<story><title>Apple’s New Screen Repair Trap</title><url>https://www.ifixit.com/News/54829/apples-new-screen-repair-trap-could-change-the-repair-industry-forever</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lykr0n</author><text>I think the part of the discussion that is ignored here is the security aspect.&lt;p&gt;Apple has hardened their hardware against attackers replacing components of the phone with compromised versions. Sure, at the same time it prevents 3rd party repairs, but I don&amp;#x27;t think Apple&amp;#x27;s only motivation for doing this was to screw over 3rd party repair shops.&lt;p&gt;When the NSA leaks came out, there was some sections that showed how shipments of electronics could be intercepted and backdoored. I would 100% believe there are groups out there that have or are working on chip level attacks for iPhones and other mobile products. Swap Apple&amp;#x27;s Face unlock chip with a custom one that includes other embedded profiles that can unlock the phone without the owner&amp;#x27;s knowledge does not seem far fetched.&lt;p&gt;A lot of the changes to the MacBooks seem to also have been done with device hardening in mind.&lt;p&gt;I cannot tell you how much damage my iPhone 12 Pro has taken without the screen cracking, which makes me personally think the reasons these changes have been made are not just related to 3rd party repairs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>userbinator</author><text>If you look back at the history of Apple you&amp;#x27;ll find they&amp;#x27;ve always been authoritarian control-freaks, ever since the original Macintosh. This is merely another step in the same direction.&lt;p&gt;The article even says that the repair shops have already found ways around it, so whatever element of &amp;quot;security&amp;quot; it provides is clearly extremely low. It only exists as a (low) bar against third-party repair, with &amp;quot;security&amp;quot; as an excuse.&lt;p&gt;As the saying goes &amp;quot;those who give up freedom for security...&amp;quot; etc.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple’s New Screen Repair Trap</title><url>https://www.ifixit.com/News/54829/apples-new-screen-repair-trap-could-change-the-repair-industry-forever</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lykr0n</author><text>I think the part of the discussion that is ignored here is the security aspect.&lt;p&gt;Apple has hardened their hardware against attackers replacing components of the phone with compromised versions. Sure, at the same time it prevents 3rd party repairs, but I don&amp;#x27;t think Apple&amp;#x27;s only motivation for doing this was to screw over 3rd party repair shops.&lt;p&gt;When the NSA leaks came out, there was some sections that showed how shipments of electronics could be intercepted and backdoored. I would 100% believe there are groups out there that have or are working on chip level attacks for iPhones and other mobile products. Swap Apple&amp;#x27;s Face unlock chip with a custom one that includes other embedded profiles that can unlock the phone without the owner&amp;#x27;s knowledge does not seem far fetched.&lt;p&gt;A lot of the changes to the MacBooks seem to also have been done with device hardening in mind.&lt;p&gt;I cannot tell you how much damage my iPhone 12 Pro has taken without the screen cracking, which makes me personally think the reasons these changes have been made are not just related to 3rd party repairs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>saagarjha</author><text>I mean, yes, this change makes them more money. But Apple is weird, because they are actually able to convince themselves that they&amp;#x27;re doing this for a good reason, and if you follow them closely you can almost see their central argument: when it comes to security, they trust nobody but themselves, not even the user they sell the device to. It&amp;#x27;s kind of a strange mindset, but if you look at it under that lens a lot of the concerns about sideloading and repairs make sense from their perspective (&amp;quot;we don&amp;#x27;t trust the user to do the right thing for their devices&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;How does this look like from the outside? I think there are genuinely a lot of people who actually agree with this. Actually, I think almost everyone agrees with this to some extent: people only have a limited amount of effort they can spend managing different parts of their life. The conflict occurs for the parts where people &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; feel like they can make better decisions than Apple, but they can&amp;#x27;t because Apple won&amp;#x27;t let them. For most people, going to an Apple Store or AASP to get a repair is generally fine and saves them hassle. But for the people who are willing to save money to go elsewhere, or do their own repairs, it really sucks.</text></comment>