Horizon & Apple’s “Right to Repair”- Don’t Believe the Hype
Horizon Emerges from the Shadows
Those in the iPhone and iPad repair industry will know that Apple has revealed details about its “Horizon” repair machine. This has been around for a while, but until recently Apple has been very secretive about it, and little information was available on the Internet.
Why Apple’s Apparent Sop to the “Right to Repair” Movement is Hollow
Recently Apple has been coming under pressure from independent repair stores in the US because attempts are being made there to pass new laws allowing the right to repair a device. At present, some would argue that you don’t truly “own” the devices you buy due to restrictions on what you can do with it and legal agreements that intentionally fudge the issue of ownership to companies’ advantage.
When it breaks, you can’t fix it yourself or go to a third party because the manufacturer won’t supply the parts, tools or schematics to enable it to be fixed. You are forced to go directly to the manufacturer, and often they’ll only offer to sell you a new device instead. This creates waste (and landfill) and costs the customer more. An example of this is John Deere tractors- years ago when a tractor broke down, farmers used to fix it themselves. Now, due to copyright laws, it’s illegal to repair the tractors or get a third party to do it.
Apple- being a sneaky corporation- are making it look like they’re doing something about the “right to repair” by rolling out the Horizon machine to some of their Apple Authorised Service Providers (AASPs). This makes it appear as if they’re giving something to the repair community.
What’s the catch? Being an AASP is out of reach of most independent repair stores, and Apple isn’t accepting any new AASPs! Memberships are reserved for “big box” stores like Best Buy and so on. Most of these existing AASPs- including Apple themselves- only carry out basic repairs. It is the independent stores- which Apple is now trying to crush- that are the backbone of the repair industry.
Independent Stores Repair What Apple Can’t- and Won’t
There are statistics out there showing that the number of screen repairs being carried out is in the billions. If independent stores like ourselves didn’t exist, then neither Apple nor the AASPs would be able to cope with this number of repairs.
However, this assumes that Apple would actually want to help customers repair their phones, when the evidence suggests the complete opposite! Take your phone to Apple or an AASP, and it’s clear they’re not interested in fixing your device- they’d rather charge you a fee for an out-of-warranty replacement (which may well be refurbished rather than new, and have existing problems).
Most AASPs are little more than dropoff centres for Apple. When you take your device to them, they simply book it in, send it off to Apple for repair or replace it if it’s considered “unrepairable”. (The AASPs get paid by Apple for this service, of course. It’s a win-win for them and Apple, less so for the customers.)
The Important Points
- Apple recently unveiled their “Horizon” repair machine and now allows other companies to use it. Some claim Apple are responding to pressure to endorse third-party repairs.
- However, Horizon is still restricted to “authorised” stores- membership of which is almost exclusively restricted to “big box” chains. These generally only offer basic repairs, often being little more than middlemen for Apple’s own services. Independent stores- which carry out the bulk of genuine repairs- remain shut out by Apple.
- Horizon does almost nothing that an independent store shouldn’t already be able to do. Its main advantage is the ability to easily replace the home button. A competent repair store should be able to carry out most repairs without having to replace the home button.
- Apple frequently deems devices “unrepairable” for the most basic reasons, offering out-of-warranty refurb exchanges instead (at a high percentage of the cost of a new device). The old phones can then be refurbished at minimal cost and sold on.
- Recent changes to the iPhone make the home button harder to repair for third party merchants, but serve no other obvious purpose.
- It’s speculated that the true reason for the rollout of Horizon actually has more to do with changes in the forthcoming “iPhone 8”.
The Miracle Machine? Don’t Believe That Hype Either…
Recent news articles make the Horizon machine sound like some sort of automated sceen changer. In fact, the repairs are still carried out by humans, and are nothing different to what independent stores do every day. Horizon checks the touch- which is nothing you can’t do with your finger, and is part of our standard post-repair checklist.
The only thing Horizon does that nowhere else can is to pair a new home button to the phone. This follows the notorious “Error 53” fiasco where iPhones that had had the home button or related components replaced were in effect bricked when the iOS 8 update was applied (even if it had been working fine after the original repair). Apple has changed this so that this no longer bricks your phone.
When Apple replaces the screen they use the full assembly with a new home button etc. because the techs working for them have no experience of independent store phone repair and are “trained monkeys” who know little more than how to swap this assembly.
Most independent stores who know what they’re doing will swap over the small parts including the home button, so there’s no need for the Horizon machine. The only time it might be useful would be if the home button was damaged or broken beyond repair.
To Argue Apple’s Side for a Minute…
We can understand why Apple might want to be so controlling with who can- and can’t- repair their devices. After all, anyone can open a store and start doing this without any license or qualifications. (Believe us, we’ve come across a lot of incompetent repair centres in our local area alone).
Ideally, Apple should provide parts, schematics and tools to enable third party companies to do the repairs themselves. To play devil’s advocate for a moment, one might ask how Apple should decide who gets access to them? With no license required to enter the repair business, it’s hard for them to tell who can do the job, and who might ruin their reputation. Apple has also argued from a safety point of view, mainly in relation to the high-power Li-Ion batteries their phones use.
Most people will get by doing the basic repairs and, again, it may be argued that (in a certain sense) it’s positive that Apple is making things more difficult, since this will separate the good techs from the bad.
Arguably so, but Apple’s clear hostility to both the right to repair in general and to third party repair businesses suggests that their motives are rather more self-serving. Frankly, having customers swap their old phone for an out-of-warranty replacement at a significant percentage of the price of a new phone (when the replacement phone itself may well be a broken swap-out that Apple were able to repair and refurbish at minimal cost)… well, that’s got to be much more lucrative for Apple. Or maybe they’ll buy a new iPhone instead- it’s more profit either way.
The Future
Apple constantly attempts to stop repair of its devices, with each generation becoming harder to fix. It’s notable that the latest iPhone 7’s home button is very easily damaged during screen replacement. Older models’ home buttons used glue around the IC, so that when you bent the flex slightly during removal, the IC remained in place. Now the glue has been removed so that bending the home button takes the IC off the board with it, rendering the button useless. On previous iPhones, you could change the home button for a new one, and while touch ID wouldn’t work, everything else about it would. Now you can’t even use the button, and need to use assistive touch to operate the phone.
(Remember we said above that Apple replaces the entire assembly, so this doesn’t cause any problems for them- only the independent stores they’re trying to eliminate. You can judge for yourself why they might have made this design change.)
There are rumours surrounding the next iPhone, and how the home button will be used. However, we’re certain the rollout of the Horizon machines aren’t really because of the right to repair, but because of something Apple have up their sleeve for the iPhone 8.
Keep your eyes peeled, and don’t trust everything you hear.
