By law electronic devices, and in fact all devices in general, must offer certain guarantees. Beyond what the warranty covers, a key point of these laws is how long repairs, parts and software updates should be offered for. A point where the german government has its suggestions.
Seven years is an eternity in technological terms
The European Commission recently proposed legislation under which manufacturers of mobile devices must guarantee software updates and parts for repairs for five years and six years for tablets. Legislation that would also oblige manufacturers to publish part prices now deliver their orders within a maximum of five working days.
In Germany they want to go much further and suggest that the European Union increase the number of years to seven and also force companies to sell the parts “at a reasonable price”. The proposed measures fall within ecological design standards and seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are produced during the manufacture of the parts.
This regulation would affect both Apple and other manufacturers, such as Samsung or Huawei, all represented by DigitalEurope, which would see as should allocate part of their production capacity to manufacturing of parts for devices that, judging by the current standards of technological evolution, would be more than obsolete after seven years.
A measure that can have an impact on the final price of new devices.
Apple is already used to offering software updates for many years. Proof of this is that iOS 15 will even reach the iPhone 6s, a phone that was launched in 2015 and that will fulfill, when the next system officially arrives, seven years of support. As for security updates, they go much further by seeing updates that covers iPhone 5s and even iPhone 4s.
The rest of the industry, however, claims that the commission’s proposal has gone too far and it plans to publish updates to the operating system for two years and security updates for three. The association also proposes that companies should only offer the components with the highest demand rate, such as batteries or screens, while camera sensors or microphones should not fall under this proposed regulation.
For now the proposed legislation is in a negotiation and conversation phase. The European Union plans to introduce the proposals during 2023, from where they would follow the relevant steps until they enter, if they do, into force.
The truth is that this is a very delicate situation. Device manufacturers, all of them, must take into account the possible expenses for repairs in the final price of the products. Posing that parts of the same device have to be manufactured for seven or five years, taking into account that we renew our phones much more often, is something that can have an impact on the final price of new devices.
For now we can only wait and see how this bill evolves. A proposal that will undoubtedly give rise to talk while the different points of view agree on appropriate measures for all parties.
Image | James lewis