A determined individual can remove epoxy without damaging the electronics.

Apple should allow to do this in Software. Make the lockdown mentioned in the link happen immediately when USB is disconnected, forcing you to retype the PIN every time.

Could be a cool feature for the privacy concerned crowd.

Unless I'm mistaken, this is the way that Android already works. If you plug in a locked phone, you must unlock it to get any USB data connection to the phone. When a phone with a data connection is unplugged, the permissions immediately reset and you have to unlock the phone again to restart a data connection.

Not only that, on my Nexus 5x, I have to manually switch from charging mode to data transfer mode every time (the setting doesn't stick).

Unless I've misunderstood the significance of this change, Android actually provides much more security since you can't download files off a locked phone, not even within 7 days.

Yes, the iPhone is the same. You get a ‘Trust this computer?’ prompt which forces you to unlock the phone first.

The trouble is, this is still a data path that has been opened via USB. This new change disables the data path altogether and just allows charging via the USB power pins only - like its a USB battery or USB fan, simply power and nothing else. Which is pretty neat.

Why doesn't the iPhone disable the data transfer pins until unlocked?

Probably because for any decent charging speed (beyond 500mA) you need to talk to the other side. Atleast per standard.

How does Android work around this?

It communicates power needs but nothing else until the user unlocks the phone and enables data transfer.

Because then you can’t plug in the device and have it sync automatically. It’s a security/convenience trade off.

By the way they don’t use the same pins as USB of course because they have their own connectors. And disabling access to the audio dongle while the device is locked wouldn’t make sense.

Yes. I would like customized timeouts. 7 days is too long.

I think they could probably just open the case and wire a new port anyway.

I would love to know their strategy. I can barely remove lint from the lightning port without damaging the electronics!

Acetone softens many plastics nicely

Ahhhhhh interesting! I kind of want to try it on the stuff I've got kicking around here, just to see...

A hair dryer would likely work.

We might be talking about different types of epoxy... I have two part "high temperature" putty epoxy at home that is stopping a loose bracket from rattling on my furnace. Significantly hotter than a hair dryer in that spot. It was $5 at Home Depot.

There's also test pads to wire up to and/or build a new port.

To those considering doing this, please keep in mind that if you do this, you will not be able to "unbrick" or receive authorized repairs for your phone. That's probably exactly what's desired, but as "wireless charging" models are nearly a thousand dollars, epoxyer beware.

Or, you could make your device supervised via MDM or Apple Device Configurator, and disable "Allow devices to pair with other computers". This will generate a keypair on the machine running Device Configurator + the iPhone, and no other USB data connection will be allowed - you won't get prompted for "Trust" at all (except for CarPlay etc.).

On top of that, since iOS 11 (or maybe 10), trusting a USB device requires the passcode by default, so even having your phone ripped out of your hands unlocked does not lead to the ability to take a USB backup directly anymore.

> Or, you could make your device supervised via MDM or Apple Device Configurator, ...

I haven't looked into this so I apologize if it's an easily answered question but... is this (MDM/ADC) something an individual can do for their own devices? I know it can be done at the organizational level for, e.g., employer-owned devices, but how hard is this for Joe Blow to set up for, say, his kids' iPads and iPhones?

Yes. This is a very old article I had written back in the iOS 9 days, it still mostly applies.

A few warnings:

1 - Changing an iOS device to "Supervised" will wipe it (so you can't supervise someone else's device and data).

2 - Backing up iOS devices over USB after requires that you keep the keypair, and makes restoring to new devices much more complicated. I would not recommend relying on USB backups if using this method unless you play around and understand it well.

3 - Be sure you set the profile to be removable only by wiping the device, or using Device Configurator, otherwise, the profile could be deleted to enable USB.

4 - One could wipe the keys completely to be sure that NO machine has USB access to the phone, meaning it would need to be restored to factory defaults for USB to work again.

https://blog.rapid7.com/2015/11/26/reduced-annoyances-and-in...

Configurator is awesome, especially for VPN profiles. But do note that many of its features can only deploy to managed devices under an Apple enterprise cert.

The iPhone 8 starts at $700, the same price the iPhone has been for a long time.

Thanks for the correction. I can’t afford $700 any more than $1000, so I left my wording intact. Note that the exact price point is entirely irrelevant until it drops to “throwaway”, which $700 is not.

iPhone 7 started at $650

iPhone 7 doesn't have wireless charging.

They’re right. I guess Apple upped the base price $50.

iPhone 8 starts at 950$ in Europe. Other phones (e.g. first tier Chinese brands) don't suffer the same insane markup. 8plus is 1075$ and X is 1365$. All for basic memory models.

I think it's articles like this that disprove the "insane markup" comments. There is a differentiator that justifies the increased cost. Increase privacy is not more expensive, decreased privacy is just cheaper.

You usually don’t even need that. 99% of the time someone posting flame bait like that will be comparing unlike things - slower CPUs, worse displays, etc. Equivalent hardware tends to be very close because markets usually do work efficiently.

I'm comparing the lowest models that meet my needs. Why should I have to pretend there's not cheaper, less powerful handsets that can fulfill my needs just to make Apple look better?

(Granted, my strict needs could be met with one of TI's sub-$0.50 microcontrollers and a seven-segment display since they're "make phone calls" and "generate two-factor authentication codes")

Because it’s mislesding, just as it would be to say that a restaurant is overpriced because you wanted a takeout burrito.

If all you need is enough to run a TOTP app, you could get a dumb phone with a $10 token but you could also make an honest comparison with the $350 iPhone SE or $450 iPhone 6S rather than comparing the iPhone X/8 to devices which weren’t intended to compete with current generation flagship models.

Chinese brands aren't known from protecting your data. Usually the opposite.

Android handset makers just manufacture the handset. Google provides the OS, and the underlying services for the Android ecosystem.

Apple bears both the cost of handset manufacturing, and the entirety of costs for the smartphone's ecosystem. That cost is reflected in the price, making the markup less "insane."

The Chinese handset makers in question may provide their own software, but it's typically considered "bloatware" and no where near the quality of software that Google provides.

That only works if you have an iPhone X, and why should I destroy a phone permanently for this when bette software design and hardening could fix it.

Or 8.