Why Apple and other tech companies are fighting to keep devices hard to repair

Apple is the largest company on Earth by market cap, and its success is derived from selling brand-new high-end smartphones consistently month after month. At the peak of its iPhone business, back in 2015, Apple sold a staggering 231.5 million smartphones. Though sales have begun to slow, that one device alone still accounts for more than 50 percent of Apple’s entire business. The company’s second quarter earnings results for 2017, reported on Tuesday, showed a quarterly profit of $8.7 billion, a majority of which came from the sale of 41 million iPhones.

But one of the reasons Apple can sell so many new devices is that we keep tossing aside our old ones, either because the battery life has grown worse or a new, more advanced model just came out. Advocacy groups say this is by design, and that companies like Apple are keeping supposedly neutral standards bodies from implementing environmentally friendly measures that could increase device longevity and cut down on the number of new units manufactured.

THE IPHONE HAS BECOME EMBLEMATIC OF EXCESSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL WASTEFULNESS
Apple isn’t alone here, but the iPhone has become emblematic of this mindset and what environmental groups consider excessive wastefulness. The company makes it difficult to repair its products by using proprietary screws, unibody enclosures, and other manufacturing and design techniques that make it so only Apple or computer repair experts can easily take them apart. The company also makes it notoriously difficult to replace its batteries, by gluing them to other components and burying them beneath layers of complex, sensitive parts. Instead, Apple incentivizes consumers to trade in or discard models that are just 18–24 months old for newer ones.

A new report, out today from trade group the Repair Association, details how the tech industry, through practices like fighting repairability, has undermined and openly combated green technology standards that would cut down on manufacturing waste. Authored by Repair Association board member Mark Schaffer, who runs an environmental consultancy, the report lays out how Apple, HP, and other manufacturers use their outsized influence over the groups who regulate the manufacturing of electronic devices. These companies, which the report says effectively get to decide how their environmental practices are regulated, then get to slap gold certification labels on their products, all while ignoring pressing issues like repairability and reusability.

“NOW YOU’VE GOT THE FOX GUARDING THE HENHOUSE.”
“What’s happening internally at these companies is the environment team is getting overruled,” says Kyle Wiens, the CEO of teardown company iFixit and a board member of the Repair Association. “Ostensibly, it’s their job to make the company more environmentally friendly. Practically, the company is telling the environment team, ‘Make sure we’re not getting constrained in any way.’ Now you’ve got the fox guarding the henhouse.”

It’s important to note that these are not government-enforced regulations. The first ever environmental standards for electronics were established in 2004 through an Environmental Protection Agency-funded effort. However, that resulted in the establishment of a standard by the existing Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which is a professional association made of up not of government regulators, but academics, nonprofits, and a large number of corporate representatives with corporate interests in mind.