Like I said earlier, those who had their home buttons and fingerprint sensors replaced fully knew what they were getting, that of TouchID not working after the repair.
Ha ha, really? No. They absolutely did not know what they were getting. They GUESSED. They were wrong.
The repair shops are at fault here: they said, "yes, we can fix this for you, we know what we are doing." When what they meant was, "we THINK we can fix this for you, but we are guessing about how all this stuff works." In effect, they defrauded their customers, advertising a cure that turned out to be defective.
So by consciously delivering a software update that bricks a phone without any warning to the consumers either via their changelog or even a prompt during the update, Apple is essentially sabotaging these users, whom may not have any other viable alternative of repairing their phones economically in the first place due to i.e., out-of-warranty issue, and no Apple Stores in close proximity to where they live.
There was NEVER a bullet point on Apple's ToDo list that said, "if the user has replaced their home button, brick the phone." There was a series of checks added to the software to ensure every bit of the hardware that contributes to the security of the phone was working properly. The bullet point was more likely "write checks to test EVERYTHING related to the security of the user's data to ensure that all the parts are working properly." To a security-conscious engineer, a TouchID sensor that isn't reporting back properly is cause for considerable concern, but since it is highly unlikely to happen, they write a test, but it simply locks up if the test fails. They didn't anticipate the case of folks having their home buttons replaced improperly (that is, with ones that no longer had functional TouchID capability).
How much engineering effort do you suppose car companies put into making sure their car works properly under all driving conditions, even if the owner has intentionally removed one of the wheels? Even if the owner thinks doing so is okay, or they can't afford a fourth wheel, or there isn't a dealership nearby, or it worked okay for a little while. If a problem arises, is it the manufacturer's fault, because they failed to consider the case where someone decides to take off a wheel? Or the user's fault, for expecting 100% proper behavior from a device they've effectively damaged by modifying in a way the designer never intended?
So why fault these consumers where independent repair shops may be their sole logical and viable options? Bring your war directly to these repair shops instead, and not make the consumers as collateral damage whilst trying to bring across your agenda. Don't brick our phones when they were working perfectly fine a minute prior to the update, and completely useless after just because you detest the fact users have chosen to have their iPhones repaired by independent repair shops.
Where on earth do you get this idea that Apple detests independent repair shops? Did you hear that one bit Tim Cook as a child or something? What proof do you have of this supposed "agenda"? Apple is not out to hurt its customers. It wants them to be happy with Apple, so the next time they need a new phone or computer, they'll be a repeat customer (which gets Apple lots more money). I'm guessing Apple doesn't really care one way or another about independent repair shops - their day-to-day effect on Apple is vanishingly small. They do, however, care about security -- even the most cynical view would hold that they want to retain the selling point of having phones that even the government can't break into easily. They've been constantly working to improve security. They added checks for a whole slew of things that could harm the security of the phone. A non-functioning TouchID sensor on a phone that left the factory with a working TouchID sensor is, to the OS, clearly a sign of something wrong. The error message wasn't more elaborate because they never anticipated anyone seeing it. Turns out a whole bunch of people did. Should Apple apologize for this? Sure. Should they be punished in court? Absolutely not, given that we got here because folks had improper repairs done on their phones (to be clear, the repairs WERE NOT improper simply because they'd been done by a third party, the repairs were improper because they DID NOT WORK).
But I keep asking myself, WHAT IF, just what if my iPhone is out of warranty, and the nearest Apple Store or Apple Authorised repair center is 200 miles away from where I live, and there it is, just cross the street from where I am is a small independent repair shop that can solve my iPhone misery... What would I do?
What would you do?
If Apple didn't have service readily available to you, and you bought an iPhone, you made your mistake way back at purchase time, not when some repair loomed on the horizon. Availability of service and support is always something that one should consider before plunking down multiple hundreds of dollars on some device. Even if the device is really shiny and you really want it. Then again, seven seconds of googling brought me to
this text on one of Apple's support pages:
"Send in for repair. Start a service request online or by calling Apple Support and we'll send a box right away to collect your iPhone. You can then arrange to ship it to an Apple Repair Center at your convenience. We'll deliver your iPhone back to you in approximately one week."
Is this hypothetical place where you found yourself in iPhone misery also 200 miles away from the nearest post office?
