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As of Tuesday, Apple’s self-service repair program is now available in eight European countries. It was released in the US. It was announced in the U. S. in April, with the company’s promises to expand to other countries by the end of the year.
Those included in this deployment are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The program allows individual consumers to purchase the same repair manuals, portions and equipment that Apple uses to perform repairs. Two hundred servings and individual equipment can be obtained through Apple’s self-service repair store. In addition to buying the portions, consumers can rent repair kits for 54. 90 euros with loose shipping costs.
Apple claims that the component “is designed and manufactured for the product and undergoes extensive testing to ensure the highest quality, protection and reliability” and that they are offered to users at the same price as Apple’s legal repairers.
The European launch is almost more for this program (which is a step forward but has still noticed its percentage of criticism) than that of the United States. the EU has been much more competitive in discussing and resolving this problem.
Historically, Apple only performed maintenance at an Apple Store or repair shop that is part of the company’s network of strictly controlled legal repairers. The company argued that this was in part to protect consumers from poor maintenance or other disruption caused to repair technicians. It was also about preventing the company from having to foot the bill if one of those illegal maintenances made it more complicated or expensive to respond to a long-term request for a device.
That said, it also allowed the company to reduce the maximum expense of maintenance performed on its devices.
The self-service repair program puts maintenance in the hands of smart customers, but it also keeps Apple’s discount. Some commentators see this as a win-win situation; for others, it is still enough.
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