Vote with your wallets. If you dont like it don't buy it. You can buy a $100 smart phone that wont be a target.
There is no such thing as a $100 smartphone, except maybe a 3 or 4 years old one.
Still useless. Carriers kill the IMEI, thief sells it to someone who takes it overseas. Apple kills the serial or UDID, they figure out a way to hack phone to claim it has a known good number (which they can already do with the serial if not both).
This kind of thing is why Apple's response is a meh. They know that there is no foolproof way to achieve this goal.
I can't quite understand why you (I assume mostly) Americans have so much of a Manichean view of the world around you. Either the goal is achieved in a perfect and foolproof way, either it is complete failure?
I understand that your country is prone to extreme violence (as showed by people getting killed or amputated to steal from them), but discouraging theft is a more subtle animal.
It is NOT the manufacturer's responsibility to prevent theft.
It is NOT the police's job to track down the thieves.
It is NOT the carrier's job to disable stolen mobile devices.
Then whose job is it? The greedy insurance companies' ?
First, one can't simply stop thefts from happening. Even in Japan where petty theft is widely reported as extremely low, it still does happen.
Second, different actors have different roles. The manufacturers could indeed install technical ways of disabling a device if it gets stolen, and as much ways technically possible to identify the thief. That is NOT to say they should manage the process from A to Z, but leave its controls to the rightful registered user, and the police.
If it is not the police's job to force users to register and lock their phones, they have the duty to use their power to find thieves and punish them when given the tools and keys to do so. Why would a victim be turned down when it comes with IMEI, serial number, phone number and Apple ID, approximate geolocation, date and place of theft?
And finally, why would a carrier refuse to flag the device to a worldwide database if ordered so by the rightful owner or police dept?
The more roadblocks are set to discourage theft, the less attractive theft will be. Much as in cars: a chipped key won't prevent the car to be dismantled, or getting its ECU reflashed to get rid of the block, or some parts replaced for non-disabled ones, but it makes stealing sufficiently unattractive to move on to the next target. Same goes for bike theft, that is rampant here. If you have a great bike, many solutions: spend a few hundreds on the lock itself, never leave your bike, take in into the office. Bike thieves now work with battery-operated circular saws. What would be the defense against that?
Just imagine this situation, if locks manufacturer dumped the responsibility of preventing forced entry on the door manufacturer, and vice-versa. That wouldn't make any sense.
