The update fixes a few bugs, namely one that caused a loss of touch functionality on a small subset of phones that had been repaired with certain third-party screens and had been updated to iOS 11.
https://www.livetecs.com/
Which is literally the opposite of the clickbait bullshit headline. They've issued an update which fixes phones that were repaired with third-party screens.
Yes, but the underlying fact remains, something is different between original Apple repairs and non-Apple repairs, and this can somehow be detected by the software.
How exactly Apple will leverage on this may (or may not) be relevant in the end.
To give you a side example, a few years ago there was someone making and selling USB to Serial cables using a "fake" FTDI chip.
The manufacturer (I believe rightly) issued (silently, and this is not-so-right IMHO) new drivers that could recognize the "real" chip against the "fake" one (and refuse to connect if the "fake" was detected or inject garbage in the communicaton or even "brick" the device).
Still a lot of people that had bought the cable/converter (without any way to know if it was an original or a fake one) in good faith and had it working just fine, suddenly on a new machine/after having downloaded the new updated driver found themselves with a non-working setup.
This created at the time a lot of issues, until some older drivers were found (or new "original" devices were procured).
Of course it was just a "specialized" little device, usually in the hand of technically savvy people that - one way or the other - could solve the problem, IF Apple decides to do something similar with "unofficial" spares and repairs the impact may well be much bigger.
I don't know that it was necessarily "detected by the software" as much as "the software expected them to behave according to Apple's spec and they didn't which caused the bug". We don't know if the fix somehow only works on only the third-party screens or if, for example, Apple just relaxed tolerances for all screens which then fixes them.
I don't know either specifically, but the sequence is "device repaired worked just fine"/"stopped working after update"/"worked again after fix".
This should imply that the (temporarily) affecting update was narrowly targeted to "original" and that the "fix" had "widened" recognition of hardware.
The point is that the "narrowing" (which possibly happened by accident) is somehow technically possible and thus can in theory replicated intentionally, at Apple's whim.
Maybe the specifications (known only to Apple) changed, or they made use of some features in the specifications that were previously unused, that anyway (since working order was restored) don't seem like being of an "essential" nature.
7 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 21.7 ms ] threadHow exactly Apple will leverage on this may (or may not) be relevant in the end.
To give you a side example, a few years ago there was someone making and selling USB to Serial cables using a "fake" FTDI chip.
The manufacturer (I believe rightly) issued (silently, and this is not-so-right IMHO) new drivers that could recognize the "real" chip against the "fake" one (and refuse to connect if the "fake" was detected or inject garbage in the communicaton or even "brick" the device).
A couple references:
https://hackaday.com/2014/10/22/watch-that-windows-update-ft...
https://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-drivers-break-fake-chip...
Still a lot of people that had bought the cable/converter (without any way to know if it was an original or a fake one) in good faith and had it working just fine, suddenly on a new machine/after having downloaded the new updated driver found themselves with a non-working setup.
This created at the time a lot of issues, until some older drivers were found (or new "original" devices were procured).
Of course it was just a "specialized" little device, usually in the hand of technically savvy people that - one way or the other - could solve the problem, IF Apple decides to do something similar with "unofficial" spares and repairs the impact may well be much bigger.
I don't know that it was necessarily "detected by the software" as much as "the software expected them to behave according to Apple's spec and they didn't which caused the bug". We don't know if the fix somehow only works on only the third-party screens or if, for example, Apple just relaxed tolerances for all screens which then fixes them.
This should imply that the (temporarily) affecting update was narrowly targeted to "original" and that the "fix" had "widened" recognition of hardware.
The point is that the "narrowing" (which possibly happened by accident) is somehow technically possible and thus can in theory replicated intentionally, at Apple's whim.
See, I think saying "narrowly targeted to 'original'" when what actually happened is "written to known specifications" is disingenuous and baity.
1) It worked just fine.
2) Update: it doesn't work anymore.
3) Update: it now works again.
Maybe the specifications (known only to Apple) changed, or they made use of some features in the specifications that were previously unused, that anyway (since working order was restored) don't seem like being of an "essential" nature.