In the past ten years, the operating costs of the company’s various maintenance projects have exceeded the revenue generated by these services.
Editor’s note: This article is from “Tencent Technology“, review: Cheng Hey, authorized to reprint.
The US House of Representatives launched an anti-monopoly investigation of the four technology giants (Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon). The investigation of Apple involved hot issues such as product maintenance and software store “Apple tax.” According to the latest news from foreign media, in the reply to the House of Representatives, Apple disclosed that in the past ten years, the operating costs of various maintenance projects of the company have exceeded the revenue generated by these services. Apple also defended the refusal to repair equipment under certain circumstances.
According to foreign media reports, starting in July this year, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon responded to the antitrust investigation by the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. Apple’s written response was announced a few days ago, including specific details of the company’s maintenance policy and business.
It is reported that the House of Representatives asked Apple to provide information from 2009 to the present, including how many maintenance technicians Apple employs, and “Apple’s total revenue from maintenance services.”
“There are tens of thousands of Apple-authorized service technicians working in Apple retail stores and third-party retailers,” Apple replied in testimony.
“Since 2009, the cost of providing repair services per year has exceeded the revenue generated by maintenance,” the company continued.
The House of Representatives question asked Apple to explain what repairs the company authorized the service provider to allow—and what it prohibits those service providers from doing (if any).
Apple replied: “The Apple Authorized Service Provider’s employees are allowed to perform the same repair services (including repair type and product type) as Apple’s retail store. For those who are unable to do so at stores (Apple retail stores and authorized service providers) For more complex repairs, technicians mail the products that need to be repaired to the nearest Apple repair center.”
The House of Representatives also asked about the customer’s first repair at an unauthorized repair point, and Apple later refused to repair the equipment.
Apple said: “Apple will not refuse to provide maintenance services to this customer in the future.” Apple also said that the company will not automatically refuse to repair products that have been repaired by third parties in accordance with certain policies.
Apple also said that there are genuine parts of fake Apple products on the market, the purpose is to imitate the functions of genuine Apple components, even if these parts infringe Apple’s intellectual property rights, Apple will not automatically refuse the maintenance of related equipment.
However, Apple’s response clearly states that it is under the following circumstancesWill refuse to repair the customer’s equipment.
– Some raw components (such as the main logic board and shell) that have been replaced by non-original components. This is because to replace these parts, the equipment must be dismantled to the extent that Apple’s special tools and processes are required to reassemble the equipment. If you use a non-Apple special tool to reassemble, it will cause problems with the device.
—When the equipment submitted for repair has been dismantled to the extent that special tools and processes are required to reassemble.
——When Apple’s genuine components have been replaced by counterfeit components, and the fake components look like Apple’s genuine components, they are components that have no effect (for example, fake speakers or fake camera modules).
——When the equipment is out of the scope of economic repair, that is, repairing the faulty equipment will bring more cost to the customer than replacing the equipment.
– A device that lacks components.
——Deliberately tampering with devices to deceive Apple.
The House of Representatives asked why Apple sometimes refused to provide official parts to repairers.
Apple said it has an independent maintenance provider program that other repairers can apply for. The only eligibility criteria Apple disclosed in its response was that it required the company to “at least one trained technician” to perform the repair.
In addition, Apple only sells parts to companies, including individual distributors, rather than to consumers and other individuals. This is part of the “Apple Genuine Parts Repair” program.
Apple said: “The repairs performed by individuals are more likely to be untrained technicians, which increases the likelihood that repairs will not follow proper safety and maintenance procedures and may result in inappropriate functionality, product quality issues. Or a security incident.” This response responded to consumer controversy over “Apple equipment repair rights” in April.
Recently, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon’s responses to the House of Representatives’ antitrust investigation have been announced. Among them, Apple is the only company involved in hardware repair of products. The House of Representatives investigates whether Apple has anti-competition in product maintenance. behavior.
In the past, Apple has had some controversy and media attention reports on equipment maintenance. The outside world questioned Apple’s obstruction of unauthorized dealers to repair Apple’s electronic products.