IPhone 6 error 53 fingerprint sensor incident: Difference between revisions

When switching from iOS major version 8 to 9, [[iPhone]] 6 users, who chose to replace their fingerprint sensor with another one before the update, had their phones bricked<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Miles |first=Brignall |date=2016-02-05 |title=‘Error 53’ fury mounts as Apple software update threatens to kill your iPhone 6 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160205081456/https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair |archive-date=2016-02-05 |access-date=2025-07-16 |website=‘Error 53’ fury mounts as Apple software update threatens to kill your iPhone 6 {{!}} Mobile phones {{!}} The Guardian}}</ref>.

[[Apple]] is known for its anti-consumer practices regarding repairability, including a more recent "Unknown Part"<ref>https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254475434?sortBy=rank ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260220075106/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254475434?sortBy=rank Archived])</ref> notification in the "Settings" App, that is inserted on newer devices, when detecting a battery that was installed, not using means only available to their own official repair facilities. The incident discussed here ranks into just another incident, which was interpreted as deliberate practice when it originally happened

At 2:19 p.m. ET on 2/18/2016, Apple has responded to a request from TechCrunch with this statement: "This was designed to be a factory test and was not intended to affect customers,"<ref>https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/apple-apologizes-and-updates-ios-to-restore-iphones-disabled-by-error-53/ ([http://web.archive.org/web/20250605194531/https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/apple-apologizes-and-updates-ios-to-restore-iphones-disabled-by-error-53/ Archived])</ref>. The issue of the phone being unusable was fixed later<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wiens |first=Kyle |date=2016-02-18 |title=Confirmed: Apple’s Error 53 Fix Works |url=https://www.ifixit.com/News/7924/error-53-fix |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420200715/https://www.ifixit.com/News/7924/error-53-fix |archive-date=2020-04-20 |access-date=2025-07-16 |website=Confirmed: Apple’s Error 53 Fix Works - iFixit}}</ref>, however the fingerprint sensor was disabled by said fix.

Consumers were very annoyed<ref>https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7463710?sortBy=rank ([http://web.archive.org/web/20260203020026/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7463710?sortBy=rank Archived])</ref> and had to spend their costly time and money to have a phone repaired at an additional cost for the fingerprint sensor to function again, which they did not foresee to pay. Essentially, after being robbed of an advertised functionality, they had to pay the perpetrator to get that functionality back.

[[Category:Apple iPhones]]