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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

#51

Post by thinkling »

tumult wrote: post #34
falsenapkin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such an ignore button would allow theft to continue and would allow users to make poor security decisions. I agree that something needs to happen to enable easier or maybe more privacy focused 3rd party repairs but I also appreciate my device being less of a target.

What? How is someone who snatched your phone out of your hand and ran away going to know your password and authentication information needed to authorize a parts replacement?

They're going to snatch your phone, break it up into parts, and install those into other people's phones, and those people will happily approve the new part.

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

#52

Post by hedora »

jchw wrote: post #15
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…

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…

Phone theft was pretty common in the US 10 years ago. This article (based on a population of 20 million people) says about 1 million phones were stolen in 2013:

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/fcc-smartphone-theft-re...

It's much less common now, since all the major brands brick themselves when stolen (though it's starting to be common to either shoulder surf the pin, or to grab an unlocked phone out of people's hands, then rapidly reset 2FA and email passwords).

I agree with the GP comment that it should be possible to make phones theft-proof and also repairable though.

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

#53

Post by flanked-evergl »

notanormalnerd wrote: post #27
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…

I don't know why iFixit doesn't even touch on that point. I live in Barcelona and phones are being pickpocketed every day here. Not being able to wipe or unlock or else is a mayor deterrent for the pickpockets, because noone will take the phone off of them, so it's not worth it. Phones are still being stolen but imagine if they could sell to a global market of repair shops. You couldn't go to any tourist location wit…

> 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?

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

#54

Post by sjkna »

MostlyStable wrote: post #46
sjkna wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you apply that argument to everything that gets stolen you will see it doesn't stand on its own.

Which things other than phones are primarily stolen specifically to be parted out (and...to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I buy that it's even that big a thing in phones)? And which companies have made the problem worse by artificially restricting part supplies?

I was talking about stealing in general, but... vehicles?

Also I don't know of any major phone manufacturer that sells genuine parts besides Apple.

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

#55

Post by Eduard »

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…

> When people are afraid to use your products because it paints a phone-sized target on them, they won't buy your product.

"iPhone's have become too mainstream to steal, I rather get a crappy phone nobody wants“ – nobody said.

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

#56

Post by falsenapkin »

tumult wrote: post #34
falsenapkin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such an ignore button would allow theft to continue and would allow users to make poor security decisions. I agree that something needs to happen to enable easier or maybe more privacy focused 3rd party repairs but I also appreciate my device being less of a target.

What? How is someone who snatched your phone out of your hand and ran away going to know your password and authentication information needed to authorize a parts replacement?

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 different from just not having a button at all. The user of phone B will almost never care what that prompt says and will just click through, they're certainly not going to consider the parts were stolen from phone A.

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

#57

Post by adesanmi »

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 access to a version without this stuff and deal with the consequences themselves.

For everyone else, including myself, please continue to make it annoying for thieves to target iPhones.

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

#58

Post by webworker »

jchw wrote: post #15
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…

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…

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.

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

#59

Post by orwin »

abtinf wrote: post #43

This is another dishonest post by Kyle and iFixit. The failure to mention a critical a reason for pairing—theft prevention—is enough to dismiss the entire piece as hopelessly biased. Just a few years ago, every major news source had an article every other week sounding the alarms about the smartphone theft problem. They would universally blame the phone manufacturers for not doing more.

So, abandonning liberties for a bit of security then.

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

#60

Post by ejstronge »

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…

> (If anyone at Apple is reading this: ffs, allow the legitimate owner of a device to "unpair" all components in their phone in iCloud so that legitimate second-hand shops can strip a broken device at least for its parts)

I was robbed at gunpoint (but not in a 'problematic' part of town) and the thief outlined all the steps he needed me to take to remove my phone from Find My and from iCloud. I think a lot of these mitigation measures could make sense but there's no perfect solution.

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