Apple Faces New Probe From French Regulators Over Manipulative Marketing And Product Obsolesce

Tech giant Apple is being investigated again and this time around, it’s a probe that comes from French regulators.

The leading Cupertino firm is being called out for deceptive marketing techniques that end up manipulating buyers and at the same time, it’s getting called out for product obsolesce as well.

This news was first published by a leading media outlet in France called AFP News which was later verified by sources such as Reuters.

The whole probe began toward the end of last year and now, it has to do with Apple linking the serial number of several repair components to the serial figures seen on Apple devices such as iPads and Macs.

As recently mentioned by the AFP News media outlet, such a probe was first begun after an allegation was made through a firm that is designed to fight against such behavior. Moreover, as a part of this complaint, the firm was seen setting out targets for Apple and its respective policy of repair. It claimed such a firm was trying to link serial numbers of spare components to that seen on smart devices.

The translated version for such complaints had been put up on the website and it was clearly seen outlining some major issues linked to serial numbers of parts.

The issue is really highlighting a practice that people call out as pairing. It allocates serial numbers randomly to certain parts of products like the iPhone and microchips. And that has really affected most parts that are frequently linked to breakdowns.

In the same way, it enables manufacturers to reduce chances for repairs to occur and that’s really the case when you’ve got people that are unapproved to fix such matters.

The complaints were mostly linked to parts of a device that malfunctioned despite being fixed with a part from the firm. Even if it was the right one was selected, it just was not up to the mark and the whole ended up getting defaulted despite being an original.

This might also arise during an update when the part added fails to function with the latest iOS update the user. Therefore, such behavior not only violates the user’s right of carrying out a repair but even the idea of reconditioning for smartphones. And that’s because if a device like that goes back into circulatory motion, it might suffer from some serious malfunctions.

For now, we know that Apple has its own Self Service program where users can repair the device by themselves. It was rolled out at the end of 2022 in France and all users of Apple had to do was put in serial codes for their iPhones that they don’t wish to purchase a new part for. This code needs to match that of the part which was returned so as to attain the credit from Apple for that particular part.

That program has long been praised but we need to understand that although it’s a great initiative, it’s far from perfect and needs plenty of work as shown in May of last year.


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