Apple lobbied against right-to-repair bill: Report
San Francisco: An Apple lobbyist met with legislators in California to kill the so-called right-to-repair bill that would make it easier for consumers to repair their devices, the media reported.
In a meeting with members of the US Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee which was considering the bill, the lobbyist argued that consumers could hurt themselves if they try to fix their own iPhones, Motherboard reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.
If people do not disassemble the device properly, they could puncture the lithium-ion battery, the lobbyist agrued.
According to a report in The Verge, the bill’s co-sponsor pulled it from the committee on Tuesday, saying it might be considered again in January 2020.
“While this was not an easy decision, it became clear that the bill would not have the support it needed today, and manufacturers had sown enough doubt with vague and unbacked claims of privacy and security concerns,” California Assembly member Susan Talamantes-Eggman was quoted as saying.
Talamantes-Eggman first introduced the bill in March last year and then again in March this year, said the report, adding that “Apple physically makes its products hard to repair in a wide array of ways and the tech giant has strong interest in making sure people keep buying its devices instead of repairing them or replacing the batteries”.
Apple posted a revenue of $58 billion for its last quarter — a decline of 5 per cent from the year-ago quarter.
The revenue from iPhones was $31.05 billion — down from the year-ago quarter but enough to make up over 53 per cent of the entire revenue.
