Apple's self-service repair programme is a huge win for the right-to - repair movement

Customers who are comfortable can fix their own devices by using Apple's self-service repair programme.

After months of increasing pressure on Apple from the grassroots right-to- repair movement, it wants individuals and independent repair shops to be able to fix electronics.

Apple has been held up as one of the fiercest opponents of the right to repair, claiming safety issues.

It may be a small step but for Apple to do it, this is a huge win for the right-to- repair movement, according to Canadian computer hardware reviewers Hardware Canucks. It said that access to official parts had doubled in the past three years because of the Self Service Repair programme, which will allow individual customers to join more than 5,000 Apple authorised service providers and 2,800 independent repair providers.

The authorised repair schemes of Apple have been criticised for having extensive terms and restrictions such as where the replacement parts come from, making it unlikely that a random component from a broken phone could easily be harvested and transplanted for repair.

Steve Wozniak, who built the first Apple computers in a garage with Steve Jobs in the 1970s, came out in favor of the movement earlier this year.