https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/27/what-new-machine-to-update-iphones-looks-like/
Apple retail stores are now receiving information about the company's new system for wirelessly updating iPhone software prior to sale, iGen...
That’s pretty interesting. I wonder if they had to change the package design to support this. I’d love to see the patent if anyone can dig it up.
Edit: the patent
Crazy that this works. There are some really smart people in this world.
Also cool to see a company invest money into something like this simply for the impact to the customer experience.
The Apple Store experience was so different from what shopping for a computer used to be like. Knowledgeable, friendly staff, computers you can actually use instead of just playing screen savers, and training, repairs, and support at the same place. Not at all like going to a Best Buy or Circuit City.
My experience has been them selling me products that don't work with my macbook(too old and they said it will work). In the last few years the quality of service has dropped. They claim to have fixed my macbooks multiple times but no parts have been changed and the issues are still present after the supposed repair. Previously (pre 2019) had excellent service from the 3 local stores. Since then it has been equal to best buy. They are no better or worse than any other in my experience, just another company trying to sell you products and get out of servicing them.
The tech is pretty rudimentary. They just need to make sure that the iPhones have the NFC and qi coils near the edge of the box. Then they’re basically just updating boxed phones like you would update a mesh router node.
The best part about this is that it’s so damn simple. It’s one of those “why didn’t someone else think of this” things.
Eh, it is a qI charger that turns on the phone, the phone is then programmed to connect to specific network and download the firmware, not that crazy.
I do like iPhones, but there is no need to go crazy about this
Apple are much much smarter than me, so I'm sure have mitigated against this, but this feels like a securirty nightmare waiting to happen:
Bad guy gets hold of the technology, works out an exploit to send unofficial update and then "patches" a containership full of iPhones.
It’s basically the same as updating the iPhone over usb. There has not been a chance to have the iPhone run a modified iOS update in over 10 years now iirc.
It is not like people have not tried.
Why would they attempt to go through unsold iPhones? They can simply force Apple to push updates to all existing iPhones.
If I’m (say) the UK intelligence service and I want to spy on (rolls dice) a group of people in Switzerland- it much easier for me to intercept their packages and patch them in transit then having to talk to Apple.
I disagree. If the packages aren't routed through UK, you'd have to work with other countries secret service, distribution companies, and you have much more legal troubles to consider.
Because clearly a secret service of one country could never infiltrate FedEx’s distribution depot in another.
Because the secret service of one country acting in another country where they don't have jurisdiction is an international political crisis that could lead to war. Don't play dumb.
One means a country forcing a company acting inside that country to do something. The other means one country having to ask another country to be allowed to force a company acting inside the other country to do something. See where one is much easier?
I like iPhones, but this is just reckless, it is only a matter of time untill an exploit is found to bypass the certificate check.
For the time being the system is secure, but claiming 100% security based on a certificate checking routine is just dumb.
Look at the PS3, for years it was thought to be unhackable, then exploits were found to bypass the security.
Now, obviously this is unlikely to happen at stores selling new devices as the access to them will be limited, but you can't just claim absolute security.
Will this feature be turned off when the phone is activated? What if it is forgotten about, or deemed unneeded? I could absolutely see a bad guy setting up a system to trigger the update mode, which probably will have lower security since Apple will only expect the devices to activate the system in a store.
What could the bad guy do with the phone in that mode? Probably quite a bit more than the user wants.
Good that you pointed that out, I am sure Apple has not thought about that obvious threat vector. /s
I think this is very clever, a great idea. I also think someone is going to figure out how to turn on iphones via NFC and upload malware of some kind.
The patent lists out an authentication process to ensure updates are coming from and going to approved devices.
I doubt it? I’m not sure how it works but I could definitely see it working without having to transfer any data at all. All it has to be is a glorified QI charger and the phone can auto-update itself from Apple’s servers just like any other iPhone.
All OS updates are signed If what you are saying were possible, then all phones would always be susceptible to a man in the middle attack of someone faking apple's server to send a fake OS update. All this seems to be is a qi charger that has the ability to also turn the phone on / off then it can just connect to apple's server and update itself like normal.