Apple France just suddenly revealed the repairability index of its devices due to a national law that requires this information.
For the past couple of years, Apple has committed to moving forward with its plan to be more eco-friendly. It first started looking inwards in terms of making their daily operations more efficient. Apple then worked on sourcing better and more sustainable materials for its new devices.
The last stage of their development needed the acceptance of the market. Unfortunately, it came at the cost of customers paying the same price for new devices but getting less at the point of purchase.
The natural next stage for this eco-friendly transition is to enhance the support of after-sales service. Without buying Apple Care, the company has been known to charge exorbitant amounts for repairs.
If a customer doesn’t know this fact, things are about to change, especially for those in France.
Apple repairability index required by the government in France
Without much fanfare, Apple France revealed the repairability index of their devices. This index essentially shows potential customers just how easy or hard it is to have their devices fixed.
According to a report by MacGeneration, the index is rated from one to ten. One is the lowest limit for the index, which says that the device is tough to be repaired. A ten means that repairs will be easy.
The index considers five factors in determining the grade of repairability. These are documentation availability, ease of disassembly, spare parts availability, spare parts pricing, and software updates availability.
Based on the latest website update of Apple France, the iPhone 11 got a mere 4.6/10 repairability index score. The iPhone 12 Mini has a 6/10. The newest M1 MacBook Air has the highest score of 6.5/10, while its M1 MacBook Pro counterpart only has a 5.6/10 score.
Is it only available in France?
Unfortunately, the index score transparency is only available in France because of their national legislation. In other words, only the government of France requires tech companies to disclose the repairability of their devices.
At best, if a potential buyer wants to see just how easy it is to repair their new Apple device, they may just have to visit Apple France’s website to know. After all, Apple should be sending out standard products with identical parts across the world.
It will be unlikely that Apple adapts this practice in all of the markets it is available in. Nonetheless, it is still working on the actual repairability of their devices, at least, based on the latest repair news on the iPhone 12.
Image from Cambo Fixing/ YouTube thumbnail