You're right, I remember this initially, but many discussions about right to repair get hijacked and center around topics like iFixit and their blatantly self-serving anti-Apple campaigns.
Planned obsolescence is a very shitty and cynical strategy on the part of manufacturers, and anyone fighting against it is on the right side.
Agree.
> anyone fighting against it is on the right side
Don't. For example, Louis Rossmann recently kicked up a storm when he claimed that Apple used the customs to seize his "genuine" battery shipments (which was widely reported in the media and gave him significant publicity), except it turned out that he left out the fact that the parts were unauthorized: https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossman.... Self-serving PR stunts that consist of misinformation and depend on the subsequent media outrage don't help "the right side".
Go read our laws and do try to keep up with them, eh? You're one of the reasons things like this are happening.
No, it doesn't. In fact, I think it's pretty explicit in making the situation clear:
> First of all, let me start by saying, I am not defending Apple's terrible stance towards Right to Repair.
> I think Apple's R2R policy is awful - It sucks that once the device you buy is on the "obsolete" list, you can no longer get 1st party service from Apple. Not only that, but there are no legal ways to obtain parts. IMO this is something all of us should be putting pressure on Apple to change. I'd love it if there was a law on the books that forced companies to make spare parts for products available to customers for x amount of years after the warranty expires. That would allow people to continue using the devices they buy.
> In closing, I'm going to continue supporting Louis, iFixit, and their attempts to secure our rights to repair the products we own.
But it is also very obvious that Louis Rossman was clearly dishonest. Actually, I don't quite understand your argument:
> If factories are producing batteries with a default Apple logo (ie to Chinese standards), and he's instructing them to cross it out, that also seems completely legitimate.
How is this "completely legitimate"? Apple is (quite understandably) annoyed that some factories decided to make batteries that Louis could peddle as genuine Apple batteries, when it's clear that they are in fact not these at all (they're crossing out the logos to pass customs, for heaven's sake). Of course they're going to be seized, because they're counterfeit: Apple probably wasn't even involved here. I'm surprised he has the gall to try to make this a huge PR issue by claiming that Apple was trying to stop him from repairing Macs with genuine batteries that he bought when he knows they're just shady batteries from China he's trying to bring into the country.