The iPhone 14 Continues Apple’s Digital Repair Lockdown
I don&#x27;t like what this does for repair, but on the flip side, I don&#x27;t like how the pro-repair &quot;side&quot; completely ignores the legitimate anti-theft and anti-fraud implications of part locking, and acts as if it were from pure spite ignoring that these are among the most stolen objects ever made - and with some of the most widely-circulated fraudulent parts ever made.<p>It started with iCloud Locking, which made sense - you couldn&#x27;t just flip a phone that you stole. So, thieves turned to selling the parts instead or trying to social-engineer people into removing iCloud Locks, and there is actually <i>a lot</i> of corruption within phone repair stores (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=3Ws3YptLmLQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=3Ws3YptLmLQ</a>). So, the next step is... serialize. Make the parts obviously unsuitable for a fly-by-night swap.<p>Could Apple do a better, more pro-repair job of it? Absolutely - but they aren&#x27;t going to be motivated to do so when the pro-repair side acts as though it is <i>pure unmitigated spite and hatred for repair</i> that they are doing it.<p>Same situation with the self-repair program. Apple stated it was the same parts, and same tools, and same prices they and their partners use, on a non-profitable program. People are apparently shocked that owning tools makes repairing in bulk cheaper, and that Apple doesn&#x27;t use cheap prying tools to remove screens. Who would&#x27;ve thunk? And now they are angry that the tools aren&#x27;t provided for free, that the prices aren&#x27;t cheaper than the Apple Store gets them for, and that Apple doesn&#x27;t just provide guitar picks for screen removal. They&#x27;re never going to win any legislation with that attitude.<p>Edit for @lopis:<p>For your first point, I would say that implementing that was redundant, because how are you ever going to unlock a stolen part anyway without their &quot;system configuration&quot; step?<p>For your second point, there&#x27;s really <i>no way</i> to know whether a part is authentic, unless Apple knows that they shipped it out or received it. Any fake part can lie, and say &quot;I am part XYZ123,&quot; or use a borrowed digital signature from a real part. The serialization lock has an anti-counterfeiting value by greatly restricting where legitimate parts come from, regardless of what I think of it.