Activation Lock With IOS 18

[Jonj1611]

Well this is interesting, with the new IOS comes activation lock where individual parts of your iphone are locked to your account. Apple are hoping to drive down iphone theft by making the parts unusable

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

[[GSV]Trig]

This has been happening for a while, iPhone hardware locked to the actual device, this is just one step further no?

[AGTDenton]

God help us if others follow. But they are within their rights, if morally wrong. The reality of this won't be theft, it's to force you to get repaired/replacements from Apple only.

[Saracen999]

... Apple are hoping to drive down iphone theft by making the parts unusable

....

Are they, though? Or perhaps more accurately, is that the only result they seek? Or is this more about destroying the use of genuine but used parts of a non-functional phone to repair a different broken phone, thereby forcing users either to buy parts from Apple, or just buy a new phone?

.... But they are within their rights, if morally wrong. The reality of this won't be theft, it's to force you to get repaired/replacements from Apple only.

On the second part, agreed. But on the first sentence there, are they within their rights?

Or, another way of looking at this is that after you bought your phone, it's a phone you then OWN, not them. They are doing something to change the terms under which it was sold, retrospectively, because otherwise, an argument can be made that they are damaging YOUR property, and arguably, that's criminal damage.

They could, of course, get round that by implementing this new "lock" as an option that you, the device owner, can activate or not, as you wish. If done that way, then fair enough I guess. It's the device-owner's choice. But do owners have a choice?

As a declaration of (lack of) interest, I do not and never have owned an iPhone, so I don't know if users get a choice. I do own an iPad, and I'd guess it's coming there too, at some point if not simultaneously. That said, iPads are nowhere close to being as nickable because they're not carried about anything like as much. Mine rarely leaves the house, and I certainly don't wave it around in public, like many high-end phone owners (not just of Apple) seem to.

I have some sympathy for Apple on this, in that parts are without doubt a large part of the motivation for stealing iPhones, especially once the device itself is reported stolen. But then, they could also only activate that lock after a phonne has been reported stolen. But again, will they do it that way? I genuinely don't know the answer to that. But from Apple's ... ethos .... in the past, I very much doubt it.


EDIT - further down that linked article, it does NOT, at least for now, apply to iPadOS.

[kalniel]

God help us if others follow. But they are within their rights, if morally wrong. The reality of this won't be theft, it's to force you to get repaired/replacements from Apple only.

Won't it force you simply to get repairs with the permission of the owner? Which if that's you, no problem, but if you don't have the owners permission then you're stuffed.

[[GSV]Trig]

It'll stop devices being stolen and then broken for parts if their locked.
The question is, how are they intending parts will be unlocked, will they appear in your 'Find My' as part of your account, fi you break your phone, and then sell it to the local phone repair place, then what...
It does sound like Apple are trying to tie down repairs in the same way as car manufacturers have been doing with a while with everything on the CAN being tagged to the same car..