Repairs for smartphones, tablets, and other devices still aren’t as easy as they should be. Case in point: getting your iPhone repaired under warranty could lock you out of Snapchat and other services.
In a bizarre turn of events, the repair of a broken iPhone under AppleCare appears to have resulted in a Snapchat ban for said device. After dropping his phone and having it replaced at an authorized Apple service provider, Finn Voorheess was surprised to find that the replacement phone had been banned from Snapchat due to alleged violations of the company’s community guidelines.
Finn suspected that the replacement device was a refurbished one and the previous owner might have been responsible for the lock. Snapchat support was unhelpful, explaining that device locks cannot be removed. Further investigation revealed the possible culprit: Apple’s DeviceCheck framework, which allows developers to store data that persists even after a factory reset or device transfer. Apple does not delete this registry after repairs, and while the company’s support staff were understanding about replacing the phone again, they were unable to address the root cause of the problem.
The incident highlights a potential flaw in Apple’s refurbishment process, as devices are not fully restored to a “new” state and may carry with them limitations of previous users. Snapchat certainly shouldn’t abuse this feature, but if they want a refurbished device to behave the same as a new phone, then that’s also on Apple. The company definitely has the ability to delete and whitewash this data.
Apple urges developers not to use DeviceCheck for anything more than basic device verification. If you’re a developer who’s also abusing it, you should definitely stop doing so – there are probably more reliable ways to verify whether or not it’s the same user trying to access an account from a device. We’ve reached out to Snapchat for comment and will update this article if we receive a response.
Source: Finn Voorhees via Six Colors
