How often does phone theft actually happen? I keep hearing this argument but in my ~15 years of owning non-apple phones and laptops, I've never had one stolen, or heard of anyone getting theirs stolen. Have I just been very lucky?
I know four people it’s happened to in two years, all four of them women.
London has a non-zero problem with this too - someone tried to grab mine earlier this year but they missed (and apologised as they rode off!) (and I had it on a strap anyway.)
Only friend that got a phone or computer stolen that I know of.
I find that difficult to believe.
You can definitely re-use or sell iPhone parts. Most of replacement parts shops have access to are not sold directly by Apple.
As mentioned in the article, some parts won't work and others will show warnings. And sometimes you can reprogram chips with small devices easily available from China, which essentially defeats Apple's hardware pairing.
> I've never had one stolen
> Have I just been very lucky?
No you’re not lucky. Your items aren’t worth stealing. Rarely does anyone steal android devices, or windows laptops the resale value isn’t there. Which should be obvious to the most casual observer.
I'm not sure if they're that picky.
I'd expect the HN crowd to be a bit smarter than Apple store looters though.