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Comment by mattpavelle | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t this describing people having “grey market” or worse products confiscated?

If the Apple logo is on a part then the manufacturer likely made that part for Apple under some agreement and the manufacturer is not permitted to make more of those exact pieces for other buyers.

Also if those pieces were made for Apple and didn’t pass QA, then the manufacturer can’t just sell them. They have agreements to destroy them.

If the Apple logo is on a thing then it’s a counterfeit someone is trying to pass off as real or an official part that “fell off a truck” or didn’t pass QA and should have been recycled or something…

If I legitimately paid a manufacturer for a compatible part to be made, I’d expect no logo on it

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> Isn’t this describing people having “grey market” or worse products confiscated?

No. The products in question were assembled using a combination of standard hardware components and genuine OEM parts salvaged from broken Apple devices.

Since Apple goes to great lengths to prevent third parties from accessing components used in Apple devices, salvaging OEM parts from busted machines is often the only legitimate way to produce replacement parts that are compatible with Apple products.

> If the Apple logo is on a thing then it’s a counterfeit someone is trying to pass off as real or an official part

None of the products in the examples from this article were branded with Apple logos or advertised as being genuine Apple products. Internal components (e.g. cables) within the products were found to have Apple branding because the parts were salvaged from genuine Apple devices.

The Apple brand was never used to identify anything that wasn't a genuine, OEM component - ergo not counterfeit.

> Internal components (e.g. cables) within the products were found to have Apple branding because the parts were salvaged from genuine Apple devices.

Source?

It seems far more likely those parts came from the original factory selling original parts under the table for whatever reasons, or are actually counterfeited with just the logo stamped on them afterwards. Salvaging parts from used devices at such scales would require a pretty extensive operation.

So guilty until proven innocent, then?

This is exactly why the title calls Apple's practice an "exploit". Apple recognizes that CBP does not follow due process and they take advantage of that by slapping their label on every last little, insignificant component - including stuff the customer will never even see. It probably helps catch counterfeits, but it has the added benefit of significantly disrupting legitimate competition.

> Salvaging parts from used devices at such scales would require a pretty extensive operation.

It'd be a lot easier than reverse-engineering every Apple component and manufacturing it yourself. What else is a legitimate replacement part producer supposed to do?

What does this have to do with providing a source?

You are the one who wrote the, not trivially obvious, claim.

Your claim is just as not trivially obvious. So, source?

In reality, nobody knows why Apple is doing it except the people who made the decisions nor would it really be possible to trace the parts, but it’s far more likely that it comes from the many devices that can be salvaged for parts than it coming from some black market operation coming from the factory.

My claim of what?

If you meant my previous comment, I clearly phrased it as my own person opinion?

In no way shape or form is that phrased as your own personal opinion. You asked the parent commenter for a source and then parroted an alternative theory as what actually happened.

Considering you were so adamant on asking a source for the other person’s theory, and were so sure of your own, that you must have proof of it, right?

To be frank, your opinion of another HN user's comments doesn't outweigh anyone else's opinion. If your unsure about this point, perhaps review the HN rules?

If it was indeed as you say, and that the large majority of passing readers indeed perceived it as such, then the previous comment would have been downvoted into 'dead' status a while ago.

Since it hasn't, then that's proof enough.

Look in the mirror; your entire comment applies to you.

Linking the lack of downvotes to people's opinions of said comment is a reach at best. Downvoting here doesn’t happen nearly as often or for the reasons you think they do. This isn’t Reddit. Things don’t just get downvoted because people disagree with your opinion.

Okay so you agree that both our opinions in this comment chain aren't likely to be confused with statements of fact?

Then there's nothing in dispute?

That’s not what I said at all but is certainly a much easier goalpost to defend.

You still haven’t provided a source for that claim of yours. If you consider the other comment as fact to the point where you corrected it, then yours is just as much.

Also, next time, maybe keep track of the people you are replying to.

What are you confused about now?

Maybe you should take a look at those guidelines yourself, bud.

I have? Your also free to opine that I don't know the HN 'guidelines', but it's unlikely that will lead to anything productive.

If by "source" you want proof that the componenets with Apple branding are genuine parts salvaged from broken Apple products, I obviously can't do that.

Here's what the article says:

> The parts aren’t being seized because they’re counterfeit. In fact, they’re demonstrably not counterfeit: the only reason an Apple logo is on a piece of a “third-party” component is because that piece is original OEM Apple hardware being legally re-sold:

> “The parts I buy have an original flex on it because that’s what’s best for my consumers,” [repair shop owner Jessa Jones] said. “It’s difficult and pointless to erase the existing Apple logo that’s printed on a tiny piece of flex. There’s no customer-facing Apple logo, no logo anywhere on the glass. It’s smaller than a grain of rice. We have never said online, in person, or anywhere else that these are Apple-certified screens.”

That aligns with claims I've heard from Louis Rossmann about the parts he uses.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/clgnmh/comment/evx65...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47-LNbb2vR8

I can't prove that any of these claims are true by Jessa, Louis, or the author of this article. But it shouldn't matter. People are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.

The default assumption of innocence is for the default case, i.e. where nothing notable happens at all.

Beyond that, there cannot be such a presumption, enforcement action in many scenarios need to be taken well before the timeframe necessary for a formal court judgement to be delivered.

e.g. Airport baggage screening, where even if you mistakenly pick up someone else’s lookalike bag full of prohibited substances, you could still suffer quite severe consequences

The source is the article? That’s rather one of the points of the article.

Then can you link or quote the specific parts of the article that back up the claim?

Because I don’t see it.

I responded to you a couple days ago with the relevant quotes from the article.

Read the part under "Versus Competing Accessories", there's no Apple logo involved, there's nothing grey about a manufacturer making their own goods. Their alleged crime is that it's an earbud, with a shape that doesn't even look like Apple's products: https://www.oneplus.com/us/product/oneplus-buds

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