<story><title>We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score</title><url>https://www.ifixit.com/News/82493/we-are-retroactively-dropping-the-iphones-repairability-score-en</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tumult</author><text>What? How is someone who snatched your phone out of your hand and ran away going to know your password and authentication information needed to authorize a parts replacement?</text></item><item><author>falsenapkin</author><text>Such an ignore button would allow theft to continue and would allow users to make poor security decisions. I agree that something needs to happen to enable easier or maybe more privacy focused 3rd party repairs but I also appreciate my device being less of a target.</text></item><item><author>toxik</author><text>While anti-consumerist practices such as this authentication mechanism sometimes accidentally protect the consumer, it is not the reason why companies do it. If it were, they would also allow you to say “yes this replacement is desired.” Similarly, if it was about security and preventing backdoored parts, they could allow you to authorize the replacement.&lt;p&gt;But no, it is of course about money grabbing, and then the consumer is the opponent.</text></item><item><author>mschuster91</author><text>There is also another issue why Apple is restricting &amp;quot;part harvesting&amp;quot;: theft. iCloud locks or Samsung&amp;#x27;s KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for &amp;quot;enterprising&amp;quot; robbers who&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t buy your product.&lt;p&gt;That cut down on a lot of the robbery bullshit, but then criminals simply found new buyer classes - they&amp;#x27;d simply part stolen devices out and resell everything but the iCloud&amp;#x2F;Knox&amp;#x2F;whatever locked mainboard. Displays, cameras, speakers, batteries, flex cables, cases, everything.&lt;p&gt;So now, at least Apple is tagging the most &amp;quot;valuable&amp;quot; parts in new phones, simply to make stealing them unattractive for thieves, which frankly sucks but is necessary because it&amp;#x27;s a public safety issue.&lt;p&gt;(If anyone at Apple is reading this: ffs, allow the legitimate owner of a device to &amp;quot;unpair&amp;quot; all components in their phone in iCloud so that legitimate second-hand shops can strip a broken device at least for its parts)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sneeze-slayer</author><text>I think the point is that an unsuspecting buyer of, e.g. a screen replacement, could end up going to a shady repair shop that uses stolen parts, sees the message once, clicks &amp;quot;OK&amp;quot;, and moves on. The reasoning being that this scenario would cause some demand for black market parts.&lt;p&gt;The suggestion from OP whereby the seller of a used phone logs in and &amp;quot;unpairs&amp;quot; the parts could avoid this, unless a robber forces you to do it under duress.</text></comment>
<story><title>We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score</title><url>https://www.ifixit.com/News/82493/we-are-retroactively-dropping-the-iphones-repairability-score-en</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tumult</author><text>What? How is someone who snatched your phone out of your hand and ran away going to know your password and authentication information needed to authorize a parts replacement?</text></item><item><author>falsenapkin</author><text>Such an ignore button would allow theft to continue and would allow users to make poor security decisions. I agree that something needs to happen to enable easier or maybe more privacy focused 3rd party repairs but I also appreciate my device being less of a target.</text></item><item><author>toxik</author><text>While anti-consumerist practices such as this authentication mechanism sometimes accidentally protect the consumer, it is not the reason why companies do it. If it were, they would also allow you to say “yes this replacement is desired.” Similarly, if it was about security and preventing backdoored parts, they could allow you to authorize the replacement.&lt;p&gt;But no, it is of course about money grabbing, and then the consumer is the opponent.</text></item><item><author>mschuster91</author><text>There is also another issue why Apple is restricting &amp;quot;part harvesting&amp;quot;: theft. iCloud locks or Samsung&amp;#x27;s KNOX lock entered the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their devices in public became a target for &amp;quot;enterprising&amp;quot; robbers who&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t buy your product.&lt;p&gt;That cut down on a lot of the robbery bullshit, but then criminals simply found new buyer classes - they&amp;#x27;d simply part stolen devices out and resell everything but the iCloud&amp;#x2F;Knox&amp;#x2F;whatever locked mainboard. Displays, cameras, speakers, batteries, flex cables, cases, everything.&lt;p&gt;So now, at least Apple is tagging the most &amp;quot;valuable&amp;quot; parts in new phones, simply to make stealing them unattractive for thieves, which frankly sucks but is necessary because it&amp;#x27;s a public safety issue.&lt;p&gt;(If anyone at Apple is reading this: ffs, allow the legitimate owner of a device to &amp;quot;unpair&amp;quot; all components in their phone in iCloud so that legitimate second-hand shops can strip a broken device at least for its parts)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thinkling</author><text>They&amp;#x27;re going to snatch your phone, break it up into parts, and install those into &lt;i&gt;other&lt;/i&gt; people&amp;#x27;s phones, and those people will happily approve the new part.</text></comment>