An iPhone that is wiped, even in DFU mode, requires the Apple ID and password immediately after it is booted for the first time.

Basically, a stolen iPhone is only worth the sum of its parts so they can be used to repair other phones.

How does this work? I sold my old iphone to amazon. I never reported it "unstolen" or whatever to apple. Amazon paid me $200 for iPhone parts?

It's new in iOS 7. You'll have to explicitly wipe & reset your iPhone before selling it from now on.

So if it works as advertised, stolen iPhones and iPads will only be worth the sum of their parts.

Hmm. After upgrading my ipad to iOS 7, I changed my pass code. Which I promptly forgot. I had to reset it from iTunes, on a computer which had never paired with the ipad (in fact I had to download iTunes to do this). When the ipad restarted it asked me for my Apple ID but that seemed to be for the iCloud restore. I think I could have skipped it and had a functioning ipad. But apparently not?

Nope. The Apple ID is necessary to restore in iOS 7.

removing that wipe feature would be a nice tidy way to destroy the secondary market for iphones...

did I just predict iOS8?

No.

Apple are perfectly happy with the second hand market for iPhones.

I've just ordered a 5S. It's costing me £709. My iPhone 4S 64Gb is worth about £200 second hand. Even a new 8Gb 4S, the cheapest model available new, is £349.

Anyone interested in my second hand phone was almost certainly never going to spring for a new iPhone.

The market for second hand iPhones does next to nothing to cannibalise the market for new iPhones (which Apple cares about) and strengthens the iOS ecosystem (both by bringing in new customers who might buy apps, music and movies but also keeping customers away from competing platforms).

There's more upside than downside for Apple in second hand iPhones.

With iOS 7, when you select "Erase All Content and Settings", it will disable Find My iPhone after prompting you for your Apple ID password.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5818

Uh, no. Of course it's doesn't prevent theft. (Though the new 'wipe the phone in 10 tries' thing may deter it, separate from TouchID, I'm not sure.)

The point is that with TouchID (as opposed to no passcode) the thief will not be able to send porn to my mom or read my text messages before they wipe the phone.

And with iOS7 they're going to have a harder time wiping it because phones are now locked to your Apple account. So they need your Apple account ID and password to wipe it.

I wonder how much targeted attacks to recover that go for on the black market? Would the phone thief still make a profit?

I'm not protecting my phone, I'm protecting my data. It does a pretty good job of that. Don't think we're somehow deluded for thinking that the data is the more valuable part of the thing.

The most important distinction. Someone who wants your hardware doesn't care about the data, and will wipe the phone (although this is where iOS 7's Activation Lock comes in). And, if they want your data, they will figure that out, too. Touch ID is just a deterrent, same as a password or PIN, just to varying degrees.

No one thinks it will deter thieves. It will make it more difficult for thieves to offload the phone (however marginally), and will give you time to use Find My iPhone, wipe it remotely, or brick it before your data gets compromised. As someone who did not use a passcode who recently had a phone stolen, I can tell that this is valuable. Also, why don't people focus on the real convenience - purchases by fingerprint scan.

I think any reference to improved protection against theft has to do with iOS 7's new feature of requiring an Apple ID even after a wipe.