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iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

theguardian.com

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Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#241

Post by tdkl »

laverick wrote: post #126

Something suspiciously like this happened to me on a second-hand iPhone 6 I bought a few weeks ago. Talk about crappy timing. Everything pointed to a software issue, but every repair person I took it to (both apple and non-apple) kept saying it was a hardware fault. Touch ID stopped working and the phone drains super quickly despite not being in use. Hoping Apple can provide a "fix", not gonna hold my breath though.

I got a second-hand 5S last year with faulty Touch ID, the seller admitted that it didn't work and didn't even notice because he never used it (at the time also many Touch IDs stopped working after iOS 8 updates). I got a lower price and a friend took it to Apple Store in Germany (had couple months warranty left), where they tried to change the display first, then swapped it for a new unit without issues.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#242

Post by tshtf »

micampe wrote: post #167
tshtf wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually a majority of the watches, besides Rolex, in the <$5000 range use standard unmodified Swiss ETA movements, which can be repaired by any competent watchmaker. Very few watches in this price range use in-house movements.

http://watchguy.co.uk/swatch-group-parts-policy/

Thanks - that's really unfortunate!

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#243

Post by qb45 »

atirip wrote: post #100
jacquesm wrote: post #4

It's totally dumb that a functioning phone is bricked by an update because of repairs done in the past. Imagine the same thing happening to your car. "Sorry sir, the software update done to your car has now disabled the vehicle because in the past someone not related to x (insert name of car company here) has repaired it, your car is now junk (you can't even resell it) and you'll have to buy a new one". It's just pet…

What if that "repair" was done by NSA, CIA, etc? Should the phone boot like nothing happened? Seriously?

Fingerprint scanner disabled due to unauthorized modification. Please contact support or type "I want hackers to steal my data" 10 times to reenable.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#244

Post by minikites »

jacquesm wrote: post #217
minikites wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less about HN vs. reddit and more about society at large. What sorts of rude and derogatory words do you feel the need to say where you can't pick a synonym?

I speak quite a few languages, and most of them badly, good enough for communications needs but not precise enough to win me any literary prizes. If we were having this discussion in Dutch I would definitely not pick on you for using words that may not be precise enough or that might be offensive to you simply because I'd assume that you must have learned your Dutch from other people speaking it and using it in your…

I can appreciate the language barrier and I thank you for changing it when I pointed it out.

As for having my work cut out for me, I definitely expected this to happen (maybe not to this scale). HN tends to attract the kind of person who thinks that anything is fair to say any time, regardless of who it might hurt, because HN tends to attract people of massive privilege, many of whom have never been the victim of societal discrimination.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#245

Post by c22 »

venomsnake wrote: post #133
DanBC wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retard has two uses. If you're talking about watch mechanisms or dough in the fridge the word retard is perfectly fine, no-one cares about that use. The word retard is hate speech, linked to actual real world violence. And that violences is very common. https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2009... > A survey by Mencap of people with a learning disability has found that nearly nine out of ten respon…

I did not contest the facts. But not using the word retard won't help any way. They face prejudice and discrimination because of their condition, not of the way said condition is called. And if we change the word with other - the other word will still be used as an insult. Because the condition itself is highly undesirable. No one wants to have it.

But simply not wanting to be inflicted with a condition is no excuse to dehumanize people who are. Perhaps part of the problem is simply people mocking eachother for being different, but another part of the problem is the cultural normalcy of abuse promulgated by linking diagnostic terms with definitions of global inferiority. Language is the very matrix from which thought arises, so real-world usage of words can alter people's perceptions.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#246

Post by brk »

jacquesm wrote: post #4

It's totally dumb that a functioning phone is bricked by an update because of repairs done in the past. Imagine the same thing happening to your car. "Sorry sir, the software update done to your car has now disabled the vehicle because in the past someone not related to x (insert name of car company here) has repaired it, your car is now junk (you can't even resell it) and you'll have to buy a new one". It's just pet…

This whole fiasco makes me wonder if the link between the TouchID sensor and the rest of the phone is so fragile and easily spoofed that they are concerned a fraudulent sensor could be trusted implicitly by the phone, and therefore used to inject malicious data ("here, I am sending you [USERS] thumbprint").

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#247

Post by AnthonyMouse »

DanBC wrote: post #117
jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you suggest instead and why?

Using the word retard victimises a group that is already significantly marginalised while simultaneously not doing much to the intended victim. The word has a greater affect on unintended, innocent, victims than the intended target. If you're talking about IQ less than 70 use whatever is relevant in the country you're in. In the US this is usually intellectual disability (which is a subset of learning disability, whi…

> Using the word retard victimises a group that is already significantly marginalised while simultaneously not doing much to the intended victim. The word has a greater affect on unintended, innocent, victims than the intended target.

That clearly isn't what the word means today.

"Our son was having trouble in school and his counsellor suspected he might be retarded. We brought him to a retard house with a reputation for taking good care of the retards and the doctor said that he was, indeed, retarded."

That's the sort of thing you might have heard in 1905 but not today. It means something different now. Which is why it's now inappropriate when applied to a person with a learning disability. But the target isn't a person with a learning disability, it's a multinational corporation. The point isn't that Apple has a learning disability, it's that they're being retarded. There isn't another word that means quite exactly that.

It's essentially the same argument as the people who say not to use the word hysterical because of its history. That's not what it means anymore.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#249

Post by SixSigma »

pjc50 wrote: post #177
SixSigma wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has much of the user's life stored on it Stores life in fragile device Fragile device breaks Dies

You may not like it, but this is how non-techy users use computers and phones.

We techy people have let them down, in that case. It should be safe to crush any of my terminals under a tyre and lose nothing.

I learned 15+ years ago that the OS should have that as standard, with no privacy issue either. It is crazy that it is not baked in already. It's not even difficult.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#250

Post by qb45 »

zepto wrote: post #158
jacquesm wrote: post #4

It's totally dumb that a functioning phone is bricked by an update because of repairs done in the past. Imagine the same thing happening to your car. "Sorry sir, the software update done to your car has now disabled the vehicle because in the past someone not related to x (insert name of car company here) has repaired it, your car is now junk (you can't even resell it) and you'll have to buy a new one". It's just pet…

How is this the top comment? We can see that it is clearly nothing to do with 'revenge' or 'retaliation'. The evidence clearly contradicts that. Apple makes strong promises around security and Touch ID in particular. This is clearly designed to maintain the integrity of that system. It's certainly a terrible failure mode - the error message should explain what the problem is. But imputing these bizarre motives just r…

> The alternative would be at some point a headline like "compromised Touch ID sends fingerprints to bad actor".

There would be no such headline. Before update to iOS 9, the affected phones functioned normally, but with disabled Touch ID.

And if you have to know why people come up with theories like that - either Apple didn't think what happens to users who already had this hardware replaced or they thought about that. Maybe those who accuse them of malice simply overestimated their competence - after all, they make big claims about high quality, attention to detail and whatnot.

Not to mention that the first part of this comment makes sense and probably expresses well how people feel about this screwup.

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