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The practice of pairing parts, which can prevent third-party repair shops from disassembling broken devices for parts, has been outlawed in Oregon.
Legislative The body has just passed the strongest law-correcting power that has ever existed, and now only the governor's signature is required to pass a law…
Apple's right to repair
Apple has spent literally years fighting right-to-repair legislation, spending money to lobby against it at the state and federal level, trying to either block it completely or weaken the legislation as much as possible.
The company pivoted in 2021, launching a do-it-yourself program in 2021, first in California and now nationally. At the same time, the company stopped opposing right-to-repair laws and instead began actively supporting them.
But there was one caveat…
Part pairing
Part pairing is the digital connection of the serial number of a component (such as a screen) with the serial number of the iPhone itself. Even if you replace one original Apple component with another, the repair will not fully work because the connection will not match. This will prevent repairs using disassembled parts.
For example, on the iPhone 13, changing the screen may cause Face ID to stop working. For this reason, iFixit downgraded the repairability rating of the iPhone 14 back in 2022. The need to use new Apple-approved parts may make many repairs uneconomical.
Apple solves this problem to some extent by allowing Apple to “bless” parts, but this law would remove that barrier entirely.
The first right to repair legally prohibits pairing of parts h2>
Best comment from Eric
Does the combination of parts make the iPhone less attractive to users ? thieves because they can't sell stolen phones for parts?
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The Verge reports on Oregon legislation.
Oregon Landmark The Right to Repair Act is almost here—SB 1596 passed the Oregon Legislature today and heads to Gov. Tina Kotek's desk to be signed or vetoed within the next five days. This is a big deal because the Oregon law will be the first to ban “part pairing,” a practice in which companies can prevent you from using parts (sometimes even official ones) unless that company's software verifies their ownership.
The replacement parts ban will go into effect for smartphones in 2025.
iFixit CEO Kyle Vaines told The Verge that he is “immensely proud of his home state, which sells the most powerful moment electronics.” Right to Repair Bill.”
Photo by Joel Roland on Unsplash
