The products covered by the obligation to repair currently include:
- washing machines and washer-dryers
- dishwashers
- refrigerators
- electronic displays
- welding equipment
- servers and data storage products
- mobile phones, cordless phones and tablets
- tumble dryers
- e-bikes and e-scooters batteries (from 18 February 2027)
- local space heaters
Sounds like this is to prevent theft for parts. Considering it says right there that parts can be unlocked with the user’s account. So it’s the same mechanism that makes a stolen iPhone non-functional unless unlocked by the user.
sure but what if you buy one for parts?
Ask the previous owner to remove the locking, same way as they would need to if you bought the device to use it. What’s the problem?
Again, says right there they should just remove the device from ‘Find my’, which disables Activation Lock, the very same feature that prevents theft for reselling the device for regular use.
what if the phone is broken and has been disassembled?
The internet doesn’t stop existing when your phone breaks.
no but i’m not talking about me. i’m talking about tyler, 27, who just gets a new phone and doesn’t care about whatever accounts the old one had, so he throws it away and now the parts are available at a repair shop.
From Apple’s side, this situation is indistinguishable from the phone having been stolen.
P.S. Although maybe there’s a way to learn to what account a part is locked, and write to them ‘hey bro, could you please unlock this phone you threw away’. Then again, the repair shop also can’t know that the phone wasn’t stolen.