Thanks Apple for making my phone a less attractive target for thieves by making its pieces useless when used in other phones. Ifixit: you are not on my side.
[flagged]
Sounds like an Android distro “Boot Lollipop—you’re broke, sorry—that’s Android!”
We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
21–30 of 367 posts
Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#22There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an hour. When people are afraid to use your products…
While anti-consumerist practices such as this authentication mechanism sometimes accidentally protect the consumer, it is not the reason why companies do it. If it were, they would also allow you to say “yes this replacement is desired.” Similarly, if it was about security and preventing backdoored parts, they could allow you to authorize the replacement. But no, it is of course about money grabbing, and then the con…
Such an ignore button would allow theft to continue and would allow users to make poor security decisions. I agree that something needs to happen to enable easier or maybe more privacy focused 3rd party repairs but I also appreciate my device being less of a target.
Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#23There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an hour. When people are afraid to use your products…
I do not accept this as a reasonable answer. I've lived in not even very good areas, with very lax physical security (often not locking my car) and have never had this issue, ever. Nobody has ever stolen my phone. Not in downtown Detroit, not in not-downtown-Detroit, not in SF, not in Chicago. If crime really is this bad, it's not an Apple or Samsung problem. It's a societal problem that extremely badly needs to be a…
“No one has stolen my phone so I don’t believe that actions to stop phone theft is necessary”
I’ve heard plenty of stories of people getting their phones stolen in public. Especially when I was in school, we’d hear of plots like kids coming up to students and asking to call their parents because they’re scared and alone only to run over to a car waiting around the corner and drive away.
You can argue it’s unnecessary, but it certainly chilled the market for stolen phones. They’re pretty obvious targets and they’re very personal. Not worrying about it as much is a big win, but some people have other priorities and that’s ok too.
Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#24There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an hour. When people are afraid to use your products…
While anti-consumerist practices such as this authentication mechanism sometimes accidentally protect the consumer, it is not the reason why companies do it. If it were, they would also allow you to say “yes this replacement is desired.” Similarly, if it was about security and preventing backdoored parts, they could allow you to authorize the replacement. But no, it is of course about money grabbing, and then the con…
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Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#25Thanks Apple for making my phone a less attractive target for thieves by making its pieces useless when used in other phones. Ifixit: you are not on my side.
If you don't care about independent repairability, which is the only thing this score addresses, then just don't look at this website. The decision doesn't affect you or Apple in any way, it's just advice for people looking for a particular feature.
Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#26Thanks Apple for making my phone a less attractive target for thieves by making its pieces useless when used in other phones. Ifixit: you are not on my side.
That's why Apple gives the consumer an authorization code that they can use when re-selling their phone, to unlock its parts and permit their re-use. Since thieves don't get that code, it protects phones against theft and allows re-use.
Because if they didn't do that, anti-theft would be just a useful excuse to further rob the consumer of agency.
They do give out such a code, right? I'm just assuming here, but since they paint themselves as such champions of ecology [1], they must. Because if they didn't, that would make them hypocrites, and liars, in claiming there is no way to deter theft without taking rights from the consumer. And we know Apple is honest and on the consumer's side, so that can't be it.
Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#27There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an hour. When people are afraid to use your products…
I don't know why iFixit doesn't even touch on that point.
I live in Barcelona and phones are being pickpocketed every day here. Not being able to wipe or unlock or else is a mayor deterrent for the pickpockets, because noone will take the phone off of them, so it's not worth it. Phones are still being stolen but imagine if they could sell to a global market of repair shops.
You couldn't go to any tourist location without having your phone stolen if it wasn't bolted to your person.
I get the iFixit point as well but if I have a 1500€ phone, I don't want to think about it being stolen, when I am on vacation, because someone needs some parts (oh the human trafficing/organ harvesting similarity...)
Apple should offer a better repair program and offer the ability to "unlock and relock" it in a apple store with proper proof of ownership. Or anything else in that direction.
Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#28There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an hour. When people are afraid to use your products…
I do not accept this as a reasonable answer. I've lived in not even very good areas, with very lax physical security (often not locking my car) and have never had this issue, ever. Nobody has ever stolen my phone. Not in downtown Detroit, not in not-downtown-Detroit, not in SF, not in Chicago. If crime really is this bad, it's not an Apple or Samsung problem. It's a societal problem that extremely badly needs to be a…
In other parts of the world where the cost of a new iPhone is much more expensive relative to local earning power it does happen. I've had coworkers who had their phones stolen in Spain and Brazil for example.
Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#29Thanks Apple for making my phone a less attractive target for thieves by making its pieces useless when used in other phones. Ifixit: you are not on my side.
If you don't care about independent repairability, which is the only thing this score addresses, then just don't look at this website. The decision doesn't affect you or Apple in any way, it's just advice for people looking for a particular feature.
It’s talking about the benefits of tagging parts. Crooks can’t make money off my iPhone and so iPhone theft drops. It’s a relevant point to make in this discussion.
Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
#30iFixit is so fantastic. For any of their flaws or shortcomings, they are really trying to grow and improve on a regular basis. They have helped my family save so much stuff from the scrap heap.
These are the types of actions that help the ethos of "REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE".
But it comes at the cost of capitalism and pure profit making. There's going to have to be a hard reckoning sometime soon that we can't keep just throwing stuff away (and paying again and again), just so the stock market keeps moving up.