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> Preventing people from using a device they get second-hand The word "get" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Activation lock does NOT block the second-ha

> Preventing people from using a device they get second-hand The word "get" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Activation lock does NOT block the second-hand trade of non-stolen devices. It blocks the illegal second-hand trade of stolen devices. You are essentially advocating in favour of crime. Based on your logic, you should be demanding that vehicle immobilisers and anti-theft devices are also anti-features. We wouldn't want car thieves (ahem, sorry, "second-hand owners") to be inconvenienced either. Once your car is stolen (ahem, sorry, "sold"), anything which impedes the free use by the new "owner" is ecological vandalism. While you're at it, perhaps we should require all security safes to be openable with a paperclip, just in case you lose your keys. Otherwise people will keep buying new safes.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> The word "get" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Activation lock does NOT block the second-hand trade of non-stolen devices. It blocks the illegal second-hand trade of stolen devices. It also blocks the re-use of devices that were thrown away or given to a recycling center (because 95% of people who do this won't remember to turn off activation lock). I'm pretty sure that's what GP was referring to.
- suction 5y ago
  How's that Apple's fault, though?
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Apple built a system that makes discarded devices unusable. Whether the trade-off is worthwhile is debatable, but the environmental cost is real.
    - simondotau 5y ago
      The environmental cost is real either way. Without activation lock, more phones get stolen, then more phones are manufactured and sold to replace them. There are already plenty of perfectly good phones in the world; putting stolen iPhone 12 Pro devices into the second hand market lowers the value of existing devices.
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        > Without activation lock, more phones get stolen, then more phones are manufactured and sold to replace them Source? > putting stolen iPhone 12 Pro devices into the second hand market lowers the value of existing devices Funny argument. So would you be OK to remove iCloud lock from all devices except the newer line? That would be fine by my book for legit second-hand purposes. (Though i'm pretty sure Apple and its fanboys would be still pretty hostile to it)
        simondotau 5y ago
        > Source? I don’t need one, it’s entirely deductive reasoning. Do you dispute that people generally acquire a replacement phone if theirs is stolen? Do you dispute that phones have the same environmental footprint whether they’re an upgrade or a replacement for a stolen device? As for your last paragraph, I have no idea what you’re talking about. That doesn’t sound like a response to what I said. I don’t want activation lock removed from any device.
        southerntofu 5y ago
        > Do you dispute that people generally acquire a replacement phone if theirs is stolen? Do you dispute that phones have the same environmental footprint whether they’re an upgrade or a replacement for a stolen device? No, i dispute that locking phones reduces theft. Because as i've explained, unlocking phones is perfectly possible and there's an entire gray-market industry dedicated to that. But yes i dispute your last statement, because it is true on an individual level but false on a collective level. If you get your phone stolen, you will buy a new one, but on a global scale, stolen goods are still circulating and therefore do not lead to increase in production of devices, and therefore has ZERO environmental impact. > I don’t want activation lock removed from any device. Then you truly are an enemy of the planet and the people, because you wish to keep your owner's privileges just for yourself and don't care if you have to set the entire planet on fire and ruin lives for that. I hope in a few decades, when we are struggling for basic survival (eg. finding drinkable water that has not been polluted by silicon/lithium/oil refinement), you remember that it is your choices and your acceptance of this fucked-up society that took us there.
    - suction 5y ago
      Wrong - Apple built a system where their devices need to be taken out of the cloud before selling them on. Which takes about three taps and less than minute, so I'm asking you again, why blame Apple here?
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Preventing data theft through wiping the entire device is perfectly legit in case of passphrase recovery. Simply preventing passphrase recovery apart from a trusted centralized third party (Apple) is wrong on many levels: it's an ecological disaster, it's a disappointment to good-faith second-hand buyers, it's incentives for corruption within Apple and a shady iCloud unlocker business... In essence, it's fundamentally incompatible with right to repair and fuels an Apple-insider mafia that honest people have to bribe in order to use a device. That's pretty much Apple's fault no doubt.
    - suction 5y ago
      You do understand that second-hand Apple devices are being sold and bought every day? Only those where the previous owner was too blasé to turn off the cloud lock can't be sold on. Which is not Apple's fault.
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        Wow, are we recursing? Yes of course it's Apple's fault. Apple could allow to remove the phone locking mechanism on the condition to fully erase data on the phone. That would make their phones suitable for second-hand market and as a consequence more eco-friendly. But they have decided to go against right to repair and against basic principles of ecology. Just as they have, in other fields, decided to go against basic principles of interoperability (Micro-USB/USB-C charger? Jack plug? Standard screws? who needs that, right?). So yes Apple is harming users and is harming the environment. No amount of greenwashing can undo that.
        suction 5y ago
        Their phones are fully suitable for 2nd hand markets as-is. I sense a bit of a an Anti-Apple dogma here, so please excuse me not coming back to this.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Have you ever tried to send an iPhone to a recycling service? I have. They are extremely diligent about ensuring activation lock is disabled. If you can’t unlock it, the recycling centre will only pay you a small fraction of what they would otherwise. The point is, this is a solved problem. (This was five years ago, by the way.)
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    I don't know what kind of recycling service you're talking here, but here in France "recycling" electronics (huge emphasis on the quotation marks, as electronics are usually NEVER recycled) does not involve speaking to anyone. You have cardboard boxes for electronics devices at the entrance of every supermarket of a certain size (by law) and you simply drop it there. Although admittedly most devices thrown in there do not end up on the second hand market (though i can't say i've never helped myself from these boxes in the past :D) But the same goes for most ressourceries and other second-hand market: some people donate cardboard boxes full of stuff anonymously, the workers triage through it, then stumble upon devices to which they don't have a passphrase... and don't have any way of contacting the original owner. Definitely not a solved problem in 99% of the world.
    - simondotau 5y ago
      Like five seconds of googling and I don’t speak French. https://comparecycle.com/ https://comparecycle.com/ This is the kind of recycling service many people use. Very common here in Australia; companies pay a non trivial price for even a five year old iPhone or iPad. > You have cardboard boxes for electronics devices at the entrance of every supermarket of a certain size (by law) and you simply drop it there. It baffles me that on one hand you scorn me for my supposed affluence while inferring that people in your neighbourhood supposedly just dump perfectly good iPhones into a bin without wanting any money for them. If that’s not affluence, I don’t know what is.
      - 8ytecoder 5y ago
        That was my thought as well. I change my phone every couple of years. I have used HTC and Nokia in the past. It's way easier to recycle an Apple device and they're very diligent about ensuring it's unlocked. They pay a decent price for up-to 3 year old phones. It's also way way easier to get an iPhone fixed than the other ones I have owned. People talk about Apple lock-in issues in general terms. No one seem to look at from a matter of practicality. I have fixed my iPhones every time there's an issue - because I actually can. My HTC camera had the purple glare issue. HTC refused to service it unless I pay $200 + shipping back and forth and be without a phone for 3 weeks!!! Same with my LG TV or Sony laptop. I used to complain about the same things people in this thread too - about how draconian Apple is. Until I actually started using their products and realized they both last long and are repairable. The only downside is the cost - even that is not expensive in the long run (my Pro is now 7 years old and runs like a champ with just a battery replacement).
southerntofu 5y ago
> Activation lock does NOT block the second-hand trade of non-stolen devices. No, it just makes it harder and feeds a gray market of phone unlocking. You appear to be a person who mostly deals with first-hand hardware in a rich western country, where there are Apple stores nearby. Most people who sell or give away their devices DO NOT change/reset passphrases. This is true for all devices, and i've often had to recontact sellers in order to obtain such credentials. Sometimes, such communication is impossible, or the owner has forgotten the passphrase after leaving the device for years in a cupboard. With usual computers, i can usually do without even the BIOS password and just boot on USB to setup a new system. Or at least i can take the hard drive into another computer, set it up and move it back in order to boot. With Apple/Samsung devices i end up piling them in my own cupboard and/or throwing them away, which is OK because i didn't pay for them. It's infuriating when friends/neighbors came to me with devices they acquired in good faith for a reasonable price (<= 100€ for second-hand phone), and can't get it to boot. They then have to go to a phone store and pay 30-50€ more to get the phone (whether Apple or Samsung) unlocked, through a shady mafia (there's articles online about that). All this because of these evil companies. > We wouldn't want car thieves (ahem, sorry, "second-hand owners") to be inconvenienced either. (...) While you're at it, perhaps we should require all security safes to be openable with a paperclip You're making a bad faith argument here. Inconvenience is not the problem. Having to follow procedures to reset a device, changing a car security system because you were sold the car without the keys, or changing a safe lock are all possible though inconvenient. Apple/Samsung make it deliberately IMPOSSIBLE to reuse their device without going through shady third parties. > You are essentially advocating in favour of crime. In some circumstances, yes. I'm generally advocating in favor of burning down these Silicon Valley companies destroying our lives and our planet and making billions of the backs of workers. However, in this case i'm merely advocating for the right to repair and the second-hand market, both of which are perfectly legal occupations, at least in my country of residence (France). I'd like to emphasize that through locking devices to a single "owner", you are essentially advocating in favor of crime, by creating incentives for corruption within iCloud services, while at the same time placing the burden of POTENTIAL theft (which i suspect is just a tiny portion of second-hand devices, though making statistics would be complex as we're talking illegal stuff here) on the good-faith customer who bought the phone on craigslist (or local equivalent) or a second-hand market without knowing it was locked. Yes, most people are that gullible. I don't think placing the cost of unlocking on second-hand owners is fair in any way, or creating any kind of sane incentives on a global scale. And yes, it's a complete ecological disaster: ask me, i have a drawer full of apple devices (donated to me over the years) to which i don't have passwords. They are essentially highly-polluting paperweights, though i keep hoping they can at least come in handy one day when someone needs a spare part. Speaking of which, locking devices does not prevent scavenging for parts and therefore does not disable theft incentives, contrary to your argument.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

> The word "get" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Activation lock does NOT block the second-hand trade of non-stolen devices. It blocks the illegal second-hand trade of stolen devices. It also blocks the re-use of devices that were thrown away or given to a recycling center (because 95% of people who do this won't remember to turn off activation lock). I'm pretty sure that's what GP was referring to.

suction 5y ago
How's that Apple's fault, though?
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  Apple built a system that makes discarded devices unusable. Whether the trade-off is worthwhile is debatable, but the environmental cost is real.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    The environmental cost is real either way. Without activation lock, more phones get stolen, then more phones are manufactured and sold to replace them. There are already plenty of perfectly good phones in the world; putting stolen iPhone 12 Pro devices into the second hand market lowers the value of existing devices.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      > Without activation lock, more phones get stolen, then more phones are manufactured and sold to replace them Source? > putting stolen iPhone 12 Pro devices into the second hand market lowers the value of existing devices Funny argument. So would you be OK to remove iCloud lock from all devices except the newer line? That would be fine by my book for legit second-hand purposes. (Though i'm pretty sure Apple and its fanboys would be still pretty hostile to it)
      - simondotau 5y ago
        > Source? I don’t need one, it’s entirely deductive reasoning. Do you dispute that people generally acquire a replacement phone if theirs is stolen? Do you dispute that phones have the same environmental footprint whether they’re an upgrade or a replacement for a stolen device? As for your last paragraph, I have no idea what you’re talking about. That doesn’t sound like a response to what I said. I don’t want activation lock removed from any device.
        southerntofu 5y ago
        > Do you dispute that people generally acquire a replacement phone if theirs is stolen? Do you dispute that phones have the same environmental footprint whether they’re an upgrade or a replacement for a stolen device? No, i dispute that locking phones reduces theft. Because as i've explained, unlocking phones is perfectly possible and there's an entire gray-market industry dedicated to that. But yes i dispute your last statement, because it is true on an individual level but false on a collective level. If you get your phone stolen, you will buy a new one, but on a global scale, stolen goods are still circulating and therefore do not lead to increase in production of devices, and therefore has ZERO environmental impact. > I don’t want activation lock removed from any device. Then you truly are an enemy of the planet and the people, because you wish to keep your owner's privileges just for yourself and don't care if you have to set the entire planet on fire and ruin lives for that. I hope in a few decades, when we are struggling for basic survival (eg. finding drinkable water that has not been polluted by silicon/lithium/oil refinement), you remember that it is your choices and your acceptance of this fucked-up society that took us there.
  - suction 5y ago
    Wrong - Apple built a system where their devices need to be taken out of the cloud before selling them on. Which takes about three taps and less than minute, so I'm asking you again, why blame Apple here?
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Preventing data theft through wiping the entire device is perfectly legit in case of passphrase recovery. Simply preventing passphrase recovery apart from a trusted centralized third party (Apple) is wrong on many levels: it's an ecological disaster, it's a disappointment to good-faith second-hand buyers, it's incentives for corruption within Apple and a shady iCloud unlocker business... In essence, it's fundamentally incompatible with right to repair and fuels an Apple-insider mafia that honest people have to bribe in order to use a device. That's pretty much Apple's fault no doubt.
  - suction 5y ago
    You do understand that second-hand Apple devices are being sold and bought every day? Only those where the previous owner was too blasé to turn off the cloud lock can't be sold on. Which is not Apple's fault.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Wow, are we recursing? Yes of course it's Apple's fault. Apple could allow to remove the phone locking mechanism on the condition to fully erase data on the phone. That would make their phones suitable for second-hand market and as a consequence more eco-friendly. But they have decided to go against right to repair and against basic principles of ecology. Just as they have, in other fields, decided to go against basic principles of interoperability (Micro-USB/USB-C charger? Jack plug? Standard screws? who needs that, right?). So yes Apple is harming users and is harming the environment. No amount of greenwashing can undo that.
      - suction 5y ago
        Their phones are fully suitable for 2nd hand markets as-is. I sense a bit of a an Anti-Apple dogma here, so please excuse me not coming back to this.
simondotau 5y ago
Have you ever tried to send an iPhone to a recycling service? I have. They are extremely diligent about ensuring activation lock is disabled. If you can’t unlock it, the recycling centre will only pay you a small fraction of what they would otherwise. The point is, this is a solved problem. (This was five years ago, by the way.)
- southerntofu 5y ago
  I don't know what kind of recycling service you're talking here, but here in France "recycling" electronics (huge emphasis on the quotation marks, as electronics are usually NEVER recycled) does not involve speaking to anyone. You have cardboard boxes for electronics devices at the entrance of every supermarket of a certain size (by law) and you simply drop it there. Although admittedly most devices thrown in there do not end up on the second hand market (though i can't say i've never helped myself from these boxes in the past :D) But the same goes for most ressourceries and other second-hand market: some people donate cardboard boxes full of stuff anonymously, the workers triage through it, then stumble upon devices to which they don't have a passphrase... and don't have any way of contacting the original owner. Definitely not a solved problem in 99% of the world.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    Like five seconds of googling and I don’t speak French. https://comparecycle.com/ https://comparecycle.com/ This is the kind of recycling service many people use. Very common here in Australia; companies pay a non trivial price for even a five year old iPhone or iPad. > You have cardboard boxes for electronics devices at the entrance of every supermarket of a certain size (by law) and you simply drop it there. It baffles me that on one hand you scorn me for my supposed affluence while inferring that people in your neighbourhood supposedly just dump perfectly good iPhones into a bin without wanting any money for them. If that’s not affluence, I don’t know what is.
    - 8ytecoder 5y ago
      That was my thought as well. I change my phone every couple of years. I have used HTC and Nokia in the past. It's way easier to recycle an Apple device and they're very diligent about ensuring it's unlocked. They pay a decent price for up-to 3 year old phones. It's also way way easier to get an iPhone fixed than the other ones I have owned. People talk about Apple lock-in issues in general terms. No one seem to look at from a matter of practicality. I have fixed my iPhones every time there's an issue - because I actually can. My HTC camera had the purple glare issue. HTC refused to service it unless I pay $200 + shipping back and forth and be without a phone for 3 weeks!!! Same with my LG TV or Sony laptop. I used to complain about the same things people in this thread too - about how draconian Apple is. Until I actually started using their products and realized they both last long and are repairable. The only downside is the cost - even that is not expensive in the long run (my Pro is now 7 years old and runs like a champ with just a battery replacement).

southerntofu 5y ago

> Activation lock does NOT block the second-hand trade of non-stolen devices. No, it just makes it harder and feeds a gray market of phone unlocking. You appear to be a person who mostly deals with first-hand hardware in a rich western country, where there are Apple stores nearby. Most people who sell or give away their devices DO NOT change/reset passphrases. This is true for all devices, and i've often had to recontact sellers in order to obtain such credentials. Sometimes, such communication is impossible, or the owner has forgotten the passphrase after leaving the device for years in a cupboard. With usual computers, i can usually do without even the BIOS password and just boot on USB to setup a new system. Or at least i can take the hard drive into another computer, set it up and move it back in order to boot. With Apple/Samsung devices i end up piling them in my own cupboard and/or throwing them away, which is OK because i didn't pay for them. It's infuriating when friends/neighbors came to me with devices they acquired in good faith for a reasonable price (<= 100€ for second-hand phone), and can't get it to boot. They then have to go to a phone store and pay 30-50€ more to get the phone (whether Apple or Samsung) unlocked, through a shady mafia (there's articles online about that). All this because of these evil companies. > We wouldn't want car thieves (ahem, sorry, "second-hand owners") to be inconvenienced either. (...) While you're at it, perhaps we should require all security safes to be openable with a paperclip You're making a bad faith argument here. Inconvenience is not the problem. Having to follow procedures to reset a device, changing a car security system because you were sold the car without the keys, or changing a safe lock are all possible though inconvenient. Apple/Samsung make it deliberately IMPOSSIBLE to reuse their device without going through shady third parties. > You are essentially advocating in favour of crime. In some circumstances, yes. I'm generally advocating in favor of burning down these Silicon Valley companies destroying our lives and our planet and making billions of the backs of workers. However, in this case i'm merely advocating for the right to repair and the second-hand market, both of which are perfectly legal occupations, at least in my country of residence (France). I'd like to emphasize that through locking devices to a single "owner", you are essentially advocating in favor of crime, by creating incentives for corruption within iCloud services, while at the same time placing the burden of POTENTIAL theft (which i suspect is just a tiny portion of second-hand devices, though making statistics would be complex as we're talking illegal stuff here) on the good-faith customer who bought the phone on craigslist (or local equivalent) or a second-hand market without knowing it was locked. Yes, most people are that gullible. I don't think placing the cost of unlocking on second-hand owners is fair in any way, or creating any kind of sane incentives on a global scale. And yes, it's a complete ecological disaster: ask me, i have a drawer full of apple devices (donated to me over the years) to which i don't have passwords. They are essentially highly-polluting paperweights, though i keep hoping they can at least come in handy one day when someone needs a spare part. Speaking of which, locking devices does not prevent scavenging for parts and therefore does not disable theft incentives, contrary to your argument.