38 ms·

We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score

555 points by fraXis 3y ago

5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
> "It’s Literally Not Re-Pairable" making things worse under the guise of listening, that's oh so pro.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mcphage 3y ago
> Forget harvesting parts—which is a huge part of most independent repair and recycling businesses. Isn't that also why most stolen phones end up in SE Asia where they're disassembled for parts?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mortureb 3y ago
  The parts talk to each other so not really for the last generation or two.
  - mcphage 3y ago
    Isn't that what this is all about, though? The parts talk to each other, so they can't be disassembled and sold off—but since they talk to each other, it makes it harder to get them working after a repair?
    - mortureb 3y ago
      Yes but they’re useless in a Chinese chop shop. You can’t Frankenstein the parts together.
tqi 3y ago
AIUI, these restrictions are primarily intended to curb the market for stolen iphones? I think Apple has taken it too far here, but I also think it is disingenuous to have this discourse without at least mentioning the other considerations. There is no "right" answer, only tradeoffs...
- skeaker 3y ago
  This is stated elsewhere in this thread, but if this is the case then Apple should allow users to unpair their parts and allow them to be reused. Gouging users by forcing them to buy a new part that they already have because their current one is "unverified" despite working perfectly can only be interpreted as greed.
- specialist 3y ago
  These restrictions also reduce pwnage. Zero trust has to be end-to-end, software and hardware.
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    Is there a single documented case of someone's phone being hacked because of a replaced hardware component like a screen? That sounds like fantasy land to me. Maybe the NSA can do it? But I suspect they could more easily hack phones in software.
    - realusername 3y ago
      I also want a real case of this happening, right now even for high profile targets they just use software attacks.
  - skeaker 3y ago
    If an actor with that sort of capability has physical access to your device for long enough to replace a part in it with a custom one, you are pwned pretty much no matter what you do at that point. They could just as well stick in a keylogger for touch inputs and know all your passwords.
mschuster91 3y ago
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 because it paints a phone-sized target on them, they won't buy your product. That cut down on a lot of the robbery bullshit, but then criminals simply found new buyer classes - they'd simply part stolen devices out and resell everything but the iCloud/Knox/whatever locked mainboard. Displays, cameras, speakers, batteries, flex cables, cases, everything. So now, at least Apple is tagging the most "valuable" parts in new phones, simply to make stealing them unattractive for thieves, which frankly sucks but is necessary because it's a public safety issue. (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)
- tantalor 3y ago
  Speculation. If that were true, Apple would only require the replacement part to be verified, but they also require the device receiving the part to be verified. That's the "pair" in "pairing".
  - Kirby64 3y ago
    Not speculation at all. I can tell you for certain this is what they're trying to combat. The "require the device receiving the part to be verified" is just a consequence of how it's currently implemented. There are ways to implement this without the need to do per-device pairing, but doing so in a secure way is quite difficult. I suspect they'll eventually remove the requirement to pair devices using system configurator, if only because this removes the need to have chat assistance with pairing. That's costing them money to have a call center, and they want to avoid it I suspect.
    - drtz 3y ago
      > I can tell you for certain this is what they're trying to combat. > There are ways to implement this without the need to do per-device pairing, but doing so in a secure way is quite difficult. Is this based on first-hand knowledge? I'm skeptical on both fronts because I neither see any evidence this is what's being combatted, nor do I see the technical difficulty of being able to self-authorize your phone's parts to be used in repairs. Sure it takes some engineering effort to get there, but I wouldn't expect it to be particularly challenging from a technical point of view. The phone is already linked to a user account, and the phone's parts are apparently already linked to the phone that's currently using them.
s3p 3y ago
Reminds me of a Louis Rossman video [0] where he shares his frustration with Apple's independent repair shop program. He says that to get access to genuine Apple parts (and the ability to pair them to devices), Apple requires that his shop not be able to do certain things like fix a broken angle detection sensor. It's utter BS, and the lip service companies are paying to right-to-repair bills in state legislatures honestly confuses me given their directly antithetical behavior. Hope strong repair bills get passed and they are fined to hell and back :)
- diabeetusman 3y ago
  Sorry, which video? Your [0] doesn't go anywhere :)
  - s3p 3y ago
    Ah so sorry! Got deleted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn_v-VxXNoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn_v-VxXNoI
  - ryanluker 3y ago
    Might have been this video? Sometimes Rossman's videos ain't easy to search for, hah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHhGBvfGams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHhGBvfGams
- paulmd 3y ago
  > He says that to get access to genuine Apple parts (and the ability to pair them to devices), Apple requires that his shop not be able to do certain things like fix a broken angle detection sensor. is this a loaded framing for the proposition that "you can't perform component-level repairs if you're presenting yourself as an apple authorized service center"? because the point of apple authorized service centers is you get the apple authorized service, not someone drilling and reflowing your board to replace components. it's great that rossman can do this, but he's N=1, and apple can't make their entire network out of rossmans. I think it's pretty obvious why they have to enforce minimum standards and standardized repair protocols in an authorized service program. this is the "rossman doesn't like any repair solution in which rossman doesn't get paid" thing in action. component-level repair isn't the only kind of repair, it's just the one that results in rossman getting paid the most.
sjkna 3y ago
Thanks Apple for making my phone a less attractive target for thieves by making its pieces useless when used in other phones. Ifixit: you are not on my side.
- Zambyte 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - DrBenCarson 3y ago
    Sounds like an Android distro “Boot Lollipop—you’re broke, sorry—that’s Android!”
- burkaman 3y ago
  If you don't care about independent repairability, which is the only thing this score addresses, then just don't look at this website. The decision doesn't affect you or Apple in any way, it's just advice for people looking for a particular feature.
  - mortureb 3y ago
    It’s talking about the benefits of tagging parts. Crooks can’t make money off my iPhone and so iPhone theft drops. It’s a relevant point to make in this discussion.
- SenAnder 3y ago
  That's why Apple gives the consumer an authorization code that they can use when re-selling their phone, to unlock its parts and permit their re-use. Since thieves don't get that code, it protects phones against theft and allows re-use. Because if they didn't do that, anti-theft would be just a useful excuse to further rob the consumer of agency. They do give out such a code, right? I'm just assuming here, but since they paint themselves as such champions of ecology [1], they must. Because if they didn't, that would make them hypocrites, and liars, in claiming there is no way to deter theft without taking rights from the consumer. And we know Apple is honest and on the consumer's side, so that can't be it. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53485560 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53485560
MaintenanceMode 3y ago
iFixit is so fantastic. For any of their flaws or shortcomings, they are really trying to grow and improve on a regular basis. They have helped my family save so much stuff from the scrap heap. These are the types of actions that help the ethos of "REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE". But it comes at the cost of capitalism and pure profit making. There's going to have to be a hard reckoning sometime soon that we can't keep just throwing stuff away (and paying again and again), just so the stock market keeps moving up.
INTPenis 3y ago
They could have written iPhone 14 in the title. This way it seems like they're riding a wave of negative press following the "wanderlust" event. Not that I care, I gave up my iphone and macintosh 12 years ago, I'm just noting a pattern of negative press being upvoted and this is among it.
abtinf 3y ago
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.
- orwin 3y ago
  So, abandonning liberties for a bit of security then.
  - adesanmi 3y ago
    It’s an important conversation to have. My mums phone got stolen with Find My active. The police refused to do anything about it, they tried to phish her details, failed and I followed it to Shenzen. I’m not saying these changes would prevent occurrences, but if they couldn’t even strip parts from a phone, it makes it a less enticing target for thieves. I do think that a version of the iPhone without these restrictions should be available for purchase for customers who know that’s exactly what they want, not this convoluted system.
  - abtinf 3y ago
    The right-to-repair crowd are the ones trying to use guns to prevent me from buying the devices I want to buy.
    - orwin 3y ago
      This isn't remotely true. IFixit dropped the IPhone repairability score, does that impede you from buy one? I have the impression only apple fans are reacting negatively to this news. Like I said, apple rather push for security than liberty, be it software or hardware. It's okay, it's a choice, idc about apple products so I'm pretty much neutral on this. I have made the choice for myself, I'd rather have liberty right now, but once I am too old to use that liberty, you can be sure I'll go to Google/Apple/whatever. It's not a dig, it's a real choice.
ho_schi 3y ago
That is one of the many reasons why use ThinkPads. * Maintenance Manual with explosion diagrams and step-by-step guides * Short guide videos for important parts (terse and helpful, very good hidden on Lenovos Website) * OEM-Parts from Lenovo itself or dealers Side story. I ordered a X13 Gen 3 (because the new reverse notch is “meh”) AMD (because Intel is “meh”) but the HiDPI was not selectable. So I ordered it without HiDPI, ordered the HiDPI display and cable (yes!) from the repair website and replaced both :) And the best thing…it was shipped with Linux and it reacted “Oh. Should I turn on scaling?” :) Probably not was Lenovo intended but in the end both sides are happy.
- hedora 3y ago
  I get how this is helpful for hobby hardware, but the last time I had a problem with a Lenovo, I sent it to the on-site authorized repair depot (my employer had a special gold plated contract with them), who couldn't replace it because it needed a replacement display cable they didn't stock. They diagnosed it, and sent it to Lenovo, who said it would take 30 days to replace the cable. I bought a cheap desktop in the meantime, which still works fine, ten years later. When the laptop came back, Lenovo diagnosed it "no fault found", and didn't replace the faulty cable. Not only was the display still intermittent (due to the bad cable), but their technician removed and then improperly installed the insulator for the backlight's high-voltage transformer, so it was painful and unsafe to touch the laptop if the display was on. Compare this to Apple, where I drive into any big city, hand them the broken shiny thing, a bag of money containing about 10% its retail price, and it Just Works when they hand it back to me (almost always on the same day). Maybe Lenovo can repair their own stuff these days? I haven't observed this anywhere I've worked since. (My evidence that they can't fix their stuff is that there is usually a pile of broken Lenovos in the back of the IT office.)
  - danaris 3y ago
    > a bag of money containing about 10% its retail price ...or, if you bought AppleCare and it's still within that time frame and not an egregiously obvious user error situation, no (additional) money at all.
  - 3y ago
adesanmi 3y ago
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.
- M4v3R 3y ago
  I’ve heard that take many times, but is there any actual data to back this claim? I mean think about it - your average thief is not the kind of person that will know what part setialization is or how to tell iPhone models apart to know which ones to steal. They steal your purse, bag or just anything and sight and only then deal with the loot, discarding what’s useless. I would be very surprised if serializing the battery or screen is putting any significant dent in the number of stolen iPhones worldwide. Apple has already created a pretty good deterrent to prevent iPhone theft - the Find My iPhone system. It’s better because it’s actually useful to the user and works even if you turn the phone off. The way I see it there’s absolutely no need to serialize the parts as an additional measure to prevent theft (given also what I said in the first paragraph)
  - adesanmi 3y ago
    I don’t know if there’s data to back this up. I’m simply assuming based on what I know. What I know comes from people I went to school with who have stolen phones before telling me at the pub. There is a price for the type of device you bring in. The ones on the bikes or mugging people actually drop it off to the people who send stuff off to China. Those people give a standard price for the type of phone, he quoted £100 for an iPhone 11 and £120 for a Samsung Galaxy. He corroborates your point regarding not discriminating the phone he stole, to be fair.
  - adesanmi 3y ago
    Regarding your second point, I agree with the Find My praise, however Find My itself illustrates why every little thing done to make it “more of a ballache” to steal an iPhone, more costly for the thieves, is reducing the demand and these “papercuts” can add up in a sizeable way. But your point is valid, and I can understand why you hold that opinion.
spunker540 3y ago
I’ve never had to repair my iphone (just get a new one every 4yrs) and appreciate that my phone is less profitable to steal, “repairability score” be damned. But I live in a dense city and take public transit, so the trade off is worth it to me. If I wanted something repairable I’d buy a different phone.
tumdum_ 3y ago
I remember this thread (from the person working of Asahi Linux) that explains why Apple does this: https://icosahedron.website/@marcan@treehouse.systems/110803358824190673 https://icosahedron.website/@marcan@treehouse.systems/110803...
- smoldesu 3y ago
  It doesn't "explain" it, he doesn't work for Apple nor know their true intentions. It's entirely his conjecture from the POV of a reverse-engineer. In any case, his conclusion certainly doesn't align with a "less access is better" mentality: > Advocate for Apple to provide access to their calibration re-provisioning processes instead [...] Them not providing those tools sucks and is anti-repair. By that rationale, Marcan might actually support iFixit's decision here.
  - tumdum_ 3y ago
    I'm not sure what is his take on iFixit decision, but he does provide some good explanations why some things are the way they are. I don't expect that Apple will officially provide better info, so that is probably the best we have. At least I haven't seen anyone with intimate knowledge of apple hw and sw provide a better or contradicting information.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
bakugo 3y ago
The average Apple fanboy's ability to rationalize every single anti-consumer decision made by Apple is impressive. Literally all Apple has to do is say "it's for your own safety!" and they will defend it to the death.
- adesanmi 3y ago
  I don’t understand how this is Anti Consumer in any way? I have an iPhone and a FairPhone. One’s niche is that it’s repairable, and the other is that it’s not. A consumer who wants a repairable would buy something like a FairPhone (modular parts!!!) and someone like my mum can get her all-in-one “nice” experience. They’re allowed to have an opinion, and with engineering there are tradeoffs. They tradeoff design with repairability and have the opinion that it is a good tradeoff. They want to test that opinion with the market and it resonated. What’s wrong with this? I genuinely am confused as to the anti-consumer moniker when the consumer has never had more choice?
  - bakugo 3y ago
    > and someone like my mum can get her all-in-one “nice” experience. This is a great example of what I had in mind. Apple has successfully convinced you that pairing every part of the phone to the motherboard such that it can never be replaced by anyone other than Apple (usually for a price greater than the phone itself) is somehow essential to the iPhone Experience™ and beneficial to the user.
    - adesanmi 3y ago
      Why would a consumer like my mum care about opening the phone up? You still haven’t explained how choosing to tradeoff design over repairability is anti-consumer when the consumer can buy a FairPhone right now (who, I can tell you, have a significantly worse experience and design than my iPhone, but I don’t care because I can tinker with it!) I think you just don’t like the company and are looking for silly reasons to bash them.
      - 3y ago
explaininjs 3y ago
Tough question as someone who got an iphone 14 to replace their iphone 12 that was stolen after being choked out and held at knife point, presumably to be sold for parts. I’d sacrifice just about anything to not black out with a knife at my neck again. So I’d say overall I’m pro this.
agentultra 3y ago
Good. I replaced the battery in an iPhone 5 earlier this year and it's ticking along fine. The longer it stays out of the dump (or a desk drawer) the better. All of the carbon and precious minerals mined to make this device aren't likely to be recycled into new devices: they'll end up on the shores of a country in the Global South along with all of the other tech detritus that we throw away. The resources are spent, the damage done, I want to get as much use out of it as possible. It's measures like pairing that make me question whether Apple's recycling program is even legit or more corporate green-washing. Has anyone done an independent audit of their process and where materials end up once devices enter the program?
specialist 3y ago
I agree with the two conclusions of iFixit's accompanying article: "How Parts Pairing Kills Independent Repair" [2023-01-17] https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-independent-repair https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-in... TDLR: "Put Pairing in the Peoples’ Hands" and "Unpair the Future" Their second point is totally spot on and lost in the food fight. Parts Pairing must be disabled for any discontinued models which have also fallen out of warranty. (Like if I bought the last iPhone 5 and could no longer buy Apple Care for it.) Further, Apple must provide repair parts. Actual cost for noobs like me and discounted for warranty repair shops (any org who wants to sign up, eg identity and tax id verified.) Excess inventory for discontinued models liquidated to some one's like iFixit. My u/unpopularopinion: Counterfeit and grey/black markets are a scourge. I absolutely want parts pairing for any new devices. Doubly so if my threat model included espionage or surveillance.
- ilyt 3y ago
  Could be as simple as "allow pairing for every part UNLESS that part is on the stolen/blacklisted list" Then any phone reported stolen would just not work as replacement components.
loudandskittish 3y ago
I'm always suspicious when I open comments and see a whole lot of people posting variations of the same talking points as top-level threads... even if I happen to agree with those points.
natymad 3y ago
I completely fail to understand the anti-theft argument, help me out here. So the theory is that, once thieves will see you're carrying an Iphone, they won't bother taking it. But why? You're already being mugged, everything that's even remotely valuable will be taken. Why would they let their victims go, just because their valuables are more difficult to flip? "Give me all your valuables - oh wait, that's an iphone, nvm my bad you're free to go" is that the idea here? And on being less of a target for getting robbed in the first place - you're carrying an expensive af iphone, chances are you can afford to carry a lot of other expensive valuables too. If you're worried about getting robbed, start with not carrying a device that's more expensive than a fridge. My condolences to everyone who actually had to survive through a robbery. But I doubt it could've been avoided just because your Iphone was currently difficult to sell. People can get robbed regardless of their perceived wealth, it's a happen-stance crime.
- whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
  It makes no sense at all and is clearly just an excuse. Criminals do not want your iPhone. It is an instant tracking device that even if they sold it in an hour would still lead the cops to where they sold it. I was robbed at gunpoint in the late 2000s and even then the criminals did not want the phone. They did want everything else tho. It’s anti consumer bullshit and absolutely nothing else.
- reubenmorais 3y ago
  > oh wait, that's an iphone, nvm my bad you're free to go" is that the idea here? In Brazil I've heard stories of muggers holding up e.g. a bus and not bothering to get iPhones. This was a while ago, before the trade routes to get stolen phones across the world for disassembly and parts resale were as developed as they are today.
- wyldberry 3y ago
  There are more robberies than a mugging. Pick pockets are a real scourge. If you have a reliable way to turn stolen goods into currency, you are incentivized to take that item. Jewelry -> pawn shops for example. The anti-theft measure here makes it not profitable, or much harder to profit, from taking a phone because you can't resell it or strip the valuable parts. I had a friend get pick pocketed in spain, and the next day the phone was several countries away. Just because people can get mugged regardless of perceived wealth doesn't mean that we don't try to reduce the risk.
pradn 3y ago
We should take the security aspect of this more seriously. In a world where hardware manipulation is possible, from ATM skimmers to tampered routers, it's not nothing for only authenticated parts to function. As always, security has to play against other factors - like eWaste and convenience.
drcode 3y ago
Most comments in this thread: I don't want to have ownership of devices I pay money for, because if I don't own anything, nobody can steal it from me.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- _silicon 3y ago
  This is on the nose. I have no clue what the limit is for what you can convince people to surrender, but I don’t think we are even close.
- npteljes 3y ago
  Well, yeah. Ownership is responsibility, and the world is shifting towards more convenience, so less responsibility. So we're also going towards less ownership as well, with products being turned into services and leases. And frankly, in a lot of cases, I don't mind it.
camillomiller 3y ago
Damn if you do, retroactively damn if you don’t. IFixit is existentially tied to their antagonism to any official repair policy. I like their work, but this is bonkers. Retroactively degrading a rating? How should people even think that their ratings actually mean anything then?
dzikimarian 3y ago
After reading all robbery comments: Sweet Jesus on motorbike. Where do you live people?
- bigstrat2003 3y ago
  Seriously. I've never lived anywhere where crime is even close to as commonplace as people are saying it is where they live. I can't envision what would be good enough incentive to continue to live in such a place, either.
- npteljes 3y ago
  Well, Apple has to think worldwide.
_ph_ 3y ago
One thing I dislike about this decision is, that it conflates the limitations for third parties repairing an iPhone with the ability to repair a device at all. Yes, in an ideal world it would be easy and cheap to repair a device. Good points have been raised in the discussion, why this might be limited by necessity. Like theft-protection and just technical questions of calibration of part. But from an environmental perspective, it makes a huge difference whether something can be quickly repaired or not. Who can do the repairs is an important question, but it is secondary to the first. I am not happy with iFixit not distinguishing bad repairability and having to go to Apple for a repair. I find it ok to withdraw like one point for the tie-in to the manufacturer, but the new score puts it on a level with devices which just have to be thrown away. This is also a disservice to the customer, as while the Apple prices might be quite high, they seem to be related closely to how difficult a certain repair is to do. Improvements there are a benefit to all customers. The new scoring system hides this and actually reduces the pressure onto the manufacturer to improve repairability.
- paulmd 3y ago
  yup, I think the right-to-repair movement has unthinkingly adopted a lot of attitudes from a couple key proponents with business interests in component-level repair. board-level repair is fine, and is probably necessary to get some of the economies of scale in assembly and distribution. but you'd think it doesn't count for some reason.
Tade0 3y ago
I tried to recall how many instances of theft vs damage there were in my social circle and the ratio is at least 10:1, with damage being the higher number. I had one case of spontaneous malfunction, one bricking via repeated high humidity environment and one bonk against bare concrete, which resulted in the screen needing to be replaced so I have to ask: how bad is theft in your corner of the world?
xg15 3y ago
Which Apple marketing person invented that "theft" argument? Apple is pulling the exact same kind of shady bullshit that John Deere did with its tractors - except that in that case, the tech community was up in arms and actually spearheaded a right-to-repair movement. Meanwhile, when Apple does the same thing, everyone seems to be falling over themselves trying to find an excuse why, well actually, Apple really only has the best interests of its users at heart. What's going on? Kudos to iFixit for at least showing some stance, but even their post is weirdly excusing in places: > While it’s an improvement over the status quo of just a few years ago, when Apple wouldn’t sell parts or supply instructions or software tools to anyone outside the Genius Bar and a few select “authorized” repair outlets, it’s still a major problem. Apple has made some real progress here—and we’ve been reluctant to criticize manufacturers taking meaningful steps. There are good people inside Apple working hard to make this situation better. Since when can investing a huge amount of resources to build your own DRM scheme and then paddling back a tiny bit when there is too much political pressure be called "taking meaningful steps"? Would you applaud Microsoft for "taking meaningful steps" after they spent years on hardwiring Edge-only links into the OS, then eventually carved out a tiny exception after EU pressure grew too large?
max4c 3y ago
Framework should eventually move into phones. Repair-first devices are needed for sustainability and also innovation in hardware.
- adesanmi 3y ago
  FairPhone exists and is great, I recommend!
Chatting 3y ago
I don't find the "theft prevention" argument raised by many of the comments here particularly convincing. If the concern is to prevent the resale of stolen devices or parts, Apple could simply provide users with a way to report the device as stolen (e.g. via iCloud.com), which would put the serial numbers of both the device and its parts into a blacklist. Problem solved. Instead, the current system effectively assumes that ALL parts coming from a different device must've been "illegally obtained", which is nonsense. You can do theft prevention without actively making independent repair shops' lives miserable. But Apple's goal is to make independent repair shops' lives miserable; theft is just a pretext. Just look at their track record, from the humble pentalobe screw all the way to the repair program NDAs.
Terretta 3y ago
Everyone is debating whether "theft prevention" is the valid argument. That's like banks blaming you for "identity theft". No, the bank failed to safeguard your identity or validate your transactions. Similarly here, the valid argument, and target of such changes, is unscrupulous “repair” shops, aka the market makers for these stolen parts. Whether cars, or phones, after-market repairs are riddled with hazards, and it's not those shops that end up in the news when someone's brakes fail, tire treads separate at speed, or a Samsung or iPhone explodes their face off.
w1nst0nsm1th 3y ago
Phones need to be standardized the same way desktop pc where standardized. Our world is running out of ressources at fast speed and this habit of throwing phones away (iPhones and Android phones or anything else) without real options to fix them is creating a huge pile of waste which are furthermore highly toxic. According to IEA, demand for oil should peak in 2030, which is a lie, considering India still have (and want) to catch up with Chinese economic devellopement (India GDP: $3.34 Trillons, China GDP: $19.34 Trillons), for the same population. Demand can't fall in that condition. But production will... Peak production for conventional oil happened in 2006, resulting in an all time high of oil price in july or august 2008 at $148. And then output started to fall after a few year of stabilisation of the production. Shale oil production in the US, oil sands in alberta, took over the increasingly disapearring share of the conventionnal oil. What will happen in 2030 is that the cumulative production of all sources of oil will decline, inexorably, for 30 to 40 years, until the energetic cost to extract it will be above its energetic value. It would may be then extracted for its value as raw material, at very high monetary cost. Or with the help of another energy source, such nuclear (it seems to me that Saoudi Arabia has asked access to civil nuclear technology), but also at very high monetary cost. In fact, it's not completelly a lie from IEA, in a sense that demand will be forced to decline... But it's far less worrying to say we will need less bread in the future than say we will not have enough of it... Throwing things away as we do will appear to us, probably in our own live time, as the must stupid thing mankind has ever done in its 200.000 years of existence.
brokenmachine 3y ago
Computing is something I've loved ever since I was first introduced to it, something I love, something that I always dreamed would empower every person to be connected to everyone else and have a better life, to help society become a fairer place. When I first hand-etched my own PCB to attach LEDs to my Commodore 64, controlled by software that I'd written, it was amazing. When I first used a 300 baud modem to connect to a BBS and communicate with people far away, it was like a whole world had opened up. The opportunities were endless. Now Apple with their subscriptions, artificially crippled devices so they can force the cloud upon people and monetize personal data. Artificially unrepairable devices. Removing ports to sell dongles and wireless chargers. Removing features all the time. Creating devices that are not interoperable with other devices, because that makes their victims ever more locked in and unable to resist next year's even more efficient milking machine. So much unnecessary bullshit, and more and more every year. In the old days computers would improve each year. They wouldn't remove stuff. This years device was like last years, but with added features. If you were thinking about upgrading, you didn't have to make a spreadsheet for yourself with what you're gaining this year and what you're losing, and how much the monthly subscription will be. Buying new tech was an easy decision. Nobody would have tolerated any of this in the 1990's or 2000's, so why now? Why are people so resigned to not truly owning anything? How can they seriously claim that any of this is actually good? Apple championed non-replaceable batteries, no headphone sockets, locked bootloaders, had to be forced to use USBC. Now they're championing remote hardware pairing. Every time there's the barest of paper-thin reason for it, always more lock-in, and of course no way for the consumer to opt-out of such bullshit. Just the worst most consumer-hostile company. But every time they come up with the latest new consumer-hostile bullshit, for some reason so many cult-of-Apple zombies come out of the woodwork, to parrot the flimsiest of pretext for why it's actually a good thing and why they're happy they're getting milked even more this time, and everyone who doesn't want to be milked is actually in the wrong or just cheap or poor or something. They wear their special Apple release day dunce cap and line up at midnight at the Apple store to be milked for the latest phone that's half a step forward and half a step back, with an iCloud subscription tacked on. It's so infuriating. But the most infuriating part is that other companies invariably follow suit once the dust has settled and the latest anti-consumer behavior has been normalized, because every step is more and more lucrative, and a far easier path to profit-creating than real innovation. Line must go up, and they're all out of ideas, so why not create subscriptions where none existed before and stop repairs so people have to buy new phones? The zombies won't care because they're just dying to put their special release-day dunce cap on again. This one has magnesium! Somehow USBC is revolutionary because people can now save videos to external storage. What? My Galaxy Note from 2012 had microSD. Soon will come the subscription-based hardware with remote hardware disabling. A subscription for access to particular phone features. Mark my words. I hate Apple customers for their ignorance and shortsightedness in enabling Apple in their quest to ruin computing. It would be fine if they were just ruining it for themselves, but they're not. The trickle-down from Apple is ruining the whole industry. Of course, I'm not excusing the other companies for jumping on the enshittified bandwagon, but Apple is the only company with zombies who will accept whatever latest bullshit they can dream up, without ever dreaming of switching sides. I hate Apple for what they're doing to the computing landscape, and I don't care if their M2 is better on power per watt or whatever. I'd plug in and use a device I actually own. I wish Apple would just concentrate on creating the best product they can make. Even if it had the bullshit but you could opt-out. No bullshit and just the best product. I would buy five. But not any of this, this is shit. Fuck Apple.
leloctai 3y ago
I live in Vietnam, phone theft is relatively prevalent here. My dad once got tricked into buying an icloud locked phone. I was very sure it was a loss cause, but he tried bringing it to a local repair shop anyway. They removed the lock in a few minutes for something like 100usd. Apparently at least some of those icloud unlocking ad that I always thought were scams are actually legit. So these locks may not be as effective as Apple may want you to believe.

555 points by fraXis 3y ago

5350-uiop-1130 3y ago

> "It’s Literally Not Re-Pairable" making things worse under the guise of listening, that's oh so pro.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

mcphage 3y ago

> Forget harvesting parts—which is a huge part of most independent repair and recycling businesses. Isn't that also why most stolen phones end up in SE Asia where they're disassembled for parts?

deleted 3y ago
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mortureb 3y ago
The parts talk to each other so not really for the last generation or two.
- mcphage 3y ago
  Isn't that what this is all about, though? The parts talk to each other, so they can't be disassembled and sold off—but since they talk to each other, it makes it harder to get them working after a repair?
  - mortureb 3y ago
    Yes but they’re useless in a Chinese chop shop. You can’t Frankenstein the parts together.

tqi 3y ago

AIUI, these restrictions are primarily intended to curb the market for stolen iphones? I think Apple has taken it too far here, but I also think it is disingenuous to have this discourse without at least mentioning the other considerations. There is no "right" answer, only tradeoffs...

skeaker 3y ago
This is stated elsewhere in this thread, but if this is the case then Apple should allow users to unpair their parts and allow them to be reused. Gouging users by forcing them to buy a new part that they already have because their current one is "unverified" despite working perfectly can only be interpreted as greed.
specialist 3y ago
These restrictions also reduce pwnage. Zero trust has to be end-to-end, software and hardware.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  Is there a single documented case of someone's phone being hacked because of a replaced hardware component like a screen? That sounds like fantasy land to me. Maybe the NSA can do it? But I suspect they could more easily hack phones in software.
  - realusername 3y ago
    I also want a real case of this happening, right now even for high profile targets they just use software attacks.
- skeaker 3y ago
  If an actor with that sort of capability has physical access to your device for long enough to replace a part in it with a custom one, you are pwned pretty much no matter what you do at that point. They could just as well stick in a keylogger for touch inputs and know all your passwords.

mschuster91 3y ago

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 because it paints a phone-sized target on them, they won't buy your product. That cut down on a lot of the robbery bullshit, but then criminals simply found new buyer classes - they'd simply part stolen devices out and resell everything but the iCloud/Knox/whatever locked mainboard. Displays, cameras, speakers, batteries, flex cables, cases, everything. So now, at least Apple is tagging the most "valuable" parts in new phones, simply to make stealing them unattractive for thieves, which frankly sucks but is necessary because it's a public safety issue. (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)

tantalor 3y ago
Speculation. If that were true, Apple would only require the replacement part to be verified, but they also require the device receiving the part to be verified. That's the "pair" in "pairing".
- Kirby64 3y ago
  Not speculation at all. I can tell you for certain this is what they're trying to combat. The "require the device receiving the part to be verified" is just a consequence of how it's currently implemented. There are ways to implement this without the need to do per-device pairing, but doing so in a secure way is quite difficult. I suspect they'll eventually remove the requirement to pair devices using system configurator, if only because this removes the need to have chat assistance with pairing. That's costing them money to have a call center, and they want to avoid it I suspect.
  - drtz 3y ago
    > I can tell you for certain this is what they're trying to combat. > There are ways to implement this without the need to do per-device pairing, but doing so in a secure way is quite difficult. Is this based on first-hand knowledge? I'm skeptical on both fronts because I neither see any evidence this is what's being combatted, nor do I see the technical difficulty of being able to self-authorize your phone's parts to be used in repairs. Sure it takes some engineering effort to get there, but I wouldn't expect it to be particularly challenging from a technical point of view. The phone is already linked to a user account, and the phone's parts are apparently already linked to the phone that's currently using them.

s3p 3y ago

Reminds me of a Louis Rossman video [0] where he shares his frustration with Apple's independent repair shop program. He says that to get access to genuine Apple parts (and the ability to pair them to devices), Apple requires that his shop not be able to do certain things like fix a broken angle detection sensor. It's utter BS, and the lip service companies are paying to right-to-repair bills in state legislatures honestly confuses me given their directly antithetical behavior. Hope strong repair bills get passed and they are fined to hell and back :)

diabeetusman 3y ago
Sorry, which video? Your [0] doesn't go anywhere :)
- s3p 3y ago
  Ah so sorry! Got deleted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn_v-VxXNoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn_v-VxXNoI
- ryanluker 3y ago
  Might have been this video? Sometimes Rossman's videos ain't easy to search for, hah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHhGBvfGams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHhGBvfGams
paulmd 3y ago
> He says that to get access to genuine Apple parts (and the ability to pair them to devices), Apple requires that his shop not be able to do certain things like fix a broken angle detection sensor. is this a loaded framing for the proposition that "you can't perform component-level repairs if you're presenting yourself as an apple authorized service center"? because the point of apple authorized service centers is you get the apple authorized service, not someone drilling and reflowing your board to replace components. it's great that rossman can do this, but he's N=1, and apple can't make their entire network out of rossmans. I think it's pretty obvious why they have to enforce minimum standards and standardized repair protocols in an authorized service program. this is the "rossman doesn't like any repair solution in which rossman doesn't get paid" thing in action. component-level repair isn't the only kind of repair, it's just the one that results in rossman getting paid the most.

sjkna 3y ago

Thanks Apple for making my phone a less attractive target for thieves by making its pieces useless when used in other phones. Ifixit: you are not on my side.

Zambyte 3y ago
[flagged]
- DrBenCarson 3y ago
  Sounds like an Android distro “Boot Lollipop—you’re broke, sorry—that’s Android!”
burkaman 3y ago
If you don't care about independent repairability, which is the only thing this score addresses, then just don't look at this website. The decision doesn't affect you or Apple in any way, it's just advice for people looking for a particular feature.
- mortureb 3y ago
  It’s talking about the benefits of tagging parts. Crooks can’t make money off my iPhone and so iPhone theft drops. It’s a relevant point to make in this discussion.
SenAnder 3y ago
That's why Apple gives the consumer an authorization code that they can use when re-selling their phone, to unlock its parts and permit their re-use. Since thieves don't get that code, it protects phones against theft and allows re-use. Because if they didn't do that, anti-theft would be just a useful excuse to further rob the consumer of agency. They do give out such a code, right? I'm just assuming here, but since they paint themselves as such champions of ecology [1], they must. Because if they didn't, that would make them hypocrites, and liars, in claiming there is no way to deter theft without taking rights from the consumer. And we know Apple is honest and on the consumer's side, so that can't be it. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53485560 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53485560

MaintenanceMode 3y ago

iFixit is so fantastic. For any of their flaws or shortcomings, they are really trying to grow and improve on a regular basis. They have helped my family save so much stuff from the scrap heap. These are the types of actions that help the ethos of "REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE". But it comes at the cost of capitalism and pure profit making. There's going to have to be a hard reckoning sometime soon that we can't keep just throwing stuff away (and paying again and again), just so the stock market keeps moving up.

INTPenis 3y ago

They could have written iPhone 14 in the title. This way it seems like they're riding a wave of negative press following the "wanderlust" event. Not that I care, I gave up my iphone and macintosh 12 years ago, I'm just noting a pattern of negative press being upvoted and this is among it.

abtinf 3y ago

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.

orwin 3y ago
So, abandonning liberties for a bit of security then.
- adesanmi 3y ago
  It’s an important conversation to have. My mums phone got stolen with Find My active. The police refused to do anything about it, they tried to phish her details, failed and I followed it to Shenzen. I’m not saying these changes would prevent occurrences, but if they couldn’t even strip parts from a phone, it makes it a less enticing target for thieves. I do think that a version of the iPhone without these restrictions should be available for purchase for customers who know that’s exactly what they want, not this convoluted system.
- abtinf 3y ago
  The right-to-repair crowd are the ones trying to use guns to prevent me from buying the devices I want to buy.
  - orwin 3y ago
    This isn't remotely true. IFixit dropped the IPhone repairability score, does that impede you from buy one? I have the impression only apple fans are reacting negatively to this news. Like I said, apple rather push for security than liberty, be it software or hardware. It's okay, it's a choice, idc about apple products so I'm pretty much neutral on this. I have made the choice for myself, I'd rather have liberty right now, but once I am too old to use that liberty, you can be sure I'll go to Google/Apple/whatever. It's not a dig, it's a real choice.

ho_schi 3y ago

That is one of the many reasons why use ThinkPads. * Maintenance Manual with explosion diagrams and step-by-step guides * Short guide videos for important parts (terse and helpful, very good hidden on Lenovos Website) * OEM-Parts from Lenovo itself or dealers Side story. I ordered a X13 Gen 3 (because the new reverse notch is “meh”) AMD (because Intel is “meh”) but the HiDPI was not selectable. So I ordered it without HiDPI, ordered the HiDPI display and cable (yes!) from the repair website and replaced both :) And the best thing…it was shipped with Linux and it reacted “Oh. Should I turn on scaling?” :) Probably not was Lenovo intended but in the end both sides are happy.

hedora 3y ago
I get how this is helpful for hobby hardware, but the last time I had a problem with a Lenovo, I sent it to the on-site authorized repair depot (my employer had a special gold plated contract with them), who couldn't replace it because it needed a replacement display cable they didn't stock. They diagnosed it, and sent it to Lenovo, who said it would take 30 days to replace the cable. I bought a cheap desktop in the meantime, which still works fine, ten years later. When the laptop came back, Lenovo diagnosed it "no fault found", and didn't replace the faulty cable. Not only was the display still intermittent (due to the bad cable), but their technician removed and then improperly installed the insulator for the backlight's high-voltage transformer, so it was painful and unsafe to touch the laptop if the display was on. Compare this to Apple, where I drive into any big city, hand them the broken shiny thing, a bag of money containing about 10% its retail price, and it Just Works when they hand it back to me (almost always on the same day). Maybe Lenovo can repair their own stuff these days? I haven't observed this anywhere I've worked since. (My evidence that they can't fix their stuff is that there is usually a pile of broken Lenovos in the back of the IT office.)
- danaris 3y ago
  > a bag of money containing about 10% its retail price ...or, if you bought AppleCare and it's still within that time frame and not an egregiously obvious user error situation, no (additional) money at all.
- 3y ago

adesanmi 3y ago

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.

M4v3R 3y ago
I’ve heard that take many times, but is there any actual data to back this claim? I mean think about it - your average thief is not the kind of person that will know what part setialization is or how to tell iPhone models apart to know which ones to steal. They steal your purse, bag or just anything and sight and only then deal with the loot, discarding what’s useless. I would be very surprised if serializing the battery or screen is putting any significant dent in the number of stolen iPhones worldwide. Apple has already created a pretty good deterrent to prevent iPhone theft - the Find My iPhone system. It’s better because it’s actually useful to the user and works even if you turn the phone off. The way I see it there’s absolutely no need to serialize the parts as an additional measure to prevent theft (given also what I said in the first paragraph)
- adesanmi 3y ago
  I don’t know if there’s data to back this up. I’m simply assuming based on what I know. What I know comes from people I went to school with who have stolen phones before telling me at the pub. There is a price for the type of device you bring in. The ones on the bikes or mugging people actually drop it off to the people who send stuff off to China. Those people give a standard price for the type of phone, he quoted £100 for an iPhone 11 and £120 for a Samsung Galaxy. He corroborates your point regarding not discriminating the phone he stole, to be fair.
- adesanmi 3y ago
  Regarding your second point, I agree with the Find My praise, however Find My itself illustrates why every little thing done to make it “more of a ballache” to steal an iPhone, more costly for the thieves, is reducing the demand and these “papercuts” can add up in a sizeable way. But your point is valid, and I can understand why you hold that opinion.

spunker540 3y ago

I’ve never had to repair my iphone (just get a new one every 4yrs) and appreciate that my phone is less profitable to steal, “repairability score” be damned. But I live in a dense city and take public transit, so the trade off is worth it to me. If I wanted something repairable I’d buy a different phone.

tumdum_ 3y ago

I remember this thread (from the person working of Asahi Linux) that explains why Apple does this: https://icosahedron.website/@marcan@treehouse.systems/110803358824190673 https://icosahedron.website/@marcan@treehouse.systems/110803...

smoldesu 3y ago
It doesn't "explain" it, he doesn't work for Apple nor know their true intentions. It's entirely his conjecture from the POV of a reverse-engineer. In any case, his conclusion certainly doesn't align with a "less access is better" mentality: > Advocate for Apple to provide access to their calibration re-provisioning processes instead [...] Them not providing those tools sucks and is anti-repair. By that rationale, Marcan might actually support iFixit's decision here.
- tumdum_ 3y ago
  I'm not sure what is his take on iFixit decision, but he does provide some good explanations why some things are the way they are. I don't expect that Apple will officially provide better info, so that is probably the best we have. At least I haven't seen anyone with intimate knowledge of apple hw and sw provide a better or contradicting information.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

bakugo 3y ago

The average Apple fanboy's ability to rationalize every single anti-consumer decision made by Apple is impressive. Literally all Apple has to do is say "it's for your own safety!" and they will defend it to the death.

adesanmi 3y ago
I don’t understand how this is Anti Consumer in any way? I have an iPhone and a FairPhone. One’s niche is that it’s repairable, and the other is that it’s not. A consumer who wants a repairable would buy something like a FairPhone (modular parts!!!) and someone like my mum can get her all-in-one “nice” experience. They’re allowed to have an opinion, and with engineering there are tradeoffs. They tradeoff design with repairability and have the opinion that it is a good tradeoff. They want to test that opinion with the market and it resonated. What’s wrong with this? I genuinely am confused as to the anti-consumer moniker when the consumer has never had more choice?
- bakugo 3y ago
  > and someone like my mum can get her all-in-one “nice” experience. This is a great example of what I had in mind. Apple has successfully convinced you that pairing every part of the phone to the motherboard such that it can never be replaced by anyone other than Apple (usually for a price greater than the phone itself) is somehow essential to the iPhone Experience™ and beneficial to the user.
  - adesanmi 3y ago
    Why would a consumer like my mum care about opening the phone up? You still haven’t explained how choosing to tradeoff design over repairability is anti-consumer when the consumer can buy a FairPhone right now (who, I can tell you, have a significantly worse experience and design than my iPhone, but I don’t care because I can tinker with it!) I think you just don’t like the company and are looking for silly reasons to bash them.
    - 3y ago

explaininjs 3y ago

Tough question as someone who got an iphone 14 to replace their iphone 12 that was stolen after being choked out and held at knife point, presumably to be sold for parts. I’d sacrifice just about anything to not black out with a knife at my neck again. So I’d say overall I’m pro this.

agentultra 3y ago

Good. I replaced the battery in an iPhone 5 earlier this year and it's ticking along fine. The longer it stays out of the dump (or a desk drawer) the better. All of the carbon and precious minerals mined to make this device aren't likely to be recycled into new devices: they'll end up on the shores of a country in the Global South along with all of the other tech detritus that we throw away. The resources are spent, the damage done, I want to get as much use out of it as possible. It's measures like pairing that make me question whether Apple's recycling program is even legit or more corporate green-washing. Has anyone done an independent audit of their process and where materials end up once devices enter the program?

specialist 3y ago

I agree with the two conclusions of iFixit's accompanying article: "How Parts Pairing Kills Independent Repair" [2023-01-17] https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-independent-repair https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-in... TDLR: "Put Pairing in the Peoples’ Hands" and "Unpair the Future" Their second point is totally spot on and lost in the food fight. Parts Pairing must be disabled for any discontinued models which have also fallen out of warranty. (Like if I bought the last iPhone 5 and could no longer buy Apple Care for it.) Further, Apple must provide repair parts. Actual cost for noobs like me and discounted for warranty repair shops (any org who wants to sign up, eg identity and tax id verified.) Excess inventory for discontinued models liquidated to some one's like iFixit. My u/unpopularopinion: Counterfeit and grey/black markets are a scourge. I absolutely want parts pairing for any new devices. Doubly so if my threat model included espionage or surveillance.

ilyt 3y ago
Could be as simple as "allow pairing for every part UNLESS that part is on the stolen/blacklisted list" Then any phone reported stolen would just not work as replacement components.

loudandskittish 3y ago

I'm always suspicious when I open comments and see a whole lot of people posting variations of the same talking points as top-level threads... even if I happen to agree with those points.

natymad 3y ago

I completely fail to understand the anti-theft argument, help me out here. So the theory is that, once thieves will see you're carrying an Iphone, they won't bother taking it. But why? You're already being mugged, everything that's even remotely valuable will be taken. Why would they let their victims go, just because their valuables are more difficult to flip? "Give me all your valuables - oh wait, that's an iphone, nvm my bad you're free to go" is that the idea here? And on being less of a target for getting robbed in the first place - you're carrying an expensive af iphone, chances are you can afford to carry a lot of other expensive valuables too. If you're worried about getting robbed, start with not carrying a device that's more expensive than a fridge. My condolences to everyone who actually had to survive through a robbery. But I doubt it could've been avoided just because your Iphone was currently difficult to sell. People can get robbed regardless of their perceived wealth, it's a happen-stance crime.

whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
It makes no sense at all and is clearly just an excuse. Criminals do not want your iPhone. It is an instant tracking device that even if they sold it in an hour would still lead the cops to where they sold it. I was robbed at gunpoint in the late 2000s and even then the criminals did not want the phone. They did want everything else tho. It’s anti consumer bullshit and absolutely nothing else.
reubenmorais 3y ago
> oh wait, that's an iphone, nvm my bad you're free to go" is that the idea here? In Brazil I've heard stories of muggers holding up e.g. a bus and not bothering to get iPhones. This was a while ago, before the trade routes to get stolen phones across the world for disassembly and parts resale were as developed as they are today.
wyldberry 3y ago
There are more robberies than a mugging. Pick pockets are a real scourge. If you have a reliable way to turn stolen goods into currency, you are incentivized to take that item. Jewelry -> pawn shops for example. The anti-theft measure here makes it not profitable, or much harder to profit, from taking a phone because you can't resell it or strip the valuable parts. I had a friend get pick pocketed in spain, and the next day the phone was several countries away. Just because people can get mugged regardless of perceived wealth doesn't mean that we don't try to reduce the risk.

pradn 3y ago

We should take the security aspect of this more seriously. In a world where hardware manipulation is possible, from ATM skimmers to tampered routers, it's not nothing for only authenticated parts to function. As always, security has to play against other factors - like eWaste and convenience.

drcode 3y ago

Most comments in this thread: I don't want to have ownership of devices I pay money for, because if I don't own anything, nobody can steal it from me.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
_silicon 3y ago
This is on the nose. I have no clue what the limit is for what you can convince people to surrender, but I don’t think we are even close.
npteljes 3y ago
Well, yeah. Ownership is responsibility, and the world is shifting towards more convenience, so less responsibility. So we're also going towards less ownership as well, with products being turned into services and leases. And frankly, in a lot of cases, I don't mind it.

camillomiller 3y ago

Damn if you do, retroactively damn if you don’t. IFixit is existentially tied to their antagonism to any official repair policy. I like their work, but this is bonkers. Retroactively degrading a rating? How should people even think that their ratings actually mean anything then?

dzikimarian 3y ago

After reading all robbery comments: Sweet Jesus on motorbike. Where do you live people?

bigstrat2003 3y ago
Seriously. I've never lived anywhere where crime is even close to as commonplace as people are saying it is where they live. I can't envision what would be good enough incentive to continue to live in such a place, either.
npteljes 3y ago
Well, Apple has to think worldwide.

_ph_ 3y ago

One thing I dislike about this decision is, that it conflates the limitations for third parties repairing an iPhone with the ability to repair a device at all. Yes, in an ideal world it would be easy and cheap to repair a device. Good points have been raised in the discussion, why this might be limited by necessity. Like theft-protection and just technical questions of calibration of part. But from an environmental perspective, it makes a huge difference whether something can be quickly repaired or not. Who can do the repairs is an important question, but it is secondary to the first. I am not happy with iFixit not distinguishing bad repairability and having to go to Apple for a repair. I find it ok to withdraw like one point for the tie-in to the manufacturer, but the new score puts it on a level with devices which just have to be thrown away. This is also a disservice to the customer, as while the Apple prices might be quite high, they seem to be related closely to how difficult a certain repair is to do. Improvements there are a benefit to all customers. The new scoring system hides this and actually reduces the pressure onto the manufacturer to improve repairability.

paulmd 3y ago
yup, I think the right-to-repair movement has unthinkingly adopted a lot of attitudes from a couple key proponents with business interests in component-level repair. board-level repair is fine, and is probably necessary to get some of the economies of scale in assembly and distribution. but you'd think it doesn't count for some reason.

Tade0 3y ago

I tried to recall how many instances of theft vs damage there were in my social circle and the ratio is at least 10:1, with damage being the higher number. I had one case of spontaneous malfunction, one bricking via repeated high humidity environment and one bonk against bare concrete, which resulted in the screen needing to be replaced so I have to ask: how bad is theft in your corner of the world?

xg15 3y ago

Which Apple marketing person invented that "theft" argument? Apple is pulling the exact same kind of shady bullshit that John Deere did with its tractors - except that in that case, the tech community was up in arms and actually spearheaded a right-to-repair movement. Meanwhile, when Apple does the same thing, everyone seems to be falling over themselves trying to find an excuse why, well actually, Apple really only has the best interests of its users at heart. What's going on? Kudos to iFixit for at least showing some stance, but even their post is weirdly excusing in places: > While it’s an improvement over the status quo of just a few years ago, when Apple wouldn’t sell parts or supply instructions or software tools to anyone outside the Genius Bar and a few select “authorized” repair outlets, it’s still a major problem. Apple has made some real progress here—and we’ve been reluctant to criticize manufacturers taking meaningful steps. There are good people inside Apple working hard to make this situation better. Since when can investing a huge amount of resources to build your own DRM scheme and then paddling back a tiny bit when there is too much political pressure be called "taking meaningful steps"? Would you applaud Microsoft for "taking meaningful steps" after they spent years on hardwiring Edge-only links into the OS, then eventually carved out a tiny exception after EU pressure grew too large?

max4c 3y ago

Framework should eventually move into phones. Repair-first devices are needed for sustainability and also innovation in hardware.

adesanmi 3y ago
FairPhone exists and is great, I recommend!

Chatting 3y ago

I don't find the "theft prevention" argument raised by many of the comments here particularly convincing. If the concern is to prevent the resale of stolen devices or parts, Apple could simply provide users with a way to report the device as stolen (e.g. via iCloud.com), which would put the serial numbers of both the device and its parts into a blacklist. Problem solved. Instead, the current system effectively assumes that ALL parts coming from a different device must've been "illegally obtained", which is nonsense. You can do theft prevention without actively making independent repair shops' lives miserable. But Apple's goal is to make independent repair shops' lives miserable; theft is just a pretext. Just look at their track record, from the humble pentalobe screw all the way to the repair program NDAs.

Terretta 3y ago

Everyone is debating whether "theft prevention" is the valid argument. That's like banks blaming you for "identity theft". No, the bank failed to safeguard your identity or validate your transactions. Similarly here, the valid argument, and target of such changes, is unscrupulous “repair” shops, aka the market makers for these stolen parts. Whether cars, or phones, after-market repairs are riddled with hazards, and it's not those shops that end up in the news when someone's brakes fail, tire treads separate at speed, or a Samsung or iPhone explodes their face off.

w1nst0nsm1th 3y ago

Phones need to be standardized the same way desktop pc where standardized. Our world is running out of ressources at fast speed and this habit of throwing phones away (iPhones and Android phones or anything else) without real options to fix them is creating a huge pile of waste which are furthermore highly toxic. According to IEA, demand for oil should peak in 2030, which is a lie, considering India still have (and want) to catch up with Chinese economic devellopement (India GDP: $3.34 Trillons, China GDP: $19.34 Trillons), for the same population. Demand can't fall in that condition. But production will... Peak production for conventional oil happened in 2006, resulting in an all time high of oil price in july or august 2008 at $148. And then output started to fall after a few year of stabilisation of the production. Shale oil production in the US, oil sands in alberta, took over the increasingly disapearring share of the conventionnal oil. What will happen in 2030 is that the cumulative production of all sources of oil will decline, inexorably, for 30 to 40 years, until the energetic cost to extract it will be above its energetic value. It would may be then extracted for its value as raw material, at very high monetary cost. Or with the help of another energy source, such nuclear (it seems to me that Saoudi Arabia has asked access to civil nuclear technology), but also at very high monetary cost. In fact, it's not completelly a lie from IEA, in a sense that demand will be forced to decline... But it's far less worrying to say we will need less bread in the future than say we will not have enough of it... Throwing things away as we do will appear to us, probably in our own live time, as the must stupid thing mankind has ever done in its 200.000 years of existence.

brokenmachine 3y ago

Computing is something I've loved ever since I was first introduced to it, something I love, something that I always dreamed would empower every person to be connected to everyone else and have a better life, to help society become a fairer place. When I first hand-etched my own PCB to attach LEDs to my Commodore 64, controlled by software that I'd written, it was amazing. When I first used a 300 baud modem to connect to a BBS and communicate with people far away, it was like a whole world had opened up. The opportunities were endless. Now Apple with their subscriptions, artificially crippled devices so they can force the cloud upon people and monetize personal data. Artificially unrepairable devices. Removing ports to sell dongles and wireless chargers. Removing features all the time. Creating devices that are not interoperable with other devices, because that makes their victims ever more locked in and unable to resist next year's even more efficient milking machine. So much unnecessary bullshit, and more and more every year. In the old days computers would improve each year. They wouldn't remove stuff. This years device was like last years, but with added features. If you were thinking about upgrading, you didn't have to make a spreadsheet for yourself with what you're gaining this year and what you're losing, and how much the monthly subscription will be. Buying new tech was an easy decision. Nobody would have tolerated any of this in the 1990's or 2000's, so why now? Why are people so resigned to not truly owning anything? How can they seriously claim that any of this is actually good? Apple championed non-replaceable batteries, no headphone sockets, locked bootloaders, had to be forced to use USBC. Now they're championing remote hardware pairing. Every time there's the barest of paper-thin reason for it, always more lock-in, and of course no way for the consumer to opt-out of such bullshit. Just the worst most consumer-hostile company. But every time they come up with the latest new consumer-hostile bullshit, for some reason so many cult-of-Apple zombies come out of the woodwork, to parrot the flimsiest of pretext for why it's actually a good thing and why they're happy they're getting milked even more this time, and everyone who doesn't want to be milked is actually in the wrong or just cheap or poor or something. They wear their special Apple release day dunce cap and line up at midnight at the Apple store to be milked for the latest phone that's half a step forward and half a step back, with an iCloud subscription tacked on. It's so infuriating. But the most infuriating part is that other companies invariably follow suit once the dust has settled and the latest anti-consumer behavior has been normalized, because every step is more and more lucrative, and a far easier path to profit-creating than real innovation. Line must go up, and they're all out of ideas, so why not create subscriptions where none existed before and stop repairs so people have to buy new phones? The zombies won't care because they're just dying to put their special release-day dunce cap on again. This one has magnesium! Somehow USBC is revolutionary because people can now save videos to external storage. What? My Galaxy Note from 2012 had microSD. Soon will come the subscription-based hardware with remote hardware disabling. A subscription for access to particular phone features. Mark my words. I hate Apple customers for their ignorance and shortsightedness in enabling Apple in their quest to ruin computing. It would be fine if they were just ruining it for themselves, but they're not. The trickle-down from Apple is ruining the whole industry. Of course, I'm not excusing the other companies for jumping on the enshittified bandwagon, but Apple is the only company with zombies who will accept whatever latest bullshit they can dream up, without ever dreaming of switching sides. I hate Apple for what they're doing to the computing landscape, and I don't care if their M2 is better on power per watt or whatever. I'd plug in and use a device I actually own. I wish Apple would just concentrate on creating the best product they can make. Even if it had the bullshit but you could opt-out. No bullshit and just the best product. I would buy five. But not any of this, this is shit. Fuck Apple.

leloctai 3y ago

I live in Vietnam, phone theft is relatively prevalent here. My dad once got tricked into buying an icloud locked phone. I was very sure it was a loss cause, but he tried bringing it to a local repair shop anyway. They removed the lock in a few minutes for something like 100usd. Apparently at least some of those icloud unlocking ad that I always thought were scams are actually legit. So these locks may not be as effective as Apple may want you to believe.