iFixit Lowers iPhone 14's Repairability Score Due to Apple's Parts Pairing Requirement

[bgillander]

Not even lock each part, just serial match them to the phone they were built with. And if that phone hasn’t been iCloud unlocked, then the parts would be rejected by any other phone until the donor was unlocked.

Okay, that sounds more reasonable, though that process sounds a fair bit like what they are currently doing, just adding an iCloud unlock ability. I saw some complaints about a required $8000 tool, and I cannot tell from this article if the System Configuration Software tool replaces that or is part of that? Is that not part of the cost problem, or did I read those comments wrong? (or am I mixing up articles? Sorry, everything is apparently blurring together for me!) I haven’t taken apart an iPhone since the iPhone 4, and everything sounds much harder now (though a little less so than a couple of years ago, it sounds like!)

 

[Kr0n05K!ngR]

"They shouldn’t have to send Apple their customers’ personal information,"

Ummmmm. If their customer has an iPhone, Apple already has that customers personal information.

True, then why should they have to send it again?

Hmm, perhaps a form of validation, as may be they want to make sure the customer is doing this rather then some one who may have stolen the phone?

Thinking of other times apple needs to validate, i know that each time i boot to a different drive on my mac (start up disk), so i think this is kind of a-typical of apple. May be customer expectations need to be checked.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

How do I as a consumer get to evaluate that this repair is legit? Easy repair does not make it reliable?

The phone works? Ask for the serial number? Reseat for the part? Look at reviews? same way you do it with everything else that you get repaired...
An easy repair often implies it's reliable. Complicated repairs doesn't mean it's reliable

Wait, are you suggesting a hardware lock/kill switch on every part? That is a lot of “all they have to do”!

nah, just the current components apple for some reason wants to serialize

How would that work exactly? A semaphore switch on each part that locks it every time you lock the device? If we were to assume that is even possible, the unlock time would be rather interesting, I’m sure. I would expect that the precise timing that would be required would end up with quite a few bricked phones.

the serialnumber being paired with the original device and the AppleID will allow parts being reused of the same user, remove the pairing for devices in icloud and prevent devices from using parts that are still paired and not the same appleID

 

[surfzen21]

True, then why should they have to send it again?

Hmm, perhaps a form of validation, as may be they want to make sure the customer is doing this rather then some one who may have stolen the phone?

Thinking of other times apple needs to validate, i know that each time i boot to a different drive on my mac (start up disk), so i think this is kind of a-typical of apple. May be customer expectations need to be checked.

Yes, I agree its to validate that the part is an original Apple product.

I was pointing out how dumb of an argument iFixit was making.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Yes, I agree its to validate that the part is an original Apple product.

I was pointing out how dumb of an argument iFixit was making.

Except Apple is in the wrong here. The validation that you need to do just to repair it doesn’t make sense