Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak rails at new rule

Apple has a lot of company rules but not all of them directly affect customers.

Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, recently spoke about one of them, the Right to Repair.

Wozniak talked about this particular company rule following a request from Louis Rossman who is an advocate of the Right to Repair initiative. And it was a pleasant surprise for most users when they found out that Wozniak is in favour of it and said that it was time to fully recognise the Right to Repair.

In case you are not aware; the “Right to Repair” is about the consumer’s right to disassemble an electric device by themselves.

The iPhone maker is not an advocate of this and has always been against this concept.

According to Apple; a consumer disassembling a product and trying to repair; the device could be dangerous to both the customer and the product.

However, critics are of the opinion that Apple; has this rule in place to make people buy more products even if the older ones they have can still run with some basic self-repair.

“We wouldn’t have had an Apple had I not grown up in a very open technology world. Back then, when you bought electronic things like TVs and radios; every bit of the circuits and designs were included on the paper. Total open source,” Wozniak said. “Is it your computer [as the customer]? or is it some company’s computer? Think about that. It’s time to start doing the right thing,” he added.

When it comes to repairing products, Apple’s legal documents clearly state – “If service is needed due to failure of parts that are not original to the product or due to damage caused by abuse; misuse or any external cause, Apple reserves the right to return the product to you without servicing it, and may hold you responsible for any indicated diagnostic fee.

Apple will not be responsible for any damage to the product; that occurs during the repair process that is a result of any unauthorized modifications or repairs or replacements not performed by Apple or an AASP.”

Apple insists that you get your devices repaired from the Apple Store; or from Apple’s certified service centres only, even if the costs run high.

Many Apple users have run into trouble when they’ve taken their device; to other service centres to get them fixed for some small issue and returned to Apple for a bigger problem and the company refused to help out since the device has been opened by a third-party service provider.