[Jaxkr]

Why? And why only Macs and not iPhones? Is this currently a major privacy issue?

[throwaway2048]

Likely to prevent gleaning of production amounts from serial numbers.

[Nextgrid]

I wonder if it’s to prevent “Hackintosh” machines from connecting to Apple services? Services such as iCloud and iMessage require the machine to have a valid serial, and given the format of them is well-known it’s easy to make a valid serial.

[rasz]

Its a business issue.