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Have Your iPhone 6 Repaired, Only To Get It Bricked By Apple (theguardian.com)

New submitter Nemosoft Unv. writes: In case you had a problem with the fingerprint sensor or some other small defect on your iPhone 6 and had it repaired by a non-official (read: cheaper) shop, you may be in for a nasty surprise: error 53. What happens is that during an OS update or re-install the software checks the internal hardware and if it detects a non-Apple component, it will display an error 53 and brick your phone. Any photos or other data held on the handset is lost – and irretrievable. Thousands of people have flocked to forums to express their dismay at this. What's more insiduous is that the error may only appear weeks or months after the repair. Incredibly, Apple says this cannot be fixed by any hard- or software update, while it is clearly their software that causes the problem in the first place. And then you thought FTDI was being nasty ...

1 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. That's not how computers & laws have ever work by Brannon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You own the hardware and you can do whatever you want to it--but you are in no way entitled to have the original manufacturer support your efforts to make mods to the hardware or to support you when you've violated the terms of the warranty.

    If you drop it and then take it to an unauthorized service vendor and they damage it--then you're on your own.

    BTW: you're also not required to take OS updates, you have to click through a lot of legalese in order to get one. In this case the customer chose to take an OS update, unaware that the new OS detected a security violation that exposed their un-sanctioned repair work.

    This is how things have always worked with any kind of device ever sold before in the history of mankind. The problem is that you're an idiot.