Lawyers' phones are lighting up. Message boards are jammed with complaints. Apple is being condemned. All sorts of tales of woe are being exchanged. Your phone is now permanently bricked. Ladies and gentlemen, Error 53!
If you're not aware, Error 53 bricks your iPhone 6 and above once the phone discovers that someone, usually a third-party repair operation, has tried to fix a busted (usually) Touch ID-enabled home button. Couple that with an upgraded mobile operating system, and you might see the dreaded Error 53.
I do not have an iPhone 6 and can only read the thousands of reports. Apparently the bricking is permanent because taking your phone to an unauthorized dealer voids your warranty so Apple won't fix it. But while everyone is complaining about this abomination, as they see it, I commend Apple for doing the right thing. Error 53 is exactly what should happen on a device that is supposed to be secure.
If you have a smartphone that stores your credit cards and other secure data, then it better actually be secure.
It's a phone that uses your fingerprint to boot. A phone that even the NSA cannot crack (supposedly). Thus, if the phone is stolen, a criminal should not be able to crack the case, jigger the home button fingerprint reader, and unlock the phone before using the touch-to-pay feature all over town.
The phone needs to be locked down immediately. It should indeed be bricked. The users should assume the phone has been stolen and there should be no way anyone can get at anything. This is security at its finest.
What is not clear in all the reports is what happens to a phone that is purposely unsecure. Let's say you disable the security features, including the fingerprint reader AND the passcode. Do you also end up with a bricked phone under the same circumstances? Nobody is asking or answering this question.
If, in fact, the unsecure iPhone is bricked for security reasons when no security was desired, then Apple has a legal problem. This is the direction this investigation should turn.
The Apple support forums are of little value, and the company should take them more seriously. Numerous unanswered questions stagnate there. Here is an example page where a simple question dating back to September of last year remains unanswered. The question is kind of answered elsewhere but why it is allowed to languish like this? It should be addressed by Apple.
Users solicit answers to sometimes complex questions on the Apple forums. Exactly why the company cannot afford a crew of perhaps a dozen full-time people offering answers is a mystery. The company is one of the biggest in the world and it lets this amateurish forum exist in this form? Why?
Ultimately, Error 53 was first addressed in a February piece from The Guardian. But Apple should have addressed it long ago. If this is a security feature, as I believe it to be, why not report to the user something other than the vague "Error 53." How about the truth? Like, "The security systems built into this iPhone have been breached and now this phone is unusable. Have a nice day." Much better.
