6 ms·

This line of argument just _irks_ me. I don't care enough about thieves for this to even matter to me. And I think this is zero-sum for the consumer. Maybe more

This line of argument just _irks_ me. I don't care enough about thieves for this to even matter to me. And I think this is zero-sum for the consumer. Maybe more devices get stolen (probably not, if I'm a thief I'm still snatching it and throwing it in a river or something). What this really does is suffocate the secondary parts market, so it costs more to repair the things or they just require a replacement. Many, many users of these devices have rarely, if ever, had anything stolen from them. And as one such person, I don't want to hear a company tell me I can't even have the _option_ of an open device because "it's for my own good". I can damned well decide that on my own.

heinternets 3y ago
You can decide this by not owning an Apple device
- twodave 3y ago
  Obviously.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I mean, this is the obvious end state for a lot of us. I've been an Apple fanboy and Mac owner for over 10 years, and Apple is slowly but surely losing me as a customer due to all these ideas that nerf their computers "for my own sake". I don't need protection from my computer and applications, and my computer does not need protection from me. The user should be the final authority on what gets run on the computer, and Apple has been steadily drifting from this principle. My next computer will sadly probably not be a Mac. Who knows what I won't be allowed to do with it by the time it comes to refresh mine.
  - phs318u 3y ago
    That's the decision I came to a couple of years ago after 18 years as an Apple hardware user. Having said that, I still use an iPhone because the use and risk profiles are so different. The phone is literally the "keys to my kingdom".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jkestner 3y ago
  This line gets repeated a lot. Sometimes people need both A and B, but they have to choose A xor B. There's so little competition in this space that voting with your wallet barely moves the needle. Giving a company public feedback doesn't hurt.
- orangesite 3y ago
  This is not a great argument given that Apple is in the business of selling Apple devices. My original incentive for spending the last 15 years and thousands of dollars in the Apple ecosystem is that their products would "just work" for my family. Nowadays I'm spending hours on the phone with our daughter who's in tears because Apple keeps locking her out of her iPad or laptop. I'm also not going to get into my mom having a lifetime's worth of photographs locked up in her iMac that we're literally only going to be able to get hold of if I take an overseas trip to England to do it myself. (btw, if anyone can recommend an Apple shop in the south of England who actually know what they're doing…) So guess where Dad is shopping these holidays? Yup, not Apple!
hnfong 3y ago
> Many, many users of these devices have rarely, if ever, had anything stolen from them. You don't want the thief to steal a locked device. You want the devices to have a reputation for not worthing as much on the black market if stolen. That creates a deterrent effect, and is arguably one of the reasons why the average person's phone is stolen less. As to whether this effect is worth suffocating the secondary parts market, it really depends on whether you're actually a potential participant in it. One can argue that the vast majority of iPhone/Mac users never thought of buying parts or using non-official channels for repairing the device.
- estebank 3y ago
  The laptop could come with a USB-C "master key" on the box, tied to that specific laptop. Keep that key at home, and all the anti-theft benefits continue to apply, while keeping the owner in control of their hardware.
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    I believe some ASUS laptops come with a built-in security key called the "keystone" that slots into the chassis. It's visually similar to those security devices built into treadmills that will stop the machine if it gets yanked out (by someone falling or etc). It could probably be used like a master key.
    - chrismorgan 3y ago
      The Kensington lock slot on the chassis is extremely common. My Surface Book didn’t have one, but every other laptop I’ve had has had one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Security_Slot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Security_Slot
      - LoganDark 3y ago
        It's a security key, as in a Hardware Security Module, it's not just a lock slot. Look up "asus keystone" and you can find images of it. https://www.mensxp.com/technology/games/55824-asus-rog-keystone.html https://www.mensxp.com/technology/games/55824-asus-rog-keyst... The first-party software supports using the key to unlock a hidden encrypted volume, as well as instantly locking the computer when the key is removed. I'm not 100% sure if it can be used to secure bootup.
networkchad 3y ago
Ok no one literally cares what you think. Apple is solving a problem and you’re just an annoying nerd.
droopyEyelids 3y ago
These anti-theft systems are one of the big reasons that so few users have their phones & laptops stolen from them. I don't know how old you were in the 2000's, but even in restricted access college libraries, laptops were stolen constantly. In the first few years after iPhones came around, phone theft started becoming super common, and was eventually a constant source of news. Back then the thieves weren't limited to professionals who had access to a fence who has contacts with shady factories overseas. Every single hard up person could benefit from grabbing a device, and doing a DFU reset or wiping the hard drive. The market and opportunity for thievery was soooo much bigger.
- saghm 3y ago
  I'm not sure I buy this logic. The timeline you give could be just as easily explained as people taking time to learn to account for carrying around something valuable in a form factor they're not used to (e.g. accidentally leaving it on a table and using the bathroom only to find it gone when they returned). It's also not like Apple devices make up the majority of the phone or laptop market, and at least for laptops I'm pretty sure there's no standard equivalent for whatever remote lockout thing happened to the macbook in the article. I think you'd need a lot more evidence to argue convincingly that this policy made a huge difference.
  - Shadowmist 3y ago
    My local shopping mall had visible from the food court these ATM looking machines that spit out cash if you put cell phones in, and I would watch kids standing there with bags of phones exchanging one phone after another.
  - jonatanheyman 3y ago
    In many western countries, e.g. the US, iPhones do make up the majority of the phone market.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > I'm pretty sure there's no standard equivalent Don’t most other phones have an equivalent feature? Samsung certainly does and they together with Apple control the overwhelming majority of the market almost everywhere > I think you'd need a lot more evidence to argue convincingly that this policy made a huge difference. I disagree. It’s perfectly obvious that it made a very big difference. The market price of stolen phones is now much, much lower that it used be which significantly alter the cost/benefit ratio from the perspective of would be thieves.
bomewish 3y ago
The solution is simply to give the consumer the choice. Some will want theft protection and some won’t. Problem solved!!
- xenadu02 3y ago
  That choice already exists! If you don't enable Find My on your device then anyone can DFU it to a blank slate without issue. You must opt-in to this feature.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> Maybe more devices get stolen (probably not I’m 95% sure you’re very wrong on this. Anecdotally it seems to me that phone theft is massively down from where it was 10-20 years ago. > This line of argument just _irks_ me That’s fine you just have different preferences and/or priorities than other people. Nothing unique about that. > What this really does is suffocate the secondary parts market, Certainly true. IMHO forcing Apple to sell parts for a reasonable prices would be a massively better solution > I can damned well decide that on my own. Isn’t it optional? On Macs anyway? (I’m not really sure)
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Yes, Find My is optional, which is why this whole chain of events could occur.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
f1shy 3y ago
In many countries people get killed for a Phone (or much less) Just that you know the world is not the sq foot where you live now.
microtherion 3y ago
But you DO have the option of setting up your Mac as an "open device", that is exactly what the article is about. And OP is complaining that Apple gave them that option in the first place…
- fomine3 3y ago
  There's no "keep it open" option, but is "open for now, but lockable" option. It's the worst option to have for who want open.
  - microtherion 3y ago
    Lockable once you lose physical control of the device, in which case you're not profiting from the "keep it open" option anyway.
Thorrez 3y ago
>What this really does is suffocate the secondary parts market, How? The person you replied to says > The value of stolen (activation-locked) iPhones and Macs is largely only on in overseas markets where they can strip the device down to usable parts If the only doable thing with a stolen Mac is to use it for parts, I think that would increase the availability of parts, not decrease it.
dwaite 3y ago
> And as one such person, I don't want to hear a company tell me I can't even have the _option_ of an open device because "it's for my own good". This particular feature, Activation Lock, is an optional feature you can turn on. The problem (in this case) is that someone else enabled the feature after wiping while they had physical access to the laptop
contrarian1234 3y ago
Anecdotally, in China this has had a massive impact on theft. iPhones used to be stolen regularly - most of the girls I know in China have had their phones stolen at least once. Now it is much rarer. They are still stolen, mailed to Xinjiang and disassembled, but the profit motive isn't really there. "What this really does is suffocate the secondary parts market" Quit the opposite, second hand parts from disassembled devices is probably even more prolific now (you're prolly getting an artificially lower price b/c of thefts) I think you should be more sympathetic to people that live in situations where this policy has made a huge difference- where the cost of the phone is a large chunk of their income. And where nabbing a phone could net you effectively a month's income. I'm happy for you that you live in a place that has so little theft this isn't a concern for you.

heinternets 3y ago

You can decide this by not owning an Apple device

twodave 3y ago
Obviously.
ryandrake 3y ago
I mean, this is the obvious end state for a lot of us. I've been an Apple fanboy and Mac owner for over 10 years, and Apple is slowly but surely losing me as a customer due to all these ideas that nerf their computers "for my own sake". I don't need protection from my computer and applications, and my computer does not need protection from me. The user should be the final authority on what gets run on the computer, and Apple has been steadily drifting from this principle. My next computer will sadly probably not be a Mac. Who knows what I won't be allowed to do with it by the time it comes to refresh mine.
- phs318u 3y ago
  That's the decision I came to a couple of years ago after 18 years as an Apple hardware user. Having said that, I still use an iPhone because the use and risk profiles are so different. The phone is literally the "keys to my kingdom".
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jkestner 3y ago
This line gets repeated a lot. Sometimes people need both A and B, but they have to choose A xor B. There's so little competition in this space that voting with your wallet barely moves the needle. Giving a company public feedback doesn't hurt.
orangesite 3y ago
This is not a great argument given that Apple is in the business of selling Apple devices. My original incentive for spending the last 15 years and thousands of dollars in the Apple ecosystem is that their products would "just work" for my family. Nowadays I'm spending hours on the phone with our daughter who's in tears because Apple keeps locking her out of her iPad or laptop. I'm also not going to get into my mom having a lifetime's worth of photographs locked up in her iMac that we're literally only going to be able to get hold of if I take an overseas trip to England to do it myself. (btw, if anyone can recommend an Apple shop in the south of England who actually know what they're doing…) So guess where Dad is shopping these holidays? Yup, not Apple!

hnfong 3y ago

> Many, many users of these devices have rarely, if ever, had anything stolen from them. You don't want the thief to steal a locked device. You want the devices to have a reputation for not worthing as much on the black market if stolen. That creates a deterrent effect, and is arguably one of the reasons why the average person's phone is stolen less. As to whether this effect is worth suffocating the secondary parts market, it really depends on whether you're actually a potential participant in it. One can argue that the vast majority of iPhone/Mac users never thought of buying parts or using non-official channels for repairing the device.

estebank 3y ago
The laptop could come with a USB-C "master key" on the box, tied to that specific laptop. Keep that key at home, and all the anti-theft benefits continue to apply, while keeping the owner in control of their hardware.
- LoganDark 3y ago
  I believe some ASUS laptops come with a built-in security key called the "keystone" that slots into the chassis. It's visually similar to those security devices built into treadmills that will stop the machine if it gets yanked out (by someone falling or etc). It could probably be used like a master key.
  - chrismorgan 3y ago
    The Kensington lock slot on the chassis is extremely common. My Surface Book didn’t have one, but every other laptop I’ve had has had one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Security_Slot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Security_Slot
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      It's a security key, as in a Hardware Security Module, it's not just a lock slot. Look up "asus keystone" and you can find images of it. https://www.mensxp.com/technology/games/55824-asus-rog-keystone.html https://www.mensxp.com/technology/games/55824-asus-rog-keyst... The first-party software supports using the key to unlock a hidden encrypted volume, as well as instantly locking the computer when the key is removed. I'm not 100% sure if it can be used to secure bootup.

networkchad 3y ago

Ok no one literally cares what you think. Apple is solving a problem and you’re just an annoying nerd.

droopyEyelids 3y ago

These anti-theft systems are one of the big reasons that so few users have their phones & laptops stolen from them. I don't know how old you were in the 2000's, but even in restricted access college libraries, laptops were stolen constantly. In the first few years after iPhones came around, phone theft started becoming super common, and was eventually a constant source of news. Back then the thieves weren't limited to professionals who had access to a fence who has contacts with shady factories overseas. Every single hard up person could benefit from grabbing a device, and doing a DFU reset or wiping the hard drive. The market and opportunity for thievery was soooo much bigger.

saghm 3y ago
I'm not sure I buy this logic. The timeline you give could be just as easily explained as people taking time to learn to account for carrying around something valuable in a form factor they're not used to (e.g. accidentally leaving it on a table and using the bathroom only to find it gone when they returned). It's also not like Apple devices make up the majority of the phone or laptop market, and at least for laptops I'm pretty sure there's no standard equivalent for whatever remote lockout thing happened to the macbook in the article. I think you'd need a lot more evidence to argue convincingly that this policy made a huge difference.
- Shadowmist 3y ago
  My local shopping mall had visible from the food court these ATM looking machines that spit out cash if you put cell phones in, and I would watch kids standing there with bags of phones exchanging one phone after another.
- jonatanheyman 3y ago
  In many western countries, e.g. the US, iPhones do make up the majority of the phone market.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > I'm pretty sure there's no standard equivalent Don’t most other phones have an equivalent feature? Samsung certainly does and they together with Apple control the overwhelming majority of the market almost everywhere > I think you'd need a lot more evidence to argue convincingly that this policy made a huge difference. I disagree. It’s perfectly obvious that it made a very big difference. The market price of stolen phones is now much, much lower that it used be which significantly alter the cost/benefit ratio from the perspective of would be thieves.

bomewish 3y ago

The solution is simply to give the consumer the choice. Some will want theft protection and some won’t. Problem solved!!

xenadu02 3y ago
That choice already exists! If you don't enable Find My on your device then anyone can DFU it to a blank slate without issue. You must opt-in to this feature.

ffgjgf1 3y ago

> Maybe more devices get stolen (probably not I’m 95% sure you’re very wrong on this. Anecdotally it seems to me that phone theft is massively down from where it was 10-20 years ago. > This line of argument just _irks_ me That’s fine you just have different preferences and/or priorities than other people. Nothing unique about that. > What this really does is suffocate the secondary parts market, Certainly true. IMHO forcing Apple to sell parts for a reasonable prices would be a massively better solution > I can damned well decide that on my own. Isn’t it optional? On Macs anyway? (I’m not really sure)

alistairSH 3y ago
Yes, Find My is optional, which is why this whole chain of events could occur.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

f1shy 3y ago

In many countries people get killed for a Phone (or much less) Just that you know the world is not the sq foot where you live now.

microtherion 3y ago

But you DO have the option of setting up your Mac as an "open device", that is exactly what the article is about. And OP is complaining that Apple gave them that option in the first place…

fomine3 3y ago
There's no "keep it open" option, but is "open for now, but lockable" option. It's the worst option to have for who want open.
- microtherion 3y ago
  Lockable once you lose physical control of the device, in which case you're not profiting from the "keep it open" option anyway.

Thorrez 3y ago

>What this really does is suffocate the secondary parts market, How? The person you replied to says > The value of stolen (activation-locked) iPhones and Macs is largely only on in overseas markets where they can strip the device down to usable parts If the only doable thing with a stolen Mac is to use it for parts, I think that would increase the availability of parts, not decrease it.

dwaite 3y ago

> And as one such person, I don't want to hear a company tell me I can't even have the _option_ of an open device because "it's for my own good". This particular feature, Activation Lock, is an optional feature you can turn on. The problem (in this case) is that someone else enabled the feature after wiping while they had physical access to the laptop

contrarian1234 3y ago

Anecdotally, in China this has had a massive impact on theft. iPhones used to be stolen regularly - most of the girls I know in China have had their phones stolen at least once. Now it is much rarer. They are still stolen, mailed to Xinjiang and disassembled, but the profit motive isn't really there. "What this really does is suffocate the secondary parts market" Quit the opposite, second hand parts from disassembled devices is probably even more prolific now (you're prolly getting an artificially lower price b/c of thefts) I think you should be more sympathetic to people that live in situations where this policy has made a huge difference- where the cost of the phone is a large chunk of their income. And where nabbing a phone could net you effectively a month's income. I'm happy for you that you live in a place that has so little theft this isn't a concern for you.