The "solution" of just expecting the previous owner to never make a mistake is unreliable and totally unnecessary. Apple can act as the common contact for the system they created.
It would also make recovery of stolen devices easier. Refurbisher has Apple contact the owner, owner says it was stolen, person gets their equipment back.
I don't see the downside here, literally everyone gets what they want - people can sell or dispose of their old devices as they see fit, refurbishers and third-party repair shops can get parts and devices they need to run their business, Apple gets to continue touting the security of the platform, and victims of theft have a better chance of recovering their often expensive gadgets.
You are an honest person.
The downside for Apple is that they want people to be forced to buy new phones from them, not one on the secondhand market from someone else.
Money doesn't get paid until activation lock is verified as disabled. T-Mobile does this every time I trade in a phone, it's nothing new.
> or a couple who broke up where it's not clear who "owns" the phone.
There's no good way to ever handle this, ever - even without activation locks. Not worth worrying about, send the device to the registered owner and let the courts deal with it if people want to get bitchy with their former partner.
Apple could play the go-between. They could alert the previous owner that the device has been found, and provide a grace period where a user could request return, for a fee, including Apple's S&H, and a finders' fee for the reporting agent.
At the expiration of the grace period, Apple could provide a device reset code.
HNers go on and on about big brother Cupertino all the time, but ooh some (well intentioned but misguided) refurb/recycling shop writes an article and all of a sudden critical thinking goes out the window.
Also, please refrain from snide remarks, per HN commenting guidelines. Let your arguments stand on their merits.
Now, I could point out that absent any rationale, your comment fails to make the conversation "more thoughtful and substantive", as requested per HN commenting guidelines. However, I'd also remind everyone that HN isn't moderated by replying to comments you feel break the guidelines. Quite the opposite: "don't feed egregious comments by replying," if you really believe a comment is that bad then flag it.
However, said guidelines also remind us that critical comments are teaching moments and can be inherently good. Wit is frequently a valuable component in criticism, and there's a different between wit and mean-spirited snark. Thus, we're left with maybe the most important guideline: Assume good faith. I genuinely believe the article OP is well-intentioned, and was hoping the comment parent would provide some additional justification or perhaps reflection based on the distinction between good ideas and BigTech overreach. Instead, meta-commentary.
Regardless, have a good day.
I also think this system would be even better than Apple's current approach to ensuring that owners retain control of their data and hardware. Preventing misuse and allowing responsible transfer are two sides of the same coin. Though, again, I don't think Apple would see it that way.
Creating a backdoor might not be the answer, but it sounds like there's no way to send a message to the phone's iCloud account saying "Hey I have your phone, it was recycled. Please remote-wipe and unlock it or give me an address to return it."
Apple (and Google, with the Android equivalent) could do this easily, couldn't they? Wouldn't this also be useful for the case of devices that are lost and found, so that they can be returned to the owner?
[0]: https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare...
It sounds like the system works as designed. Steal a locked-iPhone? Congrats, you just stole a worthless brick. Please illustrate to me how this mechanism "doesn't work" when it seems to defeat 99%+ of folks from re-selling the illegitimately-obtained device for any meaningful amount of money, contrasted to its worth in an unlocked state.
They're arguing that it's not designed well because it should accommodate recovering parts from phones that were knowingly disposed of without the owner releasing the activation lock first.
As parent comment points out, this could be a simple matter of the refurbisher requesting a release of the lock, sending a request through Apple, and Apple requesting permission of the phone's owner via the account it's locked to. If the phone was stolen, they click no. If the phone was given for recycling and has parts that can still be used, they click yes.
If Apple really wants to reduce waste (their next big environmental goal after meeting the renewable energy one), they could offer a $5 gift certificate to incentivize people to bother with releasing their old phone's motherboard if it's still usable, but implementing this in the first place would already cost them time and money so I'm not holding my breath.
> As parent comment points out, this could be a simple matter of the refurbisher requesting a release of the lock, sending a request through Apple, and Apple requesting permission of the phone's owner via their account. If the phone was stolen, they click no. If the phone was given for recycling and has parts that can still be used, they click yes.
Is that even possible? (Legitimately curious) My understanding is in the current design certain expensive things, like the SoC+Security-Enclave are certed/secure-booted, and I imagine other parts are just generic / "off the shelf" plug in and power up and go.
If it is possible to allow more component level re-use without violating the security goal (deter theft), I'm all for it. The more I think about this I honestly think this is active design decision by Apple to avoid a number of long tail permutations they would otherwise need to test and support.
Once you’re done using your device, it isn’t as easy to swap parts between macs without triggering the T2 chip where hardware changes must be okayed in an Apple.
That will flush secondary and used Mac markets away and back to Apple to likely do the same at the higher price point.
The used Mac marketplace is invaluable for new and young creators to get into a platform like Mac.
A stolen device has zero effect on apple's profits, but a repaired reused device does.
The sad thing is that others copy such "features" and in the end you will not be able to install or use a device that isn't "safe". How long until a democracy like the US or EU will dictate what is allowed on a device?1984 is coming and we are thinking it's a good thing because we can have a bit more "safety".
What Apple has done just isn't with the trade off.
Typically the value of a computer is about the same as the sum of its parts, because otherwise plenty of people would be up for a $270 profit by buying $30 worth of parts and assembling them to sell as a $300 computer.
> And if people are dropping these off for recycling, isn't the expectation that they're being used for parts at best anyways? If they're high enough value to actually be refurbished and resold, then it's worth putting the recycling bins behind cashiers or similar, who are trained to first verify they're unlocked before accepting them.
It's generally the other way around. The less a computer is worth (and so the less the parts are worth), the more you want to try to sell it as a whole unit to minimize transaction overhead because the fixed overhead is a larger percentage of the sale price on less expensive hardware.
From another comment: My understanding is in the current design certain expensive things, like the SoC+Security-Enclave are certed/secure-booted, and I imagine other parts are just generic / "off the shelf" plug in and power up and go.
Moreover, isn't this article about Macs anyway?
The difference between a working phone vs just its parts isn't $30. You should've gone with the parent's $30 vs $300 estimation.
I guarantee there are people willing to violently mug you for $300 but not for $30.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/apple-is-locking-batteries-to-ip...
As someone who has had both a smartphone and a laptop stolen, I would have loved to know that aside from my frustration with the insurance company that the thief walked away with 2 worthless bricks.
And no, right to repair should not ban user-initiated device activation locks.
And a 9pm curfew for anyone not currently working would prevent a lot of bad behavior too. Also, it would be idiotic. Not all things that have _some_ good aspects are good things.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18077166/apple-macbook-a...
"The parts affected, according to the document, are the display assembly, logic board, top case, and Touch ID board for the MacBook Pro, and the logic board and flash storage on the iMac Pro."
That doesn't leave much salvageable.
It was surprising how much value the old parts had.
Sad that old units with a broken X will just be scrapped because Apple will wants $hundreds for any of its specialized parts.
Apple does nothing, zero, nada to unite owners with lost equipment. (grumble, grumble)
Just realize they benefit from this.
What is stopping a "criminal" from bypassing this activation lock? Time and technical ability? It surely isn't legal recourse or fear of losing the device. It's a matter of time before this is moot.
On top of that, I've left "criminal" in quotes because quite frankly, I don't care if Apple claims breaking this lock is a breach of DMCA, ToS, or anything else. I've paid for the device. It's mine. The data on it is mine. If I want something out of it bad enough, I'm getting to it. Regardless of their corporate philosophy.
On recycling, this is likely a step away from being generally responsible. Apple already has locks in place preventing parts from "non-genuine" repair shops being used. In addition they engineer components to be tightly-coupled to one another. Now they want to lock the entire device?
At best, this can be argued as "pro-customer", but not pro-consumer. Apple has made good decisions in the past; this isn't one of them.
I know--different context--but the technical implementation is similar. Which would suggest the impact of those discussions is larger than previously thought.
It makes me very happy, as a consumer, knowing that if someone steals my phone, they can't get any value out of it. I don't want them to be able to sell it to a refurbisher for cash. And I don't want them to be able to do it with my laptop either.
And for refurbishers, it's not hard to make it an obvious required step for anyone looking to sell their own legitimately-owned phone. You just make it part of the instructions, and force them to check a couple boxes or popups acknowledging this before they can print the shipping label to send it in. And if the person doesn't follow instructions, you send it back to them.
The headline should really be "...will make it difficult to refurbish stolen Macs". Not a lot of sympathy.
Edit: in response to comments... yes these can still be sold for parts. But it still makes me feel better a thief will get $30, not $300, for my phone -- that's often enough of a difference between it being worth it or not. And if people are dropping these off for recycling, isn't the expectation that they're being used for parts at best anyways? If they're high enough value to actually be refurbished and resold, then it's worth putting the recycling bins behind cashiers or similar, who are trained to first verify they're unlocked before accepting them.