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We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

ifixit.com

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Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#111

Post by specialist »

I agree with the two conclusions of iFixit's accompanying article:

"How Parts Pairing Kills Independent Repair" [2023-01-17] https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-in...

TDLR: "Put Pairing in the Peoples’ Hands" and "Unpair the Future"

Their second point is totally spot on and lost in the food fight. Parts Pairing must be disabled for any discontinued models which have also fallen out of warranty. (Like if I bought the last iPhone 5 and could no longer buy Apple Care for it.)

Further, Apple must provide repair parts. Actual cost for noobs like me and discounted for warranty repair shops (any org who wants to sign up, eg identity and tax id verified.) Excess inventory for discontinued models liquidated to some one's like iFixit.

My u/unpopularopinion:

Counterfeit and grey/black markets are a scourge. I absolutely want parts pairing for any new devices. Doubly so if my threat model included espionage or surveillance.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#112

Post by gchamonlive »

spinningarrow wrote: post #100
gchamonlive wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try to push that as a marketing strategy, but I would say the share of the market that looks for smartphones specifically because they are less of a target for theft is minuscule, the reason being because nobody shop for phones thinking about getting robbed. They shop mainly guided by ecosystem (android Vs ios) brand perception (how good their aftersales support is), budget and cost-effectiveness. In this sen…

> nobody shop for phones thinking about getting robbed I don’t know the safety situation of where you live but I literally had this conversation with friends two weeks ago where we loved the idea that the iPhone is a better purchase because it’s less prone to theft (because of the reasons GP mentioned).

Enough for non-anecdotal people to shift their entire ecosystem to a diffent brand? People in general won't just switch from Android to iPhone because "filthy criminals are after my brand new phone for parts". If apple wasn't going to lock their parts and Samsung would, people would still keep buying iPhones.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#113

Post by triceratops »

LightHugger wrote: post #98
adesanmi wrote: post #57

When people stop robbing phones for them to end up in Shenzen and stripped for parts, this will stop. This is a deterrent to make stealing iPhones less convenient and I’m all for it. People already have to try to phish people’s iCloud details after stealing their devices to resell, costing them time and money and making it more annoying to try and steal. I do think people who want to repair their phone should have ac…

This is complete nonsense, if apple cared about phones being stolen for parts, they would just start selling the damn parts so people could repair their phones. Right now the reason parts are so valulable is because there's no other way to get them! Apple's unrepairability policy FUELS theft not the other way around.

The counterargument to that is cars are regularly stripped for parts even when spares are easily available to buy.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#114

Post by eddythompson80 »

LightHugger wrote: post #98
adesanmi wrote: post #57

When people stop robbing phones for them to end up in Shenzen and stripped for parts, this will stop. This is a deterrent to make stealing iPhones less convenient and I’m all for it. People already have to try to phish people’s iCloud details after stealing their devices to resell, costing them time and money and making it more annoying to try and steal. I do think people who want to repair their phone should have ac…

This is complete nonsense, if apple cared about phones being stolen for parts, they would just start selling the damn parts so people could repair their phones. Right now the reason parts are so valulable is because there's no other way to get them! Apple's unrepairability policy FUELS theft not the other way around.

Phones are stripped for parts that can be sold, which almost never include the main board or the TouchID or FaceID modules.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#115

Post by kccqzy »

danaris wrote: post #76
webworker wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been recent stories about how thieves were looking at people entering their passcodes into their phones, snatching the phone when it was unlocked and using the pin to disable iCloud/Find My.

...You can't use the device PIN to disable iCloud. You have to put in the iCloud password. And you really do have to put it in; even if the iPhone is unlocked, security features like that always require the password.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-iphone-security-theft-pas...

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#116

Post by bonzini »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #71
falsenapkin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment is in response to your “yes this replacement is desired.” button in a world where parts can be harvested from a phone and used in a different one. My understanding of what you mean is if phone A were stolen and parts removed from it and installed in phone B then phone B would get the “yes this replacement is desired.” button instead of whatever is in place now. My feeling is this button would be no differe…

Change "replacement" to "removal" and it should work as intended. I haven't authorized my stolen phone's parts to be removed so they can't be installed in any other phone.

But if the phone doesn't turn on you can't authorize the removal. And if it turns on but a factory reset is enough to let you authorize the removal, you're back to square 1. Either way it's not feasible.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#117

Post by Pet_Ant »

gchamonlive wrote: post #95
mschuster91 wrote: post #6

There 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…

You can try to push that as a marketing strategy, but I would say the share of the market that looks for smartphones specifically because they are less of a target for theft is minuscule, the reason being because nobody shop for phones thinking about getting robbed. They shop mainly guided by ecosystem (android Vs ios) brand perception (how good their aftersales support is), budget and cost-effectiveness. In this sen…

You can do a search and you'll find many articles and comments about how back in the day people were warned not to wear the white iPod ear buds as not to be a target for thefts.

> West Midlands police have issued a stark warning to iPod users: ditch the white headphones or pay the price.

https://www.theregister.com/2004/03/30/ipod_this_seasons_mus...

Apple could be very well front-running this and trying to prevent it before it becomes a problem. This is clearly a possibility.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#118

Post by jchoksi »

ho_schi wrote: post #50

That is one of the many reasons why use ThinkPads. * Maintenance Manual with explosion diagrams and step-by-step guides * Short guide videos for important parts (terse and helpful, very good hidden on Lenovos Website) * OEM-Parts from Lenovo itself or dealers Side story. I ordered a X13 Gen 3 (because the new reverse notch is “meh”) AMD (because Intel is “meh”) but the HiDPI was not selectable. So I ordered it withou…

I just finished reading the comment thread for the "Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor" news item and so security and privacy issues were at the forefront of my mind.

So, when I read your comment about "That is one of the many reasons why (we) use ThinkPads." I think people need to be reminded about Lenovo's (POST IBM SALE) controversies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in...

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#119

Post by smoldesu »

tumdum_ wrote: post #81

I remember this thread (from the person working of Asahi Linux) that explains why Apple does this: https://icosahedron.website/@marcan@treehouse.systems/110803...

It doesn't "explain" it, he doesn't work for Apple nor know their true intentions. It's entirely his conjecture from the POV of a reverse-engineer. In any case, his conclusion certainly doesn't align with a "less access is better" mentality:

> Advocate for Apple to provide access to their calibration re-provisioning processes instead [...] Them not providing those tools sucks and is anti-repair.

By that rationale, Marcan might actually support iFixit's decision here.

Re: We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

#120

Post by adesanmi »

LightHugger wrote: post #98
adesanmi wrote: post #57

When people stop robbing phones for them to end up in Shenzen and stripped for parts, this will stop. This is a deterrent to make stealing iPhones less convenient and I’m all for it. People already have to try to phish people’s iCloud details after stealing their devices to resell, costing them time and money and making it more annoying to try and steal. I do think people who want to repair their phone should have ac…

This is complete nonsense, if apple cared about phones being stolen for parts, they would just start selling the damn parts so people could repair their phones. Right now the reason parts are so valulable is because there's no other way to get them! Apple's unrepairability policy FUELS theft not the other way around.

I assumed the reason Apple’s phones are stolen for parts are that, unlike a lot of Android counterparts that can be reset, Find My is so bulletproof that (without phishing) iPhones are essentially expensive paperweights in terms of reselling whole. So people started getting creative and selling the parts, so Apple started to serialise those too.

Either way, I don’t think Apple set out to make the iPhone unrepairable just because. There just weren’t letting repairability getting in the way of the design and aesthetic they want, and I think it’s fine for them to have this opinion. They couldn’t achieve both so they biased towards design, and look to slowly iterate towards repairability compromising as little on design as possible.

Sounds like a sensible strategy.

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