Live data from Hacker News

You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

nytimes.com

11–20 of 235 posts

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#11

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

This control severely limits the utility of non-stolen iPhones which is not a good thing for an iPhone owner.

There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is *not* one of the reasons people chose an iPhone because most buyers were oblivious to it since Apple never told them.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#12
post #7

Anecdotal, but back in those "good old days" when you could get a screen replaced in 5 mins like this article said, on the three occasions I did this I ended up with the worst cheap Chinese knock off screens I have ever seen, the last time I ended up spending even more to get a genuine one. Hard to avoid this with small businesses when they need to make the enough of a margin at those cheaper retail prices. I'm sure…

One of the reasons I switched to iPhone was that Google only does their repairs here through third parties. Even though it was with official parts, the repair quality was never great and it often needed to be manually calibrated or go in for another repair to fix the things they broke in the first repair. My experience (YMMV!) with AppleCare has always been stellar.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#13
post #6

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

This is such an absurd excuse. The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. This is just a copout pushed by Apple to justify obviously bad practices, and due to their reality distortion field, you guys eat it up.

> The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft.

Do you have a source? And which exactly competing android devices do you mean? Does the comparison factor in the popularity of the device?

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#15

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

It limits the utility of all iphones, stolen or not. It's not like you have a switch to deactivate it for yourself. And for the consumer choice, I don't see Apple making any advertising about how anti repair they are, strange. I doubt most phone owners know about the pairing issues.

[flagged]

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#16
post #6

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

This is such an absurd excuse. The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. This is just a copout pushed by Apple to justify obviously bad practices, and due to their reality distortion field, you guys eat it up.

>The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft.

You're so close to getting it.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#17
post #7

Anecdotal, but back in those "good old days" when you could get a screen replaced in 5 mins like this article said, on the three occasions I did this I ended up with the worst cheap Chinese knock off screens I have ever seen, the last time I ended up spending even more to get a genuine one. Hard to avoid this with small businesses when they need to make the enough of a margin at those cheaper retail prices. I'm sure…

in your case you got screwed up bc you got a bad part, but you're saying your solution to that is to screw everyone by disallowing even genuine parts for repair not blessed by apple?

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#18

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

How often does phone theft actually happen? I keep hearing this argument but in my ~15 years of owning non-apple phones and laptops, I've never had one stolen, or heard of anyone getting theirs stolen. Have I just been very lucky?

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#19
post #8

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

Why doesn't apple allow the owner to choose to decouple the pairing? It's telling why they dont.

Because thieves know that all iPhones are locked like this and thus don’t steal them.

If they knew that some significant percentage were not locked they would be worth stealing again, and if it’s locked they just throw it in a dumpster.

The fact that your phone is locked protects everyone else as well.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#20

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

How often does phone theft actually happen? I keep hearing this argument but in my ~15 years of owning non-apple phones and laptops, I've never had one stolen, or heard of anyone getting theirs stolen. Have I just been very lucky?

The answer depends on the country or even the city you live in or visit. In some places walking around with a $1000 phone is extremely dangerous to your life.
Post reply on HN