APPLE UNDER INVESTIGATION IN FRANCE OVER RESTRICTING SMARTPHONE REPAIR

Mon 15 May 2023:

France is investigating Apple for allegedly aiming to make cellphones outdated by restricting their repair, prosecutors and an association claimed on Monday, AFP reported.

According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the probe into purported misleading commercial practices and planned obsolescence has been under way since December.

It is the outcome of a complaint made by the Halt Planned Obsolescence (HOP) organization.

HOP said it hoped the investigation would demonstrate the iPhone maker was “associating the serial numbers of spare parts to those of a smartphone, including via microchips, giving the manufacturer the possibility of restricting repairs by non-approved repairers or to remotely degrade a smartphone repaired with generic parts”.

The association called on Apple “to guarantee the right to repair devices under the logic of real circular economy”.

Apple France was not immediately available for comment.

In 2020, Apple agreed to pay 25 million euros (then $27.4 million) for neglecting to warn iPhone consumers that software updates could cause older devices to slow down.

The scandal erupted in December 2017, when Apple revealed that its most recent iOS software was reducing the performance of older phones with dwindling battery life.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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