Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, is the latest high-profile supporter for the “right to repair”.
In a cameo video for Louis Rossmann, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak talks about the Right to Repair issue, and comments in the video: “We wouldn’t have had an Apple had I not grown up in a very open technology world, an open electronics world.”
Wozniak added: “How is Apple hurt by the openness of the Apple II I wonder?” Wozniak shows his passion for open electronics and the Right to Repair. It’s a video worth watching.
In the Unites States this year, twenty-seven states have considered right to repair bills to fix devices for consumers and schools. However, more than half have already been voted down or dismissed, according to consumer groups tracking the proposals.
The biggest barriers are the tech manufactures who want to control the methods of repair and are considered the biggest barrier to expanding the right to repair. In a recent Bloomberg article, they interviewed Justin Millman who now fixes some 2,000 iPads and Chromebooks, computers that, since the pandemic, have become education essentials.
Millman cited one recent example with students who had defective WiFi cards on their Chromebooks, laptops designed only to work when connected to the internet. That card widget “is not a particularly hard-to-find or expensive part,” Millman explained—but the laptop maker requires a specific version to be installed and Millman isn’t on the shortlist of approved repair providers. He counts 25 schools he works with facing an identical flaw. “And that’s just me,” he said.
Kerry Maeve Sheehan, the U.S. policy lead for the repair community iFixit, said in a press release: “Right to Repair is unstoppable and coming to a state near you. Lawmakers everywhere are seeing that Right to Repair is common sense: You buy a product, you own it, and you should be able to fix it,”
