Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

As long as the people using fake serials are a small group of hackers, developers, etc. who are hardcore Apple fans in the first place and merely building things for personal use, I can see Apple intentionally turning a blind eye.

But once that starts getting abused to build a consumer product at scale, it becomes a whole different story.

And I have to imagine it becomes difficult when dealing with old devices, 99% of which have long since been thrown out or recycled, and those serial numbers are ripe for re-use, but there are still people using 10-year-old iPads.

The regulatory process has worked with side-loading, and EU citizens will be better off as a result once the functionality is made available, in the same way as not needing to buy a pointless proprietary cable.

And like, hell: you mention "social media platforms", but they also have been known to put in lots of effort at times to break alternative clients... Meta, in particular, sometimes goes to lengths sufficiently annoying that a ton of real users using browser extensions on Instagram/Facebook get caught in the cross-fire.

If you want to send spam over iMessage, the thing preventing that is categorically--and, frankly, obviously to anyone who is willing to question Apple's PR spin--not (and never was) the inability to use it from a device running Android or anything about the inscrutability of its protocol being documented and re-implemented by others.

If we were looking at true third party messaging platforms that aren't owned by trillion dollar mega corps that can push their products onto every phone, then... maybe? The US barely uses Telegram compared to Europe, and signal's website sees about as much use from the US as it does from only Germany. But if the argument is about the US using iMessage more because they don't use other messaging platforms, then no, the numbers do not bear that out at all.

And it's still nowhere near what you are asking for. What exactly is "validating" a serial number? Are you saying users need to present receipt of purchase? Does the store need to provide proof? Maybe Apple validates by getting access to you bank statements? How are these proof of sales tied to individual specific devices?

This feels like clutching for certainty. Maybe Apple can have such a tight & narrow sales model, can get every cell phone company managing their inventory with vastly tighter inventory control (tracking which specific devices are ss) than anyone has ever done before. Maybe Apple can pull it off.

Should they? Do they want to be subject to various governments asking who bought which device? Do they want to spend the time updating & maintaining these listings? Are they ok pissing off devs hackers & other enthusiasts who get steamrolled by these changes? Apple can form & deploy the Imperial Royal Guard over their products if they really wanted to, I have scant doubts, but the costs of forming that chain of control, cost of maintaining that database, and the liability of owning such rich data about their users in the current legal climate all seem like colossal prices to pay.