Anyone who has ever owned an Apple device understands.

When that device, so precious and beloved at the beginning, fails or breaks, you know you are in for a rough few days if not weeks, depending on where you live.

First, you probably try to figure out how to fix it yourself using YouTube. When that inevitably fails, you then have to find the local Apple store, in which you hope the company has a Genius Bar. 

Then you have to make an appointment at the Genius Bar, which depending on where you live could be anytime as soon as the next day or six weeks in the future. 

After that, you wait until the day comes, you take your device in, and wait some more, usually in lines of multiple people, even though you had an appointment. 

Then, finally, at long last, you hand your device to the genius at the counter, and if you are very lucky, they fix it right then and there.

If you are not lucky, however, that genius tells you your device is going to need to stay there to be fixed by someone with more knowledge, or sent off to someplace with more skill, or even replaced totally which will take ... weeks.

Now, however, a new lawsuit filed in California claims that you could probably avoid all but that first step of fixing your device yourself, except that Apple has been booby-trapping its phones to avoid self-repairing by customers.

Apple, the Cupertino, Calif., technology major, did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit, which requests class-action status, claims that the company deliberately programs in traps that make it nearly impossible for Apple customers to repair their devices, forcing them to instead use the company's pricey repair process.

It also claims that those limitations are unfair to small businesses that would be able to repair Apple devices for less or more quickly without the booby-trapped pitfalls. 

It adds that the impediments to self-repair are unfair to lower-income Apple consumers, who do not have the money or time to go through Apple's lengthy proprietary repair process in order to get their devices working again.

The lawsuit is Granato, et al. v. Apple Inc., docket number 22CV395280, and was filed in Superior Court of Santa Clara on March 11.

You can read all about it here.

Very few longtime Apple watchers will be surprised that a company well-known for its aggressive business practices would be prone to protecting its interests in the lucrative repair sector.

Still, the alleged booby traps outlined in the California lawsuit are notable for two reasons.

The first one is that Apple has already been down this road, and consumers thought they had won out in the end. 

After years of wrangling and complaints from everybody from regulators to average people who just wanted their pricey Apple devices to work, the company announced a new program last year that would help customers fix their own Apple products.

Dubbed the Self-Service Repair Program, it was rolled out to much fanfare in November 2021, and it promised to help customers fix their own gear by offering diagrams, instructions, kits, parts and tools. 

So the news that the company may still be making those repairs impossible is sure to grate on at least a few of the originally frustrated Apple fans and regulators.

Second, if Apple is indeed introducing booby traps into some of the most expensive tech out there in the market, it begs the question of what else might be in your device that is either customer-unfriendly or just unwanted.

Tech firms in general started out with a proactive view of data siphoning, and have gradually been baby-stepped back from collecting masses of personal information by legislators and other watchdog groups and court decisions.

But if Apple has indeed been introducing tools to stymie customers who want to repair their own property, particularly after promising that it would back off on pushing its own aggressive repair process, it raises questions for even the most diehard Apple fans.

Brand loyalty is the crown jewel in Apple's business strategy and always has been. When tarnished, it can start hitting bottom lines quickly — and make someone who was going to buy that brand new, thousand-dollar iPhone think twice, and maybe go with something else instead.

Riley Gutiérrez McDermid is the breaking news editor for TheStreet. You can send Riley an email here. In the past she has edited and written for McClatchy, MarketWatch, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times Group.