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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 has zero interest in recycling or repairing recovering data from any of their products, they only want to sell you a new device.
greed.... need I say more.
[($)]
The first thing that came into my mind is because iPhones are trash. :D
âoeMore than 90% not stolenâ
Hmmmmmm
Do a factory reset and you have to log into the original owners samsung account
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. I'm surprised they are allowed to get away with this in a corporate environment but I guess the RDF is still strong enough because they keep buying them.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
"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"
For BeauHD and their favorite "news"blogs, any excuse to smear "hackers" will do. Any excuse at all.
is a really high number. I highly doubt the the one's doing the recycling are returning those to individuals. And the fact that they want an unlock on phones that haven't been reported stolen for 30 days just means that they are going to wait 30 days before trying to unlock them. Screw those guys!
Out of all them bricks. The Mexico border looks good
Apple cares deeply about fucking you as a customer. A recused iPhone is someone who isn't smug and rich enough to deserve an iPhone. Fuck the environment, you must buy a new phone if you are to be one of the iPeople.
... my ass.
They have to deny it. Otherwise the government can order them to do it any time they want.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
somebody threw out a perfectly good white boy
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Similar with Android FRP.
333,519 of them were iPhones deemed by the company to be "reusable." And of those, 33,000 of them were iCloud locked... the Wireless Alliance found that more than 90 percent of them had not been reported lost or stolen
Working as intended?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The number of iPhones discarded due to this problem, 33,000, works out to 3.1 cubic meters of waste (assuming they are all modern size).
There may be a fair bit of value there, with exotic elements and whatnot, but it's hardly an environmental disaster. It's way less waste volume than you would get from, say, demolishing a Blockbuster Video store and replacing it with a Mattress Firm.
The last thing we need is the market flooded with modified iPhones. Once you modify it then it is no longer an iPhone, then you can no longer sell it as an iPhone. They should be scrapped.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
Please excuse my ignorance, but wouldn't any sane person do a factory reset before donating an unwanted phone and would this remove any locks on an iPhone?
Apple WANTS people to scrap their old iPhones, because they want to sell New phones to everyone.
It's been the driving force behind their No Repair policy, and why they are so Adamant on blocking any Right to Repair legislation that gets attempted.
As their new phone sales have been flagging, they are getting desperate to have old phones cycled out so that their new phones get sold.
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Most of the recycling problem would be solved by people disabling their iCloud service before donating. That, or "Factory Rest" them beforehand, as suggested in many other posts.
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How about a campaign geared toward recycling phones?
"How To Reset" info on a collection website, perhaps?
That could make a difference as well.
"but it has had unintended consequences"
Do you really think they are unintended?
I have strong reasons to believe they are the primary motive behind this lock, not theft protection.
Are you considering the resources it takes to replace that working appliance? Some estimates place one smartphone to consume an average of 1 gigajoule of energy and 13 tons of water to manufacture.
https://www.theatlantic.com/te...
https://www.independent.co.uk/...
The function serves its purpose in terms of reducing theft of people's property. The problem is that people don't know that they need to unregister their iPhone from their iCloud account before they sell the phone. Really, that's all you have to do - log in on your iCloud account and remove the device from there, and it's no longer tied to your account and can be repurposed by someone else and their iCloud account without any hassle.
The iCloud activation lock applies to the Apple Watch as well. In my town our state has a warehouse store where they sell government surplus to the public. They also sell items confiscated and lost at airports. Apple Watches turn up on occasion, and I purchased two. The first one was activation locked. There is nothing I can do to make use of this watch. The watch was lost, held by the airport and then the government for many months and never claimed. I bought it legitimately and legally from the government.
The most annoying part is not only can't I use it, but I also cannot contact the person who owns it. Their email address is partially displayed - you know, the k*****@gmail.com type thing. It just seems there must be some manner in which to handle these cases. It would have to be done through some organization that mediates between the owner and the person / entity that is in possession of the device (to prevent various kinds of abuse).
Better known as 318230.
Why not just have signs at the donation boxes asking the people donating the phones to unlock and wipe them? Seems like this is just an example of poor PR by the charity groups asking for phones.
One environmental law we need is: When you own something, you have the right to use it.
A manufacturer MUST unlock it for free on demand.
A manufacturer MUST NOT disable legacy systems.
A software company MUST NOT charge extra for environmentally friendly features, like Multi-Point Services in Windows.
A software company MUST reactivate all legally owned software for free on demand.
The penalty for any violation should be 10x the MSRP of the product, or 10x the highest known selling price of the product, whichever is more.
And a test: FUCK THE PIGS!
People here are ignoring the fact that pretty much everything except the battery, the logic board, and the Touch ID parts of an iPhone get reused.
Jesus Christ, you'd think from reading this that Apple literally shreds locked iPhones. In fact, iPhones probably are recycled more than any other phone because of the fact that its parts are ultra-valuable.
Where I work, we used to deploy new iPads to all new full-time employees, when they started a division that developed software apps for the platform. We wound up with a number of useless paperweights when employees turned them in upon leaving but neglected to follow our instructions to unlock them for us first.
Since then, sure -- we implemented tools to manage them ourselves with MDM, so that problem is behind us. (Heck, we stopped issuing them out anyway - because we restructured things and no longer do that app development.)
But I agree that the locked devices create a lot of senseless e-waste. No matter how simple Apple makes the process for someone to deauthorize/unlock it before before passing it on to the next person -- there are going to be a lot of situations where that step just doesn't happen.
It's frustrating that Apple (and for that matter, all the Android phones that do the same thing with Google logins) assume "Theft!" as the immediate go-to answer. I'd prefer theft to be something NOT assumed until they're told one happened. EG. Keep the current system in place BUT allow anyone to call in or email the right people to request it be unlocked for re-activation. If there's not a flag on that device's serial number saying someone already reported it stolen, do the unlock.
Pawn shops handled this, long ago, by requiring you give them your drivers' license to photocopy and keep on file whenever you pawn something. Then, if it turns out you gave them stolen merchandise, they know who to go back to. Apple, Samsung and others could do that same -- keeping your info on file as the one who requested the unlock.
"because phones that are legitimately obtained often still have iCloud enabled, making that phone useless except for parts. "
That's exactly why we like it. If you steal our phone, you'll have an old battery and a replacement screen and if it's mine, the screen will be cracked on top.
It's not at all hard for Apple to solve this...when someone goes to donate their phone just allow for a complete reset that requires iCloud password to completely reset the phone...how freaking hard is that?
How's life in the hypocrite lane?