s always a game of catch up.”
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