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jimbobb24

macrumors 68040
Jun 6, 2005
3,356
5,385
Do you have a source for "[the] serialisation of the parts helps prevent device theft for parts"?

Particularly, statistics. Please share them.
Does anyone have statistics that apples policy is anti competitive or drives planned failure. This isn’t an impressive challenge - the vast majority of the issues on hand are theoretical and no one has hard data or the question would be easy.
 
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dk001

macrumors demi-god
Oct 3, 2014
10,691
15,039
Sage, Lightning, and Mountains
Does anyone have statistics that apples policy is anti competitive or drives planned failure. This isn’t an impressive challenge - the vast majority of the issues on hand are theoretical and no one has hard data or the question would be easy.

How would that work?
The original request asks for data that should be available.
Your request asks for suppositional/predictive data that does not exist.
 

boyarka

macrumors regular
Sep 6, 2021
210
216
Apple is just a giant gaping ******: these are deliberate obsticles put in place to be as repair-hostile as possible. You never "own" an Apple device, and you have zero choice over it's functionality, and it's preferrable that you throw it away ASAP when a newer device is released.
The only way this will ever stop is trough legal action and more importantly - laws. The more EU attacks Apple the better for all consumer.

Didn't read the comments much but I already assume some Apple fanboys or AAPL stock holders will have 10+ semi-religious passive-agresssive comments against all this but luckely the capitalist extremist reserve called "U S of A" is fortunately not the entire western civilized world.
 

GtrDude

macrumors 6502a
Apr 17, 2011
841
1,139
Because, you know, greedy Apple is just not making enough money as it is.

Timmey really needs another cool mill in his pocket every year just to make ends meet.
 

grjj

macrumors 6502
Apr 5, 2014
270
537
Just about every car made has the VIN on the body, a serial number for the engine and a serial mnumber for the transmission for tracking purposes. If you bring your car in for service with a failed transmission and the SN of the one the factory installed is not the one the car then the car company doesn't cover that because it's a 3rd party part.
Its' the same for Apple's products (and it's not just iPhone) where many of the internal components are serialized. Both to detect non-Apple authorized repairs, but also to track failures. When a large percentage of parts from a particular manufacturing run start to fail they can go investigate the the production process to isolate where/when/why the failures are happening.
You _can_ spin this into being something nefarious but it really isn't.
To think so is, then, also to believe that US printed currency has planned obsolescence because it all has serial numbers on it.
 

citysnaps

macrumors G4
Oct 10, 2011
11,956
25,938
I'm not happy about the serial number requirement, but this part is crazy. Apple has been criticized for years for not giving customers the ability to repair their own phones, but now they're being criticized for giving customers the tools they need to repair them? They can't win.

No matter what Apple does there will always be breathless whines-n-moans. It helps people feel better; like they're standing up to the Man.
 
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davidf18

macrumors regular
Sep 27, 2013
188
103
Nobody is forced to buy Apple products. There are alternative products.
It is really that simple.

It is best to use only Apple-certified parts including cables. I use Anker power adapters, but otherwise it is safest to remain with Apple products or those certified by Apple. I'm not certain why people are objecting to entering in the serial number of their unit in order to get replacement parts.
 

gund1234

macrumors 6502a
Feb 21, 2022
740
673
Good.

While serialized parts allows a record of the repairs and replacement parts on a device, which is especially nice when buying used and refurbished, the hijacking of functionality is the real crime. Screen replacements, for example, on the iPhone 14 series, even when using genuine Apple parts and without "re-pairing" by a certified technician or through SSR, results in the loss of True Tone, auto-brightness, and other critical functionality.

Here's an (incomplete) list of some of the functionality lost when doing a replacement of said part, even when parts are genuine, off of the top of my head:

1. Battery -> loss of battery health metrics
2. Display -> loss of auto-brightness, True Tone, and Face ID
3. Camera -> loss of portrait mode, buggy Camera app functionality, and loss of optical zoom

There is no technical reason why this should be the case - based on teardowns and hardware analysis even -
other than to make non-genuine parts so crippled to discourage self repair, third party repair or to encourage a device upgrade.

EDIT: Some posts below mention the "theft deterrence" argument, where serialized parts may discourage iPhone thefts by making their parts less valuable by inhibiting functionality. There is no evidence to suggest that this is an effective theft "deterrent". In fact, iPhone thefts are up and parts are still being sent to China in record numbers, even with these "deterrents".
Display -> loss of auto-brightness, True Tone, and Face ID
Face ID is security issue, may be Apple wants to make sure that face ID data is secure.

others i agree that should not happen.
 

dk001

macrumors demi-god
Oct 3, 2014
10,691
15,039
Sage, Lightning, and Mountains
Nobody is forced to buy Apple products. There are alternative products.
It is really that simple.

It is best to use only Apple-certified parts including cables. I use Anker power adapters, but otherwise it is safest to remain with Apple products or those certified by Apple. I'm not certain why people are objecting to entering in the serial number of their unit in order to get replacement parts.

That isn’t the issue at all.
 

boss.king

macrumors 603
Apr 8, 2009
6,144
6,909
I din’t think it is a concern. It is being used (theft prevention) as an argument on why Apple need to serialize and lock down repairs.
Yup, totally agree, my questions were meant to be rhetorical. The idea that serialising parts and locking down repair options is keeping users safe is fear-mongering and corporate boot-licking.
 
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budselectjr

macrumors 65816
Oct 6, 2009
1,006
1,851
Minnesota
Why do you think that VIN numbers are stamped on engines, transmissions, differentials and other critical parts of vehicles? It prevents, or helps reduce thefts. Catalytic converters are not serialized and the theft of those parts is rampant. Cars are routinely stolen for parts, with serialize parts more difficult to sell.

I personally would have no issue with a transmission, or any other part of a vehicle that has intelligence, to report it's VIN number back to the control unit and the control unit disabling the vehicle from being started if the VIN numbers do not match.

Rather than reduce functionality on mismatched serial numbers on unauthorized parts, Apple should just refuse to let the part function. Or better yet, brick the phone entirely until it can be resolved and restored by Apple.

If anyone can just grab my phone and use it's parts to repair other phones, by shady operatives, my phone just became much more valuable. My phone may be worth $500.00 to some thief in just the parts.
It doesn't prevent theft, only helps solves cases of theft.
 
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boss.king

macrumors 603
Apr 8, 2009
6,144
6,909
So how long should Apple support aged tech.
The length of their support isn't the issue here, it's the manner in which that support is offered.
Hard-to-repair designs, hard-to-source parts, proprietary or hard-to-get tools, and costly, restrictive authorisation for 3rd party repair shops. Apple shouldn't need to ship out several kilograms of tools to change a phone battery, nor should users be stuck using Apple's weird outsourced repair program site just to get access to those tools and parts.
 
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Lcgiv

macrumors regular
Nov 10, 2017
246
542
Hangzhou
Why do you think that VIN numbers are stamped on engines, transmissions, differentials and other critical parts of vehicles? It prevents, or helps reduce thefts. Catalytic converters are not serialized and the theft of those parts is rampant. Cars are routinely stolen for parts, with serialize parts more difficult to sell.

I personally would have no issue with a transmission, or any other part of a vehicle that has intelligence, to report it's VIN number back to the control unit and the control unit disabling the vehicle from being started if the VIN numbers do not match.

Rather than reduce functionality on mismatched serial numbers on unauthorized parts, Apple should just refuse to let the part function. Or better yet, brick the phone entirely until it can be resolved and restored by Apple.

If anyone can just grab my phone and use it's parts to repair other phones, by shady operatives, my phone just became much more valuable. My phone may be worth $500.00 to some thief in just the parts.
Instead of providing sources for their viewpoints (like a good faith engagement) they will continuously demand you provide yours even though it’s already proven in various markets and followed through with practices from VINs to serial numbers. Seems political for some on here 😂
 

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
15,698
10,998
Ohh the good Old serial number parts again.
I think some who think serialised parts can prevent theft misses the Forest for the tree.
Theft will always exist, no matter what. Reusing parts is just one way to salvage what they have stolen. If a component is serialised, they will just scrap it. Sure, earns less, but better than nothing, and apple cannot possibly develop technologies to make even scraping parts worthless.
By serialising parts, not only customers are hurt when their Phone is damaged (Forced to endure extravagant costs demanded by apple, often very Close or exceed the amount of buying a new one, if apple even permit the repair at all, for example, performing data recovery), but also those with skills and ability are hurt as well, because they can’t prolong their device lifespan easily.
Let’s not even start to mention the silly idea of “long term software support = long term support”.
Corporate brainwash is rampant and no one bother to take a look at that.

oh umm, I think those people in China already have developed their own tools to defeat serialising parts (some of them) to prevent theft. In that case, those third party screens/batteries/cameras etc can work just as well as “first party” ones, maybe last just as long, and the repair cost would be a fraction of what apple is asking, and customer can get a working phone again faster.

and how about stealing another iPhone’s serial number to get around the activation lock, plus swapping out certain chips? It was possible before.
 
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