> Yes it’s expensive, but the screen is the biggest and probably the hardest to manufacture part on the phone so it’s going to be expensive.

If it weren't glued in place and if they wouldn't tie Face ID components to the goddamn screen, it would be far less expensive. I managed to break my iPhone 12 Mini's screen in a freak incident - the protection glass is intact, but it shattered below it, right over the left Face ID illuminator.

A new display + glass would clock in at 60-100€ plus maybe half an hour of time to do the replacement - but that would break FaceID as the components are paired for whatever reason. Apple's quote is 279€. What a fucking joke!

The mainboard and FaceID sensor are paired so you can’t ‘trick’ the phone into letting you in with a dummy FaceID sensor.

The complaint is that it's tied to the screen, not the mainboard.

Pairing sensor and mainboard is fine as long as I can reset it when I reset the phone.

That makes sense but why is this shit glued to the screen? Every other phone has the camera, proximity sensor and whatever installed in the main body or at least makes it trivial to take off from the old screen and replace in a new one.

Also... why is there any need for the FaceID sensor to be paired? It's two LEDs illuminating the face from different angles in infrared so the camera can create a depth map. None of that needs a secure connection.

It makes the phone parts next to worthless on the secondhand market, making it not worthwhile to steal the phone and sell it for parts.

Hector Martin has some nice rants about right-to-repair zealots and their lack of understanding as to why Apple made the decisions they did.

I can assure you that stolen iPhones absolutely aren't worthless. They are sent to various places where extremely technically sophisticated groups are still able to make at least 200$, sometimes much more, from a stolen iPhone, which isn't much less than what it used to be worth. In fact, phone thieves in many places only ever made about 50-100$ from a stolen high end phone.

Phone theft is a billion dollar industry, and as Apple tries to lock down parts, thieves adapted by forming far more efficient logistics and by centralizing value extraction from stolen phones. Apple's tactics haven't so far made a big impact to a phone thief's incentives, and I don't see it happening in the near future either.

I agree with the zealots but there could be better ways - for one, make the replacement screens "unpaired" by default, maybe using a WORM to store keys, so people (or repair shops) could still repair their phones with legit replacement screens while "second hand" aka parted-out displays would still be impeded.

>right-to-repair zealots

You will own nothing, and you will be happy. :^)

Not sure what costs but you can get a 12 mini done for £79 in the UK (non Apple https://www.ismash.com/collections/iphone-12-mini-repairs)