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Tomorrow a chinese manufacturer sells iPhone-clones. Should Apple be responsible if these devices stop working after flashing the latest iOS update on them ?

• Dylan16807 5y ago
  That logic only works if it breaks the chip by accident. It wasn't an accident.
• zelon88 5y ago
  Apple would have no problem bricking a fake iPhone that ran a cracked ios. They regularly try to lock in hardware components with software and firmware. And in the case of a counterfeit low level component then they should. If China wants to compete, then compete. If they are allowed to do this, legitimate companies will suffer and legitimate progress will stagnate. Just release the same chip open source with instructions for using it in this use case. Then when the legitimate company bricks the device, they look like the bad guy stifling competition.
• mdip 5y ago
  It's a little different but in essence I agree. Assuming the bricking of FTDI devices as mentioned in the update isn't "We sent out code to intentionally destroy counterfeits" (i.e. it served no other purpose, wasn't an accident[0]) Did they QA it with counterfeit devices to ensure they were bricked? Or did they just write a new driver for their devices that happened to result in (some/all) counterfeits being bricked? If it's the latter, then it's not FTDI's fault. It's unreasonable to expect FTDI to QA their drivers against products that aren't theirs. It is, however, their problem. The last activity that user did was install their driver, and the result is broken stuff. They've just accidentally pissed off a bunch of non-but-possible-future-customers. Taking "fairness" away: a percentage of those affected will assume it was intentional, even if it is very obvious that it is not[0]. And even of those who don't blame FTDI, a percentage of those will feel FTDI owes them something, anyway simply because "big bad corporation"[1]. It's probably in their best interest[2] to detect non-genuine products, inform the user of the potential risks and either prevent the driver from loading or allow the user to accept the risks at their peril if there's a chance the driver can brick the device. [0] Say, the counterfeit has half the storage/ram of the geniune, and reports it has the same capacity, etc, and a driver update passes the "reality barrier" [1] Forgetting how often "big bad corporation" is really, really, tiny -- and I have no idea whether or not FTDI is big; it's not relevant. [2] Albeit, it may not be from a legal perspective...