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Why Tens of Thousands of Perfectly Good, Donated iPhones Are Shredded Every Year (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Tens of thousands of perfectly usable iPhones are scrapped each year by electronics recyclers because of the iPhone's "activation lock," according to a new analysis paper published Thursday. Earlier this year, we published a lengthy feature about the iPhone's activation lock (also called iCloud lock informally), an anti-theft feature that prevents new accounts from logging into iOS without the original user's iCloud password. This means that stolen phones can't be used by the person who stole it without the original owner's iCloud password (this lock can also be remotely enabled using Find My iPhone.) The feature makes the iPhone a less valuable theft target, but it has had unintended consequences, as well. iCloud lock has led to the proliferation of an underground community of hackers who use phishing and other techniques to steal iCloud passwords from the original owner and unlock phones. It's also impacted the iPhone repair, refurbishing, and recycling industry, because phones that are legitimately obtained often still have iCloud enabled, making that phone useless except for parts.
Between 2015 and 2018, the Wireless Alliance, the recycling company in question, collected roughly 6 million cell phones in donation boxes it set up around the country. Of those, 333,519 of them were iPhones deemed by the company to be "reusable." And of those, 33,000 of them were iCloud locked and had to be stripped for parts and scrap metal. Last year, a quarter of all reusable iPhones it collected were activation locked. Allison Conwell, a coauthor of the CoPIRG report, told me in a phone call that the Wireless Alliance's findings show that many people donate their devices intending for them to be reused, but they're scrapped instead. In her paper, Conwell suggests that Apple should work with certified recyclers to unlock phones that have been legitimately donated (a survey of random devices conducted by the Wireless Alliance found that more than 90 percent of them had not been reported lost or stolen.) The paper suggests that Apple could either unlock phones that have not been reported lost or stolen for 30 days, or affirmatively ask users whether they had donated their previous phone and unlock it that way.
Between 2015 and 2018, the Wireless Alliance, the recycling company in question, collected roughly 6 million cell phones in donation boxes it set up around the country. Of those, 333,519 of them were iPhones deemed by the company to be "reusable." And of those, 33,000 of them were iCloud locked and had to be stripped for parts and scrap metal. Last year, a quarter of all reusable iPhones it collected were activation locked. Allison Conwell, a coauthor of the CoPIRG report, told me in a phone call that the Wireless Alliance's findings show that many people donate their devices intending for them to be reused, but they're scrapped instead. In her paper, Conwell suggests that Apple should work with certified recyclers to unlock phones that have been legitimately donated (a survey of random devices conducted by the Wireless Alliance found that more than 90 percent of them had not been reported lost or stolen.) The paper suggests that Apple could either unlock phones that have not been reported lost or stolen for 30 days, or affirmatively ask users whether they had donated their previous phone and unlock it that way.
Apple refuses to unlock them even though they belong to the company. I'm surprised they are allowed to get away with this in a corporate environment
Er, if they are company owned, why are they not linked to the company Apple ID?
What you describe isn't company owned phones, but the company handing out money for employees to purchase employee owned phones.
For our company all iOS and Android devices the company purchases are delivered directly to IT (me) and the first things I do to iPhones/iPads are link it to our company apple ID followed by enrolling it to the corporate MDM. Only after that are they issued to employees.
Apple even has an "enterprise" setup where phones come pre-linked to an MDM/AppleID from the factory. Then they can ship them straight to the end user, and the new device shows up in the MDM inventory for provisioning before it is delivered.
Unfortunately the "enterprise" setup has a per-device / per-month fee to use it.
But the normal way of provisioning doesn't have any such fee, the only real costs are related to the devices coming through IT first.
We have hundreds of iPhones returned by former employees that are unusable because of this. Apple refuses to unlock them even though they belong to the company.
Sounds like the company needs to learn how to properly deploy corporate-managed iPhones.
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