Machines
840 March/April 2022
STATE
OF PLAY
MAY
The Federal Trade
Commission issues a
unanimous, bipartisan
“Nixing the Fix” report,
finding that “there
is scant evidence to
support manufacturers’
justifications for repair
restrictions.”JULY
President Biden issues
an executive order
in July calling for a
“whole of government
approach” to restoring
competition, and singling
out farmers’ problems
with repairing their John
Deere equipment.NOVEMBER
Apple caves and
agrees to start
selling parts and
making service
manuals available
to consumers “in
early 2022.”JANUARY
Dozens of states
are expected to
introduce Right to
Repair laws at some
point in 2022. Illinois
legislators hold the
first such hearing.FUTURE
Members of
Congress are
considering
reversing the
anti-tinkering
Section 1201
copyright law.2021 2022
ufacturer John Deere has secret diagnostic tools
that it refuses to share with farmers. These legal
tactics are standardizing an expectation of manu-
facturer control. Inspired by my frustrating dorm
room experience, in 2003 I started iFixit, an online
repair community dedicated to enabling people to
fix all their things. Ever since, we’ve been system-
atically tearing down the obstacles that companies
have erected to block repairs.
These days, a tech product is far more than the
physical thing you can touch. In the past, you could
take things apart and intuit how they worked. Soft-
ware has changed that: Some functionality is now
invisibly locked away inside a microchip. You can’t
touch it, you can’t feel it, and you can’t change it.
Using this newfound leverage, tech companies
have pioneered tactics to lock us out of the things
that we own. If this trend continues, tinkering will
become a thing of the past. Everything we own has
the potential to become a disposable appliance,
connected to the internet and subject to the whims
of the manufacturer.
Let’s say you like really crunchy toast. You could
swap out the spring in your old toaster for a slower
one, but you can’t change the software timer in a
new toaster to make your toast darker. And pretty
much everything these days—from toasters to trac-
tors—contains embedded software.
Apple’s latest lockdown tactic involves broken
iPhone screens. It digitally pairs the screen to the
rest of the device so that you need special software
to restore full functionality. Because it’s an indus-
try leader, other companies have begun copying
Apple’s repair-stymieing tactics—Samsung is now
using similar software locks.
Farmers and mechanics are running into the
same issue. If you buy a new electronic part from
John Deere, it comes without the required software
to make it work. Deere refuses to provide farmers
with tools to transfer software off their old part.
GM has even sued Dorman Products, an aftermarket
parts manufacturer, for selling its own tool to trans-
fer software onto new auto transmissions.
In legislatures around the world, proponents of
the Right to Repair movement are fighting these
companies to preserve our ability to tinker. Last
year, the New York Senate passed a bill that would
require companies to publish manuals and share
parts and software tools with their customers—but
time ran out in the session before the bill could make
it through the Assembly.
In November, Apple announced that it would
finally start making some parts and manuals avail-
able to customers. It’s a seismic shift in favor of
DIYers, but it’s not enough to overcome the software-
powered barriers that companies have erected.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Biden
administration have come out strongly in favor of
repair reforms, and Congress is working on a bipar-
tisan bill to reverse the copyright law that GM abused
to sue Dorman. That bill would legalize distribution
of software repair tools, enabling a much-needed
marketplace of modern repair tools. Dozens of states
are expected to introduce laws to restore balance in
the world of repairs. Strong opposition is expected
from companies that profit from monopolizing
repair. But the path forward is clear: You bought it.
You own it. You should be able to fix it.
Along with my laptop, I also brought a gift from
my grandfather with me to college: a soldering iron.
Despite Apple’s best efforts to stop me, I managed
to patch the cracked solder on my charge plug. I put
it all back together, the laptop fired right up, and I
was on my way.Despite strong
opposition from
manufacturers
and lobbies, Right
to Repair reforms
are coming.