Here's the first Earth Day win for the planet we all live on. Apple is relaxing its repair policy to allow the use of genuine parts for the first time. The change will apply to select iPhones and take effect this fall.
Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering and possible future CEO -who knows John Ternus highlighted the environmental impact of the policy change:
“In At Apple, we are always looking for new ways to provide our customers with the best experiences while reducing the impact we have on the planet, and a key part of that is designing products that last,” said John Ternus, senior director at Apple. Vice President of Hardware Development.
“Over the past two years, Apple teams have been innovating in product design and manufacturing to ensure repairs using used Apple parts do not compromise user safety and privacy. With this latest expansion to our repair program, we're excited to provide our customers with even more choice and convenience while helping extend the life of our products and parts.”
Apple explains that the repair policy change applies to for biometric sensors:
Over the past two years, Apple teams have been working hard to ensure parts like the biometric sensors used for Face ID or Touch ID are reused, and starting this fall, calibration of genuine Apple parts, new or used, will occur at devices after the part is installed. Additionally, future iPhone releases will support used biometric sensors.
Also news is that Apple is changing the requirement for indicating the device serial number when ordering spare parts:
And to simplify the repair process, customers and service providers will no longer need to provide the device serial number when ordering parts from a self-service store for non-repair repairs. replacing the motherboard.
Finally, the change has added an activation lock element, which ensures that stolen phones are not sold for parts:
Apple will also extend its popular Activation Lock feature to iPhone parts to prevent it from being dismantled for parts. This feature was developed at the request of customers and law enforcement officials to curb iPhone theft by blocking the reactivation of a lost or stolen iPhone. If a device under repair discovers that a supported part was obtained from another device with Activation Lock or Lost Mode enabled, calibration capabilities for that part will be limited.
Read the full announcement at Apple website is here. We'll keep you informed when the changes announced today come into effect later this year.
