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Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

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Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#91

Post by zimpenfish »

devilbunny wrote: post #44
GeekyBear wrote: post #9

Needing to connect an iDevice that wouldn't boot to a PC or Mac in order to restore a factory OS image wasn't exactly a high bar to get over, but this does give you another option for recovery.

It isn’t for most people here. But the most valuable tool for fixing a broken computer is a working one, and a lot of people don’t have more than one anymore. Some don’t even have that. My wife texted me on Friday as she was visiting her mother six hours’ drive away. She needed her laptop. They do not own a desktop, and her dad was at our house on a business trip with his laptop in tow. Do not underestimate the utili…

> Do not underestimate the utility of just outfitting houses that you/spouse spend a fair amount of time at with at least functional computers and such.

Can confirm the utility - I buy a lot of stuff that lives at my parents house precisely for this kind of reason.

Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#92

Post by olliej »

MBCook wrote: post #83
olliej wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure? what is the threat you're concerned about here? My reading of this is that it's just removed the requirement to use a wired connection to a laptop to restore a phone that is already in DFU/restore mode - I'm not sure what attack/flaw you get from allowing the recovery path over wifi that would not already be an option with the existing wired path?

Well, IF you have an exploit capable of bypassing all iPhone security you could now use it by setting something on someone’s phone for a few minutes instead of plugging into it. Is that useful? Maybe. No fingerprints? Of course you still need that billion dollar exploit first.

You can't bypass "all iPhone security" - this is a restore path: the phone is already in a state where it cannot boot, and cannot access user data. Once an iPhone is in a restore state (restore mode or DFU which afaict are only marginally different) it cannot do anything except install a new OS. If an iPhone is in a restore mode it is not in an "update the device mode" it's in a "the OS is dead and the user data is gone by default".

There are _some_ restore paths it is possible to not lose all of the data on the device, but that requires the user (on the device) to provide their passcode during the restore, and I think even requires their iCloud password to get through activation lock, and it takes like an hour to complete.

There's fundamentally no reason that this should be less secure than the existing state where restore requires a wired connection to a laptop.

Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#93

Post by Jtsummers »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #87
Jtsummers wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> think a big part of the reason (maybe the only reason?) they went to USB-C is because they were legally compelled to by European regulations It wasn't the only reason, it was inevitable even without the regulations. They'd already switched their laptops to USB-C in 2015 (?), and the iPad in 2018. The phones and some accessories (keyboards, mice, charging cases for AirPods and such) were the last remaining Lightning…

They didn't switch normal iPads until 2022. I really don't understand the argument that it was inevitable when they spent more than five years shipping lightning on phones and most iPads and USB-C on laptops. Maybe they would have switched on their own, maybe not. But they were clearly not just moving USB-C through their product line piece by piece, or everything would have had it many years earlier.

There are really only six options:

1. Keep using Lightning

2. Update Lightning

3. Switch to another proprietary connector

4. Switch to a standard but non-USB-C connector

5. Switch to full wireless

6. Switch to USB-C

(1) Makes no sense, they were going to switch to something eventually. If anyone doubts that and thinks Lightning was going to stick around forever, they don't live in the real world. It's so far from reasonable it's not worth considering. Lighting is worse than USB-C for data rates and power, it was outdated years before they made the switch.

(2) Could have made sense but they would have done it earlier if it was in their plans. They could have done that around '20-'21 and given a "Look, see, our new connector is 10x faster than USB-C and fast charges in half the time!" But it would have to match or beat USB-C to make any sense. Maintaining compatibility does means people still get to use old cables with slower charging and data rates for a while until those cables break or get lost, and it means the new cable can still be used with old devices (but will drop to whatever data and power rates they support). It also means Apple has to have, for the iPhone only, an extra team maintaining an extra connector type not used by anything else.

(3) Same issue as (2), but this one has to beat USB-C. And switching to a different proprietary connector means their customers now need at least 3 cables (4 for Apple Watch users, but those folks have to have at least 2 cables anyways since that one is wireless charging only). Users would need Lighting for accessors/peripherals, USB-C for iPad, MBP, and for a new iPhone. That would go over well.

(4) Same problems as (2) and (3) but at least it's standard. It also has to beat USB-C and what connector would they use that's standard, popular, and not USB-C?

(5) Not viable for the phones. Too many consumers expect their phones to connect, physically, to cars and headsets. Without a 3.5 mm jack that leaves the Lightning, and now USB-C, connector. With cars, unless you have wireless CarPlay (newer cars only) you're SOL for CarPlay, and it's a downgrade to lose that and end up with just audio over Bluetooth. This hurts them substantially in the market and is non-viable. In 5 years, may be a different story.

(6) They already switched to USB-C on pretty much everything else. It opens up every USB-C peripheral (most of Apple's own are already wireless, with Lightning or USB-C to charge, increasingly USB-C). It's the standard connector. It offers fast charging and higher data rates. They already have licenses and contracts in place to use it. They don't have to dedicate an engineering team to support a one-off variant.

(6) is the most sensible option followed by (2). (2) should have happened years ago if it was in their plans. The regulations may have moved up the timeline, but it didn't change what was going to happen.

So what's your argument, which of the non-USB-C options do you think was on Apple's agenda before the regulators came calling? Given that they'd already switched almost every other device in their lineup to USB-C, what was Apple going to do with the iPhone?

Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#94

Post by Dylan16807 »

Jtsummers wrote: post #93
Dylan16807 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't switch normal iPads until 2022. I really don't understand the argument that it was inevitable when they spent more than five years shipping lightning on phones and most iPads and USB-C on laptops. Maybe they would have switched on their own, maybe not. But they were clearly not just moving USB-C through their product line piece by piece, or everything would have had it many years earlier.

There are really only six options: 1. Keep using Lightning 2. Update Lightning 3. Switch to another proprietary connector 4. Switch to a standard but non-USB-C connector 5. Switch to full wireless 6. Switch to USB-C (1) Makes no sense, they were going to switch to something eventually. If anyone doubts that and thinks Lightning was going to stick around forever, they don't live in the real world. It's so far from rea…

Well they're not going to switch just for the sake of switching. USB-C has no capabilities that they care about compared to lightning (for phones), that's why they didn't change for so many years. It's just more compatible, and they didn't care about being compatible.

I think your argument against 1 is flawed, because I can say the same thing about USB-C, that they won't use it forever.

Or in other words, I pick (1b), they likely, not for sure but likely, would have kept using lighting until the same year they end up switching away from USB-C, whenever that may be.

In the future we might see (4) or (5). I note that you also think (5) might happen in a while, so your reasoning is compatible with (1) in the short term followed by (5) in the longer term.

Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#95

Post by wiseowise »

Jtsummers wrote: post #93
Dylan16807 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't switch normal iPads until 2022. I really don't understand the argument that it was inevitable when they spent more than five years shipping lightning on phones and most iPads and USB-C on laptops. Maybe they would have switched on their own, maybe not. But they were clearly not just moving USB-C through their product line piece by piece, or everything would have had it many years earlier.

There are really only six options: 1. Keep using Lightning 2. Update Lightning 3. Switch to another proprietary connector 4. Switch to a standard but non-USB-C connector 5. Switch to full wireless 6. Switch to USB-C (1) Makes no sense, they were going to switch to something eventually. If anyone doubts that and thinks Lightning was going to stick around forever, they don't live in the real world. It's so far from rea…

All of this is just rationalizing, you know that, right?

Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#96

Post by antimemetics »

fsckboy wrote: post #74
Retr0id wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it still work if you're not the original retail customer?

i was not the original retail customer, it was a phone used by a small business that I had owned, the employees were not good about keeping track of stuff like that, they'd use their own personal deets to sign up for business things all the time. my point was that there was not "official" procedure to verify, I told him the story, he believed me, and went in the back and reset the password or something. They have the…

Did you have receipts or any other way to prove that you/the business you owned purchased the phone?

Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#98

Post by lotsofpulp »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #94
Jtsummers wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are really only six options: 1. Keep using Lightning 2. Update Lightning 3. Switch to another proprietary connector 4. Switch to a standard but non-USB-C connector 5. Switch to full wireless 6. Switch to USB-C (1) Makes no sense, they were going to switch to something eventually. If anyone doubts that and thinks Lightning was going to stick around forever, they don't live in the real world. It's so far from rea…

Well they're not going to switch just for the sake of switching. USB-C has no capabilities that they care about compared to lightning (for phones), that's why they didn't change for so many years. It's just more compatible, and they didn't care about being compatible. I think your argument against 1 is flawed, because I can say the same thing about USB-C, that they won't use it forever . Or in other words, I pick (1b…

> USB-C has no capabilities that they care about compared to lightning (for phones),

Being able to share 1 cable type for charging laptops and phones and data transfer Ana basically everything else is pretty useful/convenient.

Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#99

Post by dwaite »

xandrius wrote: post #71
brianpan wrote: post #10

As a former hardware engineer, if it can be restored wirelessly or otherwise, it's not a brick yet. Keep trying, you'll get there! ;)

Everything is a brick until you figure a way to fix it. I thought I bricked my old phone but it turns out I just needed to open the phone, short a couple of pins 5-10 times and trying to quickly boot into flashboot, repeat if it didn't work. It turns out I was a fool thinking that it was bricked after all.

Sure, but shouldn't there be a minimum standard like "the built-in and well-documented recovery process failed?"

Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone

#100

Post by dwaite »

circularfoyers wrote: post #63

I still don't understand why Apple haven't changed their update model to A/B partitions, so if an update can't boot, it boots the previous partition. Android has been doing this for a while and Fedora Silverblue/IoT does the same thing, both of which I've found really useful in the past. If communicated well, it would elviate the update anxiety many people I know have with their iPhones.

It will not be able to reliably work with the A partition once B boots the first time - the update process even for many minor releases will trigger local and cloud data upgrades, and there are security reasons to not leave the option to leave older/unpatched versions runnable.

I don't think I've had a software update fail since iOS 7 beta 1 - and that was an issue with updating local data on first boot, so any attempt to revert to the prior OS without a wipe would have been pointless.

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