French Authorities Investigating Apple For Planned Obsolescence Of Smartphones

Apple has to defend itself in court against the accusation of using planned obsolescence in a special form. The procedure is based on complaints from the consumer protection organization Hop, which was picked up by the public prosecutor’s office.

Planned obsolescence generally describes a supposed strategy by manufacturers to intentionally design products to be short-lived in order to be able to sell more of them. That’s not what Apple is about though. Rather, the consumer advocates accuse the company of deliberately installing various locks in the hardware, with which independent repairs affect the functioning of the devices.

According to Hop, iPhone serial numbers should be linked to those of the built-in components. If an unauthorized workshop now installs a spare part, it cannot connect it correctly to the rest of the system due to the lack of the right crypto key. So if you don’t want to pay the high prices for original spare parts installed in authorized workshops, you have to expect that an iPhone, for example, will no longer work properly.

Intervention by serial number

With his lawsuit, Hop now wants to ensure that Apple enables consumers to have their devices repaired as easily as possible and also by independent specialists. This applies in particular to the replacement of displays or batteries. Because this is seen as a prerequisite for extending the life cycle of the products and reducing the mountains of electronic waste.

There are similar advances in other regions, such as Apple’s home market, the United States. However, they do not resort to the French organization but try to put pressure on the company with public relations. However, Hop has already successfully sued Apple in court – in this case, it was about the power reduction with which Apple reacted to a weakening battery. Even if this ultimately extended the usability of the devices without replacing the battery, the consumer advocates saw the procedure as an unlawful override by the device owners.