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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

#171

Post by riversflow »

shortcake27 wrote: post #107
flanked-evergl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...) Do you think thieves are that descending? I know someone whos iPhone 14 was stolen in London. If this helped protect against theft, then why did they steal the phone anyway?

I’m highly dubious of anyone claiming this reduces crime. Things being easy to steal and sell aren’t the _cause_ of crime, they’re a symptom. If someone has felt the need to resort to a life of crime for whatever reason, how is lowering their “salary” (so to speak) going to reduce crime? Surely they now need to steal more phones to make up the difference? I guess you could argue they might commit a different crime in…

It’s not that it reduces crime overall, it’s that it reduces a specific, very inconvenient crime to be the victim of. Having your phone stolen, especially on vacation, is significantly worse than many other sorts of theft.

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

#172

Post by pradn »

We should take the security aspect of this more seriously. In a world where hardware manipulation is possible, from ATM skimmers to tampered routers, it's not nothing for only authenticated parts to function.

As always, security has to play against other factors - like eWaste and convenience.

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

#173

Post by i_love_cookies »

red_trumpet wrote: post #106
sneeze-slayer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that an unsuspecting buyer of, e.g. a screen replacement, could end up going to a shady repair shop that uses stolen parts, sees the message once, clicks "OK", and moves on. The reasoning being that this scenario would cause some demand for black market parts. The suggestion from OP whereby the seller of a used phone logs in and "unpairs" the parts could avoid this, unless a robber forces you to…

> unless a robber forces you to do it under duress. Isn't that possible with the full iPhone atm?

Yes, it's actually made phone theft even worse as a victim. instead of running with the device muggers are demanding pin's and passcodes at gun/knife point

it's resulted in a few deaths in chicago at least

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

#174

Post by circuit10 »

kstrauser wrote: post #42
jchw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Counter anecdote: My coworker in SF had his phone stolen by someone who grabbed it from his hand and leapt through a closing BART door, so that my friend had to watch the thief walk off as the train pulled away from the platform. Most people haven't had their phone stolen. That doesn't mean phones aren't stolen.

I'd guess that most people have broken their phone though

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

#175

Post by whatwhaaaaat »

natymad wrote: post #166

I completely fail to understand the anti-theft argument, help me out here. So the theory is that, once thieves will see you're carrying an Iphone, they won't bother taking it. But why? You're already being mugged, everything that's even remotely valuable will be taken. Why would they let their victims go, just because their valuables are more difficult to flip? "Give me all your valuables - oh wait, that's an iphone,…

It makes no sense at all and is clearly just an excuse.

Criminals do not want your iPhone. It is an instant tracking device that even if they sold it in an hour would still lead the cops to where they sold it.

I was robbed at gunpoint in the late 2000s and even then the criminals did not want the phone. They did want everything else tho.

It’s anti consumer bullshit and absolutely nothing else.

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

#176

Post by ilyt »

specialist wrote: post #111

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.…

Could be as simple as "allow pairing for every part UNLESS that part is on the stolen/blacklisted list"

Then any phone reported stolen would just not work as replacement components.

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

#177

Post by layer8 »

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).

If iPhones didn’t have that protection, but Android phones did, would you and your friends switch to Android and love the idea that Android phones are the better purchase?

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

#178

Post by circuit10 »

crazygringo wrote: post #151
mmastrac wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are thieves currently forcing people at gunpoint to iCloud-unpair/unlock their devices right now?

Oh absolutely. Happened to a friend of mine, and there's another commenter here who had it happen to them. Crime is real. Obviously its frequency is going to depend on where you live/travel.

So if they can already do that, they'll just sell the whole unlocked phone and not worry about parts? Unless it's broken to the point of being unsellable, I guess

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

#180

Post by Kirby64 »

drtz wrote: post #94
Kirby64 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not speculation at all. I can tell you for certain this is what they're trying to combat. The "require the device receiving the part to be verified" is just a consequence of how it's currently implemented. There are ways to implement this without the need to do per-device pairing, but doing so in a secure way is quite difficult. I suspect they'll eventually remove the requirement to pair devices using system configur…

> I can tell you for certain this is what they're trying to combat. > There are ways to implement this without the need to do per-device pairing, but doing so in a secure way is quite difficult. Is this based on first-hand knowledge? I'm skeptical on both fronts because I neither see any evidence this is what's being combatted, nor do I see the technical difficulty of being able to self-authorize your phone's parts t…

So, the technical challenge is related to managing the following things (all simultaneously):

* Apple wants to make sure components in an authentic phone are not capable of being stolen and resold (this is a problem today, even with the pairing, although it is less valuable due to pairing)

* Apple wants to make sure that if you change components, that the replacement component is authentic

* Apple wants to make sure that if you change components, that the replacement component is not stolen

I can't comment on specific implementations, but allowing users to just re-pair devices in the current state would not allow the above 3 goals to be met. By restricting who has access to the pairing tools, they can achieve those 3 with the downside being obviously it leads to a crappy user experience for repair.

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