It was in the news recently that Apple has a chip in the new MacBook to prevent it from booting up properly after any 3rd party repairs have been made. The chip would require Apple’s proprietary software in order for the MacBook to turn on and function normally after certain repairs, essentially deeming any non-official Apple repairs worthless. One could guess that this new “feature” would soon make it’s way to your iPhone as well.

Yesterday a ruling came down in favor of independent repair and the right to repair movement saying that you are now legally allowed to try to get around any attempts by the manufacturers to lock down your device from being repaired by anyone besides them. It will still take some work to get around the efforts of companies like Apple, and John Deere to keep you from being able to fix your own property, but at least now there’s an avenue that doesn’t make us criminals for fixing our own stuff.