in your case you got screwed up bc you got a bad part, but you're saying your solution to that is to screw everyone by disallowing even genuine parts for repair not blessed by apple?
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphon... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-g...
That said, I think maybe the solution may be closer to something like allowing fake parts to function when placed in iPhones, with a couple of caveats:
- A prominent top level section in Settings appears listing all non-genuine parts
- When the phone has been factory reset, an alert appears at the bottom of the “welcome” screen and can be tapped to view the same list as above, so any prospective buyers of the device know exactly what they’re buying (and hopefully, can negotiate a better price as a result)
This addresses the cases of both dishonest shops and dishonest sellers trying to pass off the used devices they’re selling as fully genuine.
As for parts in used phones, I think those should remain device-locked until the user has explicitly unlocked them with a process that requires a second confirmation from the user after a week with a code sent by snail mail so thieves can’t coerce victims into part unlocking.
From what I understand, getting to this point has been a long fought battle of pushing manufacturers to open up parts availability and basic documentation (which continues to this day with Automotive Right to Repair and whatnot), Magnuson-Moss on the legal front, etc. Apple is at the early stages of its industry, and due to the power of digital restrictions technology has delusions of completely shutting out the third party ecosystem. But in a free society there's only one way for this topic to evolve, and so the authoritarian arguments about the guarantees of centralized control aren't particularly compelling.
At the very least though, I do think that buyers of used phones deserve to know what kind of parts were used in repairs. On cars this can be verified by looking up the car’s service records and taking it to a trusted mechanic prior to purchase but it’s not so simple with phones, which is where I think it could be useful for the OS to indicate use of aftermarket parts.
We are at a stage where the only ones stealing Apple devices are the ones too stupid to know they’re next to impossible to resell and the ones that are really good and know exactly what they’re doing.
You probably see smartphones like computers, but I think they're more like game consoles.
I don't complain to Microsoft because I can't install Arch or sideload games on my Xbox.
I'm perfectly fine not being able to install random applications on my phone if in exchange it becomes a harder target for malware and unappealing to thieves.
Snail mail isn't an effective means of communication in 2023.