Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

Creating a backdoor might not be the answer, but it sounds like there's no way to send a message to the phone's iCloud account saying "Hey I have your phone, it was recycled. Please remote-wipe and unlock it or give me an address to return it."

As someone who has had both a smartphone and a laptop stolen, I would have loved to know that aside from my frustration with the insurance company that the thief walked away with 2 worthless bricks.

And no, right to repair should not ban user-initiated device activation locks.

The "solution" of just expecting the previous owner to never make a mistake is unreliable and totally unnecessary. Apple can act as the common contact for the system they created.

Typically the value of a computer is about the same as the sum of its parts, because otherwise plenty of people would be up for a $270 profit by buying $30 worth of parts and assembling them to sell as a $300 computer.

> And if people are dropping these off for recycling, isn't the expectation that they're being used for parts at best anyways? If they're high enough value to actually be refurbished and resold, then it's worth putting the recycling bins behind cashiers or similar, who are trained to first verify they're unlocked before accepting them.

It's generally the other way around. The less a computer is worth (and so the less the parts are worth), the more you want to try to sell it as a whole unit to minimize transaction overhead because the fixed overhead is a larger percentage of the sale price on less expensive hardware.

What is stopping a "criminal" from bypassing this activation lock? Time and technical ability? It surely isn't legal recourse or fear of losing the device. It's a matter of time before this is moot.

On top of that, I've left "criminal" in quotes because quite frankly, I don't care if Apple claims breaking this lock is a breach of DMCA, ToS, or anything else. I've paid for the device. It's mine. The data on it is mine. If I want something out of it bad enough, I'm getting to it. Regardless of their corporate philosophy.

On recycling, this is likely a step away from being generally responsible. Apple already has locks in place preventing parts from "non-genuine" repair shops being used. In addition they engineer components to be tightly-coupled to one another. Now they want to lock the entire device?

At best, this can be argued as "pro-customer", but not pro-consumer. Apple has made good decisions in the past; this isn't one of them.

Once you’re done using your device, it isn’t as easy to swap parts between macs without triggering the T2 chip where hardware changes must be okayed in an Apple.

That will flush secondary and used Mac markets away and back to Apple to likely do the same at the higher price point.

The used Mac marketplace is invaluable for new and young creators to get into a platform like Mac.

Apple does nothing, zero, nada to unite owners with lost equipment. (grumble, grumble)

Just realize they benefit from this.

What Apple has done just isn't with the trade off.

A stolen device has zero effect on apple's profits, but a repaired reused device does.

The sad thing is that others copy such "features" and in the end you will not be able to install or use a device that isn't "safe". How long until a democracy like the US or EU will dictate what is allowed on a device?1984 is coming and we are thinking it's a good thing because we can have a bit more "safety".

And you're taking it from the perspective of someone buying a new device from Apple who doesn't care about anybody else. Consider the perspective of a low income person who would otherwise buy a refurbished phone which will now be unavailable or more expensive, or the environmental perspective of having to manufacture new phones (future landfill) instead of reusing what already exists. If we care about other people then we should care about the consequences of what Apple is doing here.

Fair point.

>The number of followers is not an engineering degree’s GPA. It is like a flavour of anti-intellectualism.

I disagree here though. The engineers and product managers who make this stuff are often so detached from what's going on the ground or how people are actually using these products that someone who speaks for the layman is truly needed. There's also a wide variety of tech influencers out there, some who make cogent arguments about the product (Dieter Bohn comes to mind) and others who parrot those arguments absently mindedly. That latter group could conceivable be called anti-intellectual.

Everything wears out eventually. Nothing made in the past ten years is made to last forever and the trend is accelerating. Everyone uses their devices differently whether they're carefully stored in a laptop bag when not in use or sit out in a machine shop and everything in between.

Processors aren't really getting that much faster so devices can last a lot longer than the did in the past. To spite this, build quality is getting worse and everyone is gluing batteries into their devices that WILL degrade to uselessness after 2-3 years of regular use.

This mentality has to stop if don't want to create mountains of useless e-waste.

Edit: also, nobody is asking for less security. Device theft isn't that big of an issue. This is just apple trying to screw with the resale market because they're struggling to sell more new devices when their existing ones aren't being obsoleted at the rate they used to.

For others it’s part competency (d they have the skills to and part preference.

Many technologists in software included some experience in hardware, including device repair, building or servicing servers, etc.

Don't your whole comment do the same? They are giving their opinion based on their preference. For sure it will be bias toward their goal, just like you want them to stop, so that your goal, keeping the statu quo, win.

I prefer repairability because I want to be able to repair my own things and not depends as much on others. I don't expect them to do it, but I will say it loudly so that people know that my market exist. I also consider that better for the society in general, thus I will also push the government to go toward that too, because I consider the government should work toward the society better. Does it means my position will win? No, but I still have the right to defends it, just like you have the right to defends yours.

Activation Lock != kill switches

A kill switch is a switch. It's an action. The activation lock is always there, the action is required to remove it, not to kill it.

Kill switches are fine, because then the issue only happens when it's actually stolen.

Activation lock aren't fine because it also happens when it has been sold.

Why are you so 100% sure that there's no way that Apple could design a system to keep it secure and allow recycling? There's hundreds of ways they could design their security flow where recycling is possible.

They have a way to contacting the owner to remove the lock. Why don't they do allow that? That would even allow to get back the device for the original owner.

The issue here is that Apple doesn't works toward making it harder to steal, they works toward making it harder to resell.

There's no reason why a user can't be asked by Apple "hey, a recycler received this locked iPhone, do you want to wipe and unlock it for recycling?" save for an unwillingness to implement it; as-is, this just and only just generates waste. But it let you get mad, so that's cool, I guess.

That happened to a family member recently, I guess they were using face id regularly and changed their pin at one point and by the time they needed it again couldn't remember it.

The part that really pisses me off is the "10 strikes and we wipe your phone bit". That happened to me too on an infrequently used iphone last year. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered the password because it was one a few dozen pins I use, but I didn't get the chance to try all of them because the fscking phone decided to wipe itself first (not attached to icloud).

A security feature with a backdoor isn't a security feature anymore.

Sure, and now please tell me how long it will take for the non certified 'recyclers' to also know how to bypass this activation lock? This bypass will render the whole feature useless, and can be removed the moment this bypass is implemented.

"Comparing data in the six months before and after Apple released its anti-theft feature, police said iPhone robberies in San Francisco dropped 38 percent. In London, they fell 24 percent.

In New York City, robberies (which typically involve a threat of violence) of Apple products dropped 19 percent and grand larcenies of Apple products dropped 29 percent in the first five months of 2014, compared with the same time period from 2013, according to a report from the New York attorney general’s office, which included data from the New York City Police Department. By comparison, thefts of Samsung products increased 51 percent in the first five months of 2014, compared with the same period a year ago, the report said."

https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/antitheft-technolo...

This new feature simply means macbook robery will go down like the cellphone robery went down after activation lock became normal. Thus, a better world.