Apple Opens up parts swapping between devices

[hishnash]

Summary

Apple are going to be making changes the the parts calibration servers so that if you swap parts between apple devices they can still fetch their respective calibration profiles from apples servers so long as the past is not coming from a stolen device. 

 

My thoughts

This seems like a readable tradeoff to ensure the value of stealing a phone is not increased. But still letting people with legitimate parts use these to repair other phones. 

 

Sources

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/04/apple-to-expand-repair-options-with-support-for-used-genuine-parts/

[Levent]

Boo only for iphone…

[manikyath]

let me translate that for you:

 

apple has stopped binding components to devices by serial number, using some false pretense about calibration profiles to avoid facing regulatory backlash for actively blocking any sort of repairability of their devices.

 

you cannot get legitimate parts to repair apple devices without agreeing to horrendous agreements designed to put repair shops out of business.

 

on top of that, the stolen phones argument is complete BS here. no one is stealing phones to harvest their battery and display.

[TempestCatto]

44 minutes ago, hishnash said:

parts calibration servers

Maybe I'm just used to really old tech, but this doesn't need to be a thing. I've replaced the screen, battery, and charge port assembly on my iPhone 6s. The parts were all from iFixit (not a sponsor) but I don't know if when I powered the phone back on it synced to said servers. I doubt it, nor is it necessary when you're replacing something like a battery. Apple just like using buzzwords to trick most people into thinking they need new muffler bearings every third oil change.

[MarvinKMooney]

I use iPhone for both personal and business use and I'm happy about these changes but at the same time what does "stolen" mean coming from apple I would imagine they would or will deem any phone not IN USE is considered stolen or whatever they chose to consider "stolen"

[hishnash]

5 hours ago, manikyath said:

apple has stopped binding components to devices by serial number, using some false pretense about calibration profiles to avoid facing regulatory backlash for actively blocking any sort of repairability of their devices.

 

It has always been based on calibration profiles,. the SN binding was done sever side when a device requests the profile the server would only provide the profile if the part has not been connected to another SOC.

This change is just a server side change that now will check if the currently assigned SOC is iCloud locked and if not it will re-assigne the part to the new SOC and provide the profile.

 

5 hours ago, manikyath said:

you cannot get legitimate parts to repair apple devices without agreeing to horrendous agreements designed to put repair shops out of business.

 

Again this change is not about new parts but about used part. 

 

5 hours ago, manikyath said:

on top of that, the stolen phones argument is complete BS here. no one is stealing phones to harvest their battery and display.

The reason for that is that these stolen parts are of very low value as you cant sell them as repayment parts.  A stolen iPhone screen will not get you much at all as it is e-wast.  The metal case for the phone (if it is not scratched up) will likly get you more money. 

 

 

[hishnash]

4 hours ago, MarvinKMooney said:

same time what does "stolen" mean

iCloud locked to an account other than the account attempting to pair the part to a new SOC. 

[hishnash]

4 hours ago, TempestCatto said:

I've replaced the screen, battery, and charge port assembly on my iPhone 6s.

It used to be the case that parts were more or less the same as they came of the factory production line so did not need per unit calibration to work.  These days (with OLED and modern smart phone cameras etc) if you just take the raw output from a factory and attach to to a chip you will in most cases have a very very poor quality display and camera as it is full of defects. (I would be surprised if any OLED display ever made was fully defect free) so you have per pixel (per brightness) calibration profiles crated in the factory for each display etc to mitigate these defects so that you can use the HW that comes of the production line. 


If your buying a generic part (like many mid range android phones) this calibration profile it typicly stored on the display controler chipset that is sodlred to the display assembly. So swapping displays is not an issue as the HW comes with its profile, but for semi custom and fully custom productions were much of that logic moves onto the SOC (for power and cost savings) it has been proven simpler to just store these profiles servers side and have a diagsntic mode that the SOC boots into to fetch them from a server. 

[Just A Name]

Reading the title, I thought I could swap the 15 Pro screen into the regular 15. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Or even, can anyone try to do that?

[GOTSpectrum]

2 hours ago, Just A Name said:

Reading the title, I thought I could swap the 15 Pro screen into the regular 15. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Or even, can anyone try to do that?

I'm sure Scotty from strange parts will give it a try, or maybe Luis rossmann

[Kisai]

9 hours ago, manikyath said:

let me translate that for you:

 

apple has stopped binding components to devices by serial number, using some false pretense about calibration profiles to avoid facing regulatory backlash for actively blocking any sort of repairability of their devices.

 

you cannot get legitimate parts to repair apple devices without agreeing to horrendous agreements designed to put repair shops out of business.

 

on top of that, the stolen phones argument is complete BS here. no one is stealing phones to harvest their battery and display.

pfft. no.

 

It's always about preventing blackmarket chop-shops from proliferating.

The only reason it was possible to do this, was because some of the parts were "Chopped" must have been from stolen devices. Not just broken ones. If they were all broken devices, then he would have been unable to obtain the main SoC PCB, because they would have been "locked" from the previous user of the device, as they would have serial numbers that are tied to someone's iCloud account. Seriously if you think about it for 10 seconds, every part you find online on eBay that isn't a battery is from a stolen or broken device, but in order for someone to have hundreds of parts from a current model device, they have to be stolen. Nobody is buying the eWaste from bestbuy just to pick out the 5 year old iphones and send the rest to a shredder.

 

That's why companies should be required to buy back their old devices if they want to keep chop shops from operating. The company buys back the devices and then sends them to companies who remove the usable parts and are authorized to sell the parts, and the company will mark those devices in their inventory as "not stolen"

 

 

[manikyath]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

he only reason it was possible to do this, was because some of the parts were "Chopped" must have been from stolen devices. Not just broken ones.

then lock the motherboard. there, done.

 

dont tie the display or the battery to the motherboard. there's no reason to do that, it achieves nothing.

[Salted Spinach]

False pretense

 

Just wait for the Loius Rossmann video explaining that this is of no benefit to the open repair market, probably only benefiting the big Apple partnered repair vendors or shops  that are under the authorized repair slavery contract

 

Too many times he gave them credit for what looked like a step towards repairability, only to be proven wrong later

[hishnash]

23 hours ago, Salted Spinach said:

Just wait for the Loius Rossmann video explaining that this is of no benefit to the open repair market, probably only benefiting the big Apple partnered repair vendors or shops  that are under the authorized repair slavery contract

 

Too many times he gave them credit for what looked like a step towards repairability, only to be proven wrong later

You can read the change yourself, it has nothing at all to do with apple repair partners.

However it is not going to have a big impact on component level board repair that vendors like Rossman group.  Boar level repair does not benefit from these changes at all.  

These changes are all about doing component assembly level repair.  Eg taking a full display assembly from a water damaged phone and using it on a phone that has a broken screen.   This is low-skill/no-skill repair jobs, if you a vendor like Loius you likly have a de-lamantion and re-lamnation machine that would let you remove the broken glass from a display assembly, and re-attach new glass to the original.   So this change that will open up a load of used displays, camera modules etc might well be back thing for him economically as the price he can charge for doing a board level repair will go down as he is no longer competing with users that must buy a new parts assembly. 

 

 

On 4/12/2024 at 8:16 PM, manikyath said:

dont tie the display or the battery to the motherboard. there's no reason to do that, it achieves nothing.

It stops the display, camera and battery from being re-used on a stolen device. 

The display and battery of a modern smart phone is 1/2 of the production cost (if not more). 

 

 

[hishnash]

On 4/12/2024 at 3:11 PM, Just A Name said:

Reading the title, I thought I could swap the 15 Pro screen into the regular 15. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Or even, can anyone try to do that?

No you cant do that. 

[SansVarnic]

Guess we shall how long this will last or how well it ages?  (that is until apple can make another claim innovation of course )

[Dracarris]

15 hours ago, hishnash said:

The display and battery of a modern smart phone is 1/2 of the production cost (if not more). 

Not really. SoC and cellular chipset are most expensive, then display, then cameras, then things like battery and storage. A modern 5G cellular chipset can be 50$ and more on the BoM. But no two components make up for 50% or more of total cost, at least not for mid/high-end devices.

[leadeater]

On 4/14/2024 at 1:28 PM, hishnash said:

It stops the display, camera and battery from being re-used on a stolen device. 

Having a pin and the device being locked stops that. I don't think an average "pocket thief" is getting past Apple's device security so repairing "broken and stolen iPhones" is hardly a factor. Not one that would motive such a manufacturing and process step in a product.

 

Every time Apple made it harder to get in to phones there was a drop in theft rates of iPhones, people don't steal things they can't get money from. You can only pass off locked phones that are useless for so long until that comes back to bite you, hard.

 

What it might stop, is parts from a stolen phone being used to repair a not stolen phone.

[itsabearcannon]

On 4/11/2024 at 3:00 PM, manikyath said:

no one is stealing phones to harvest their battery and display.

One in ten smartphone owners in the US has had a smartphone stolen. If Activation Lock is as common as we think it is, thieves can't resell them as working - what else do you think they're doing with those devices? It's a common practice with other valuable things like cars to strip them for parts and sell the parts - why do you think that wouldn't apply to phones?

[GoStormPlays]

On 4/11/2024 at 3:58 PM, Levent said:

Boo only for iphone…

nobody wants to fiddle with opening an ipad anyway /j

 

opening those things is the bane of my existence

[Levent]

5 minutes ago, GoStormPlays said:

nobody wants to fiddle with opening an ipad anyway /j

 

opening those things is the bane of my existence

Macs are the biggest problem. They are increasingly using more apply made chips.

[GoStormPlays]

52 minutes ago, Levent said:

Macs are the biggest problem. They are increasingly using more apply made chips.

Yeah, that's true. However, iPads have always been hard to upgrade (because of how thin they are and the compromises that are made to accommodate the thinness.), whereas Macbooks have really only gotten hard to upgrade in the last seven years or so.

 

Plus, the Mac Pro (though less so than the previous model) is still relatively upgradeable in terms of storage. 

 

Edit: I was looking at the Mac Pro configurations on Apple's site just now and I found this. I had no idea that Apple offers the Mac Pro in a rack form factor; that's actually kinda neat. 

[manikyath]

4 hours ago, itsabearcannon said:

One in ten smartphone owners in the US has had a smartphone stolen. If Activation Lock is as common as we think it is, thieves can't resell them as working - what else do you think they're doing with those devices? It's a common practice with other valuable things like cars to strip them for parts and sell the parts - why do you think that wouldn't apply to phones?

because selling harvested iphone displays is SIGNIFICANTLY less profitable than the hundreds of parts that can be sold on the second hand car market with little to no oversight or customer expectations. besides, as far as i'm aware the "meta" for profitable car theft these days is still VIN swapping. besides, parting out a stolen car requires an idiot with an impact driver in a back alley, parting out an iphone requires a cleanroom.

 

also - you're arguing that this is a requirement to reduce phone theft, why isnt your car's door bound to the computer by serial number? do you also lock your bike with a lock on the back wheel *and* a lock on the front wheel? is your TV chained down so that it cant be stolen? should your laptop's parts be tied on serial number to make sure you wont get robbed each time you are in public with a backpack? fact of the matter is that apple is unique with this implementation, and yet we're not living in the theft armageddon you imagine. maybe you live there, but in that case i suggest either moving or advocating for better policing.

 

on top of that.. this entire debate assumes that the majority of those thefts are at least somewhat organized crime, not some methhead taking something that looks valuable hoping to trade it for a good time not even understanding what "activation lock" even is.

 

or.. let me spin this argument the other way;

- apple stops binding the display and battery by serial number.

- apple makes replacement parts readily available for a fair price, essentially destroying any market for stolen parts. excluding the motherboard ofcourse, because that's what's locked on a stolen device.

- when you trade in an iphone tied to your apple ID (that way a stolen device cant be traded in) you get a $100 voucher towards a new phone. this both covers the "no motherboards available" catch, and provides apple with a supply of old parts to make available.

 

just maybe, perhaps a very big part of this apple mentality comes from their desire for old iphones to *not* keep working to the extent permittable by law?

 

as for addressing "where do these parts come from if not theft?": well.. people who "recycle" their phone because they bought a new one?

 

as for addressing "what else do they steal the phone for?" well..

- meth heads who have no idea.

- perhaps this factoid i randomly bumped into:

Quote

Forty-four percent of thefts happen because the victim left their phone unattended in public places.

now.. i'm not saying that half of the people at large are idiots.. but statisticly speaking half of the people out there are not as attentative as your average human.

 

---

 

let me share you a few examples from the E-bike battery industry, where i've felt quite at home for the past year. there's 3 examples i want to share...

 

- one brand i see a lot has their battery controllers tied to the bike trough some sort of handshake, this means that the bike wont work with a battery it wasnt paired with. this is BS, but at least affiliated retailers will pair them for you. (independant retailers cant, because they dont get the software)

- another brand we luckily dont see all that much (presumably because of the following story..) has rather troublesome batteries, basicly the moment a drop of mositure gets in the wrong place on the BMS a connector gets fucked, and the BMS is functionally broken... and because the batteries are tied by serial number there is no fix, so the entire bike is now trash.

- a third brand we see A LOT has an actual counter in their batteries (we've been able to reverse engineer the entire thing, so we dont guess, we KNOW.) that counts down the lifespan, essentially programming in an exact 2 year lifespan, at the exact legal minimum they have to provide warranty for. oh - and if you even think of replacing the cells; their latest revision has a feature for that too: the BMS selfdestructs if any of the cells go out of spec. - oh, and this brand's BMS is perfectly capable of counting the actual capacity of the cells, it has 3 things it keeps track of: the current charge level, the remaining total capacity, and how much capacity it should tell the user it has based on it's internal warranty clock.

 

now.. how is this relevant?

- the first brand claims this is for theft prevention.

- the second brand actually makes the bike say "theft protection" when you slot a different battery in it.

- the third brand claims it's "for customer safety" in their public facing channels.. but even their salespeople cant keep a straight face about that when pushed about the details.

- i know A LOT of e-bike owners, i dont personally know any e-bike owners who have had their e-bike stolen. i do know several people who've had to replace their bike because some brands make it impossible to find replacement batteries. 

 

or to make a very long post very short: you're advocating for something that impacts the majority of users, because a very small portion of users could have the theft of their phone prevented by this.

 

now - i totally think locking should be a thing, because this is a MASSIVE hurdle, even if there are ways to gain profit from a locked phone, it just reduces the profitability to the point it's probably below something else on the list of illicit gains. locking should just never get in the way of repairability.

[hishnash]

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

is hardly a factor. Not one that would motive such a manufacturing and process step in a product.

This is about selling parts from stolen devices.

 

[leadeater]

18 minutes ago, hishnash said:

This is about selling parts from stolen devices.

I know it is but look at the comment I am replying to. You said used on a stolen device not taken from a stolen device.