That would be a good argument for Apple showing a warning every time it's powered on or something, but not for it refusing to work altogether.
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Yeah, but then you could just flash with a different ROM or something and prevent that warning from being displayed?
Then what stops this "counter-measure" from "working?" Could they not just "flash with a different ROM or something" to allow the part to work normally?
I genuinely doubt that the level of theft ever rose to a large enough margin, if it did, Apple would have pulled out of China.
For reference, Apple employs ex-NSA, CIA, TLA professionals to solve this exact problem with a near endless budget and 0 oversight and accountability.
Most notably, one of the organisational leaders was caught bribing the sheriff's office for concealed carry permits, https://www.ft.com/content/e73676d7-c6bc-4b07-b9bf-9bd702f1f... / https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/29/apples_chief_security...
> I genuinely doubt that the level of theft ever rose to a large enough margin, if it did, Apple would have pulled out of China.
There was a point where the black market in China was making more on Apple products than Apple itself. They initially tried to have stricter warranty conditions in China as a fix, but state media decided this was an affront to the country: https://www.infoworld.com/article/2271627/apple-clarifies-wa...
Hence, the technical fix.
Why pull out when you can apply a technical fix and retain both access to the biggest consumer electronics market in the world and maintain the good graces of the country that manufactures almost all your products?
If you could do that, you could just flash a new ROM to ignore serial errors, too.
The checks are not entirely in software, and would not be in showing the error, either.
The situation has changed recently for iphones. Parts are icloud locked now. While the part serial is registered to an icloud locked iphone. Any phone with those parts will refuse to work entirely until the part is either removed or the part is unlinked from the owners account.
This would be the way to go if on the flip side any part that was not iCloud locked could be paired without hassles. Phone stolen/lost/etc? Parts unusable. Phone iCloud unlocked? Parts free for use. Of course this depends on mitigating various ways thieves can iCloud unlock stolen phones..I think the current method is snatching the phone while it's in use and iCloud unlocking it? However that doesn't make much sense since I assume you need some sort of password to do so even if the phone is physically unlocked?
The current way is forcing the owner to icloud unlock it at knifepoint. But I'm pretty sure Apple made a change recently where you have to wait a few hours and pass faceid before the unlock finishees.
Source? What message does iOS show?