A little off topic but this is so incorrect.
I wish it weren't. I too assumed that Activation Lock was the final solution to the stolen phone epidemic..
However nowadays it's beyond a joke in places like London. Thousands upon thousands of phones snatched from people's hands... worse than its ever been and this is all whilst phones are so-called activation locked.
I have no idea how or why its so lucrative to steal them, but I understand many end up abroad stripped for parts.
Activation lock has not worked - at least not in the sense that it deters theft.
I live in London. The problem with iPhones getting nicked in London is mostly idiots. Yes I'm victim blaming my fellow London idiots. Granted the criminals have most of the responsibility but it's the victims who create the market by being utter unadulterated drooling morons.
Firstly everyone ambles around with their phones in front of their faces with the speaker phone on at bus stops with it sticking out. I don't know why people do this. We have pockets, you can use it next to your head and they sell these things called airpods now. They have no situational awareness at all. Whack, phone gone.
Secondly on more targeted attacks, some people don't set up Face ID because they got told on some youtube channel that the IR laser causes sight damage (seen this thrice now). So they sit there entering their PIN in plain sight in front of people over and over and over again all day every day. Whack, phone gone.
Thirdly people don't have their phones set up properly and they are swiped while they are still unlocked. The thieves immediately put airplane mode on so they disappear off Find My and usually can get into insecure banking apps and paypal etc without authentication. Whack, money gone.
None of these things are a problem if you take a few basic precautions and develop some situational awareness.
Activation lock is not about protecting anyone from these vectors. It's about when you are one of the above idiots and drop your phone in the street, because of course when you do all those things you use it without a case, and smash the screen. You don't go to Apple because you didn't buy AppleCare and parts are expensive there. So you go down to the local hooky phone shop who will put a screen on it for you. Prior to application lock, a huge chunk of those screens were from stolen phones. Now they are third party ones and the phone tells you that it's a third party one. So when you get a new shiny one the next person knows they are being sold a frankenphone with crap in it, not something masquerading as a reasonable phone but is made of stolen body parts.
Edit: a final comment on my fellow Londoners. In recent travels around the UK and the rest of the world, I barely see anyone walking around with airpods in or using their phone. It's bad in London because everyone is semi-tied to the things all the time.
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