this morning apple came out with huge news they're starting the self-service repair program
and we have our ceo kyle wiens here to talk about it today this is absolutely crazy i mean many of
us thought we would never see the day i saw dieter bone over at the verge saying he thought this
would never happen self-service repair i'm looking at on apple's website right now this is incredible
this really is incredible basically they are going to allow end users like you and me to do their own
repairs which is something that they previously said was too dangerous or just impossible but we
all along have known that it's possible they're just going to finally let people do it since 2003
when we started ifixit we've been enabling people to fix their apple products and apple
has been over there saying no absolutely not you can't do this they put you know special screws on
the bottom of the phone to lock you out and all of a sudden they're completely flipping their
perspective so let's talk about the good things and the bad things that this program brings to the
world maybe let's start with the good things yes so at a high level apple is saying that they're
going to publicly make service manuals available they're going to sell service parts to customers
and they're going to make the software tool that you need to do calibration some of these
new software pairing available which has been a huge pain point if you haven't seen our video
on parts pairing apple basically is pairing the displays of their iphones to the motherboard
and they do this with a lot a bunch of different parts and it's just a huge pain for independent
repair because we don't have the tools but now as long as you buy the parts through apple they will
give you access to these tools yeah so things like true tone on the display if you want to activate
the true tone feature after you do a repair you have to plug in the software tool and click a
button exactly and we saw google rolled out uh with the pixel six they rolled out a software tool
that you for reactivating fingerprint yeah that's pretty cool and the key there is google is giving
out that tool to everyone anybody who can just use that tool you can swap a display on your own
use the tool apple is going to force you to buy the part through them to get the tool correct uh
we're not sure i mean they're saying that you know it's going to be based on the irp which
is their independent repair program that they've been making available to independent repair shops
not that many shops have signed up apple said they've got 2 800 shops but most of the shops
that we know haven't signed up for irp because there's a very onerous contract that you have
to sign what it seems like they're doing now is this consumer program is basically taking this irp
thing that was a little bit secretive you had to sign an nda and sign a contract and be a business
they're going to take all that that supply chain and that software and make it available to
consumers and that's great that's just great news yeah i mean this is what we've been building it i
fixed it over the years has been an independent ecosystem so apple doesn't make a service manual
available we'll write the service manual you're writing the service manual yeah and we we put it
online apple won't sell parts we'll track down we'll we go all to the ends of the earth we
spend a lot of time in china looking for parts track down parts make them available apple won't
sell a screwdriver we'll make the screwdriver available we assemble that together in one package
we've been kind of replacing the ecosystem that apple should have been providing all along so
on that note what's ifixit's response to this are we is there something that we are going to change
moving forward based on this program well what's interesting we've always talked about what happens
when we succeed with write to repair do we just put ourselves out of the business because in a
sense apple is announcing the biggest competition that i fix it that we've ever seen they're saying
i fix it sells parts well apple sells parts now ifixit provides service mails apple's providing
service manuals uh yes so uh that i guess we've got a a new competitor on the block i couldn't be
more excited about that though this is what we've been saying that we need all along like the bottom
line what what the world doesn't need is i fix it to be the end all for everything what we need is
products to be repairable we need everyone involved in making products repairable and
if apple has a financial incentive and selling parts to consumers then maybe they'll want to
design products that are more repairable exactly and maybe other companies will follow suit so i
think you have to look you know five ten years down the road and say what kinds of products are
are we going to be designing where where is the trend where are manufacturers going
what we have been facing with apple for the last decade plus has been just complete intransigence
they'll say uh no you don't need to fix things we design our products so that they don't break
apple actually told me that once we design products that don't break okay sure guys uh
you got a battery integrated this is a consumable right yeah um so i think they're they're coming to
grips with reality they're also coming to grips with the the legislative reality we've seen
so much emphasis on the abuses of big tech the high app store fees uh right to repair
legislation being introduced in 27 states these tech giants are hugely powerful but they
under increasing scrutiny from lawmakers you had the biden administration come out and say we want
an entire government effort to restore competition in the repair market and so apple is responding
that pressure by caving a little bit exactly so uh maybe let's get into a couple details here
do we know anything about pricing do we know how expensive these parts are going to be
we don't know they announced this program today but then they're saying well it's gonna launch
in early 2022. so cool i have a feeling it's going to be similar to the existing irp
uh pricing uh which isn't public but uh it's kind of it's pretty comparable the parts cost is pretty
comparable with what it would cost to go and pay apple to do the repair yeah so we're not expecting
this to be particularly economical i would also expect if you haven't seen any of apple's internal
service training they kind of show it in the illustration uh of this announcement they've got
these like fancy expensive jigs that you have to have um they want the repair shops to buy
you know big complicated expensive uh you know jigs and those are just not really viable for
you to buy if you're doing a repair right and so i would expect the tool pricing from apple to follow
their procedures to be so expensive that very few individuals would probably follow their procedure
um so that's the downside what's cool is we're going to see apple's official procedure and then
we'll be able to iterate on that and create a more i guess every man approach right i think
the big win here is getting apple to release their service manual right they've done this uh they did
this once a couple years ago they published an imac service manual so now they're saying they're
going to do this for iphones and then for all the m1 max later next year which is which is exciting
so i'm hoping that by getting the information out there by bringing this discussion in by having
apple say publicly that they're committed to the repairability of their products they've
never said that before yeah that this is the beginning of apple turning over a new leaf and
starting a new direction i think the interesting thing to watch is what happens in january when
all the state legislatures start up again yeah because you had 27 different states introduced
right to repair bills almost made it over the finish line in new york and arkansas but not quite
uh and a big part of the reason that they didn't pass was that you had apple like walking around
capitol building saying hey if people could open their phones they would set the battery on fire
like they absolutely have been saying that and so now uh they're saying actually if you have
the instructions and the right tools you can do it cool uh so it's it's very possible that this
will be sort of the wind beneath the sails that rage repair needs to get over the finish line yeah
and that that's maybe the biggest win here is that sort of shift in mentality from the approach that
repairs bad repair will kill you to you know repair as possible and safe with the right tools
and instructions and i think it's really important that apple's not just selling screens that they're
also selling batteries yes these batteries are consumable they wear out yes you need to take
safety precautions when you're working on them uh uh but uh a a product longevity plan for a
product without factoring in the consumable isn't a real isn't a real repair program so real props
to apple for getting that done absolutely so maybe to wrap this up kyle tell me about
what what do you think this announcement means for ifixit and for right to repair moving forward
i fix it's not going anywhere we have been doing the same thing disassembling products making
open source information available for products creating comprehensive solutions for repair
making repair accessible for people we're going to continue doing that but now we get to do that
with access to apple's perspective so it's like we get to collaborate a little bit more actively
with them which i'm excited about there's always opportunities to improve our manuals now that
we'll have access to apple's information we'll be able to make our our information and tools and
repair kits even better and i think also looking at right to repair legislation all of the reasons
not to pass right to repair have sort of been negated by this announcement apple's saying
you know consumers can can do repairs safely if they have uh if they have the right information
groundbreaking news very exciting day for to fix it and for the world moving forward but of
course apple uh neglected to mention one product that we've been focusing on very conspicuously
did not mention uh airpods which we will have a teardown coming for you later this week stay tuned
you