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Recent iOS Update Kills Functionality On iPhone 8s Repaired With Aftermarket Screens (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Apple released iOS 11.3 at the end of March, and the update is killing touch functionality in iPhone 8s repaired with some aftermarket screens that worked prior to the update. That means people who broke their phone and had the audacity to get it repaired by anyone other than Apple is having a hard time using their phone. "This has caused my company over 2,000 reshipments," Aakshay Kripalani, CEO of Injured Gadgets, a Georgia-based retailer and repair shop, told me in a Facebook message. "Customers are annoyed and it seems like Apple is doing this to prevent customers from doing 3rd party repair." According to Michael Oberdick -- owner and operator of iOutlet, an Ohio-based pre-owned iPhone store and repair shop, every iPhone screen is powered by a small microchip, and that chip is what the repair community believes to be causing the issue. For the past six months, shops have been able to replace busted iPhone 8 screens with no problem, but something in the update killed touch functionality. According to several people I spoke to, third-party screen suppliers have already worked out the issue, but fixing the busted phones means re-opening up the phone and upgrading the chip. It remains to be seen whether Apple will issue a new software update that will suddenly fix these screens, but that is part of the problem: Many phones repaired by third parties are ticking timebombs; it's impossible for anyone to know if or when Apple will do something that breaks devices fixed with aftermarket parts. And every time a software update breaks repaired phones, Apple can say that third-party repair isn't safe, and the third-party repair world has to scramble for workarounds and fixes.
Seriously, who cares about this, or anything else Apple does that's shady? They're not harvesting or selling our data, at least. Surely that's well worth all the premiums and walled gardens.
Why would anyone go for aftermarket repairs when the device is still under warranty? They arent even a year old!
You're repairing it wrong.
Every industry has shops that want to repair phones with non-OEM parts
If you decide to be in this industry, thats the risk you take, and the risk your customers take for choosing you.
It will always be so, and no amount of crying is going to change that.
Man up and fix the phone you broke, Apple repair shops, and stop complaining.
These things have broken before, and apple fixes them (error 53). Unless you have a contract with Apple, why do you think they'd spend time doing the QA on your shady 3rd party screens?
Your customers want a lower price bracket, they get a lower support bracket. Wake me when Apple refuses to fix it.
Well, now we know that the touch chip is a vector for unauthorized access.
When you reverse engineer stuff you pay the price when things change. If it's only one vendor having the problem then you bought your stuff from the wrong vendor.
I could understand the story from last year (or whenever it was) about Apple updating their devices to reject third party repairs to the home button / finger scanner as that could have presented some obvious security risk. However, I'm having a hard time seeing the same here. I suppose one could make a case for this third party chip being able to scrape the screen in some nefarious manner, but that just seems a bit tinfoil hat.
You're worth $100 to Facebook.
You're worth $1,000 to Apple (and counting).
They haven't been caught harvesting or selling our data, at least.
Fixed that for you.
Google isn't "selling your data" either; it's way too valuable to let out. They're both selling you instead.
Possible explanation #1: they intentionally killed the functionality of third party chips.
Possible explanation #2: some third party chips were not actually up to spec in some subtle way, which wasn't an issue before.
Both seem fairly plausible. I didn't see anything in TFA that gave a solid reason to believe one or other.
"According to several people I spoke to, third-party screen suppliers have already worked out the issue, but fixing the busted phones means re-opening up the phone and upgrading the chip. "
Why wasn't this being done as part of the repair process in the first place?
Oh noes! I kludged in unsupported hardware and now it doesn't work! How dare Apple not know about and support every piece of hardware made by other companies in the world! It's an outrage!
I've been using iPhones since 2011. I'm kind of clumsy and drop them CONSTANTLY. I've never had a shattered screen because I shell out $40-50 for a high quality case and shatter guard. I've dropped my iPhones probably at least 500 times and it's never broken.
Audacity is starting a business called i-something to give it the impression of legitimacy, using cheap reverse-engineered parts and then complaining when Apple doesn't give a shit about compatibility with parts they had no hand in designing.
So... there are two scenarios :
1) Apple has crafted an update to specifically disable some 3rd party components
2) The third party component designer has failed to make a properly compatible part.
Despite the story sounding like theyâ(TM)re spinning it as (1) Iâ(TM)d be very surprised if it wasnâ(TM)t (2) as thatâ(TM)s the most likely if they can fix it with an update as reported. Whatâ(TM)s the news? Why should a manufacturer go to the effort of testing badly made replacement parts that they never claimed to support in the first place?
Since the 8s hasn't even been released yet.
Something I learned working in technology, "Do not confuse incompetence with malice."
Just because something breaks doesn't mean it is malicious move. It could be a lack of testing or just plain incompetence not realizing there existed thousands of 3rd party iPhone 8 screen repairs done. I don't think Apple intentionally wants to upset this many premium customers.
Never by an iPhone in the first place! Purchase an Android phone instead!
I have had very good success with Samsung support.
Back when Apple introduced the first iMac they also introduced the "G3 Blue & White Tower". Some months later, when everyone knew a new machine from Apple with a G4 processor was planned, some aftermarket outfits began selling a G4 upgrade kit. You could buy & install the upgrade kit and have a G4 Mac without the wait and without having to buy a new machine from Apple.
Apple released a firmware update (remember the "programmer's button"?) disguised as something I can't remember. That update broke all of these G4 upgrade kits.
This is simply the way Apple does business.
I mean, if 3rd parties already figures out the issue and fixed it, this doesnâ(TM)t really sound shady.
If they can do that, it sounds more like their replacement screens were out of normal spec in some way, and they needed to fix them properly.
Sounds like abuse of a computer system, unauthorized by user?
Is the fact that apple is a scummy company even news to anyone anymore?
Stock Android is a crapfest. If you're going to run Android at least flash it with CopperheadOS.
If you buy an iPhone then Apple is going to do everything in its power to ensure that all repairs (that are under warranty) will be done by authorized Apple repair shops. Why are people surprised when they push an update that invalidates third party repair? You're buying a product that bases its profit on the fact that it'll break just after warranty (or several months, whichever comes first) and you'll have to shell out for a new one. Apple doesn't give a shit whether or not they piss off a few people, they know that what the consumer is buying is their image. The only way they'll release a patch to allow third party screens is if they piss off enough people to affect their bottom line. Same thing happened with the fingerprint sensor.
Of course, Apple will say that they're protecting their "customers" by preventing those inferior third party parts from making their "product" unstable as a coverup, but that's just business right?
tl;dr: If you shell out the cash for the image product, why cheap out on repairs? Go whole hog with your bucks for the full user experience and feel the burn.
Google isn't "selling your data" either; it's way too valuable to let out. They're both selling you instead.
No they're selling the ability to possibly show you something, where 'you' is a loosely defined demographic and if you have an ad blocker the thing they are selling is of no value whatsoever.
Riiiiiiggghhhhhhttttttttt.
The absolute state of Applel. How are you sheep not filing a class action suit over this?
Right to repair, which should be the law. You can't get OEM parts because Apple won't sell them.
Companies are not required to sell parts for complete systems.
But repair companies could still acquire the OEM parts. Just buy a bunch of iphones and part them out.
And if they choose non-OEM parts, then the people who repair them need to also patch the drivers for their screens not apple
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Its just one thing after another with these guys. You'd think that a company would do everything that they could to make sure everything worked for the customer. That would include publishing specs so aftermarket manufacturers could provide alternative screens and then ensuring the software works with that spec. But when they don't, customers expectations are not met, and you get people like me, that long ago stopped doing anything "i".
No. Apple IS doing it because they're trying to prevent customers from doing 3rd party repair.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Seriously, pretty much everything Apple does is aimed at driving people to some other Apple product or service. Third party repair places, even the "authorized" ones have both arms and a leg tied behind their back by Apple, so that customers get pissed off and take the device to an Apple store where they can try to upsell them on either a new device, an accessory, maybe an extended warranty, or all of the above.
They're not harvesting or selling our data, at least
And you know this because... they said so?
I don't think that Apple should be testing compatibility of IOS updates (or any other tech vendor or producer of for example cars) on permutations of 3rd party hardware. It is the job of the part producer to check that their replacement part is indeed 100% compatible.
This being said, was the compatibility breakage done on purpose? I don't think they'd do that effort, since it can only piss off recurring customers, but even so it might be possible..
In any case this is a good example of the value of AppleCare+ for a mobile device. We used it to get my wife's Apple Watch screen replaced after our toddler threw it on the floor.
Back when he battery slowdown fiasco was coming to a head, I elected to take my out-of-warranty iPhone 6+ and swap the battery (iFixit brand) myself.
This went well and good until Apple decided to announce their own program 2 weeks later.
iOS 11.3 with the new battery diagnostics is a new problem. While the phone is perfectly able to report the charge amount of the battery, and it dutifully reports low battery notifications, it does not apparently work the same when the battery is near exhaustion. Now when the phone powers off due to a depleted battery, it no longer displays the "empty battery" symbol and shuts off. No, it tries to reboot itself and goes into a boot loop - which cannot be good for the phone or the battery. Once that happens, all you can do is plug it in and let it go until it gets enough of a charge to stop doing it.
iOS 11.3 also helpfully says the phone/battery requires service. Which they won't do now because there's a 3rd party battery installed. Doubly screwing the owner and killing the resale/trade-in market at the same time.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
First, using any kind of DRM / lock-in prevents cheap knockoffs from being used for replacement, causing inferior user experience.
Customers of iPhones with lowered quality are unlikely to ever buy an iPhone again because they will blame Apple for the bad parts (they don't know they got bad parts but just think their iPhone got bad or was so from the beginning).
Second, of course, Apple wants to profit from repairs as well.
Third, if you can assemble iPhones with cheap parts, you could build create "real" iPhones that work like the real thing, just with inferior user experience and harming future sales for Apple as well. There was a story on a guy who built an iPhone from parts he sourced himself from parts manufacturers.
Seriously, who cares about this, or anything else Apple does that's shady? They're not harvesting or selling our data, at least.
I've heard of reality distortion but this is some next level shit right there. I'd much sooner have Samsung sell some data on me to advertisers than push out an update that bricked my phone.
Privacy for the rich isn't much of an achievement. It should be universal, not just for those who can afford to own and maintain an iPhone.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Privacy for the poor isn't much of an achievement either:
When starting a new android device for the first time, Google asks permission to share some data. Just say NO instead of the default yes.
Similiarly, say NO to sharing your location in any way.
Get an adblocker for your web browser. Even if you don't mind the ads as such - the adblockers also do a lot for privacy.
And don't give them data through Facebook and similiar. The best is to not have an account. But if you feel a need 'to be on facebook': Don't enter any voluntary information. You don't need that they know your age, gender or anything else. Never press 'like' buttons - you don't need to play that game in order to see funny cats or get your party invites through facebook.
Yes, the joy of diversity. If you want to be so special and not go with the standard setup - Android lets you. And at least some of the phone manufacturers are ok with it too. And you can have third-party apps & appstores . . .
Seriously, who cares about this, or anything else Apple does that's shady? They're not harvesting or selling our data, at least. Surely that's well worth all the premiums and walled gardens.
Dude! That's like excusing the actions of an extortionist because he was so kind as to not tell the whole neighbourhood about your porn stash. Nice troll though...
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
iCare!
What ain't safe is iOS updates. They keep breaking functionality on phones that worked prior to the update.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know man, apple should make it so no other charger other than the one with their premium on top should work, at all, and no off brand usb wires either, oh no, we can't be having that now. Why not go the whole hog and put chips in their cases, then when the phone detects it's in an off brand case they can shut the whole show down. Sounds completely reasonable to me.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Stop buying Apple crap!
Doesn't this put Apple in violation of "right to repair" laws?
you made your stinky bed by buying that shit, now all your data is locked into apple shit and your a lazy cunt so you got what you deserved.
Leave it to Apple to take the printer's design of chipping the ink cartridge and apply that to everything so only their stuff works.
>But hey, at least they're not not selling your data.
Bwohohohahahahaha oh god my sides...
My poor sweet summer child, bless your innocent little cotton socks.
you buy a product for fags, you get something up your ass
sounds right to me
Stop buying iThings!
Why would they sell it once when they can rent it an infinite number of times?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd be interested to know the last time a company I did not directly pay made any money off of me. Not saying it hasn't happened, just that I'd be interested to know.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
If you don't purchase an overpriced repair part for your overpriced phone, we will figure out a way to make your phone not work. But...don't forget, we are Apple...you can trust us.
Consumers: All IPhones should be completely repairable with third party solutions!
Also Consumers: All IPhones should be completely unhackable even by the goverment!
My gut feeling is some of these updates by Apple are the result of closing security holes.
"Many phones repaired by third parties are ticking timebombs; it's impossible for anyone to know if or when Apple will do something that breaks devices fixed with aftermarket parts. And every time a software update breaks repaired phones, Apple can say that third-party repair isn't safe, and the third-party repair world has to scramble for workarounds and fixes."
This statement is applicable to pretty much any company out there with technological products, not just Apple.
I'm really a low 5-digit Slashdotter, but this ID is where I am now.
Exactly. Its one thing if the screen was confirming identity, its another thing if a new iOS update was - for free - upgraded and reasonably expecting to use some functionality present in factory chips that wasn't present in the knockoff to provide a better experience. The fact that they can be so easily fixed does seem to imply that the previous chips were just lucky in that the malfunctioning code wasn't being executed.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Except no respectable ad company is actually selling your data -- even Apple. They keep it so that they can target ads. Releasing this information would mean that you could cut them out of the picture. Also, Samsung doesn't sell or display ads, so they're not doing any of that. Worst you could say is that they are enabling Google to do so.
Apple, on the other hand, is -- they are the sole ad provider on their platform. They are "selling" your information, just like Google and Facebook are. Just go back a month or so for the article that mentions they were showing a different app's ad usage to the developers. APPL is most certainly harvesting your data.
Remember, if you believe any of the crap that comes out of their mouths, you are not a "reasonable person" (i.e. you're stupid). This is from Apple vs a false advertisement suit. LOL
This is pretty common in a parts business. You guys live under a rock or something? Ever try to get a replacement key for your Lexus? FFS, you sound like noobs who just fell off the turnip truck.
> That means people who broke their phone and had the audacity to get it repaired by anyone other than Apple
Repair shops have access to Apple OEM screens. Even the one run out of a basement a couple of streets away from me has OEM.
The 3rd party screens are CRAP - I know because I got the "best one" and it was dead in 2 weeks.
So if your repair shop is using a 3rd party screen, that's the problem right there. I'm *sure* they didn't tell the customer they were being fleeced.
I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not, but I think it's high time an open standards group works on creating standards for deviating from existing standards to ensure propriety.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
Apple is a deplorable company headed by a deplorable person.
You do realize that all those things you plug into the wall are 5v power supplies (or higher with the new quick charge standards) . They have no charging circuitry in them at all. The actual charging circuit is in the phone.
Tell us again how wonderful it is to be in a walled garden with Apple protecting you from all the evil things in the world like reasonably priced repairs.
Exactly
But all the moronic apple shills here never bring that up. Never tell the truth about the cult.
https://www.wired.com/2008/12/apple-says-cust/
You buy Apple gear, you are locked into their eco-system; It has always been this way. This should not be a surprise.
All we can do is warn as many people as possible, and be ready to help them get out when they fall.
The problem is we support Apple by making things for their platform, like we do with Microsoft and Google and Facebook, so in the end we are all responsible in some, small, way.
Yes, because using an off brand case is exactly the same as replacing the guts of your phone with off brand electronics...
This is you:
"What the FUCK Apple? I replaced the 1.35v RAM in my Macbook with 1.5v RAM and now it doesn't work! It worked for a while right after I did it, so I KNOW it can't be because I'm a fucking idiot using the wrong type of RAM! Fuck you Apple for not supporting everything and making everything magically work together all of the fucking time."
Nice strawman. You build that yourself?
You do realize that all those things you plug into the wall are 5v power supplies (or higher with the new quick charge standards) . They have no charging circuitry in them at all. The actual charging circuit is in the phone.
And yet there are multiple reports of crappy iPhone and Android chargers burning up. Doesn’t really matter if the term charger is a misnomer the point remains.
Why are you pretending to laugh? Everybody can tell you're being disingenuous because you feel insurmountably challenged/threatened by GP's statement and you can't bear to be wrong because your ego is delicate and you have some kind of investment (emotional and/or monetary) into a competitor which is openly known to harvest and sell your data.
If Apple are collecting and selling user data then prove it. That burden of proof is squarely on you, son.
Apple, on the other hand, is -- they are the sole ad provider on their platform. They are "selling" your information, just like Google and Facebook are. Just go back a month or so for the article that mentions they were showing a different app's ad usage to the developers. APPL is most certainly harvesting your data.
Even though I disagree with the way Apple deal with data/information the got from their users, I disagree with your "selling" point of view. The reason is that the data or information they offer to developers is as a "whole" and not specific. As a result, you can't say that it is really a user's data but rather an overall data. Think of statistics or trend. This type of data has been collected, sold, and used a long time ago (look at credit card companies). The similar data is now in a different form. Besides, those who use any products nowadays that connect to the Internet believe that they still have privacy would be similar to them dancing naked in a 1-way (looking from outside in) mirror room which is placed right in the middle of Times Square, NY.
The manufacturer can't know how or if anyone does an after-market mode. The best they can do is specify the replacement part but if after-market repair companies don't use the same parts, all bets are off and SHOULD BE.