that’s about phones in general… they mention iphone once, and that’s about the 1 phone that led to them catching the criminals (which i’d say is a check in the box of “stealing iphones is useless”)
iphones in apple stores as display models are not standard iphones: they lock down and turn themselves into only a tracker the instant they leave the apple store
and it’s basically useless to steal an iphone in most cases anyway, because an iphone gets registered to an apple account, and if a phone is already registered you just can’t use it
even parting it out the huge majority of parts - especially anything even a little bit expensive - has essentially DRM on it that talks to iOS… when you add a genuine apple part to an iphone, iOS checks to see if it’s already been registered to another phone and just won’t proceed with stolen parts
the best you could do is use it or the parts as a prop in some secondary scam
exactly… stealing any iphone is worse than useless - you can’t use it, and it will track you (both via gps reporting via internet and via the find my network)
All of those products have been rendered useless before they even got out of the door…
This is so dumb…
Of course they won’t do anything because they can brick all those devices…
https://www.imore.com/iphone/iphone-15/looting-apple-stores-is-pointless-as-these-people-quickly-found-out
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/06/12/apple-warns-looters-with-stolen-iphones-we-will-track-you/
Well, apparently they still are of some use
that’s about phones in general… they mention iphone once, and that’s about the 1 phone that led to them catching the criminals (which i’d say is a check in the box of “stealing iphones is useless”)
iphones in apple stores as display models are not standard iphones: they lock down and turn themselves into only a tracker the instant they leave the apple store
and it’s basically useless to steal an iphone in most cases anyway, because an iphone gets registered to an apple account, and if a phone is already registered you just can’t use it
even parting it out the huge majority of parts - especially anything even a little bit expensive - has essentially DRM on it that talks to iOS… when you add a genuine apple part to an iphone, iOS checks to see if it’s already been registered to another phone and just won’t proceed with stolen parts
the best you could do is use it or the parts as a prop in some secondary scam
I thought iPhones were “secure”. How can they be stolen and resold if you can’t get in to wipe it clean?
exactly… stealing any iphone is worse than useless - you can’t use it, and it will track you (both via gps reporting via internet and via the find my network)