Apple will now allow more independent repair shops to buy “genuine” iPhone parts and tools, allowing them to complete repairs in roughly the same way that an Apple Store would. The change could be helpful to iPhone owners as Apple continues to lock down repairs, though it could also lead to higher prices for parts, as they’ll all pass through Apple.
Until now, independent repair shops had to become “authorized service providers” in order to get genuine parts from Apple. But there were major reasons repair shops may not have wanted to join: they’d have to pay Apple to be part of the program, and they’d be limited to only completing authorized repairs, as Motherboard previously detailed.