Good job ifixit! This should be a cause for outrage. Pretending to support the right to repair while also softwarelocking repairs is not just two faced, but actively harming the consumers.
Ever wondered why the cable breaks so easily? It’s because they use crappy materials. Oh, and it’s also ecological or something, which obviously has no impact on profit margins, right.
You know, as both an Apple fanboy and a repair advocate I was disgusted by their over affirmation of being carbon neutral like it’s a badge to be proud of when people KNOW they are just not friendly to repairing your shit easily.
I’m heavily locked into their ecosystem but they are starting to push their luck with me trying to push this bullshit.
people KNOW they are just not friendly to repairing your shit easily.
You know, I got into an argument about this recently and there were 3 different people trying to argue exactly the opposite to me. And they used ifixit’s scores as evidence. So no, people don’t know. Apple’s disinformation works.
My partner and I left the apple ecosystem about a year ago. We got new phones and gave our old watches, airtags, and airpods to friends and family that wanted them. It felt like it was going to be too much to give up, but honestly it’s been great.
There’s so much more freedom in every facet of the phone. Apple likes to give an option, a rich people option, and occasionally a truly professional tier. Leaving Apple behind, I have wireless earbuds I love that have an 8hr lifespan out of the dock. They were fifty dollars and they sound easily better than airpods. It felt like it would be expensive to leave, but the alternatives once you leave the ecosystem tend to be cheaper pound for pound.
Mfs out here want to install their bootleg faceid in my phone at their sketchy self repair place so they can sell my data and break its security. Let’s not pretend ifixit isn’t the exact same rent seeking that apple is, they just want to be the middle man
If a lock is broken, then you might call a locksmith to fix or replace it. This is something that happens frequently and isn’t as absurd as you make it out to be.
I’m not saying it has to be absurd, but no one is acknowledging that the security risks are real, and requiring a lesser standard of security is a cost of legislating this stuff, which it is the editorial stance of ifixit to support
No, but Android world allows more environmental friendly tech reusability and the freedom to employ any locksmith’s locks, instead of using only one dictator’s certified lock. While I would not want to compromise secure face unlock camera, I sure as hell want to to be able to employ any maker’s screen, battery, speaker, back cover and so on. The rotten fruit company disallows this environmental sustainability.
If not for Europe’s market size, Apple would not have implemented USB-C either, despite having USB-C on all their other devices.
That’s a bad comparison because I wouldn’t let a random Internet stranger fix my phone either, but I would allow an actual locksmith to change my locks.
No, you can’t, because that isn’t a good analogy. Those two situations are not at all the same, but I’ll humor you.
The analogy you’re making is like saying only the company who makes doors is allowed to change the lock on your door, and they’re allowed to just stop offering the lock-changing service whenever they want. They also conveniently put a mechanism in so that whenever a third-party locksmith comes, your door falls apart. Your only option is to buy a new door, doorknob, frame, and hinge because your lock is worn out.
Never owned an apple device, so I might be drastically off base here.
Is face id actually its own unit, including authentication storage?
If I were designing the iPhone, I’d just use a camera that relays the data to the CPU, and authentication happens there. If it operates like this, a more accurate comparison is I’d let a third party reputable locksmith change my locks, but I’ll set the key pins myself after.
I’m assuming this is supposed to be metaphorical but you don’t seem to understand that it is not analogous because replacing FaceID doesn’t suddenly give you access to the device.
It absolutely could, if the processor trusts that the data coming from the faceid sensor is accurate, the faceid sensor can simply lie. You’re removing a layer of defense, which necessarily impacts security
I think he think the face id just says “yeah, that’s right, unlock” and the phone unlocks. So if you put in a custom one that always says “yeah unlock” it will just always unlock. As if the person putting in the thing couldn’t see the data on your storage anyway
Those “bootleg” screens often are genuine, but Apple makes features not work unless paired. You can literally swap the screens of two fresh out of the box iPhones and they won’t work. Swap them back, they work fine. Don’t defend their practices, and don’t believe the lies about repair they’ve been feeding you for years.
often are genuine, but Apple makes features not work unless paired
Because unless you pair the screen, the device has no way to know it’s genuine. If it’s not, it could implement any number of attacks, including keyloggers, screen stealers, etc
don’t believe
Why shouldn’t I? No one has given an argument that you can actually secure these peripherals without software locks, I bought my iPhone and MacBook because they offer security, even when I run Linux on it my MacBook has far superior boot security (the only thing apple has engineering control over in that use case) than any intel machines I’ve used
Also lol that article, you know the difference between one incident and a pervasive effort to mine your privacy for profit
You cannot and that’s ok. The problem here is people have different levels of risk acceptance and that’s ok. If I was a government or corporate leader I would probably prefer buying direct from apple, but most end consumers, especially those who want to do these repairs should have the choice to accept that risk on a device that they own. The manufacturer shouldn’t decide who I trust. The owner should.
people have different levels of risk acceptance and that’s ok
Except it is the editorial agenda of ifixit to promote legislation that requires this lesser level of security, which makes it not ok. Outlawing verification in software requires all devices to have the same vulnerability at the interface, it would even affect users who want to buy OEM.
Noone is saying it should be outlawed. What they are saying is that in order for a device to be considered highly repairable to an end user this type of check should be able to be turned off or not included.
You can have both though. Just add some random menu in the settings that turns bright red when using a non-certified component so security can be easily verified, but don’t needlessly lock people out and charge $500 to fix a $10-50 module on a $1000 phone
Edit: Adding on to this, Ifixit isn’t outlawing verification, the above example of whatever red warning is a clear way they could keep it.
Then why do Apple employees extract intimate sex life photos out of people’s phones, or give away passwords of protestors accused (not guilty) of vandalism?
Um how exactly do you think these “rogue devices” would exfiltrate that data? Do you think iOS is providing Internet access to the faceID module or the display? Or do you think these devices somehow contain an entire wifi chipset to connect to the Internet to exfiltrate your data without anyone noticing an entire extra SoC soldered onto the part?
Please provide any argument as to why you think these could exfiltrate data over these interfaces? Unless you think iOS’s security is so poor that it lets any hardware device that’s attached to it get full network access? (Which I’m pretty sure is not physically even possible in most cases since those connectors are only capable of sending the type of data across for that particular sensor.)
To exfiltrate the login password from a keylogger on a macbook, for example, you need to have some software running on the cpu as well as the keyboard itself. This makes it very difficult to do in reality, as you have to infect both devices and if you do not have physical access, your exploit needs to be done across the keyboard interface, which makes it very hard to do in practice. Swapping any random keyboard in that could potentially be malicious introduces two issues, as now the keyboard itself may have a keylogger, as well as opening the possibility of exploiting some vulnerability in the cpu from the keyboard itself. You therefore open two attack surfaces that were previously closed, which is highly significant.
If you think keyloggers require software running on your physical keyboards you’re in for a rude awakening.
Keyloggers are almost always at a pure software level and are conceptually simple to make. So simple that in fact, it’s the same thing as running a regular application with background shortcuts. The only thing that is different is that regular apps aren’t saving/recording anything, they’re just listening for you to press cmd+whatever.
It takes maybe ~10-15 minutes to make a keylogger in Python that could run on any computer, mac, windows, or Linux. Maybe a little longer if you wanted to use a compiled language and properly hide it.
I think we’re on the same page? If an attacker wanted a keylogger they wouldn’t even need to go as far as a screen, there are plenty of other ways (like a 3rd party keyboard app) that would work just as well, if not better, on an iPhone.
Hell, while we’re at it, using a phishing email to get you to enter a password in a fake site or using social engineering to reset your passwords is way more effective than reverse engineering and modding a camera/screen.
There’s no reason why Apple should get to keep exclusive rights on repairs just to profit more on parts. 3rd party screens, cameras, face id modules, etc. aren’t going to suddenly make your phone less secure.
Why isn’t purchasing the part through Apple enough?
And also Is the consumer not allowed to assume the risk of going through after market repair that you seem to be concerned about?
This issue has always been about Apple trying to force older iPhones into obsolescence. They want the freedom to eventually say that no more parts exist for that device so you’ll have to upgrade. If repair shops can leverage broken phones to repair other phones, that extends the life of the device part Apples plans.
Most people will continue using older phones as long as they can because they don’t need the latest phone.
How the hell do you expect a screen to keylog you? This is a stupid argument. Even if the screen did know when the onscreen keyboard was visible how tf do you expect the logged data to go anywhere? Are you seriously worried that aftermarket iphone screens are including hidden LTE modems (and thus paying for illegitimate service) just to potentially log your keys? Do you realize how difficult and ridiculous this would be?
Aside the whole issue that a single component in a system exfiltrating data without cooperation from many of the other components in the system is just patently absurd, the honest truth is that anyone who wants to break your security isn't going to go to the extreme length of making certain your screen is replaced with a covert unit that can somehow inform them of anything you're doing when for most cases a pair of binoculars will get the same job done for much cheaper and is at least half as convoluted, a hit to the head with a $5 wrench gets your fingerprint much more easily than a replacement fingerprint scanner does, and most compromises of a user would be far more effectively done in software rather than hardware. Software which constantly has new bugs to exploit while getting a crooked piece of hardware navigated into place is just an absurdly unlikely occurrence that would require a massive coverup the size of which is out of the reach of most entities in existence.
Do you have any evidence that there’s a pervasive effort from third party repair to mine your privacy for profit? I’d love to see it.
Also, fine, let’s assume they have no way of knowing it’s genuine. Why don’t they release the tool to pair the OEM screens publicly? It’d only work on the real ones, and they have such a tool, so if it’s actually about security, there’s no reason not to.
Has anyone been surprised in the slightest that Apple locks you in, since the 1980's? I mean, it's literally ALWAYS BEEN the shittiest company to do any tech work with because it's so proprietary, in their hardware, software, entire ecosystem. THIS WAS ALWAYS THE PROBLEM WITH APPLE WHY HAVE SO MANY IDIOTS BOUGHT INTO IT.
Good UI, familiarity, catering to non-tech people, marketing to certain lifestyles, and the hassle of migrating out of the apple ecosystem and buying new apps. At one time apple had better offerings than the PC world did, but when it caught up any reason to buy apple products at 1.5x the cost evaporated for me. This was long before smartphones.
At least some of their displays still are. The current 16” MacBook Pro has a 3456x2234 (what else uses 1.5:1 aspect ratio, so weird…) resolution, with HDR1000, and pre-calibrated profiles for a variety of film and graphic design color spaces. Just a monitor matching those specs is close in price to a base model 16”. Then professionally calibrating it if you’re not set up to do so yourself isn’t cheap either.
That’s always been the way with Apple. If you fit into the 0.1% of users that can make use of their products, it’s good value. If you don’t, it’s bad value and so locked down there’s nothing you can do about it. Most people don’t need what Apple is offering, yet buy it anyway. That’s the part I don’t get.
Apple has the trashiest UX out of any smartphone maker. Their back gesture is not universal, and you need to adapt to 3 types of back function for apps. Sane goes for their MacOS, I never found it comfortable as someone who duals Windows and Linux.
Yes, Apple locks you in, but Microsoft has always been worse. Apple’s options are proprietary, but Microsoft used their monopoly power to destroy their competitors like Netscape, and waged war against Linux. Meanwhile, Apple switched to a variation of NeXTSTEP which is mostly compatible with Unix and the GNU tools.
On the iPod / iPhone front, both Google and Apple lock users in to their app stores. Both manufacture un-repairable phones. The non-standard Lightning connector was a pain in the ass, but so was the frequent switching on Android phones from mini-B B to micro-B to USB-C. And, until USB-C there was the constant problem of trying to plug in the phone and getting the orientation of the plug wrong, something Apple got right with Lightning.
Then there’s advertising / surveillance. Google is an ad-tech company so privacy is never going to be high on their list of priorities for their end-users. Meanwhile, Apple led the way with App Tracking Transparency. Yes, Apple still surveils its users, but at least it doesn’t seem to use that data to rent eyeballs the way Google does.
Google and Apple are both shitty companies, but if you want a modern smartphone you basically have to deal with one of them. Apple and Microsoft are both shitty companies but if you want a desktop or a laptop, without the constant toil of dealing with Linux, they’re your only options. So, it’s about what bothers you more: anticompetitive actions including embracing standards with the aim of destroying them from within, or annoying proprietary stuff? Planned obsolescence and an extreme aversion to fixability, or slightly less surveillance, a slightly more open system, but much more surveillance?
Really, what’s needed is proper regulators who can reign in all these shitty companies.
While I personally wouldn’t repair my own iPhone. If I need it done I would want to go to an Apple Store anyway. This makes selling on your phone for other people to fix and use and sell on and use again virtually impossible, which would’ve been more sustainable than just binning the phone.
It’s especially shitty since they also announced net zero plans. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
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