Germany wants Apple to keep their phones up to date for seven years. This came from a proposal from the German government that wants security updates. Germany’s Ministry of Economics wants to include spare parts also (Adorno 2021). These proposed changes goes beyond what the European Union wanted, which was to have tech companies keep updating their products for at least five years. Though this has its benefits, for the people and the environment, there has been some pushback from those companies. Jose Adorno (2021) reports that the Association, DigitalEurope, thinks these proposals are too much and wants to cut the security updates to just three years and function updates to two.
It is understandable for Huawei or Google to limit support on their devices for a long time since they rely so much on new hardware sales every year with the release of a new phone or tablet. The revenue in that department would decrease over the years and manufacturing spare parts would also cut into their revenue. If the rules ever came to fruition, I would think it would take these companies a long time to redo their supply chains to support this only for Europe. Additional parts like microphones, cameras, and speakers would also need to be distributed to Europe also.
However, I do not think this is a bad idea to have these rules enacted for tech companies. There is a large E-waste problem since many of us upgrade our smartphone every two years. With our focus to become more environmentally sustainable, I believe that the changes here will be for the better since fewer people will be throwing away their devices for new ones. Access to spare parts can also contribute to lengthening the life span of the device and prevent it from becoming e-waste. Also, people would save a considerable amount of money by fixing or keeping a well-supported device a few years.
These changes would benefit most people, and it only hurt companies in the short term from having to adjust to these changes. Prolonging our device’s lifespan is one way to tackle the E-waste problem. Hopefully rules like these will come over to the US.
Do you think that tech companies should provide updates and spare parts for their devices for five or more years? If so, why?
Source:
https://9to5mac.com/2021/09/06/germany-wants-apple-to-update-and-repair-iphones-for-7-years/