I don't have the time or energy to reply to all of you individually - so this comment is directed to all of those who have blindly sided with Apple's approach of bricking the phone in response to this type of "tampering".
First of all - you don't even know for sure whether bricking the phone in these circumstances are what Apple intended to do. By calling it a "glitch", they are acknowledging that it is in fact NOT working exactly as intended.
As many of the smarter forum members have opined, there are a number of responses that could have been applied in this situation that are less severe YET STILL 100% SECURE! But since you don't understand how any of this stuff actually works - or what needs to be protected - you blindly over react. You're the same people that welcome "perceived security" over "real security" and probably think that all of the security measures in place at the airport actually make your flights more secure - even though they've been proven time and time again to be a waste of time and money whose ONLY value is to provide the PERCEPTION of security!
It's people like you - people that welcome extreme over reactions to perceived threats (real or not) that are going to be responsible for giving away ALL of our privacy and freedoms in the not so distant future.
Should Apple protect my data? Yes! Absolutely! Should they do so by bricking my device? ONLY IF NECESSARY!!! And in this case - ITS NOT!!! There are several levels of response/reaction that could be applied here that would protect your data while still allowing you to use your device! If you lack the intelligence to know what those responses should be - just shut the hell up - or go ahead and demand a solution that protects your data APPROPRIATELY. Don't pretend you know what the solution is and demand specific things when it's so very obvious you are responding solely out of fear and ignorance and that you don't have a clue what *should* be done.
A good response to the blind acceptance that "it's a feature and it's good" thought.
Why not fix the problem by having iOS wipe out the data in the secure enclave/Touch ID, thus ensuring the data is not compromised instead of bricking it? Or at least let the phone work without use of Touch ID (yikes, it'd be like using an iPhone 5). Yes, this would allow non-Apple authorized repairs to actually succeed and possibly deprive Apple of a bit of revenue.
As for the person quoted in the Guardian article that lost all of his/her data: backup your stuff! Data-wise this is no different than losing your iPhone. Apple makes it so easy to backup and restore that there should be no excuses. If you value the information then back it up.
You're overthinking it.
If the secure element is compromised, you don't want the device to be accessed, period. Like the proper solution really is "wipe the device and restore from a backup" and the restore from the backup re-syncs the secure element.
Did you even read the Guardian article?
It is not for you or Apple to decide for other people what they 'want' to have happen to their property and data. There are probably lots of people who would rather they still had a working phone until some more permanent solution to the security issue could be enacted.
"Freelance photographer and self-confessed Apple addict Antonio Olmos
says this happened to his phone a few weeks ago after he upgraded his
software. Olmos had previously had his handset repaired while on an
assignment for the Guardian in Macedonia. “I was in the Balkans covering
the refugee crisis in September when I dropped my phone. Because I
desperately needed it for work I got it fixed at a local shop, as there
are no Apple stores in Macedonia. They repaired the screen and home
button, and it worked perfectly.”http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair
Do you think that person, or many other professionals who have to work in places with little or no access to Apple approved repair would want what might be a vital tool to be rendered useless an so potentially compromise them?
Have you heard of the concept 'fail-safe'. Apple need to have a fail-safe approach to this that gives the legitimate owner of the phone a way to continue to use it and to access their data. Reverting to a password, for instance.
My niece had her home button replaced and Touch ID was disabled, even DFU restore it wouldn't enable, it is on the latest iOS update and is fine apart from that. Apple just advised that Touch ID won't work and that they won't repair it because it has 3rd party parts in it now. No biggie, she just can't use Touch ID or Apple Pay.
maybe it's just certain parts that cause the 53 error?
When you say they won't repair it, does that mean they won't repair it with the existing button or they won't even supply Apple approved parts and restore it to full working order, even if you paid the full cost of the parts and repair?
A better way to look at it is as if your phone were a house that has 2 doors - a front door and a side door and each door has a lock that takes a unique key. Both doors provide access to the contents of your house.
Now...if you lose the key to the side door - would it make sense to you to barricade the front door? LOL! No. That's obviously stupid. The key to the front door remains uncompromised - so you would only need to barricade the side door! In this analogy, the side door can be represented as the Touch ID fingerprint whereas the front door represents your actual passcode/password.
Now, what would you think of someone in the above situation who decides they should barricade BOTH doors "just to be safe"?
LOL! If your answer is anything other than a "full-on moron" then you probably ARE that person!
Obviously it's only necessary to barricade the side door until it's lock can be changed. If access via the side door is prevented/denied, there is no security breech possible by continuing to allow authorized access through the front door!
Perfect analogy!
I was trying to think of an analogy that would convey roughly the same thing - but now I don't have to. Yours is literally perfect! After reading this, even the least technical person here has to understand why it's stupid and completely unnecessary to "barricade both doors" when you lose the key to one of them! Anybody that doesn't get this is completely beyond hope.
I was in town today and popped into the repair shop that had fixed my nieces iPhone. I asked about error 53 and he said that this has been around since early 2015, to fix it you have to restore the phone with the home button disconnected, then connect it up once done. They don't tell anyone this as they didn't think they needed to know. Guess they should be warning you of this when they fix your phones then.
Absolutely the way it should be done. Anyone complaining about it hasn't thought thru the possible even if unlikely consequences of it not working that way.
Ireland doesn't have an Apple store. I'm not sure about authorised repairers who could do the job.
Why isn't there an option for getting Apple to do the authorisation and not having to get a new phone?
How singular the country helping Apple to cheat on the entire European tax system don't have an Apple Store.... BTW there are authorized service centers for sure.
The article says, "The problem renders an iPhone unusable however, and affected owners will likely have no choice but to buy a new phone." But Apple's response in the article says "Touch ID, including for Apple Pay use, is disabled." It's possible to use an iPhone without Touch ID, so what's the problem here; why is the iPhone unusable?
The iOS upgrade fails mid way and there's no way to recover. The phone never reboots.
By by the way, it can happen with an Apple repaired phone too. Did to my wife. Apple gave a new phone.
Instead of "Error 53" (why not 42?) the user should be prompted for the iPhone lock code, or Apple ID password, while displaying "allow pairing of new fingerprint sensor to CPU" (comparable to the sim lock); this would have been the sensible way of doing things instead of disabling the iPhone with a non message. Also strange that previous versions of iOS didn't check this, I presume this was a security bug?
Edit: if true that the update itself failed with this error, it's utter fail for Apple.
Apple are probably going to get sued over this. It is something intentionally built into iOS 9. Deliberately incapacitating an iPhone someone has paid a lot of money for is probably illegal in the EU.
Imagine if car manufacturers did this. You put aftermarket brake pads on it, then later take it in f or a dealer service and they update the firmware in the ECU. You go back to pick up your car and they say 'sorry, mate, the new firmware has detected you fitted non genuine brake pads and has disabled your car - you will have to buy a new one.
Yeah, I can see people saying 'Oh... ok. Fair enough.'
Most desperately irrelevant analogy of the day.
If a car could detect that some backstreet dealer had replaced the brake pads with a cheap set of bathroom sponges, then you can bet your life that the manufacturers would prevent you from starting the engine.
Stop throwing crap analogies at the wall and hoping they stick.
Actually, Apple doesn't work the same way as regular car companies. The manufacturer probably wouldn't do anything. Once someone dies, they'll just say you can't blame them. Apple would try prevent the death by turning off the engine, like you said, at the cost of having people complain.
My reply was probably completely useless but I just wanted to point our that car manufacturers are worse than PC OEMs.
Think of it as one of those steering wheel locks. Renders the item unusable until security is ensured.
Oh oh and the only "moron" here is the one insisting the phone is permanentlyt disabled aka "bricked" when it so obviously isn't since Apple has a process for restoring the security elements synchronization after replacement.
LOL! If your answer is anything other than a "full-on moron" then you probably ARE that person!
Obviously it's only necessary to barricade the side door until it's lock can be changed. If access via the side door is prevented/denied, there is no security breech possible by continuing to allow authorized access through the front door!
Game. Set. Match.
if you have to resort to calling other forum members "morons" then you've lost.
How does this not violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which applies to all US products, and prohibits warrantors from refusing service if there are third party parts involved (which is why you can buy auto parts from other aftermarket vendors without requesting permission from Ford, or Chevy)?
"Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.[7] This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions,[8] and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives."
How does this not violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which applies to all US products, and prohibits warrantors from refusing service if there are third party parts involved (which is why you can buy auto parts from other aftermarket vendors without requesting permission from Ford, or Chevy)?
"Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.[7] This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions,[8] and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives."
I think that it is becoming clearer that the intended security consequence was, quite reasonably, to disable TouchID and ApplePay, as has been stated by Apple. It wasn't intended to brick the phone, as evidenced by the fact that it only occurred on a subsquent iOS update rather than immediately when the phone was booted after the tampering or repair, as would be expected for a security measure. That implies that it is a bug in the update, and hopefully Apple will take care of anyone who finds themselves with a broken phone as a result.
This is a good thing for users, if Apple requires that only apple work on the phone using only apple parts, then the Moss-Magnusun warranty act comes into play and requires apple to do the work and provide the parts FOR FREE......
LOL! If your answer is anything other than a "full-on moron" then you probably ARE that person!
Obviously it's only necessary to barricade the side door until it's lock can be changed. If access via the side door is prevented/denied, there is no security breech possible by continuing to allow authorized access through the front door!
Game. Set. Match.
if you have to resort to calling other forum members "morons" then you've lost.
You misread my message if you think that's what I did. And you've been here long enough to know that some of the people that visit here really are morons - although, again...I didn't actually call anybody that. I said if you believe this thing which is OBVIOUSLY not true, you are a moron - and I'll stand by that. To save you a re-read, I said "If a person thinks that they need to barricade their front door because they lost the key to their side door, then that person is a moron" - and they truly are. I'm pretty sure (but not positive) that nobody here (or on the planet for that matter) would think that makes sense - so my moron statement wouldn't actually apply to anybody (but if it did, it would be undeniably true).
I don't have the time or energy to reply to all of you individually - so this comment is directed to all of those who have blindly sided with Apple's approach of bricking the phone in response to this type of "tampering".
First of all - you don't even know for sure whether bricking the phone in these circumstances are what Apple intended to do. By calling it a "glitch", they are acknowledging that it is in fact NOT working exactly as intended.
As many of the smarter forum members have opined, there are a number of responses that could have been applied in this situation that are less severe YET STILL 100% SECURE! But since you don't understand how any of this stuff actually works - or what needs to be protected - you blindly over react. You're the same people that welcome "perceived security" over "real security" and probably think that all of the security measures in place at the airport actually make your flights more secure - even though they've been proven time and time again to be a waste of time and money whose ONLY value is to provide the PERCEPTION of security!
It's people like you - people that welcome extreme over reactions to perceived threats (real or not) that are going to be responsible for giving away ALL of our privacy and freedoms in the not so distant future.
Should Apple protect my data? Yes! Absolutely! Should they do so by bricking my device? ONLY IF NECESSARY!!! And in this case - ITS NOT!!! There are several levels of response/reaction that could be applied here that would protect your data while still allowing you to use your device! If you lack the intelligence to know what those responses should be - just shut the hell up - or go ahead and demand a solution that protects your data APPROPRIATELY. Don't pretend you know what the solution is and demand specific things when it's so very obvious you are responding solely out of fear and ignorance and that you don't have a clue what *should* be done.
A good response to the blind acceptance that "it's a feature and it's good" thought.
I don't even know what is so important on people's phones that they require this level of tamper security. I understand some situations, like if you're handling customer/business data, or have bank account information (why?) stored on the device.
But the Joe Schmo that earns the American median income of like 32k a year? Blackberry pulled something similar where if you inputted your pin incorrectly 10 times in a row it would wipe your entire phone. That's not a customer friendly feature, and they shouldn't be mixing enterprise level security with someone who works at Home Depot.
Americans cheer Apple on for fighting the NSA, sticking it to law enforcement and implementing security that basically destroys data with the incorrect repair. Just so their Papa Johns pizza order history is safely outside the reach of the New World Order. They have no clue what safety really means.
Think of it as one of those steering wheel locks. Renders the item unusable until security is ensured.
Oh oh and the only "moron" here is the one insisting the phone is permanentlyt disabled aka "bricked" when it so obviously isn't since Apple has a process for restoring the security elements synchronization after replacement.
Not the best analogy since the intent is not to protect the phone from theft but rather to protect the contents. Your analogy does nothing to protect the contents of the vehicle.
A better way to look at it is as if your phone were a house that has 2 doors - a front door and a side door and each door has a lock that takes a unique key. Both doors provide access to the contents of your house.
Now...if you lose the key to the side door - would it make sense to you to barricade the front door? LOL! No. That's obviously stupid. The key to the front door remains uncompromised - so you would only need to barricade the side door! In this analogy, the side door can be represented as the Touch ID fingerprint whereas the front door represents your actual passcode/password.
Now, what would you think of someone in the above situation who decides they should barricade BOTH doors "just to be safe"?
LOL! If your answer is anything other than a "full-on moron" then you probably ARE that person!
Obviously it's only necessary to barricade the side door until it's lock can be changed. If access via the side door is prevented/denied, there is no security breech possible by continuing to allow authorized access through the front door!
Game. Set. Match.
Stupid analogy.
Why is it that everyone thinks that Touch ID, Apple Pay, your PIN or on-device encryption of your data are all individual and completely separate items? They're not - they are woven together to form the entire security of the device.
A better analogy would be if your house had 3 doors and they all took the SAME key. If you lose your key you have to barricade all the doors as a crook could get in anywhere. This is what disabling your iPhone is when one key aspect of its security is compromised. But even that's not accurate.
The best analogy would be this:
You have a house and all the locks are electronic with PIN pads to enter. Every door has a 5 digit PIN number, where the first 4 are the same and the last digit is unique. A crook gets access to the PIN for one door. Now they have a much easier time to get into the other doors because they know 4 of the 5 digits.
Apple found a discrepancy with the security of your device and locked it.
If the secure element is compromised, you don't want the device to be accessed, period. Like the proper solution really is "wipe the device and restore from a backup" and the restore from the backup re-syncs the secure element.
Did you even read the Guardian article?
It is not for you or Apple to decide for other people what they 'want' to have happen to their property and data. There are probably lots of people who would rather they still had a working phone until some more permanent solution to the security issue could be enacted.
"Freelance photographer and self-confessed Apple addict Antonio Olmos
says this happened to his phone a few weeks ago after he upgraded his
software. Olmos had previously had his handset repaired while on an
assignment for the Guardian in Macedonia. “I was in the Balkans covering
the refugee crisis in September when I dropped my phone. Because I
desperately needed it for work I got it fixed at a local shop, as there
are no Apple stores in Macedonia. They repaired the screen and home
button, and it worked perfectly.”http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair
Do you think that person, or many other professionals who have to work in places with little or no access to Apple approved repair would want what might be a vital tool to be rendered useless an so potentially compromise them?
Have you heard of the concept 'fail-safe'. Apple need to have a fail-safe approach to this that gives the legitimate owner of the phone a way to continue to use it and to access their data. Reverting to a password, for instance.
More crap from our resident troll.
First off, what kind of "reporter" only has a single phone? Especially when covering something as critical as the refugee crisis? Does he also travel with a single camera and lens, and if that craps out he can't complete his assignment?
Second, as someone else pointed out, a quick search shows there are lots of places in Macedonia where you can buy a new iPhone if you needed one. There is also an Apple authorized repair provider there as well. I find it hilarious that a "professional" like him acts like a little girl when his iPhone gets damaged and reacts as if he's 1,000 miles from nowhere in a desert somewhere.
But the worst is this little gem of yours: "Apple need to have a fail-safe approach to this that gives the legitimate owner of the phone a way to continue to use it and to access their data." Absolute garbage.
Does this also apply to someone who loses the keys to their car? How dare manufacturers leave a motorist stranded in the middle of the night with no way to get home, simply because the car doesn't have a "fail-safe" backup way for them to drive their car. I'm the legitimate owner of the car, and I better be able to drive it even if I'm stupid.
Having a "fail-safe" is another way to say "lower the security for everyone so the rare few who have an issue aren't left with a non-functioning device". Kinda sounds like the government wanting a back door into Apple encryption and have Apple lower the security for hundreds of millions of users on the off chance it "might" help law enforcement with a few cases.
Not the best analogy since the intent is not to protect the phone from theft but rather to protect the contents. Your analogy does nothing to protect the contents of the vehicle.
A better way to look at it is as if your phone were a house that has 2 doors - a front door and a side door and each door has a lock that takes a unique key. Both doors provide access to the contents of your house.
Now...if you lose the key to the side door - would it make sense to you to barricade the front door? LOL! No. That's obviously stupid. The key to the front door remains uncompromised - so you would only need to barricade the side door! In this analogy, the side door can be represented as the Touch ID fingerprint whereas the front door represents your actual passcode/password.
Now, what would you think of someone in the above situation who decides they should barricade BOTH doors "just to be safe"?
LOL! If your answer is anything other than a "full-on moron" then you probably ARE that person!
Obviously it's only necessary to barricade the side door until it's lock can be changed. If access via the side door is prevented/denied, there is no security breech possible by continuing to allow authorized access through the front door!
Game. Set. Match.
Stupid analogy.
Why is it that everyone thinks that Touch ID, Apple Pay, your PIN or on-device encryption of your data are all individual and completely separate items? They're not - they are woven together to form the entire security of the device.
A better analogy would be if your house had 3 doors and they all took the SAME key. If you lose your key you have to barricade all the doors as a crook could get in anywhere. This is what disabling your iPhone is when one key aspect of its security is compromised. But even that's not accurate.
The best analogy would be this:
You have a house and all the locks are electronic with PIN pads to enter. Every door has a 5 digit PIN number, where the first 4 are the same and the last digit is unique. A crook gets access to the PIN for one door. Now they have a much easier time to get into the other doors because they know 4 of the 5 digits.
Apple found a discrepancy with the security of your device and locked it.
You are delusional. My analogy is perfect and yours is fantasy.
Touch ID and your fingerprint are not related in any way to your password. They are two completely separate entrance mechanisms. It really bugs me when people like you come along and start spewing nonsense as if it were fact. There's already too many that misunderstand how this all works without you adding to their confusion.
I don't know where you're getting your information - but I promise you (and everyone else) that it's nowhere close to accurate and I restart that my analogy is spot on. I'm sorry if it simplifies things too much and makes you feel sheepish or silly for not realizing it before reading my analogy - but it really is that simple conceptually. Honest!
The article says, "The problem renders an iPhone unusable however, and affected owners will likely have no choice but to buy a new phone." But Apple's response in the article says "Touch ID, including for Apple Pay use, is disabled." It's possible to use an iPhone without Touch ID, so what's the problem here; why is the iPhone unusable?
After reading a bunch of other articles on this situation, it seems to be less than clear if the iPhone is actually being "bricked" at all. It's certainly not clear that it's bricked in all situations. This is likely another one of those times when everyone on the web is freaking out about something that may not actually be a fact.
In any case, I think any reasonable person can agree that having some kind of shutdown of TouchID services is appropriate in this situation, and that it doesn't violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act to do so (duh).
Since shutting down the entire phone ("bricking" it), is really the only thing that can be construed as a violation or even unreasonable, I wouldn't be surprised to find out a few days from now that it was all a mistake and that phones actually aren't being bricked in this way.
All the videos I have seen of people with this issue directly state or imply that they are iPhone re-sellers that have multiple phones that have been essentially resurrected from multiple parts. It's not out of the realm of possibility that those phones are experiencing multiple issues related to having different parts from different sources. I also don't see how shutting down that kind of "service" (the dodgy guy in your neighbourhood who does this), is either a bad thing or any violation of the law. Those guys basically feed off of stolen phones for the most part despite protestations to the contrary.
Comments
Did you even read the Guardian article?
It is not for you or Apple to decide for other people what they 'want' to have happen to their property and data. There are probably lots of people who would rather they still had a working phone until some more permanent solution to the security issue could be enacted.
"Freelance photographer and self-confessed Apple addict Antonio Olmos says this happened to his phone a few weeks ago after he upgraded his software. Olmos had previously had his handset repaired while on an assignment for the Guardian in Macedonia. “I was in the Balkans covering the refugee crisis in September when I dropped my phone. Because I desperately needed it for work I got it fixed at a local shop, as there are no Apple stores in Macedonia. They repaired the screen and home button, and it worked perfectly.”http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair
Do you think that person, or many other professionals who have to work in places with little or no access to Apple approved repair would want what might be a vital tool to be rendered useless an so potentially compromise them?
Have you heard of the concept 'fail-safe'. Apple need to have a fail-safe approach to this that gives the legitimate owner of the phone a way to continue to use it and to access their data. Reverting to a password, for instance.
I was trying to think of an analogy that would convey roughly the same thing - but now I don't have to. Yours is literally perfect!
After reading this, even the least technical person here has to understand why it's stupid and completely unnecessary to "barricade both doors" when you lose the key to one of them! Anybody that doesn't get this is completely beyond hope.
a compromised Touch ID enclave could have dangerous aftermath...
BTW there are authorized service centers for sure.
By by the way, it can happen with an Apple repaired phone too. Did to my wife. Apple gave a new phone.
Also strange that previous versions of iOS didn't check this, I presume this was a security bug?
Edit: if true that the update itself failed with this error, it's utter fail for Apple.
My reply was probably completely useless but I just wanted to point our that car manufacturers are worse than PC OEMs.
"Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.[7] This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions,[8] and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives."
But the Joe Schmo that earns the American median income of like 32k a year? Blackberry pulled something similar where if you inputted your pin incorrectly 10 times in a row it would wipe your entire phone. That's not a customer friendly feature, and they shouldn't be mixing enterprise level security with someone who works at Home Depot.
Americans cheer Apple on for fighting the NSA, sticking it to law enforcement and implementing security that basically destroys data with the incorrect repair. Just so their Papa Johns pizza order history is safely outside the reach of the New World Order. They have no clue what safety really means.
Stupid analogy.
Why is it that everyone thinks that Touch ID, Apple Pay, your PIN or on-device encryption of your data are all individual and completely separate items? They're not - they are woven together to form the entire security of the device.
A better analogy would be if your house had 3 doors and they all took the SAME key. If you lose your key you have to barricade all the doors as a crook could get in anywhere. This is what disabling your iPhone is when one key aspect of its security is compromised. But even that's not accurate.
The best analogy would be this:
You have a house and all the locks are electronic with PIN pads to enter. Every door has a 5 digit PIN number, where the first 4 are the same and the last digit is unique. A crook gets access to the PIN for one door. Now they have a much easier time to get into the other doors because they know 4 of the 5 digits.
Apple found a discrepancy with the security of your device and locked it.
More crap from our resident troll.
First off, what kind of "reporter" only has a single phone? Especially when covering something as critical as the refugee crisis? Does he also travel with a single camera and lens, and if that craps out he can't complete his assignment?
Second, as someone else pointed out, a quick search shows there are lots of places in Macedonia where you can buy a new iPhone if you needed one. There is also an Apple authorized repair provider there as well. I find it hilarious that a "professional" like him acts like a little girl when his iPhone gets damaged and reacts as if he's 1,000 miles from nowhere in a desert somewhere.
But the worst is this little gem of yours: "Apple need to have a fail-safe approach to this that gives the legitimate owner of the phone a way to continue to use it and to access their data." Absolute garbage.
Does this also apply to someone who loses the keys to their car? How dare manufacturers leave a motorist stranded in the middle of the night with no way to get home, simply because the car doesn't have a "fail-safe" backup way for them to drive their car. I'm the legitimate owner of the car, and I better be able to drive it even if I'm stupid.
Having a "fail-safe" is another way to say "lower the security for everyone so the rare few who have an issue aren't left with a non-functioning device". Kinda sounds like the government wanting a back door into Apple encryption and have Apple lower the security for hundreds of millions of users on the off chance it "might" help law enforcement with a few cases.
Touch ID and your fingerprint are not related in any way to your password. They are two completely separate entrance mechanisms. It really bugs me when people like you come along and start spewing nonsense as if it were fact. There's already too many that misunderstand how this all works without you adding to their confusion.
I don't know where you're getting your information - but I promise you (and everyone else) that it's nowhere close to accurate and I restart that my analogy is spot on. I'm sorry if it simplifies things too much and makes you feel sheepish or silly for not realizing it before reading my analogy - but it really is that simple conceptually. Honest!
In any case, I think any reasonable person can agree that having some kind of shutdown of TouchID services is appropriate in this situation, and that it doesn't violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act to do so (duh).
Since shutting down the entire phone ("bricking" it), is really the only thing that can be construed as a violation or even unreasonable, I wouldn't be surprised to find out a few days from now that it was all a mistake and that phones actually aren't being bricked in this way.
All the videos I have seen of people with this issue directly state or imply that they are iPhone re-sellers that have multiple phones that have been essentially resurrected from multiple parts. It's not out of the realm of possibility that those phones are experiencing multiple issues related to having different parts from different sources. I also don't see how shutting down that kind of "service" (the dodgy guy in your neighbourhood who does this), is either a bad thing or any violation of the law. Those guys basically feed off of stolen phones for the most part despite protestations to the contrary.