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I got mugged a couple years ago, or attempted to: The thief asked for my phone, saw it was an iPhone and just gave it back.

That to me is worth the whole phone bricking thing. And it's also not like I've gone through a bunch of them, I got a 6S on release and a 12 pro when I felt it couldn't play video games anymore.

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For ~$90 I can buy a screen programmer online to transfer serial numbers between screens and bypass the locking thing. If I buy a phone with a broken screen online for cheap, I can put your good one on it (by writing the serial number from the cracked screen onto the stolen screen) and then resell it as a fully functional refurbished/used iPhone for a decent profit.

...and if I'm too lazy to do that, I can still sell it for parts online since less lazy people who know how to do that will buy it for the same reason.

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