Apple, Samsung make it harder for third parties to repair smartphones

Apple has made it harder than ever for third parties to repair the iPhone 12, the company's latest smartphone. To make matter's worse, it has increased the cost of repairs done by its own service centres by 40 percent compared to the iPhone 11,

An article posted to The Conversation, throws light on Apple and various other smartphone manufacturers blatantly making it harder for anyone but themselves to repair devices.

Traditionally, third-party repairs have existed outside of warranty and are usually the cheaper option. It's also a large market given how a single case of butterfingers will leave you using a phone with a broken screen or worse.

The iPhone 12 intentionally blocks this process by making certain features completely inoperable if looked at by a third-party. In fact, even fixing the iPhone 12's camera requires authentication via Apple's proprietary app that is only available to its authorised centres.

The article also points out that it is not just Apple but other prominent names in consumer technology like Samsung that are making it equally harder to get repairs done on their devices for cheap.

They are softly encroaching on a big third-party market that relies on device repair for their bread and butter. They do this by making it artificially harder for unauthorised technicians to repair a device. Things such as glueing internal components together, soldering the processor and flash memory to the motherboard or using non-standard screws like pentalobe screws make it a hassle to repair for third-parties.

There is currently a fight brewing between third-party technicians and the big companies over the right to repair. It started in Australia but has slowly spread to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. There have been various legislations introduced like France's reparability index that requires manufacturers to tell users how repairable their device on a scale of one to ten.