With its Self Service Repair program, Apple will allow seasoned iPhone and recent Mac users to repair their device themselves by purchasing official spare parts from a dedicated online store.
It is an initiative that looks more like a real awareness (even late) than a banal “greenwashing” operation. At the start of 2022, initially in the United States and then quickly in other countries, including France, Apple will provide individuals with all the elements allowing them to repair their iPhone themselves (12 and 13 , models marketed in 2020 and 2021). Unveiled on Wednesday 17 number 2021 and baptized Self Service Repair, this new program will also be extended to recent Macs equipped with the house M1 chip (Mac mini M1, iMac M1, MacBook Air M1, MacBook Pro M1). A first for the American company, and even in the high-tech industry. Until now the repair of Apple devices was reserved, if we except the appointments made at the “genius bar” of the Apple Store, to the 5000 “Apple Authorized Service Centers”, as well as to the 2,800 members of the independent repairer program approved by the brand, they alone are authorized to obtain official spare parts. Individuals and other Sunday repairers who set out to repair their devices on their own were reduced to having to obtain components (sometimes with more than random qualities) supplied by other manufacturers. But everything will change.
Apple opens iPhone and Mac M1 repairs to individuals
In a few months, iPhone or Mac M1 users will be able to buy directly from an official website, the aptly named Apple Self Service Repair Online Store, more than 200 spare parts (screen, battery, camera sensors digital…) and tools to solve their small (and bigger) everyday problems. If Apple takes care to specify that technical expertise is always required for this type of operation and manipulation, the general public can also be trained by viewing tutorials and consulting detailed documentation, the same as that communicated today. hui to authorized repairers of the brand. Better yet, with a view to sustainable development and recycling, individuals should be able to return used parts to Apple in return for a commercial gesture.
Despite everything, if Apple’s initiative is likely to stir up a wave of enthusiasm among iPhone and Mac users, some elements remain to be specified, such as the prices charged (even if on this point Apple is committed to sell its spare parts at the same price as that until now granted to authorized repairers), but also as the guarantee of the devices. For several months, if not for several years, Apple had been under pressure, by its customers, by environmentalists, but also by some of its shareholders, and was regularly accused of doing nothing (or if little) to facilitate the repair of its devices and above all, to promote a very lucrative ecosystem operating in a closed circuit (between the brand on one side and its approved repairers on the other). Just recently (at the beginning of November), the specialized site iFixit denounced Apple’s practices, asserted that when we changed the screen of an iPhone 13, we lost facial recognition, Face ID, a function allowing the user to unlock his smartphone by presenting his face for authentication. An issue resolved by Apple a few days later.
From a more general point of view, but just as worrying, both for the brand image of the American company and for the consumer, it is therefore clear that Apple has not been shining so far for everything related to the repairability of its range. Thus, in France, where a repairability index, graduated from 1 to 10, was set up at the beginning of the year 2021, the scores collected by the American company ranged, as the newspaper Le Monde noted last spring, from 4.5 to 6.10 depending on the references. A situation which should improve significantly in the months and years to come.