> <i>"With access to proprietary guides and tools, hackers can more easily circumvent security protections, harming not only the product owner but also everyone who shares their network"</i><p>Of the many consumer insults present in this entire topic, this one really shows the ridiculousness of Apple's position.
> "When an electronic product breaks, consumers have a variety of repair options, including using an OEM's [original equipment manufacturer] authorized repair network."<p>Yeah, it's called taxing users for the defects you engineered in the first place. Look at how ridiculous the glued keyboard fiasco was with Apple, which refused to admit any guilt in their design for several years and charged users several hundred bucks for official repairs if they did not subscribe any special warranty.
If there was a right to repair and Apple released three generations of bad laptops someone else could probably fix their mistake while they were still in the denial phase.
Ugh! As a former Apple fanboi, <i>this</i> is the reason I no longer own any Apple equipment. Apple products are beautiful, and very well designed, but so is a rhinestone straitjacket.
I'd also like to see a "right to install" bill that targets all major computing device platforms.<p>Nobody should be able to sell devices to millions of people without giving those customers the ability to install their own software. There should be no arbitrary limits such as "you have to plug your device into another device every 7 days just to keep your custom software installed".
I agree and disagree. I think people should have the absolute right to repair and modify their devices, with or without an existing warranty. However to support that activity while forcing companies to honor the warranty feels wrong. It's like saying here, I screwed it up, now you fix it for free.
The tradeoff here is between right to repair, and users having secure, trustworthy devices that will not spy on them. Put yourself in the shoes of an abused family member who lives with a hardware tinkerer who can pwn your device, unbeknownst to you, enabling further abuse (not talking about physical abuse necessarily here).<p>Just to take one slice of the population as an example, Apple has many gay and trans employees and no doubt users as well, so they are keenly aware of the problems these people can face whether while growing up, or afterwards.<p>As another example, take a look at the /r/atheism subreddit FAQ about coming out to your family, and read some of the horror stories there. People get disowned, kicked out of their parents homes, physically threatened, and even physically harmed in some cases, just for thinking for themselves.<p>As another example, in some cultures, honor killings are also a thing.<p>Users deserve to have their personal devices be secure, even from hostile family or household members.<p>On the other side is right to repair. I would love to see both sides be satisfied, but I do think the right to repair folks have been too militant in ignoring and dismissing the legitimate concerns Apple has about preserving user privacy.<p>Then there is the bogus line of argument that Apple is only against right to repair because they are heartless, greedy, profit fiends. But there are plenty of profit opportunities they have forgone, such as gathering personal data to exploit for ad networks, which argue otherwise. So I don't buy it.