Launch of Apple's self-service repair program in Europe

Enlarge / Some of the tools and parts offered in Apple's self-service repair program -service from Apple appear in this photo. Apple

As of Tuesday, Apple's self-service repair program is now available in eight European countries. It launched in the US in April, with the company promising to expand to other countries by the end of the year.

The countries included in this deployment are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The program allows individual customers to purchase the same repair manuals, parts, and tools that Apple uses to perform repairs. Two hundred individual parts and tools are available through Apple's self-service repair store. In addition to purchasing the parts, customers can rent repair kits for 54.90 euros with free shipping.

Apple says each part "is designed and manufactured for each product and undergoes extensive testing to ensure the highest quality, safety, and reliability" and is offered to users at the same price as Apple Authorized Repairers .

That said, parts are not available for all products. To take advantage of this, you need to be looking to fix an iPhone 12 or 13 line phone or a MacBook with an M1 or M2 based chip. iPhone 14 models and Intel Macs are not yet supported.

The European launch seems almost more important for this program (which is a step forward but has still seen its share of criticism) than the United States. Indeed, while US lawmakers have sometimes flirted with right to repair laws, the EU has been far more aggressive in debating and addressing this issue.

Previously, Apple only covered repairs done either at an Apple Store or at a repair shop that's part of the company's tightly-monitored network of authorized repairers. The company argued that this was partly to protect customers from poor repairs or other problems caused by unauthorized repair technicians. It was also to save the company from having to foot the bill if one of these unauthorized repairs made it more difficult or more expensive to respond to a future support request for a device.

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That said, it also helped the company ensure that it could reduce the expense of most repairs to its devices.

The self-service repair program puts repairs in the hands of savvy customers, but it also keeps Apple on its toes. Some commentators see this as a win-win; for others, it's still not enough.