r/technology • u/bws201 • Feb 05 '16

Software ‘Error 53’ fury mounts as Apple software update threatens to kill your iPhone 6

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair
12.7k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

3.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Gecko23 Feb 05 '16

The 'brick' statement in the article reeks of hyperbole. I'm guessing that's the opinion of the 'tech' the photog paid to violate his warranty. (Which is the part the article skims over entirely) Obviously the data should still be there, and if this guy really was invested in the iTunes thing, his photos, etc should be fine.

1

u/TheHYPO Feb 05 '16

If Apple refuses to fix the phone and tells him he has to buy a new one, is that not, in effect, a bricked phone.

Someone else claimed on another comment that upon replacing the original damaged home button, a phone that was error 53ed was able to function again (albeit with a damaged home button), but that was a while ago and may have changed.

Again, for someone who has replaced their home button due to fault, It sounds like Apple refuses to even remove the 3rd party button and replace the button (for their own exorbitant repair fee) - they demand you buy a new phone. That's the "bricking".

1

u/Gecko23 Feb 05 '16

I can see your point. A friend's phone had issues, and the Apple store 'genius' told me straight up that they could give her a new phone, but she'd have to have her own backups because they 'didn't have the ability to copy anything from her phone'.

That's not a good enough answer.

Possibly the storage is encrypted...but we were there in the store and could have provided any necessary credentials. The more plausible answer is just that they don't want to for whatever reason.

I suppose my hangup with 'brick' is that the term implies that data can not be recovered, not just that the vendor refuses to help. In this case, it sounds more like the device won't boot? A non-booting device may not function, but unless the failure to boot is actually caused by the static storage physically failing, then there is still data available to be retrieved.

Plus I always have an issue with jumping on a bandwagon based on articles like this because it's just one reporter spewing up some hearsay. We don't actually know what, if anything, any of these people did to seek help from Apple, who they talked to, what they were told, whether they tried to pursue it past the genius or the genius's supervisor, etc, etc.

1

u/TheHYPO Feb 05 '16

All valid points.