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Apple eats humble pie, apologizes over Error 53 and issues a fix
Apple, Inc. has eaten some humble pie and apologized for the Error 53 issue while at the same time issuing a fix.
If you’ve not been following the news, iPhone users who had the Touch ID sensor in their phones repaired by a third party, or even by themselves, found their iPhone’s bricked with an Error 53 message.
Originally Apple said that the error message was a security measure, in effect implying that users could only have their phones fixed by an authorized repairer, or Apple itself.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Apple released the following statement:
Some customers’ devices are showing ‘Connect to iTunes’ after attempting an iOS update or a restore from iTunes on a Mac or PC. This reports as an Error 53 in iTunes and appears when a device fails a security test. This test was designed to check whether Touch ID works properly before the device leaves the factory.
Today, Apple released a software update that allows customers who have encountered this error message to successfully restore their device using iTunes on a Mac or PC.
We apologize for any inconvenience, this was designed to be a factory test and was not intended to affect customers. Customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement of their device based on this issue should contact AppleCare about a reimbursement.
A support document published on Apple’s website details how to fix the Error 53 issue:
- Make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes.
- Force restart your device.
- Try to restore your device again.
- If you still see error 53 when you try to restore your device, contact Apple Support. If the restore won’t finish and you see a different error code, learn what to do.
Of note, though, the fix for Error 53 does not restore Force Touch versus unbricking the phone.
Pathetic
The control-freakery of Apple is the thing of legend, so the whole Error 53 shouldn’t be a great surprise, but that doesn’t make it any less pathetic.
If you buy a phone you have a reasonable expectation that the phone will work, even in the event of an otherwise perfectly fine repair, and that’s the thing here: at no stage is it suggested that these repairs were killing the phones, it was Apple’s software that was causing the issue.
Some credit is due to Apple for at least apologizing and eventually fixing the issue, although when you’ve got a gun to your head amazing things do occur, and the gun, in this case, is a class action lawsuit over the matter.
photo credit: via photopin (license)
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