This really can't work. They'd get unscrupulous people taking phones they sold back, or a couple who broke up where it's not clear who "owns" the phone. Nobody wants to put himself in the middle of these things.
> They'd get unscrupulous people taking phones they sold back
Money doesn't get paid until activation lock is verified as disabled. T-Mobile does this every time I trade in a phone, it's nothing new.
> or a couple who broke up where it's not clear who "owns" the phone.
There's no good way to ever handle this, ever - even without activation locks. Not worth worrying about, send the device to the registered owner and let the courts deal with it if people want to get bitchy with their former partner.
I mean, people can currently sell phones and make them useless for the new owner (on purpose or on accident) and the new owner has new recourse. Surely allowing communication about it would be better.
Apple could play the go-between. They could alert the previous owner that the device has been found, and provide a grace period where a user could request return, for a fee, including Apple's S&H, and a finders' fee for the reporting agent.
At the expiration of the grace period, Apple could provide a device reset code.
Why is Apple required to act as law enforcement? Moreso, even if they could, why as consumers and technicians should we want them to?
HNers go on and on about big brother Cupertino all the time, but ooh some (well intentioned but misguided) refurb/recycling shop writes an article and all of a sudden critical thinking goes out the window.
Apple is not inserting itself as law enforcement, nor does your comment provide any justification as for why you think that'd be the case here.
Now, I could point out that absent any rationale, your comment fails to make the conversation "more thoughtful and substantive", as requested per HN commenting guidelines. However, I'd also remind everyone that HN isn't moderated by replying to comments you feel break the guidelines. Quite the opposite: "don't feed egregious comments by replying," if you really believe a comment is that bad then flag it.
However, said guidelines also remind us that critical comments are teaching moments and can be inherently good. Wit is frequently a valuable component in criticism, and there's a different between wit and mean-spirited snark. Thus, we're left with maybe the most important guideline: Assume good faith. I genuinely believe the article OP is well-intentioned, and was hoping the comment parent would provide some additional justification or perhaps reflection based on the distinction between good ideas and BigTech overreach. Instead, meta-commentary.
Money doesn't get paid until activation lock is verified as disabled. T-Mobile does this every time I trade in a phone, it's nothing new.
> or a couple who broke up where it's not clear who "owns" the phone.
There's no good way to ever handle this, ever - even without activation locks. Not worth worrying about, send the device to the registered owner and let the courts deal with it if people want to get bitchy with their former partner.