9 ms·

You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

hoppyhoppy2 3y ago
Gift Article link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/technology/iphone-repair-apple-control.html?unlocked_article_code=1.90w.OKb8.GT6UMCwjSxmn&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/technology/iphone-repair-...
roflc0ptic 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20231112101006/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/technology/iphone-repair-apple-control.html https://web.archive.org/web/20231112101006/https://www.nytim...
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  This is such an absurd excuse. The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. This is just a copout pushed by Apple to justify obviously bad practices, and due to their reality distortion field, you guys eat it up.
  - thih9 3y ago
    > The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. Do you have a source? And which exactly competing android devices do you mean? Does the comparison factor in the popularity of the device?
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      There isn't a specific survey I can find pointing either way, which similarly makes the argument that theft is significant enough to justify restrictive and wasteful locks also moot. By competing devices of course I am referring to other flagships which are of a similar price and feature set, like flagship Samsung phones etc.
  - ubermonkey 3y ago
    >The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. You're so close to getting it.
  - cameronh90 3y ago
    That’s just because the thieves don’t consider the android devices worth stealing. London sadly has an ongoing problem with phone snatchers and pickpockets, so on two occasions I’ve seen them nick an Android. In the first case, they just chucked it on the floor a few metres further down the road. On the second, the guy loudly shouted “what the fuck is this shit?” as he cycled down the road and threw it into a canal.
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      I’m not quite sure what they expect if they snatch an Apple device? It’d just turn into a brick in a few minutes/hours?
      - cameronh90 3y ago
        So one of two things usually happen, either: (1) It gets shipped straight to Eastern Europe or China and broken down for parts which are resold back to unauthorised repair shops in the West as official Apple parts. Or more commonly (2) they will try to socially engineer the owner into giving up their Apple credentials so that they can sign out the iPhone and wipe it. If that fails, go to (1). When my brother’s partner had her iPhone nicked, they extracted her phone number off the SIM then started sending her messages linking to a phishing iCloud sign in page, saying something like “Your stolen device has been located, sign in here to recover it.”.
  - chongli 3y ago
    The proper comparison is not with Android phones, it’s with iPhones before Apple introduced this feature. The news reported a global drop in iPhone thefts at the time [1]. [1] https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/antitheft-technology-led-to-a-dip-in-iphone-thefts-in-some-cities-police-say/ https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/1...
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      I disagree that the point of comparison should be iPhones from before this functionality, the point is that the negative effects of locking all parts are not worth the amount of theft, not that they don't reduce theft. After all, you could massively reduce burglaries too by allowing home security systems to have automated lethal turrets to shoot burglars, but that's considered way too far in terms of social cost by pretty much every place.
      - chongli 3y ago
        The point of my reply was to illustrate the true effect on iPhone theft from this change. Do you have a more accurate way to measure that? Whether you think the tradeoff is worth it or not is beside the point. I made no claim for or against the tradeoff, so you have nothing to disagree with there.
- chii 3y ago
  Why doesn't apple allow the owner to choose to decouple the pairing? It's telling why they dont.
  - jaas 3y ago
    Because thieves know that all iPhones are locked like this and thus don’t steal them. If they knew that some significant percentage were not locked they would be worth stealing again, and if it’s locked they just throw it in a dumpster. The fact that your phone is locked protects everyone else as well.
    - j-bos 3y ago
      Somehow I doubt even a percent of owners would choose to unpair. And if they do for repair purposes, there's no reason they couldn't re pair/register. What am I missing?
      - M4v3R 3y ago
        Nothing, the argument for pairing the parts is so weak that I’m genuinely surprised to see it here on HN so often.
    - ghostpepper 3y ago
      There have been reports of thieves threatening victims with weapons and demanding they disable icloud. Not saying that negates the benefit necessarily but it's a relevant data point.
    - cantSpellSober 3y ago
      > thieves know that all iPhones are locked like this and thus don’t steal them Do you even believe this? I haven't seen any examples of thieves saying "stick em up! Oh, iPhone? Have a nice day" Easy counterexample: > an entire wall of iPhones (approximately 436) were gone https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-store-robbed-half-million-washington-mall/11622949002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-...
- realusername 3y ago
  It limits the utility of all iphones, stolen or not. It's not like you have a switch to deactivate it for yourself. And for the consumer choice, I don't see Apple making any advertising about how anti repair they are, strange. I doubt most phone owners know about the pairing issues.
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    [flagged]
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  This control severely limits the utility of non-stolen iPhones which is not a good thing for an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is *not* one of the reasons people chose an iPhone because most buyers were oblivious to it since Apple never told them.
- ozyschmozy 3y ago
  How often does phone theft actually happen? I keep hearing this argument but in my ~15 years of owning non-apple phones and laptops, I've never had one stolen, or heard of anyone getting theirs stolen. Have I just been very lucky?
  - vasdae 3y ago
    The answer depends on the country or even the city you live in or visit. In some places walking around with a $1000 phone is extremely dangerous to your life.
    - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
      That seems surprising to me, when surely there's no easy way to steal a phone (iPhone or Android) and not have it completely locked and unusable. I would imagine that cars are eminently more desirable a target to steal as they're often left unattended for hours/days at the side of the road and they're typically worth far more than $1k. It's also relatively easy to attack a car waiting at traffic lights, over-power the driver and have access to the car and the keys, if the actual vehicle is required rather than just selling the parts.
      - vasdae 3y ago
        Pickpocketing is quick and easy, sometimes not even a crime, and even though phones are locked, you can sell the Android phone for pieces. That's not the case for the iphone.
        ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
        > Pickpocketing is quick and easy, sometimes not even a crime I find that difficult to believe.
        Lalabadie 3y ago
        In many places, it's a crime according to the law, but if nothing happens with thieves or reported theft, then in terms of consequences it's not a crime.
- lakpan 3y ago
  In theory that sounds great, in practice you can find Facebook groups for ~stolen~ ahem lost iPhones for sale. The value of a bricked phone is never zero, so theft prevention isn’t as good as Apple claims.
- ponorin 3y ago
  if this was their only intention they would let third party repair shops access to genuine parts or software tools. the reality is that third party "apple certified" repair shops are contractually less capable than uncertified ones, so much so that calling their service repair feels too generous. apple do this to sell you phones instead of phone parts. if any of what you're saying was true it's simply a happy accident.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    > happy accident That’s a perfect term for this. I would absolutely believe that Apple approached this from that exact anti-theft perspective but it sure is easy to see how such a feature might benefit their bottom line. It’s a matter of looking around and wondering where the inexpensive parts are.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    Giving third party shops official parts would still preclude the ability to enforce anti-theft unless you also gave them the software to pair it, and then you’ve once again precluded any ability to enforce anti-theft. Apple needs to know what hardware is going into a particular phone to implement the killswitches, which means it can’t be handled as bulk inventory. They will sell you hardware that has been paired to a specific phone, but they’re not going to not have pairing (which is legally mandated for anti theft, over the objections of hardware vendors at the time) and they’re not going to hand out the ability to bypass the anti theft by signing your own keys. Could they come up with some license-based model where the cpu wants to see apple attestation that the part is not stolen etc, perhaps, but, it’s not a trivial problem either. > apple do this to sell you phones instead of phone parts. if any of what you're saying was true it's simply a happy accident. Apple literally will sell you the parts though. How does that fit into your supposed “plot to force you to buy whole phones instead of parts”? People are silly. About apple and nvidia and a couple of other companies in particular - there is a real thing with negative parasocial attachment to these brands, people love to hate them. http://paulgraham.com/fh.html http://paulgraham.com/fh.html
- luuurker 3y ago
  No one ever stole my phone, but I had everything from broken displays to dead batteries, so at least in my case this is not good for me as a owner.
  - mwint 3y ago
    Textbook confounded reasoning: it’s possible no one stole your phone _because_ they’ve been made such undesirable targets for theft.
    - luuurker 3y ago
      These "locks" might reduce theft, but not only they still happen, but you can also make money with a stolen phone. You can sell it for parts. An iPhone will annoy you about the replaced display, but the phone still works. You can transfer the old battery's controller to the new one so the phone doesn't know about the change. You can sell the shell of the phone, speakers, cameras, etc. Maybe now I benefit from these Apple restrictions and annoyances, but I've been using expensive phones since before Apple started doing this and yet my phone was never stolen. I've cracked a few displays and killed a few batteries though. What seems to help me is having some awareness of my surroundings. I live in a big city and every day I see people standing by the road waiting for a bus. Phones out, noise cancelling headphones, bikes passing right in from of them... I mean, it's not that hard for a snatcher to take their phone.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  Theft is a boogeyman that allows Apple absolute control over their devices. Why is theft Apple's problem rather than law enforcement? Should cars require a password too? Why don't we make all consumer goods require a password so that theft can be a thing of the past!
  - mwint 3y ago
    Law enforcement (and prosecutors) are increasingly unconcerned with theft of “small” amounts, and theft by groups of people they’ve decided to stop prosecuting. I’m happy that Apple isn’t just saying “meh, not our problem”, and it’s one reason I buy their stuff.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
emmet 3y ago
Anecdotal, but back in those "good old days" when you could get a screen replaced in 5 mins like this article said, on the three occasions I did this I ended up with the worst cheap Chinese knock off screens I have ever seen, the last time I ended up spending even more to get a genuine one. Hard to avoid this with small businesses when they need to make the enough of a margin at those cheaper retail prices. I'm sure this is fine for a lot of people, but I'm much happier to pay for AppleCare+ and get components that keep the experience that I've paid a grand for.
- vasdae 3y ago
  Of course they don't use the same quality screens, because then the replacement would cost as much as it does in an apple store.
  - emmet 3y ago
    Sorry yeah that was my point. I personally don't find value in the cost saving.
- ponorin 3y ago
  in your case you got screwed up bc you got a bad part, but you're saying your solution to that is to screw everyone by disallowing even genuine parts for repair not blessed by apple?
  - emmet 3y ago
    Didn't say that! Just that my past experience with 3rd party repair has been poor
    - sigmar 3y ago
      Wasn't this partly by Apple's own making? Apple shreds devices to prevent people from salvaging parts for repairs[1], even phones that were usable[2]. and hasn't sold genuine components until very recently. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphon... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-g...
ubermonkey 3y ago
Yes. And that's part of what I paid for.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  Show us where Apple advertises this and I might believe you.
  - mplewis 3y ago
    https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-built-in-privacy-and-security-protections-iph6e7d349d1/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-built-in-privacy-...
    - jqpabc123 3y ago
      Absolutely nothing there about how hardware repairs are restricted or about how this benefits the consumer.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      Is that an advertisement or a support page?
  - quadrifoliate 3y ago
    There is a form of explicit and implicit advertising. Apple advertised implicitly by consistently fulfilling the promise that if anything bad happens to your iPhone, in most cases an Apple Store can fix it. Control is a part of this implicit model. This is not a model I myself like (I prefer the more freewheeling Android ecosystem); but I can appreciate why people respond well to it. To your average person who doesn't give a shit about unlocked bootloaders and just wants a way to regularly be in touch with their family and friends, the Apple model probably works better.
    - jqpabc123 3y ago
      Control is a part of this implicit model. And control is money. Apple obviously makes more money by controlling and limiting the consumer's ability to repair the device.
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
This seems to be quite popular with certain manufacturers. Certainly printers (HP) often include anti-consumer technology.
clircle 3y ago
Hmm, not sure if the data in the article is correct. I replaced the battery in my SE 2020, there is no persistent warning, but i can no longer check battery health
- Loggias 3y ago
  Yeah, I’ve been replacing parts on and repairing iPhones for 15 years now; more of a hobby and fixing stuff for friends. The battery is simple to replace even on the newest phones. Sure there’s a warning about non apple part that will show up but eventually subside. And that is only if you don’t swap the BMS module from the original to the new one. Any reputable shop should know to do this and have the skills required to desolder and resolder 2 connections…
billylo 3y ago
I recently encountered a similar situation for my Macbook Pro. Touch ID sensor is paired specifically to your logic board. You must replace both if either one has a defect. Source: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Early+2020+Touch+ID+Sensor+Replacement/142681 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Early+2020+...
- nikanj 3y ago
  I think this is an unavoidable side effect of Touch ID fully happening inside the module. The logic board has to have full trust of the module, because the module will simply inform the OS that fingerprint X was seen - the OS/logic board have no way to confirm the information
  - billylo 3y ago
    It’s their design choice. Most Windows laptop or Android phone do not have this hardwired coupling approach.
    - ponorin 3y ago
      google pixel does, but they did the unimaginable and released the tool where users can actually recalibrate the sensor.
      - natch 3y ago
        Google is not a good comparison, because Google engineering is inferior.
        ponorin 3y ago
        They suck at privacy, and they are indeed relatively new to hardware game, but I'd say they are better at security than you think, on par or even better than Apple. Like Apple SoC, it has a dedicated security chip. The new Pixel 8 even implements Memory Tagging Extension, which iPhone doesn't yet have. And they do all this while allowing you to install third party rom. It's how projects like GrapheneOS can exist.
nottorp 3y ago
Common misconception that hardware matters and thus we are not in a duopoly situation with Google and Apple being the only options for software. Doesn't mean Apple aren't -holes with repairs, but in my opinion the above software problem is worse.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  It massively limits human creativity and productivity all for protectionism under the guise of safety
  - JakeAl 3y ago
    They don't care about safety they care about lock in to their ecosystem. I'm not into ANY of these ecosystems. I don't want MSFT installing Edge ever, or OneDrive, or having Phone sync software on my PC that links my contacts to Office/Outlook Online, or have Bing web search forced into my search bar or Google for that matter, ALL to track you and push ads on you from the people they get their money from. And don't even get me started on cars tracking everything you do. In many cases you don't have a choice. I want a smartphone that doesn't lock me into all these ecosystems. I want a car that lets me turn off all tracking, bluetooth sensors to monitor my tire pressure, etc. The reality is people are stupid. They couldn't manage using a computer safely so the industry gave them a phone and sold them on safety. The fact that something like 80% of people are getting their news on a phone and not a computer should tell people they are trapped in a bubble that controls what they see, know and think. What good is having a choice if you don't know you have a choice? They simply want consumers.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
Do you want to control your device or are you okay with someone else controlling it? https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57 https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57
- paulcole 3y ago
  My iPhone works really well and I generally trust Apple. So I’m 100% fine with someone else controlling it.
  - JadeNB 3y ago
    > I generally trust Apple. Why? I can't imagine any kind of real trust relationship except with individual developers or small shops who can be responsive to individual customers. I certainly trust Apple more than Microsoft, but I can't imagine any situation in which I'd say I trusted them (or any other megacorp) in an unqualified sense.
    - askafriend 3y ago
      I have a 20+ year relationship with them as a company that informs my trust with their products and services.
    - willis936 3y ago
      Companies earn trust by being honest and consistent for long enough. I trusted Apple until recently. They lied to me several times over the phone over several weeks (always in a very courteous and professional way). Such a small thing for them to throw away trust for. I had been slowly moving into their ecosystem and I'm now pulling out. Pixel 6 google edition can be found for ~$200 and can be loaded up with de-googled Android ROMs (Calyx, Graphene, others).
      - ghostpepper 3y ago
        What did they lie about?
ponorin 3y ago
let's also remind ourselves of how apple's "official" repair process works: https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-repair-workers-sweatshop-csat-solutions-2021-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-repair-workers-sweatsh...
pierat 3y ago
That's exactly what I've been saying. This "cloud controlled shit" is a rental with no terms and unlimited claw-back. These aren't sales. If I had a computer, installed remote controlling malware on it, sold it, and then started exerting remote control over it, I'd be arrested and likely sentenced to fraud or hacking. This is fraud for Apple etm to call this a "sale", and should be prosecuted as such.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  Why hasn't someone done this? Say it's for their protection via security/virus scanning and hide it in the EULA.
oneplane 3y ago
At yet here we are with nobody having a better plan. The issue is still the same as it has been for the past 20 years: making a (PKI-based) security feature means you can never share the secret parts or make it optional, otherwise it is immediately defeated. You can't have selective security where it works sometimes but not all the times. And trading out that security system is not an option. PKI specifically is an all-or-nothing scenario. This is all why Intel does the same with the ACM in all their CPUs. And AMD with their AGESA (which went closed a short while ago). There is only a single scenario I can think of where there might be a 'have it both ways' situation, but it's just worse than we have now: you have to identify yourself as the owner, the company has to keep track of that, and you can only sign public keys for your own components. This, however, creates two problems: 1. A company keeping track of every user (no need to come up with a clever comment about "they are already nothing that") 2. Users can be coerced (has already been done with thefts and activation locks) and this weakens the ecosystem as a whole At this point it doesn't even matter how intentional or not digitally signing components is, it is an effective security model and it works better than anything else. Everyone loves complaining about everything they don't like, especially on the internet, but so far the amount of realistic and effective solutions are NONE.
- AshamedCaptain 3y ago
  > At yet here we are with nobody having a better plan. The issue is still the same as it has been for the past 20 years: making a (PKI-based) security feature means you can never share the secret parts or make it optional, otherwise it is immediately defeated. You can't have selective security where it works sometimes but not all the times. And trading out that security system is not an option. This is BS. A security system where the user is not in control of the secret is not a security system but DRM almost by definition. And trading it out is not only an option, but likely the preferred outcome if you ask the majority of buyers.
  - oneplane 3y ago
    It seems you have no clue what you are talking about. A PKI where the CA private key is not secret is not really a PKI now is it? As for asking buyers: I doubt 0.001% of buyers in any market segments has a clue about PKI or public key cryptography at all. This is E2EE "lets have a government back-door" all over again: IT DOES NOT WORK. The Clipper chip was not that log ago, now was it?
AshamedCaptain 3y ago
> Unlike cars, which can be repaired with generic parts by auto shops and do-it-yourself mechanics Give it a few years...
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Automotive DRM has typically been cracked or bypassed by the time the car is a few years old. Dealers have the equipment in their shops and it eventually leaks. Mechanics are not hard to bribe. There are also crackers in Russia and China who work on this for their own profit.
  - bzzzt 3y ago
    They also said that about video games. Now some single player games have an 'always online' requirement and can not be cracked anymore since they rely on content not stored locally. I can see that happening with cars.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  Wait til Apple starts producing cars --- which they are supposedly working on. The Apple car will cost way more than the competition and only they will be allowed to repair it --- and their fans will love it --- because Apple.
nikanj 3y ago
I paid hundreds of thousands for a home and the city still controls many aspects of it
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  They control aspects that can adversely affect others in the community --- with disclosure and mutual consent. Restricting repairs to your iPhone only affects you and Apple's profits --- and there was no disclosure or consent --- i.e. buyer's weren't told in advance.
nstart 3y ago
I wish someone could ask Apple about the middle ground. You want to protect consumers? Fine. Alert customers to the use of non official parts but don’t brick any functionality then. I want Apple to tell me when that shop that promises original parts is actually giving me an original which I can track. I don’t want them stopping me from using it unless it’s genuinely incompatible at a firmware level.
- ghostpepper 3y ago
  I think what would happen is people would get their phone repaired by the sketchy corner store guy, ignore the warning (which would presumably only pop up after they'd gotten the non-approved part installed) and then some time later when their photos/emails/bank balance was accessed they'd go back to Apple to demand an explanation.
  - dzikimarian 3y ago
    And Apple should tell them, that they have sketchy part. Just like Nokia did when I brought them second-hand Symbian phone to fix 15 years ago. I paid for the repair & learned to be more careful. Nobody died.
- paulmd 3y ago
  The ability to trivially override serialization would completely rule out the possibility of any sort of anti-theft provision. Phones would be stolen and stripped and sold as parts. Lest anyone forget, these features were legally mandated over the objections of hardware vendors, and they do have a pretty strong effect on theft rates, theft rates dropped by as much as 38% almost immediately after passing. https://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/events/Lookout-phone-theft-in-america.pdf https://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/events/Lookout-phone-theft-in... https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/antitheft-technology-led-to-a-dip-in-iphone-thefts-in-some-cities-police-say/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/1...
Terretta 3y ago
Headline is wrong. Market paid $1K for the iPhone experience. Look at ads: specs versus "life goals" enablement. This is not a hardware product or parts bin price. If you pay $1,000 for a meal, you damn sure expect the restaurant to control the experience since the price isn't the cost of ingredients. And if you want to cook, that's great, but you're not getting to bring your own parsley, you hack together your own meal elsewhere. . . . Even if food became free, people would pay -- and pay well -- for the curated Michelin star experience. So how to learn to think more about the diner's experience than the kitchen experience or the "right" to monkey with some other chef's prix fixe menu, to better build that kind of user appreciation for one's own product? For sure, a Michelin star is hard to achieve.
- humphly 3y ago
  [flagged]
- goosedragons 3y ago
  The article is less about Apple's grotesque restrictions on what you can do with your hardware via software (e.g., no emulators, etc.) and instead about Apple's grotesque restrictions regarding the parts you can use to fix your phone. I don't think too many people want the restaurant to have a say on what side they make to go with their leftovers from the previous day.
  - daft_pink 3y ago
    But the reality is that no ones going to spend $100 to fix a 10 year old phone, when you can't get the security updates for it. Security updates cost money and programmers and the reality is that Apple is the best at security updates, but no one is really concerned about how to repair an iPhone in 10 years, because an iPhone is only realistically usable until the security updates run out.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  I go to high end restaurants, the Michelin being the only north star I rely on in the day and age of fake reviews and terrible average consumer taste. Sure, I want the restaurant to control the initial offer, and at this price I expect it to be amazing. But I guarantee that at this price range, they will let me do what I want with my food. I can bring my own bottle of ketchup and put it on it. They will look disgusted, but I can. In fact, as a vegetarian, it's not rare I ask them to adapt their ENTIRE menu just for little me. And they do it. So the comparison does not hold. But I get your point, a lot of people do want Apple to tell them how they should use their device. That's something that is hard to swallow when you like FOSS, but it's a reality.
tinus_hn 3y ago
If only there were phones made by other manufacturers where the experience, which you know in advance, is different from the iPhone experience which you also know in advance! Then this wouldn’t be a monopoly!
- diffeomorphism 3y ago
  As if having just two options were meaningful. Also, the phrase "dominant market position" or "oligopoly" is a mouthful so people just (incorrectly) say "monopoly" for short. Though since even "literally" nowadays often means "figuratively" instead, you might as well say this is what the word means now.
  - tinus_hn 3y ago
    iPhone has a global market share of about 20%, and only a small majority market share in ‘premium smartphones’ in the US. Nobody is forcing you to use an iPhone, billions do fine with the alternatives. Apple does not have a dominant market position, an oligopoly or a monopoly and certainly is not illegally abusing any monopoly power.
daft_pink 3y ago
The reason I think users don't mind Apple's control of their devices is that the reality is that users don't control devices, programmers do. Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point. Apple has better updates over time, which is reflected in it's higher resale values. So on my iPhone, I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part, because if you look at Android and the lower quality of many of their apps and the way large tech companies run over the users by installing spyware on their devices, but Apple to some extent is protecting us from Facebook and Google and keeping us more in control of our devices, by limiting which applications can be run on them.
- thfuran 3y ago
  >Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice. [lifts hand up] Uh-uh, me, pick me: because most consumers have been trained and conditioned by corporations that they only pay for the HW, the thing that they can feel and resell, and that the SW running on it should come for free and always be free despite SW updates being a continuous effort that costs money. Most consumers can't put a value on SW ownership, unless that SW is a video-game on a disc in their hand. Thanks to Google, Youtube, etc, we've grown to expect that everything digital of value should be free even though it's not. So ads it is.
    - brandensilva 3y ago
      Yup the software side has been built into the pricing of the hardware. They weren't the first to do this either since this business model has been around for quite awhile since we got away from buying software as a box. It's also more convenient for the consumer to have a one and done payment. The only thing I wish is if there was a monthly maintenance package when my devices get older so I can keep getting updates that keep my device running fast, secure, and can maintain some form compatibility with most apps.
jbverschoor 3y ago
You paid 4M for your home of land, but are still subject to regulations of the country. It’s your home, but you’re not even allowed to run a nuclear reactor in your garden.
- 160Marks 3y ago
  But that depends on where you buy the house. It doesn't matter what service you use an iPhone on, Apple still tells you what you can and can't do. It's not the house builder telling you what you can and can't do; these things are not the same.
  - jbverschoor 3y ago
    > It's not the house builder telling you what you can and can't do; these things are not the same. The house builder is the app developer The gov/municipality is Apple The gov/municipality tells you what you can and can't do. The builder would do it, if you take all the risks and acknowledge that your new building in your garden is not allowed by the gov/municipality. There really is no difference
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  Really? You are seriously going to compare repairing your iPhone with a threat to people's lives in your neighborhood and beyond? Your analogy is a bust --- the only thing threatened by repairing your iPhone is Apple's profits. How did you ever get to this point? Did Apple infect you with some sort of mind virus?
- cantSpellSober 3y ago
  Same comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38240503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38240503 An incredibly poor analogy for the subject of the article, at least that comment didn't take it to the level of "nuclear reactor"
cantSpellSober 3y ago
This article is about "parts pairing" > Parts don't work as expected when swapped with the same working part from an identical, new iPhone > The rate at which parts can cause breakdowns has been rising about 20 percent a year since 2016, when only one repair caused a problem (seems like most commenters just read the headline)
merlinoa 3y ago
You paid 1M for a house and the government still owns it
lost_tourist 3y ago
Meh, I use my iphone as a tool. Not saying I wouldn't like more right to repair/reuse/recycle laws but I'm not panicking yet. And it's not just iphones, my $50k car is not really mine either.
InfamousRece 3y ago
Most of the participants in this “Hacker” News thread are definitely not hackers ;)
- savanaly 3y ago
  And?
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
"The breakdowns are an outgrowth of Apple's practice of writing software that gives it control over iPhones even after someone has bought one." Perhaps we can write software that gives us control over our currency after it has been paid to Apple. We can innovate and give Apple options and choices.
dmitrygr 3y ago
Yes. I am an adult. I paid for this exact experience and I don’t need an unrelated third party to get involved and “save” me from getting precisely what I sought and paid for!
Davehartt07 3y ago
[dead]
more_corn 3y ago
And you get to pay for iCloud storage every month forever or iMessage won’t work right. I’m so sick of their shit. If there were any option but Google I’d be all over it.

Gift Article link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/technology/iphone-repair-apple-control.html?unlocked_article_code=1.90w.OKb8.GT6UMCwjSxmn&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/technology/iphone-repair-...

roflc0ptic 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20231112101006/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/technology/iphone-repair-apple-control.html https://web.archive.org/web/20231112101006/https://www.nytim...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

dotnet00 3y ago
This is such an absurd excuse. The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. This is just a copout pushed by Apple to justify obviously bad practices, and due to their reality distortion field, you guys eat it up.
- thih9 3y ago
  > The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. Do you have a source? And which exactly competing android devices do you mean? Does the comparison factor in the popularity of the device?
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    There isn't a specific survey I can find pointing either way, which similarly makes the argument that theft is significant enough to justify restrictive and wasteful locks also moot. By competing devices of course I am referring to other flagships which are of a similar price and feature set, like flagship Samsung phones etc.
- ubermonkey 3y ago
  >The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. You're so close to getting it.
- cameronh90 3y ago
  That’s just because the thieves don’t consider the android devices worth stealing. London sadly has an ongoing problem with phone snatchers and pickpockets, so on two occasions I’ve seen them nick an Android. In the first case, they just chucked it on the floor a few metres further down the road. On the second, the guy loudly shouted “what the fuck is this shit?” as he cycled down the road and threw it into a canal.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    I’m not quite sure what they expect if they snatch an Apple device? It’d just turn into a brick in a few minutes/hours?
    - cameronh90 3y ago
      So one of two things usually happen, either: (1) It gets shipped straight to Eastern Europe or China and broken down for parts which are resold back to unauthorised repair shops in the West as official Apple parts. Or more commonly (2) they will try to socially engineer the owner into giving up their Apple credentials so that they can sign out the iPhone and wipe it. If that fails, go to (1). When my brother’s partner had her iPhone nicked, they extracted her phone number off the SIM then started sending her messages linking to a phishing iCloud sign in page, saying something like “Your stolen device has been located, sign in here to recover it.”.
- chongli 3y ago
  The proper comparison is not with Android phones, it’s with iPhones before Apple introduced this feature. The news reported a global drop in iPhone thefts at the time [1]. [1] https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/antitheft-technology-led-to-a-dip-in-iphone-thefts-in-some-cities-police-say/ https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/1...
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    I disagree that the point of comparison should be iPhones from before this functionality, the point is that the negative effects of locking all parts are not worth the amount of theft, not that they don't reduce theft. After all, you could massively reduce burglaries too by allowing home security systems to have automated lethal turrets to shoot burglars, but that's considered way too far in terms of social cost by pretty much every place.
    - chongli 3y ago
      The point of my reply was to illustrate the true effect on iPhone theft from this change. Do you have a more accurate way to measure that? Whether you think the tradeoff is worth it or not is beside the point. I made no claim for or against the tradeoff, so you have nothing to disagree with there.
chii 3y ago
Why doesn't apple allow the owner to choose to decouple the pairing? It's telling why they dont.
- jaas 3y ago
  Because thieves know that all iPhones are locked like this and thus don’t steal them. If they knew that some significant percentage were not locked they would be worth stealing again, and if it’s locked they just throw it in a dumpster. The fact that your phone is locked protects everyone else as well.
  - j-bos 3y ago
    Somehow I doubt even a percent of owners would choose to unpair. And if they do for repair purposes, there's no reason they couldn't re pair/register. What am I missing?
    - M4v3R 3y ago
      Nothing, the argument for pairing the parts is so weak that I’m genuinely surprised to see it here on HN so often.
  - ghostpepper 3y ago
    There have been reports of thieves threatening victims with weapons and demanding they disable icloud. Not saying that negates the benefit necessarily but it's a relevant data point.
  - cantSpellSober 3y ago
    > thieves know that all iPhones are locked like this and thus don’t steal them Do you even believe this? I haven't seen any examples of thieves saying "stick em up! Oh, iPhone? Have a nice day" Easy counterexample: > an entire wall of iPhones (approximately 436) were gone https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-store-robbed-half-million-washington-mall/11622949002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-...
realusername 3y ago
It limits the utility of all iphones, stolen or not. It's not like you have a switch to deactivate it for yourself. And for the consumer choice, I don't see Apple making any advertising about how anti repair they are, strange. I doubt most phone owners know about the pairing issues.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  [flagged]
jqpabc123 3y ago
This control severely limits the utility of non-stolen iPhones which is not a good thing for an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is *not* one of the reasons people chose an iPhone because most buyers were oblivious to it since Apple never told them.
ozyschmozy 3y ago
How often does phone theft actually happen? I keep hearing this argument but in my ~15 years of owning non-apple phones and laptops, I've never had one stolen, or heard of anyone getting theirs stolen. Have I just been very lucky?
- vasdae 3y ago
  The answer depends on the country or even the city you live in or visit. In some places walking around with a $1000 phone is extremely dangerous to your life.
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    That seems surprising to me, when surely there's no easy way to steal a phone (iPhone or Android) and not have it completely locked and unusable. I would imagine that cars are eminently more desirable a target to steal as they're often left unattended for hours/days at the side of the road and they're typically worth far more than $1k. It's also relatively easy to attack a car waiting at traffic lights, over-power the driver and have access to the car and the keys, if the actual vehicle is required rather than just selling the parts.
    - vasdae 3y ago
      Pickpocketing is quick and easy, sometimes not even a crime, and even though phones are locked, you can sell the Android phone for pieces. That's not the case for the iphone.
      - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
        > Pickpocketing is quick and easy, sometimes not even a crime I find that difficult to believe.
        Lalabadie 3y ago
        In many places, it's a crime according to the law, but if nothing happens with thieves or reported theft, then in terms of consequences it's not a crime.
lakpan 3y ago
In theory that sounds great, in practice you can find Facebook groups for ~stolen~ ahem lost iPhones for sale. The value of a bricked phone is never zero, so theft prevention isn’t as good as Apple claims.
ponorin 3y ago
if this was their only intention they would let third party repair shops access to genuine parts or software tools. the reality is that third party "apple certified" repair shops are contractually less capable than uncertified ones, so much so that calling their service repair feels too generous. apple do this to sell you phones instead of phone parts. if any of what you're saying was true it's simply a happy accident.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  > happy accident That’s a perfect term for this. I would absolutely believe that Apple approached this from that exact anti-theft perspective but it sure is easy to see how such a feature might benefit their bottom line. It’s a matter of looking around and wondering where the inexpensive parts are.
- paulmd 3y ago
  Giving third party shops official parts would still preclude the ability to enforce anti-theft unless you also gave them the software to pair it, and then you’ve once again precluded any ability to enforce anti-theft. Apple needs to know what hardware is going into a particular phone to implement the killswitches, which means it can’t be handled as bulk inventory. They will sell you hardware that has been paired to a specific phone, but they’re not going to not have pairing (which is legally mandated for anti theft, over the objections of hardware vendors at the time) and they’re not going to hand out the ability to bypass the anti theft by signing your own keys. Could they come up with some license-based model where the cpu wants to see apple attestation that the part is not stolen etc, perhaps, but, it’s not a trivial problem either. > apple do this to sell you phones instead of phone parts. if any of what you're saying was true it's simply a happy accident. Apple literally will sell you the parts though. How does that fit into your supposed “plot to force you to buy whole phones instead of parts”? People are silly. About apple and nvidia and a couple of other companies in particular - there is a real thing with negative parasocial attachment to these brands, people love to hate them. http://paulgraham.com/fh.html http://paulgraham.com/fh.html
luuurker 3y ago
No one ever stole my phone, but I had everything from broken displays to dead batteries, so at least in my case this is not good for me as a owner.
- mwint 3y ago
  Textbook confounded reasoning: it’s possible no one stole your phone _because_ they’ve been made such undesirable targets for theft.
  - luuurker 3y ago
    These "locks" might reduce theft, but not only they still happen, but you can also make money with a stolen phone. You can sell it for parts. An iPhone will annoy you about the replaced display, but the phone still works. You can transfer the old battery's controller to the new one so the phone doesn't know about the change. You can sell the shell of the phone, speakers, cameras, etc. Maybe now I benefit from these Apple restrictions and annoyances, but I've been using expensive phones since before Apple started doing this and yet my phone was never stolen. I've cracked a few displays and killed a few batteries though. What seems to help me is having some awareness of my surroundings. I live in a big city and every day I see people standing by the road waiting for a bus. Phones out, noise cancelling headphones, bikes passing right in from of them... I mean, it's not that hard for a snatcher to take their phone.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Theft is a boogeyman that allows Apple absolute control over their devices. Why is theft Apple's problem rather than law enforcement? Should cars require a password too? Why don't we make all consumer goods require a password so that theft can be a thing of the past!
- mwint 3y ago
  Law enforcement (and prosecutors) are increasingly unconcerned with theft of “small” amounts, and theft by groups of people they’ve decided to stop prosecuting. I’m happy that Apple isn’t just saying “meh, not our problem”, and it’s one reason I buy their stuff.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

emmet 3y ago

Anecdotal, but back in those "good old days" when you could get a screen replaced in 5 mins like this article said, on the three occasions I did this I ended up with the worst cheap Chinese knock off screens I have ever seen, the last time I ended up spending even more to get a genuine one. Hard to avoid this with small businesses when they need to make the enough of a margin at those cheaper retail prices. I'm sure this is fine for a lot of people, but I'm much happier to pay for AppleCare+ and get components that keep the experience that I've paid a grand for.

vasdae 3y ago
Of course they don't use the same quality screens, because then the replacement would cost as much as it does in an apple store.
- emmet 3y ago
  Sorry yeah that was my point. I personally don't find value in the cost saving.
ponorin 3y ago
in your case you got screwed up bc you got a bad part, but you're saying your solution to that is to screw everyone by disallowing even genuine parts for repair not blessed by apple?
- emmet 3y ago
  Didn't say that! Just that my past experience with 3rd party repair has been poor
  - sigmar 3y ago
    Wasn't this partly by Apple's own making? Apple shreds devices to prevent people from salvaging parts for repairs[1], even phones that were usable[2]. and hasn't sold genuine components until very recently. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphon... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-g...

ubermonkey 3y ago

Yes. And that's part of what I paid for.

jqpabc123 3y ago
Show us where Apple advertises this and I might believe you.
- mplewis 3y ago
  https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-built-in-privacy-and-security-protections-iph6e7d349d1/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-built-in-privacy-...
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    Absolutely nothing there about how hardware repairs are restricted or about how this benefits the consumer.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    Is that an advertisement or a support page?
- quadrifoliate 3y ago
  There is a form of explicit and implicit advertising. Apple advertised implicitly by consistently fulfilling the promise that if anything bad happens to your iPhone, in most cases an Apple Store can fix it. Control is a part of this implicit model. This is not a model I myself like (I prefer the more freewheeling Android ecosystem); but I can appreciate why people respond well to it. To your average person who doesn't give a shit about unlocked bootloaders and just wants a way to regularly be in touch with their family and friends, the Apple model probably works better.
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    Control is a part of this implicit model. And control is money. Apple obviously makes more money by controlling and limiting the consumer's ability to repair the device.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

This seems to be quite popular with certain manufacturers. Certainly printers (HP) often include anti-consumer technology.

clircle 3y ago

Hmm, not sure if the data in the article is correct. I replaced the battery in my SE 2020, there is no persistent warning, but i can no longer check battery health

Loggias 3y ago
Yeah, I’ve been replacing parts on and repairing iPhones for 15 years now; more of a hobby and fixing stuff for friends. The battery is simple to replace even on the newest phones. Sure there’s a warning about non apple part that will show up but eventually subside. And that is only if you don’t swap the BMS module from the original to the new one. Any reputable shop should know to do this and have the skills required to desolder and resolder 2 connections…

billylo 3y ago

I recently encountered a similar situation for my Macbook Pro. Touch ID sensor is paired specifically to your logic board. You must replace both if either one has a defect. Source: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Early+2020+Touch+ID+Sensor+Replacement/142681 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Early+2020+...

nikanj 3y ago
I think this is an unavoidable side effect of Touch ID fully happening inside the module. The logic board has to have full trust of the module, because the module will simply inform the OS that fingerprint X was seen - the OS/logic board have no way to confirm the information
- billylo 3y ago
  It’s their design choice. Most Windows laptop or Android phone do not have this hardwired coupling approach.
  - ponorin 3y ago
    google pixel does, but they did the unimaginable and released the tool where users can actually recalibrate the sensor.
    - natch 3y ago
      Google is not a good comparison, because Google engineering is inferior.
      - ponorin 3y ago
        They suck at privacy, and they are indeed relatively new to hardware game, but I'd say they are better at security than you think, on par or even better than Apple. Like Apple SoC, it has a dedicated security chip. The new Pixel 8 even implements Memory Tagging Extension, which iPhone doesn't yet have. And they do all this while allowing you to install third party rom. It's how projects like GrapheneOS can exist.

nottorp 3y ago

Common misconception that hardware matters and thus we are not in a duopoly situation with Google and Apple being the only options for software. Doesn't mean Apple aren't -holes with repairs, but in my opinion the above software problem is worse.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
It massively limits human creativity and productivity all for protectionism under the guise of safety
- JakeAl 3y ago
  They don't care about safety they care about lock in to their ecosystem. I'm not into ANY of these ecosystems. I don't want MSFT installing Edge ever, or OneDrive, or having Phone sync software on my PC that links my contacts to Office/Outlook Online, or have Bing web search forced into my search bar or Google for that matter, ALL to track you and push ads on you from the people they get their money from. And don't even get me started on cars tracking everything you do. In many cases you don't have a choice. I want a smartphone that doesn't lock me into all these ecosystems. I want a car that lets me turn off all tracking, bluetooth sensors to monitor my tire pressure, etc. The reality is people are stupid. They couldn't manage using a computer safely so the industry gave them a phone and sold them on safety. The fact that something like 80% of people are getting their news on a phone and not a computer should tell people they are trapped in a bubble that controls what they see, know and think. What good is having a choice if you don't know you have a choice? They simply want consumers.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thesuperbigfrog 3y ago

Do you want to control your device or are you okay with someone else controlling it? https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57 https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57

paulcole 3y ago
My iPhone works really well and I generally trust Apple. So I’m 100% fine with someone else controlling it.
- JadeNB 3y ago
  > I generally trust Apple. Why? I can't imagine any kind of real trust relationship except with individual developers or small shops who can be responsive to individual customers. I certainly trust Apple more than Microsoft, but I can't imagine any situation in which I'd say I trusted them (or any other megacorp) in an unqualified sense.
  - askafriend 3y ago
    I have a 20+ year relationship with them as a company that informs my trust with their products and services.
  - willis936 3y ago
    Companies earn trust by being honest and consistent for long enough. I trusted Apple until recently. They lied to me several times over the phone over several weeks (always in a very courteous and professional way). Such a small thing for them to throw away trust for. I had been slowly moving into their ecosystem and I'm now pulling out. Pixel 6 google edition can be found for ~$200 and can be loaded up with de-googled Android ROMs (Calyx, Graphene, others).
    - ghostpepper 3y ago
      What did they lie about?

ponorin 3y ago

let's also remind ourselves of how apple's "official" repair process works: https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-repair-workers-sweatshop-csat-solutions-2021-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-repair-workers-sweatsh...

pierat 3y ago

That's exactly what I've been saying. This "cloud controlled shit" is a rental with no terms and unlimited claw-back. These aren't sales. If I had a computer, installed remote controlling malware on it, sold it, and then started exerting remote control over it, I'd be arrested and likely sentenced to fraud or hacking. This is fraud for Apple etm to call this a "sale", and should be prosecuted as such.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Why hasn't someone done this? Say it's for their protection via security/virus scanning and hide it in the EULA.

oneplane 3y ago

At yet here we are with nobody having a better plan. The issue is still the same as it has been for the past 20 years: making a (PKI-based) security feature means you can never share the secret parts or make it optional, otherwise it is immediately defeated. You can't have selective security where it works sometimes but not all the times. And trading out that security system is not an option. PKI specifically is an all-or-nothing scenario. This is all why Intel does the same with the ACM in all their CPUs. And AMD with their AGESA (which went closed a short while ago). There is only a single scenario I can think of where there might be a 'have it both ways' situation, but it's just worse than we have now: you have to identify yourself as the owner, the company has to keep track of that, and you can only sign public keys for your own components. This, however, creates two problems: 1. A company keeping track of every user (no need to come up with a clever comment about "they are already nothing that") 2. Users can be coerced (has already been done with thefts and activation locks) and this weakens the ecosystem as a whole At this point it doesn't even matter how intentional or not digitally signing components is, it is an effective security model and it works better than anything else. Everyone loves complaining about everything they don't like, especially on the internet, but so far the amount of realistic and effective solutions are NONE.

AshamedCaptain 3y ago
> At yet here we are with nobody having a better plan. The issue is still the same as it has been for the past 20 years: making a (PKI-based) security feature means you can never share the secret parts or make it optional, otherwise it is immediately defeated. You can't have selective security where it works sometimes but not all the times. And trading out that security system is not an option. This is BS. A security system where the user is not in control of the secret is not a security system but DRM almost by definition. And trading it out is not only an option, but likely the preferred outcome if you ask the majority of buyers.
- oneplane 3y ago
  It seems you have no clue what you are talking about. A PKI where the CA private key is not secret is not really a PKI now is it? As for asking buyers: I doubt 0.001% of buyers in any market segments has a clue about PKI or public key cryptography at all. This is E2EE "lets have a government back-door" all over again: IT DOES NOT WORK. The Clipper chip was not that log ago, now was it?

AshamedCaptain 3y ago

> Unlike cars, which can be repaired with generic parts by auto shops and do-it-yourself mechanics Give it a few years...

SoftTalker 3y ago
Automotive DRM has typically been cracked or bypassed by the time the car is a few years old. Dealers have the equipment in their shops and it eventually leaks. Mechanics are not hard to bribe. There are also crackers in Russia and China who work on this for their own profit.
- bzzzt 3y ago
  They also said that about video games. Now some single player games have an 'always online' requirement and can not be cracked anymore since they rely on content not stored locally. I can see that happening with cars.
jqpabc123 3y ago
Wait til Apple starts producing cars --- which they are supposedly working on. The Apple car will cost way more than the competition and only they will be allowed to repair it --- and their fans will love it --- because Apple.

nikanj 3y ago

I paid hundreds of thousands for a home and the city still controls many aspects of it

jqpabc123 3y ago
They control aspects that can adversely affect others in the community --- with disclosure and mutual consent. Restricting repairs to your iPhone only affects you and Apple's profits --- and there was no disclosure or consent --- i.e. buyer's weren't told in advance.

nstart 3y ago

I wish someone could ask Apple about the middle ground. You want to protect consumers? Fine. Alert customers to the use of non official parts but don’t brick any functionality then. I want Apple to tell me when that shop that promises original parts is actually giving me an original which I can track. I don’t want them stopping me from using it unless it’s genuinely incompatible at a firmware level.

ghostpepper 3y ago
I think what would happen is people would get their phone repaired by the sketchy corner store guy, ignore the warning (which would presumably only pop up after they'd gotten the non-approved part installed) and then some time later when their photos/emails/bank balance was accessed they'd go back to Apple to demand an explanation.
- dzikimarian 3y ago
  And Apple should tell them, that they have sketchy part. Just like Nokia did when I brought them second-hand Symbian phone to fix 15 years ago. I paid for the repair & learned to be more careful. Nobody died.
paulmd 3y ago
The ability to trivially override serialization would completely rule out the possibility of any sort of anti-theft provision. Phones would be stolen and stripped and sold as parts. Lest anyone forget, these features were legally mandated over the objections of hardware vendors, and they do have a pretty strong effect on theft rates, theft rates dropped by as much as 38% almost immediately after passing. https://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/events/Lookout-phone-theft-in-america.pdf https://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/events/Lookout-phone-theft-in... https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/antitheft-technology-led-to-a-dip-in-iphone-thefts-in-some-cities-police-say/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/1...

Terretta 3y ago

Headline is wrong. Market paid $1K for the iPhone experience. Look at ads: specs versus "life goals" enablement. This is not a hardware product or parts bin price. If you pay $1,000 for a meal, you damn sure expect the restaurant to control the experience since the price isn't the cost of ingredients. And if you want to cook, that's great, but you're not getting to bring your own parsley, you hack together your own meal elsewhere. . . . Even if food became free, people would pay -- and pay well -- for the curated Michelin star experience. So how to learn to think more about the diner's experience than the kitchen experience or the "right" to monkey with some other chef's prix fixe menu, to better build that kind of user appreciation for one's own product? For sure, a Michelin star is hard to achieve.

humphly 3y ago
[flagged]
goosedragons 3y ago
The article is less about Apple's grotesque restrictions on what you can do with your hardware via software (e.g., no emulators, etc.) and instead about Apple's grotesque restrictions regarding the parts you can use to fix your phone. I don't think too many people want the restaurant to have a say on what side they make to go with their leftovers from the previous day.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  But the reality is that no ones going to spend $100 to fix a 10 year old phone, when you can't get the security updates for it. Security updates cost money and programmers and the reality is that Apple is the best at security updates, but no one is really concerned about how to repair an iPhone in 10 years, because an iPhone is only realistically usable until the security updates run out.
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
I go to high end restaurants, the Michelin being the only north star I rely on in the day and age of fake reviews and terrible average consumer taste. Sure, I want the restaurant to control the initial offer, and at this price I expect it to be amazing. But I guarantee that at this price range, they will let me do what I want with my food. I can bring my own bottle of ketchup and put it on it. They will look disgusted, but I can. In fact, as a vegetarian, it's not rare I ask them to adapt their ENTIRE menu just for little me. And they do it. So the comparison does not hold. But I get your point, a lot of people do want Apple to tell them how they should use their device. That's something that is hard to swallow when you like FOSS, but it's a reality.

tinus_hn 3y ago

If only there were phones made by other manufacturers where the experience, which you know in advance, is different from the iPhone experience which you also know in advance! Then this wouldn’t be a monopoly!

diffeomorphism 3y ago
As if having just two options were meaningful. Also, the phrase "dominant market position" or "oligopoly" is a mouthful so people just (incorrectly) say "monopoly" for short. Though since even "literally" nowadays often means "figuratively" instead, you might as well say this is what the word means now.
- tinus_hn 3y ago
  iPhone has a global market share of about 20%, and only a small majority market share in ‘premium smartphones’ in the US. Nobody is forcing you to use an iPhone, billions do fine with the alternatives. Apple does not have a dominant market position, an oligopoly or a monopoly and certainly is not illegally abusing any monopoly power.

daft_pink 3y ago

The reason I think users don't mind Apple's control of their devices is that the reality is that users don't control devices, programmers do. Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point. Apple has better updates over time, which is reflected in it's higher resale values. So on my iPhone, I feel that Apple protects us from bad programmers for the most part, because if you look at Android and the lower quality of many of their apps and the way large tech companies run over the users by installing spyware on their devices, but Apple to some extent is protecting us from Facebook and Google and keeping us more in control of our devices, by limiting which applications can be run on them.

thfuran 3y ago
>Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Why can't someone exchange money for a service they find valuable? As I understand it, that has long been a common practice. [lifts hand up] Uh-uh, me, pick me: because most consumers have been trained and conditioned by corporations that they only pay for the HW, the thing that they can feel and resell, and that the SW running on it should come for free and always be free despite SW updates being a continuous effort that costs money. Most consumers can't put a value on SW ownership, unless that SW is a video-game on a disc in their hand. Thanks to Google, Youtube, etc, we've grown to expect that everything digital of value should be free even though it's not. So ads it is.
  - brandensilva 3y ago
    Yup the software side has been built into the pricing of the hardware. They weren't the first to do this either since this business model has been around for quite awhile since we got away from buying software as a box. It's also more convenient for the consumer to have a one and done payment. The only thing I wish is if there was a monthly maintenance package when my devices get older so I can keep getting updates that keep my device running fast, secure, and can maintain some form compatibility with most apps.

jbverschoor 3y ago

You paid 4M for your home of land, but are still subject to regulations of the country. It’s your home, but you’re not even allowed to run a nuclear reactor in your garden.

160Marks 3y ago
But that depends on where you buy the house. It doesn't matter what service you use an iPhone on, Apple still tells you what you can and can't do. It's not the house builder telling you what you can and can't do; these things are not the same.
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  > It's not the house builder telling you what you can and can't do; these things are not the same. The house builder is the app developer The gov/municipality is Apple The gov/municipality tells you what you can and can't do. The builder would do it, if you take all the risks and acknowledge that your new building in your garden is not allowed by the gov/municipality. There really is no difference
jqpabc123 3y ago
Really? You are seriously going to compare repairing your iPhone with a threat to people's lives in your neighborhood and beyond? Your analogy is a bust --- the only thing threatened by repairing your iPhone is Apple's profits. How did you ever get to this point? Did Apple infect you with some sort of mind virus?
cantSpellSober 3y ago
Same comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38240503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38240503 An incredibly poor analogy for the subject of the article, at least that comment didn't take it to the level of "nuclear reactor"

cantSpellSober 3y ago

This article is about "parts pairing" > Parts don't work as expected when swapped with the same working part from an identical, new iPhone > The rate at which parts can cause breakdowns has been rising about 20 percent a year since 2016, when only one repair caused a problem (seems like most commenters just read the headline)

merlinoa 3y ago

You paid 1M for a house and the government still owns it

lost_tourist 3y ago

Meh, I use my iphone as a tool. Not saying I wouldn't like more right to repair/reuse/recycle laws but I'm not panicking yet. And it's not just iphones, my $50k car is not really mine either.

InfamousRece 3y ago

Most of the participants in this “Hacker” News thread are definitely not hackers ;)

savanaly 3y ago
And?

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

"The breakdowns are an outgrowth of Apple's practice of writing software that gives it control over iPhones even after someone has bought one." Perhaps we can write software that gives us control over our currency after it has been paid to Apple. We can innovate and give Apple options and choices.

dmitrygr 3y ago

Yes. I am an adult. I paid for this exact experience and I don’t need an unrelated third party to get involved and “save” me from getting precisely what I sought and paid for!

Davehartt07 3y ago

[dead]

more_corn 3y ago

And you get to pay for iCloud storage every month forever or iMessage won’t work right. I’m so sick of their shit. If there were any option but Google I’d be all over it.