My co-worker, Tracey, held her iPhone like a baby bird with a bent wing.

I stared at the dark screen. The device was still on, but stuck somewhere between living technology and a dead iPhone. Tracey said that the device made a popping sound and got really hot in one corner while she was making a phone call. Then, her screen cracked, and burnt her ear. She wanted to know what to do. She explained the incident happened shortly after having third-party iPhone screen repair company iCracked replace her shattered iPhone 6 screen. iCracked was ready to let the original technician repair her phone again. I warned her against it. The phone was obviously dangerous—and letting them touch it again probably wouldn’t help. In fact, I thought it might hurt.

Right-to-Repair? What a ridiculous phrase. No one has the right to repair anything.

I was reminded of this episode as I read about Nebraska, the latest state to consider new Right-to-Repair legislation. If the legislation passes, it'd require Apple, Samsung, and other electronics manufacturers to supply parts and detailed repair manuals to everyone, including repair shops, and average consumers. And there are several legislative efforts like it underway around the country.

Right-to-Repair? What a ridiculous thing to say. No one has the right to repair anything. You might have the skill to repair something (something that iCracked tech might've lacked). And you can hand people all the schematics, instructions, and parts you want and they still won’t be able to replace an iPhone battery or screen.

Another way to say it

“We don’t lead with that language,” said The Repair Association’s Executive Director Gay Gordon-Byrne.

Her organization supports Right-to-Repair legislation around the country. Gordon-Byrne, who has a bit of a DIY streak in her, agreed that repairing something isn't a right like free speech. In fact, some of the legislation her organization sponsors is called “Fair Repair.” The “Right-to-Repair” language actually started in the auto industry. “Obviously, it would be silly for us not to take advantage [of it.],” she told me.

Even though the language of the legislation being pushed in Nebraska includes the word “consumers” and reads broadly, Gordon-Byrne insists the goal of the legislation isn't “you should repair your own stuff.”

That may be so, but I worry the DIY community, the Maker community, and especially Apple-repair shop iFixit—which stands firmly behind Right-to-Repair, and urges their site's visitors to support it—feel otherwise.

The company, which sells an excellent line of repair tools and kits, does daily teardowns of popular consumer electronics products, and rates them on repairability. It gave the iPhone 6 a 7 out of 10 score, which makes it sound quite repairable. Of course, the teardown features 22 steps using four specialized tools you can buy, naturally, from iFixit. Its screen replacement guide for the phone features 26 steps, an $80 part, and seven tools.

Gordon-Byrne says companies like iFixit should be credited with small third-party iPhone repair services that do exist. Without the intel they provide on how these products are made and the components within them, as well as the tools and, sometimes, replacement parts they offer? There probably wouldn’t even be an iCracked.

The End of Repair

When they work, sites and services like iFixit and iCracked fill in a crucial gap between the end of your iPhone warranty and buying a new iPhone. But Tracey’s experience makes me wonder if the entire consumer electronics repair industry is a farce. Apple and Samsung aren't building these products to be repaired. They started with batteries that can’t be removed, and continued with hidden screws. Even water-resistance flies in the face of a repair job. 'Soon as you open that phone, you can probably kiss any real waterproofing you might've had goodbye.

This, for Gordon-Byrne, is a positive. “Most repair is actually simpler than people expect,” she told me, adding that many repairs aren't "repairs" at all—they’re just parts replacement. If a board goes dead, the repair shop slips it out, and slides a new board in.

She’s right, but the typical consumer gamely trying to repair their iPhone wouldn’t get that far in. They’d struggle to open the device, and probably wouldn’t know how to unplug the front panel that includes both the LCD and glass screen cover.

“I agree, there’s a shift in manufacturing that has tended to using more adhesives and more integrated parts,” said Gordon-Byrne.

It’s not that I don’t believe in better-built products and repairability. We need tightening against planned obsolescence cycles—TV sets that once lasted 25 years now fail after five. I’m also a tinkerer. I’ve taken apart everything from VCRs to BlackBerry Curve phones and their classic scroll buttons. When I see moving parts, I think: repairability. Today’s phones have almost no moving parts. At least the iPhone 6 had a moveable home button. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus don’t even have that.

Apple would rather just not.

Apple, which wouldn't comment for this story, has made no secret of its distaste for the Right-to-Repair movement, lobbying against it in multiple states. It’s also sought to steer people away from third-party and potentially unlicensed repair companies by lowering the cost, in the U.S., at least, of some of its own repair services (Apple doesn't cover most cracked screens unless the crack was caused by a manufacturing defect). The company also understands just how hard it is to repair and dismantle its own products. In 2015, Apple introduced LIAM, a custom-design, iPhone-dismantling robot. It’s still a prototype, and only safely dismantles an iPhone 6, but it also separates and sorts recyclable and hazardous materials. My guess is that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, iPhones will be so thin, powerful, and complex than only a robot will be able to repair them.

Opponents contend that Apple's fighting Right-to-Repair legislation because it wants to protect trade secrets. But which ones, exactly? iFixit teardowns reveal virtually every component inside these devices. There's clearly some stuff iFixit cannot figure out via observation. I’m fine with that. Apple wanting to protect some details of its iPhone technology is no different than Kentucky Fried Chicken trying to protect its secret recipe.

DIY disasters

I think it’s a fair concern that Right-to-Repair laws could lead to an explosion of Radio Shack-like iPhone and Samsung electronics parts shops. Consumers will wander in with broken iPhone and Samsung Galaxy screens, and walk out with all the parts and tools they need to repair them. And they will fail, miserably.

Plus, what if a consumer's injured during a failed repair attempt? They slice open a finger on the cracked glass, or put it back together incorrectly, so the battery fails (and maybe even explodes). It’s the consumer’s fault, obviously, but they could also try to sue Apple or Samsung.

Gordon-Byrne laughed off my concern. “I can’t imagine someone going in to try and sue Apple for a finger cut, when it’s already clear that the phone has glass and that glass is fragile.”

The Right-to-Repair movement would make a lot more sense to me if it focused solely on industrial technology. Farming and manufacturing equipment are, increasingly, filled with hard-to-repair solid-state components. When there’s millions of dollars (and potentially: infrastructure) on the line, it makes sense to ensure that businesses, farms, even governments can repair this equipment, as opposed to simply having to replace it.

The Repair Association has, in fact, considered pursuing something less inclusive. Gordon-Byrne pointed me to Wyoming and Kansas, two states considering legislation tailored to farm and ranching equipment. On its Wyoming Bill page, though, The Repair Association says it would like to see the bill be adjusted to include all digital equipment.

Too new to fail

If Right-to-Repair succeeds, Gordon-Byrne sees a lot more people getting trained and going into business for themselves as technicians. It could be a booming business. It could also face one very big challenge: modern product-upgrade cycles. New smartphone manufacturer and carrier plans are encouraging consumers to upgrade their phones every year (and pay a monthly fee, so they don’t notice the $700 they’re plunking down for that new iPhone). Leaving aside clear profit motives, it introduces a new possibility to our smart-phone-owning existence: More and more people will be carrying like-new phones, and repair opportunities may dwindle.

That reality's probably years away, though, and Right-to-Repair is struggling to make its way through a handful of state legislatures, which leaves us with the somewhat dicey status quo and companies like iCracked that are, even by their own admission, feeling their way through the repair process.

“The repair industry was the wild west and to some extent, it still is.” Said iCracked CEO and Founder AJ Forsythe.

He was understandably alarmed about Tracey’s experience, noting that it’s not the norm. iCracked does seem obsessed with repair quality. It even captures video of its parts on the assembly line and uses barcodes to attach that footage to the final product its “iTechs” use in repairs.

However, iCracked, like most third-party repair companies, is still flying partially blind-folded. Since Apple doesn’t provide repair manuals and certified parts to companies like his, Forsythe has made over two dozen visits to China to find the companies supplying iPhone parts. Are they the exact same parts Apple uses? “A lot of the time, they are the same,” said Forsythe. But Apple is well known for forcing supply partners to, sometime subtly, alter components just for them. Could Forsythe be certain his LCD panels match Apple’s?

“As far as we know from the supply chain team over there, they are wildly similar, or the same,” he told me.

Forsythe, naturally, supports Right-to-Repair. I asked him if he’s comfortable with even more consumers trying to repair their own phones. He acknowledged that not everyone's as handy and tech savvy as he is. “Would I feel comfortable having my father or mother repair a phone?"

"I guess [the answer] would be how well they could follow instructions.”

AND NOW, A DIFFERENT OPINION: Apple doesn't want you to repair your iPhone because they're money-hungry and evil.