For a company that has spent the last few years publicly embracing the right-to-repair movement, Apple just received a report card that should make Cupertino squirm. A comprehensive repairability analysis conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group has ranked Apple dead last among major manufacturers in both laptop and smartphone categories — trailing Samsung, Google, Motorola, and others by significant margins.
The findings land at a particularly awkward moment. Apple has marketed its Self Service Repair program as a good-faith effort to empower consumers. It has partnered with repair shops. It has loosened some of its historically tight restrictions on parts and tools. And yet, when researchers actually sat down and scored how easy it is to fix Apple devices compared to the competition, the results told a different story entirely.
According to the report, as covered by Ars Technica, PIRG evaluated devices across several criteria: the availability and cost of spare parts, the accessibility of repair manuals, the design of the hardware itself, and how much the manufacturer cooperates with — or obstructs — independent repair. Apple scored lowest in both product categories the group examined. Not by a hair. By a meaningful gap.
The smartphone rankings are particularly telling. Samsung and Google, two companies that have also historically been criticized for repair-hostile designs, managed to outpace Apple. Motorola, a brand that doesn’t command nearly the same premium pricing or profit margins, scored even higher. The message from the data is blunt: charging top dollar for a device doesn’t correlate with making it easier to maintain.
PIRG’s methodology weighted several factors that matter to real-world repair. One was parts pairing — the practice of tying specific components to specific devices through software locks, so that even a genuine replacement part won’t function properly unless Apple’s servers authorize it. Apple has been one of the most aggressive practitioners of parts pairing in the industry. A replacement screen, battery, or camera module sourced outside Apple’s approved channels can trigger warning messages, disable features like True Tone, or simply refuse to work. This is a design choice, not a technical necessity.
And it matters enormously. When a cracked screen on a three-year-old iPhone can only be properly repaired through Apple or an Apple-authorized provider, the company effectively controls the aftermarket for its own products. Independent repair shops — the small businesses that fix devices in strip malls and downtowns across the country — are cut out or forced into Apple’s terms. Consumers pay more. Devices that could be saved end up in landfills.
The laptop side of the analysis was no kinder. Apple’s MacBook line, while praised for performance and build quality, has long been criticized for soldered RAM, soldered storage, and glued-in batteries that make even basic upgrades impossible without specialized equipment. The M-series chips consolidated more functions onto a single piece of silicon, which is great for efficiency but terrible for modularity. If one component fails, you’re often looking at replacing the entire logic board — an expense that frequently approaches the cost of a new machine.
Compare that to Framework, the upstart laptop maker that has built its entire brand around repairability and user-upgradeable components. Framework wasn’t included in PIRG’s rankings in the same tier, but the contrast is instructive. A Framework laptop lets you swap out ports, replace the battery with a screwdriver, and upgrade RAM and storage in minutes. Apple’s equivalent requires heat guns, proprietary pentalobe screws, and a prayer.
So where does Apple’s Self Service Repair program fit into all of this? On paper, it was a significant concession. Launched in 2022, the program made genuine Apple parts, tools, and repair manuals available to consumers for the first time. In practice, the execution has drawn criticism from repair advocates and journalists alike. The tool rental kits Apple shipped weighed nearly 80 pounds. The parts were expensive — sometimes absurdly so. And the manuals, while technically available, were written with a level of complexity that seemed designed more for trained technicians than for the average person trying to replace a battery at their kitchen table.
Apple has made incremental improvements since then. It expanded the program to more devices and more countries. It began allowing used genuine parts for some repairs. But PIRG’s analysis suggests these steps haven’t been enough to close the gap with competitors who’ve taken repair accessibility more seriously in their hardware design — not just in their PR strategy.
The timing of this report coincides with a broader regulatory push. The European Union’s new Ecodesign regulations, which are being phased in over the next several years, will impose minimum repairability standards on electronics sold in the EU. Several U.S. states have passed or are considering right-to-repair legislation. Oregon’s law, signed in 2024, specifically targets parts pairing. Minnesota, New York, California, and Colorado have enacted their own versions with varying degrees of teeth.
Apple has responded to some of this pressure. But there’s a difference between compliance and commitment. A company can technically make parts available while pricing them high enough, or locking them down tightly enough, that most consumers still default to Apple’s own repair services or simply buy a new device. That’s the tension PIRG’s report highlights. The question isn’t whether Apple offers repair options. It’s whether those options are genuinely competitive with what other manufacturers provide.
Samsung, for its part, has partnered with iFixit to sell repair kits directly to consumers. Google has done the same for its Pixel line and has been praised for making its devices increasingly modular. Even Motorola — a company that operates on far thinner margins than Apple — has made strides in providing affordable replacement parts and accessible repair documentation. None of these companies are perfect. But all of them scored higher than Apple in PIRG’s assessment.
The environmental implications are significant. Apple publishes annual environmental reports touting its use of recycled materials and its carbon neutrality goals. These are real achievements. But the single most impactful thing any electronics manufacturer can do for the environment is make products that last longer — and that means making them repairable. A phone that gets a $50 battery replacement instead of being discarded saves far more carbon than any amount of recycled aluminum in a new chassis.
This isn’t a fringe opinion. It’s the position of the EPA, the FTC, and a growing number of state attorneys general. It’s the position of the European Commission. And it’s the position of consumer advocates who have been fighting for repair rights for more than a decade. Apple’s low ranking in this analysis doesn’t just reflect poorly on the company’s repair practices. It undermines the credibility of its environmental messaging.
There’s a financial dimension too. Apple’s services revenue — which includes AppleCare, its extended warranty and repair program — generated over $96 billion in fiscal 2025. Making repairs easier and cheaper for consumers would directly cannibalize that revenue stream. This isn’t conspiracy theorizing. It’s basic business logic. When a company profits from being the gatekeeper to its own repair market, the incentive to open that market is structurally weak, regardless of what the marketing department says.
The PIRG report doesn’t suggest Apple’s products are poorly made. Quite the opposite — iPhones and MacBooks are consistently among the most durable consumer electronics available. The issue isn’t build quality. It’s what happens after something goes wrong. A beautifully engineered device that can’t be economically repaired is, in a very real sense, disposable. And at $1,000 to $3,000 per unit, that’s a hard pill for consumers to swallow.
Apple will almost certainly push back on these findings, as it has in the past. The company has pointed to its expanding repair network, its investment in Self Service Repair, and its compliance with emerging regulations as evidence of its commitment. And those things are real. But PIRG’s analysis measured outcomes, not intentions. By that standard, Apple has the most work to do of any major manufacturer.
What happens next will likely be determined more by regulators than by Apple’s own sense of obligation. The EU’s requirements will force design changes. State laws will chip away at parts pairing. And competitors who score better on repairability will increasingly use that as a selling point — particularly as younger consumers, who tend to be more environmentally conscious, gain more purchasing power.
For now, though, the grades are in. And Apple is at the bottom of the class.
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