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Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

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Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past, without warning, they bricked phones with refurbished screens. These are Apple manufactured screens, just ones not original to the phone (repaired by third parties). Using third party screens used to work, but the firmware now checks for this and disables brightness controls if it detects them. This also happened without warning after an update (I believe 11.1 or .2). It might not be hard to fix the phon…

Do you have any source where I can read more about this? Is this for particular models? Refurbished screens work well on iphone6 on latest iOS as far as I can tell

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/10/iphone-8-...

They have tried to pull this stunt multiple times already. But have been forced to revert due to the amount of negative press it was getting. It's astounding that they tried it more than once.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#142
post #15
post #5

I understood the “kill switch” to be a “warranty (i.e. AppleCare) void” switch more than a literal kill switch. You can, with enough work, make any computer—even one that’s not from Apple—into a working Mac. But there’s no amount of effort you can go to that will make Apple suddenly decide to offer warranty coverage on your Hackintosh. I imagine the point here would be to effectively treat computers cobbled together…

In which jurisdiction is this actually a thing that happens? I don't see how Apple's scope of liability is extended to parts they (or an authorized partner) haven't put into the machine. (and I'd suspect they'd generally not be responsible for parts moved to a different machine either, since the warranty to covers the device, not an extracted part) And how would you a describe something that stops the system from bei…

The thing is that you actually can't prove that Apple didn't put those parts in there, if they're sourced from the same suppliers Apple sourced them from. They're literally "the same" parts, so no regular inspection would find them.

That's what I meant by "the computer thinks it's a Mac": Apple already has code in place to detect when you've used parts that don't belong in Macs, in your Mac. (That's DSMOS — "Don't Steal Mac OS X", a kernel extension that verifies the hardware on boot.) But if Apple used some random IC from Samsung or Broadcom, and then the repair shop replaced it with the same random IC from Samsung or Broadcom, but not sourced through Apple, then Apple can't tell—at least through any traditional means—that that computer has been tampered with.

And it's important to tell, because Apple does QA (burn-in testing, etc.) on the parts they install. So a random Samsung or Broadcom chip might be a lot more flaky than the same Samsung or Broadcom chip that has survived through Apple's testing gauntlet. And if Apple can't tell that the chip has been replaced, then they can't void your warranty—which means the flakiness of the replaced part becomes negative media coverage about Apple, rather than just being a story about third-party repair shops using non-QAed parts.

(Remember when Apple used those GPUs in old 2011-era MBPs that would overheat enough to de-solder themselves? Imagine if that wasn't Apple's fault, but rather the fault of repair shops replacing Apple's shipped discrete GPU with "the same" discrete GPU that hadn't been through Apple's QA.)

The verification software can detect this specific problem, by comparing lot numbers for each part in the system to lot numbers Apple's factories have actually received. Thus, even a lot of parts that Samsung created exclusively for Apple, but never shipped to Apple, and instead sold to some reseller, would show up as "invalid" here. As it should—because Apple hasn't picked out the bad parts from the lot.

Now that I think of it, a potentially-useful analogy is the 2007 mortgage crisis. People were buying CDOs (income from mixtures of mortgages, that pay out when people pay their mortgages) endorsed by respected institutions, who gave them high ratings. But the mortgages that went into these CDOs weren't actually verified in the way that the institutions promised, and so they failed a lot more often than they should have for the quality ratings they were given.

In this analogy, Apple products are like highly-rated CDOs; and the verification software being discussed here is what's required to actually check that the parts in the computer (i.e. the mortgages in the CDO) belong with that quality-rating slapped on them.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#143
post #142
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which jurisdiction is this actually a thing that happens? I don't see how Apple's scope of liability is extended to parts they (or an authorized partner) haven't put into the machine. (and I'd suspect they'd generally not be responsible for parts moved to a different machine either, since the warranty to covers the device, not an extracted part) And how would you a describe something that stops the system from bei…

The thing is that you actually can't prove that Apple didn't put those parts in there, if they're sourced from the same suppliers Apple sourced them from. They're literally "the same" parts, so no regular inspection would find them. That's what I meant by "the computer thinks it's a Mac": Apple already has code in place to detect when you've used parts that don't belong in Macs, in your Mac. (That's DSMOS — "Don't St…

Approximately nobody is saying Apple isn't allowed to track and detect this (although they might not be legally allowed to deny all service based on this). Just that they shouldn't make a killswitch that bricks devices based on it. If the "killswitch" isn't one, all is well, but the initial reports claimed otherwise (citing Apple documents as saying "will result in an inoperative system,")

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#144
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if every manufacturer is doing it, there are probably good reasons for it. I doubt they've all gone mad at the same time.

No removable batteries, no expandable memory, no headphone jack and now the notch. All undeniable evidence on manufacturers copying(?) Apple's choices at least in phones. As a user, I strongly feel these are not in my best interests. And I realize I am not alone in this. Apple being the magnitude that it is now, cannot afford to make choices to attract folks like me with their 'reimagined' and 'breakthrough' innovati…

I don't know how many registered users there are on HN, but I seem to recall my user number was about 1000. Maybe there are about 3000 on the site now? I don't think you could break even with those numbers.

So, no. There is no market for this phone.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#145
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want a rectangular screen for something that goes in my pocket? The removable batter and headphone jack might be nice, but as I understand it part of the reason these kinds of things have been removed is to make waterproofing easier, which is something I'd rather have.

That's simply not true. My Samsung Galaxy S5 has a removable battery and headphone jack AND it's waterproof.

@foota says 'easier', not 'possible'. And the S6 doesn't have a removable battery, so what does that tell you about how Samsung felt about the engineering compromises they had to make with the S5 and all the rubber grommet-ing around its removable battery?

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#146
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No removable batteries, no expandable memory, no headphone jack and now the notch. All undeniable evidence on manufacturers copying(?) Apple's choices at least in phones. As a user, I strongly feel these are not in my best interests. And I realize I am not alone in this. Apple being the magnitude that it is now, cannot afford to make choices to attract folks like me with their 'reimagined' and 'breakthrough' innovati…

Add a metal back (not glass!), a matte screen, and an easily-rootable OS and I'll buy it yesterday.

A metal back will compromise radio reception.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any source where I can read more about this? Is this for particular models? Refurbished screens work well on iphone6 on latest iOS as far as I can tell

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/10/iphone-8-... They have tried to pull this stunt multiple times already. But have been forced to revert due to the amount of negative press it was getting. It's astounding that they tried it more than once.

Don't forget the latest one: SSD or memory change on iMac pros bricks them https://gizmodo.com/reports-newest-macbook-pro-bricked-if-no...

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#149
post #103
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally just pure marketing. Let's see Purism make a phone comparable to what's in the iPhone X, and have that be user-serviceable with a screwdriver and suction cup.

If being "comparable to iPhone X" is more important to you than being repairable, then Librem 5 is not for you. It does not indicate that it's "pure marketing" in any way.

Hey as long as we're on the same page that they're not at all comparable phones, with comparable hardware, or comparable manufacturing requirements, get whatever phone floats your boat.

Re: Apple’s repair kill switch hasn’t been activated yet

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone is surprisingly repairable, and after the switch to the rounded chassis (with iPhone6) I’d consider it more repairable than the earlier iphone5 form factor. The only part that is using any significant adhesive is the battery, it can’t be fit because it needs to be able to grow, so it is fit into a too large space using a piece of adhesive tape to not move around. The phone is built to be quickly servicable…

In the past, without warning, they bricked phones with refurbished screens. These are Apple manufactured screens, just ones not original to the phone (repaired by third parties). Using third party screens used to work, but the firmware now checks for this and disables brightness controls if it detects them. This also happened without warning after an update (I believe 11.1 or .2). It might not be hard to fix the phon…

That's incredibly misleading. The phones were bricked because the screen assembly included the TouchID sensor and the sensors weren't re-keyed. Apple, for security reasons, bricked phones that had TouchID enabled where the sensor didn't match the Secure Enclave. They didn't envision that people would want to replace the displays at the expense of losing TouchID functionality or device security. As soon as it happened, they released an update to simply disable TouchID and warn users that it was now disabled as opposed to disabling the entire phone.
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