Stolen iPhones Will Be Even More Useless from iOS 18 Onwards | Hacker News Reader

Stolen iPhones Will Be Even More Useless from iOS 18 Onwards

macobserver.com

109 pointsmiles93 comments

I have no problem with blacklisting stolen parts. What does concern me is when devices are abandoned or given away, not marked as stolen but still activation locked with no means of getting it unlocked.

Last month I reset my device to reinstall macos and selected log out of icloud and wipe. I assumed this would remove the activation lock but it did not and I had to put my password in. I've found that removing activation lock is an intentionally confusing and misleading process. This only exists to create ewaste and pad the bottom line.

> This only exists to create ewaste and pad the bottom line.

But it obviously reduces the reward for stealing devices, which probably reduces crime? If a thief, given the opportunity to steal my iPhone or an Android phone, takes the Android phone because it’s easier to fence - I’ll gladly give Apple money to be part of that group.

I'm not talking about the stolen mode here. Don't strawman me.

You asserted “this only exists to pad the bottom line”, and I’m refuting that by giving a reason the feature provides value to me.

“Stolen mode” isn’t really a thing with Activation Lock; Apple correctly assumes that the average victim of theft isn’t alert enough to flip some switches in iCloud.

Thieves know that iPhones are useless - now even more so - in their default state, and can only be removed from that state with deliberate action from the legitimate owner.

That has real life value, and so your accusation that it “only exists to pad the bottom line” is wrong.

Their point is that they make the process to remove the lock more confusing so as to make it so more people accidentally leave it on and brick their used devices.

This doesn't mean the theft lock feature itself doesn't have a purpose, just that making it confusing to remove was intentional to decrease hardware reuse.

They have a page exactly for this, first hit on Google for “delete sell iPhone” https://support.apple.com/en-us/109511

As someone who always trades in old devices, I promise you every single reseller willing to buy your phone will have these instruction as part of their “sell to us” process. I’ve used at least 3-4 different places over the years.

Send them a locked device, they’ll send it back because it’s unsellable.

No legit place is buying locked devices. Which means they don’t sell them.

What a wild claim to make without any actual proof.

> not talking about the stolen mode here

Of course you are. If anyone except the original owner can remove the lock, it’s more valuable to a thief. (Same if the owner can be tricked into removing it or do so accidentally.)

> But it obviously reduces the reward for stealing devices, which probably reduces crime?

It doesn't reduce crime, it just shifts it to easier targets.

Instead of figuring out why people commit crimes and making society work better to eliminate those reasons, we just shift the burden around and make things objectively worse for everyone.

I get that this is a super hard problem, one that likely can't ever be 100% solved, and Apple isn't responsible for it, but it frustrates me that everything is about controlling symptoms, never about curing the disease.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

"Convincing everyone in the world to not commit crime" isn't a reasonable ask. What Apple did is actively working.

Right. There is nothing preventing Samsung or Huawei or Google or anyone else from making a similar system for their phones if it works as intended.

Afaik, they do have similar systems. I had to bypass the Samsung lock on my FIL's old phone, thankfully it was a phone that was possible to bypass because he didn't know his samsung account password (and didn't know he had one) and wasn't getting the reset mails either.

Oh that’s good to know. Thanks.

> removing activation lock is an intentionally confusing and misleading process

What leads you to conclude intent?

Personal experience documented above.

> Personal experience documented above

I’d consider it a massive failure on Apple’s part if logging out removed ownership locks.

You’re concluding intent based on a process being confusing to you. That’s a massive and untenable leap. Like, repairing a toaster or building a rocket is complicated and can be confusing—that doesn’t prove conspiracy.

>log out of icloud and wipe.

Not log out of session but log out and wipe in the reset device menu. If it's confusing to me it's at least this confusing to the average person which in my opinion explains the piles of not stolen activation locked ewaste. The outcome of a process is its intent if it's not changed.

Reset and Erase all content and data are two different things.

Exactly. Settings > General > “Transfer or Reset iPhone”. They’re not hiding it.

Happens as part of the flow to erase a phone too, which anyone who knows anything about tech would go through.

Erase all content and settings[1] also disables activation lock. Wiping a hard disk alone is not sufficient because a lot of information is stored elsewhere (eg. biometric fingerprint data).

Activation Lock is only available[2] on Intel Macs with a T2 chip, or Apple Silicon Macs. All of these machines support erase all content and settings.

1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102664 2. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102541

Well it didn't because it required my password on reboot.

Then you didn’t restore to factory settings. I’ve done this numerous times. You get the welcome screen when you erase and reset.

I got the hello screen after it told me my device was locked and I had to put my password in during Apple's preinstall environment screen.

If this is reproducible, then do it and show us. Otherwise, we can only assume you misinterpreted the iCloud login screen as being the Activation Lock gate.

It’s your word vs. my experience and Apple’s docs. If I’m wrong, it’s really easy for you to demonstrate this.

The icloud login for a non locked device happens after hello. In my locked device case it listed my icloud email and prompted for the password. It also said something about being locked.

I'm not going to repro this because it takes a while to set up my dev env.

I think the entire point is that the process is confusing and easy to mess up. Even if there is a way to successfully do it, that doesn't take away from the point being made that the OP commenter tried to do this and failed. Telling them they did it wrong doesn't change that argument.

I mean, you can't really get much simpler than the process, I've got to be honest.

Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iphone. It's the first google search result from "how do I reset my iphone". It works 100% of the time and is so simple my mom figured it out on her own.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/108931

> the entire point is that the process is confusing and easy to mess up

That's a fair point! It isn't the only one that was made.

OP concluded that the activation lock "only exists to create ewaste and pad the bottom line" [1]. That's the contentious part.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41536804

> I had to put my password in during Apple's preinstall environment screen

Did you also have to enter your user name?

Note that you’re getting a strong response because you concluded intent from N = 1 anecdote.

>Did you also have to enter your user name?

No, it was prefilled.

So your assertion is that Apple’s documentation is wrong? Grab your phone, make a video showing it, and submit it. HN would upvote that to death.

I've definitely bought a few extra phones that I would not have otherwise due to having them stolen and most people I know are in the same boat.

You'd be surprised how much e-waste theft creates. Often only a few parts can be sold off or reused, much better to prevent the theft.

I had a similar issue. Followed all the instructions by Apple on preparing the laptop for a new owner: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102773 and then gave it to the neighbor's kid for their school. It has the whole hello page, but turned out they had to login as me first. The standard part was that the laptop contributed being listed on my devices and I couldn't remove it, UNTIL we logged in once again as me - after a full wipe. I figured either I messed up the process or got stuck in an edge case flow. Either way, it would have been very annoying if the new user wasn't living close and somebody I knew.

You can also remotely remove the iCloud lock, even without performing 2fa (not exactly sure how it is secured then, but it worked)

Yeah, I can see why someone might assume that the activation lock would be disabled in that scenario. But on the other hand, I can also see why someone would absolutely expect that it wouldn't be.

I might want (and have wanted) to reinstall macOS and start fresh without any intention of relinquishing or transferring ownership of the physical device. And I might want to log out of iCloud because I don't want to sync my personal stuff on that computer anymore, or because something funky is happening with how messages or photos are syncing and I just want to reset it all. I'd be pretty pissed if, six months after reconfiguring everything, someone nabbed my laptop and I discovered that activation lock had been automatically disabled for me the whole time without my explicitly doing so.

Given these mutually irreconcilable user expectations, I can see why Apple would opt for a design that favors the more cautious approach where you have to press a very specific sequence of buttons to disable the lock. Maybe I'm just selfish, but knowing a laptop I sent away couldn't be repurposed but ended up as e-waste would make me feel a little guilty, but knowing a laptop I didn't want to lose got stolen with all my stuff on it exposed to the thief would make me apoplectic with rage.

Ever since Apple started rolling out stolen device protection, whenever I try to access my Apple account, for example under Settings on my iPhone, the accounts gets "locked out". Then I have to jump through all kinds of hoops, including setting a brand-new password, and verifying from another Apple device, to get it unlocked.

I am terrified that this issue, together with the extra protection, is one day going to lock me out of my phone permanently.

Now imagine Apple bans your account because you forgot to update your payment details and were on holidays at the time, missing the warning.

Now you're not only stranded without your data, no, all your devices are ewaste too

I can see the charm, totally.

Luckily Apple is not Google, and you can call their support and they can tell you what the problem is and likely fix it.

Eh, there are very frequent social media posts of people getting their Apple IDs banned with no recourse,

I.e random example: https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1cdsqpf/the_final_u...

It's not a significant percentage (rounds to 0.00%) but it does happen if you're unlucky. One of the ways it can happen is what I wrote: have a plus subscription, have your card expire and don't respond to Apples warning that you'll get banned unless you update your payment details.

If you don't, your account is gone after a few weeks.

It's certainly reasonable from Apple's PoV, the customer isnt paying their bills and not responding to their mails. You just get the occasional person that gets fucked by it because they're indisposed, possibly even by injury/hospitalisation or just not checking the mail address they've registered with etc.

Are you implying that Apple+ is a risky business for people who own Apple devices? If so, I'll stay away from it.

The link you posted shows that the user was able to reinstate the Apple ID.

Where after wasting my 2 hours on each of those three calls i.e. totalling 6 hours the Senior Advisor will solemnly ask me backup my data, wipe the device, and reinstall again and pray to almighty it works. If I am adventurous enough I ask them whether it will work their answer will put even the most seasoned diplomat to shame. So yeah right.

This is a good step. Phone snatching is a serious problem. Making stolen phones totally useless is exactly the way to go about it.

If eBikes could have a similar system, that would be great.

Would be nice for many other expensive items you take outside, like mirror-less cameras.

I do see a possible downside of being able to re-use parts from a broken iPhone. So parts that were never able to be unlinked while the phone worked.

Unless since it sounds like this is a remote database (and not something stored on the parts themselves) that maybe there could be a way to address this problem but that runs the risk of making a loophole to get around this.

Outside of that, I think doing this is great. Making a stolen device less and less valuable obviously won't stop everyone from stealing iPhones it should cut down on it happening.

I am curious about Apple's incentive to do this outside of just the above. Technically they would get less sales from people replacing their phones, but would also possibly reduce the cost of operating the "theft and loss" iPhone AppleCare+.

There is a benefit to customers by preventing their very expensive phones from being a popular item to steal.

Even if there hadn’t been stories in the media about how easy it was to steal Kia cars, if people kept having them stolen or knowing friends who had them stolen it would absolute hurt the chance that person would buy a Kia in the future.

Smart to try to avoid that.

Doesn't this effectively kill 3rd party parts/repairs? Or salvaging dead phones for parts?

Is this gonna make more e-waste, or make repairs more expensive, or both?

>However, it aligns with Apple’s recent policy changes that allow repairs with genuine used parts while maintaining stringent security measures.

Doesn't this imply that so long as the phone is unliked from apple id, the parts can be re-paired (hah) with a new phone?

If "extending Activation Lock to other components" means what I think it does, then the phone's owner should have control over this and 3rd party repairs should be fine. It may cut out the market for unofficial parts, but does that even exist today? Is anyone making iphone compatible batteries with any scale? (I'm curious if so)

The thrust of this move devalues phones to thieves, which I generally think is a good thing. Cutting down the hardly salvageable value even further should help the "market" sort this out and lead to less theft. I like it.

Third party parts exist for tons of Apple devices. Usually of varying (typically poor, especially with batteries) quality. You can get OLED screens (actually oled!) that are replacements even. They pretty much will all give you the “unable to validate authentic component” message when paired with an iPhone … but that’s kind of working as intended there.

If they use lost or stolen parts, probably.

Why would a 3rd party part show up in a serial number database of stolen phones?

Sadly it won’t work even if you own two broken phones and want to make one out of them. Big loss to repairability and indeed a massive waste of resources. Today I was reading on HN a story on how degrowth won’t do anything for combating global warming. Oh well, this is exactly the opposite of that and it’ll cause a lot of problems for future generations. They’ll look back towards us with disgust and dissapointment.

If you buy a phone, add it to your iCloud account, then the phone becomes broken in a way you want to salvage the camera/battery, presumably removing that phone from your iCloud account (which I don't believe requires the phone to turn on?) would allow you to use those genuine, not-stolen parts in another repair.

This is probably their real goal here.

You can salvage dead phones for parts. You can use the icloud web ui to unlink the phone. If you can't coordinate with the owner to unlink it, it does bring up the question of how you obtained the phone you are stripping for parts.

Some businesses just dump loads of devices into the arms of recyclers without offering any further help. If their IT team isn’t doing a proper Apple-sanctioned MDM-wipe then all those devices may still be activation locked. What can the recycler do with that? Just shred the devices.

Why would the ‘IT team’ refuse or ignore the legitimate recyclers after being informed they dumped ‘loads of devices’ with it still active?

The recyclers don’t have any way to contact the IT team?

The job for the IT department is to ensure all company data is wiped from the phones before dropping them off at the recyclers. Nothing more than that.

Heck, I bet some managers even knowingly ask them to keep the activation locks in place so that the phones will be shredded, just to add a belt-and-suspenders level of security.

Then that’s the decision of the IT team/management/etc… to intentionally destroy them? Which they have the right to since they presumably own the devices in the absolute sense.

What does that have to do with Apple’s procedures?

If activation locks didn’t exist then companies would have to pay the recyclers to shred the devices. Otherwise recyclers would actually be able to recycle them into usable parts/whole devices to sell.

Keeping that stuff off the used market has got to be a big side benefit for activation lock.

Huh? If they didn’t exist I imagine it would be the other way around. Recyclers would pay companies to have stuff sent to them, because they could actually sell the parts to the highest bidder.

But in either case if the IT department/management actually wants to destroy the devices, no procedures from Apple will affect that decision.

Worst case they just call a shredding truck to their doorstep to shred them right there.

But in either case if the IT department/management actually wants to destroy the devices, no procedures from Apple will affect that decision.

Either way, as it stands now it doesn’t cost the company anything to have the devices shredded. Without activation locks it will, either by forgoing the premium paid by the recyclers or by having to pay a shredder to do it for them.

It’s a power difference. Activation locks give companies more power to control what happens to devices after they’ve left their custody. It also makes it more likely for devices to get shredded because companies need to affirmatively consent to the devices being resold after leaving their custody. This benefits Apple by taking used devices off the market.

This affirmative consent element is also quite powerful in the consumer space for the same reason that opt-out organ donation is so successful: people generally prefer defaults and shy away from making extra decisions that complicate their lives. This means people are much more likely to trade in their old phones to Apple (who either shred or sell as refurbished) instead of selling on the open market.

How is this any of this relevant to the IT team deciding to send their old stuff to be destroyed, activation lock or not?

That happens constantly

Why would the IT team spend any time at all trying to help some 3rd party recycler make a few bucks on Ebay?

Because, if they don’t, then recyclers will stop accepting used phones from that company.

Why would it do either of these things? It would kill the black market for stolen apple parts, but otherwise it shouldn’t impact anything else. Assuming you can “unpair” iCloud on dead phones (which you can do already, to my knowledge), then salvaging isn’t a problem.

I'd personally like to see phones and their parts be usable at some point again after being reported lost/stolen... Maybe something like 16 months after the fact? That way they have a chance at a second life and not just going to landfill. If a thief knows the phone is useless for more than a year it makes it a much less valuable item.

iPhones can have a long life as used devices. And some of the parts are very expensive.

Given the cost of holding inventory is low (parts are relatively small) and even if you’re forced to sit on it for years it could still be worth a fair bit, that may bring the problem back.

I think the only reasonable solution to letting parts back in would be to let Apple mark them as ok if given to Apple for free. Apple could remove the blacklist entry and put them back on the secondary market. But because no one paid Apple anything they would be able to be sure that no one was profiting by turning parts around.

Of course Apple would be making money when they sell those parts. So I’m sure there are some people who would really object to this idea.

No. It still results in people stealing a bunch of phones and then warehousing them and every 16 months a new batch are ready.

Phone thieves, especially in Europe are the scum of the earth and I’d like to see them destroyed.

A landfill is a choice. You can always send a phone to Apple for recycling. You can drop off at any Apple Store as well.

As long as there is no incentive for Apple to use this feature to prevent legit recycling, that would be great.

For example, if someone sells an old device, after someone repairs a device with the sold/old component, there should be a 30-60 day grace period where the original owner is required to actively prevent the repair if the part was stolen. Otherwise it would automatically be allowed to be used.

Let's fix something:

> prevent the use of parts from stolen, lost or simply discarded and recycled devices

There!

Yeah, I think that too. Apple already had some good theft "protection". They definitely have no money incentive to even strengthen that just because they're so altruistic and want to help the customers. They know that they're killing some more small used-parts market here, even the legitimate part, so they're happily taking it. If it means that they will have some more sales, then they'll do it.

I suspect that what tech vendors want even more than just sales is if all the old versions of the hardware and software they already sold would just go away.

@dang Let's maybe replace the URL with the original source, buried in a tiny link at the end?

https://9to5mac.com/2024/09/12/apple-activation-lock-iphone-...

Just remember to never remove the stolen iPhone from Find My, the thieves will try everything to convince you to do so.

Apple also fixed this a while back. If your GPS location is away from home, starting a wipe actually sets a timer where you have to Face ID and enter the password in an hour to actually do the wipe.

How do they try to convince you?

Like when they're taking it from you, or do they contact you later somehow?

If it's when they are taking it, why do they try to convince you instead of forcing you since they are already using force to take it?

If it's the latter, how do they contact you if you don't have a phone?

They contact you later (weeks or months later). And it’s contacting your phone number to attempt to convince you to unlink it, usually with some sob story or threat. They know the phones are worth way way less if they are blacklisted, so they’ll try all sorts of tricks. Apparently it’ll sometimes get sold and passed down to other scammers who try different tactics.

See this article on what that can look like:

https://www.phonearena.com/news/stolen-iphone-scams-how-to-p...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40578460

If a thief grabs a phone from someone’s hand while authenticated, can’t they then just make it theirs by immediately resetting the password pin and Face ID?

No you need to enter the password to change it

This is what stolen device protection is for

Is this such a widespread problem that warrants this excessive action? I just don't buy the statistics about phone theft found online.

You dont buy the online statistics, so you ask online randoms?

Yes, it’s terrible in Latin America. For example, in many areas of Santiago, Chile, you can’t take your phone out on the street without risking snatching.

Don't think they are doing it for you. This improves their bottom line.

What if improving their bottomline can have positive effect on my experience? What if Apple intentionally pursues such paths, and disregards paths that improve their bottom line without improving user experience?

Or is blind hate just that much popular?

This will only amount to more electronic waste if they do not allow to unlock it for reuse. Technically possible but not allowed because of procedure everything will go the a landfill.

And non-stolen iPhones. /s ;-)

Non-stolen can be unlocked in Find My.

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