In the tech world, 2022 could go down in history as the year the European Union imposed a change on all manufacturers to standardize the responsible sale and maintenance of their devices. We’ve already seen how it will standardize USB-C by law, and now a new initiative of the European Commission wants to go further.
More repairs, more spare parts, longer life and less energy consumption
The institution has published a proposal in which it asks manufacturers of mobile phones and tablets offer at least 15 spare parts and repairs for a minimum lifespan of five years. And the same with software: every device should be able to benefit from at least five years of security and stability updates and three years of updates bringing new features. Noted spares would include batteries, displays, SIM card trays or chargers.
With this, Europe is seeking to reduce what it estimates to be a third of the energy consumed in manufacturing the devices, in addition to the material savings that greater reuse of devices would bring. The Financial Times points out that it would be the equivalent of taking 5 million cars off the road.
For once, this law does not take Apple by surprise: a large part already complies with it
This law does not catch Apple off guard. Precisely from Cupertino, they provide a minimum of five years of support in all their products, after which the product enters the product list ancient where repairs are always offered but depending on whether or not there are spare parts. At the software level there are no problems either, just see how macOS Ventura will support computers from 2016 and 2017 or how iOS 15 is compatible with iPhone 6s.
Where perhaps more work needs to be done is on the other points of the proposal: one of them is to ensure that the batteries do not degrade below 83% of their original capacity after 500 charge cycles. And that can be difficult with the heat waves that put a strain on these batteries.
Right now it’s just a proposal, but seeing how the initiative to eliminate proprietary connectors like Lightning has flourished, we could see it become law in a few years. Little by little, institutions are regulating the way electronic devices are sold with one objective: minimize material and energy consumption. And something tells me companies like Apple are going to have to jump through some hoops.
