Earlier this year Apple announced some changes to its self-repair program, designed to offer support for repairs using genuine iPhone parts. This also involved extending the Activation Lock feature to all iPhone parts, and this new feature has officially landed as part of iOS 18.
BetaProfiles noted this change in the Release Candidate build of iOS 18 just released to the developer and public betas. The change means that Activation Lock links all your iPhone’s components, like batteries and cameras to your Apple Account. The point is to try and kill off the black market for iPhone parts, which sees the sale of parts taken out of stolen iPhones. Because even if the phone is locked down, the parts are still worth something.
It’s nice to see that there’s now a big obstacle in the way to prevent thieves from profiting from stolen phones.
No doubt some intrepid criminals will be looking for ways to crack Apple’s security. But it’s nice to see that there’s now a big obstacle in the way to prevent them from profiting from stolen phones.
Whether that will translate to a drop in stolen iPhones isn’t something we can predict, though it may cause an increase in those threatening messages criminals send to try and coerce people into unlocking stolen iPhones. But hey, anything that stops them from making money from your stolen devices is probably a good thing.
Let’s just hope Apple hasn’t snuck in some nasty surprises for self-repairs using legitimate parts in the process.
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