To me the issue with iphones and ipads is
- The screen digitiser is made of glass
- The battery has a finite service life
- Access to the internal parts is destructive
- After a few years of IOS updates repairing is a pointless exercise
The inconvenient truth is high tech consumer hardware is already beyond economic repair
before it develops a fault. Business and industrial level hardware has a service level built into the costings. So if you're buying a combine harvester, you can expect
all of the parts to be held in a warehouse somewhere. Which is why combine harvesters cost so much.
For high street consumers though, there is only the chance to extend a warantee period. Which is a value added cash cow for the retail chain. All that gets fixed for consumers, is the price. There is no actual chance of their defective device being repaired in a fully equipped service center because that's just
uneconomic. They'll either get a new one or, their deflated money back.
For high street consumer level products, R2R should be less about what service centers need to do their jobs (schematics, parts, tools, certifications, skillsets) and more about managing
consumer expectations.
High street consumers who spend large amounts of their income on devices will not be willing to accept that, should they need it, the products they own are irrepairable
by default. Their car can be fixed. Their boiler can be fixed. Even their left knee joint can be fixed. So why is their tablet device as disposable as an e-cig?
Fundemental to solving the R2R debate might be a closer consideration of the relationship between producer and consumer. From a marketing perspective, this needs to be less opaque and more re-cyclic? Consumers are more likley to accept planned obsolescence if, they know what happens when their products have reached end-of-life - even prematurely by dropping into the ocean. But then this gets into the minefield of who owns your phone? Cue Louis Rossmann...
Should R2R be the right to repair and
recycle?