Hacker News Reader

Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

> it's all either outright stolen, counterfeit or bad/rejected parts

The other very common possibility is that it's what's called a "ghost shift" where the factory runs a whole production run on a possibly overnight work shift, creates a batch of product for sale to third parties, and then resumes their legit-for-transfer-to-apple production run the next morning. Happens with all sorts of electronics manufacturing in mainland china.

This does not necessarily mean that the ghost shift products go through absolutely the same level of QC that the main production run gets, but I wouldn't call them counterfeit.

View on HN

"ghost shift" production with the trademarks is counterfeit, but isn't without the trademarks. Regardless of marking it's still likely unauthorized use of intellectual property.

I mentally make a distinction between "counterfeit" products which are actually authentic and good quality, unlikely to hurt the consumer, but arguably cause some harm to apple's IP, and "counterfeit" products which are actually poor quality clones made by inferior production lines. It's unfortunate that the same term is used for both.

Presumably a high volume and skilled third party repair shop and its purchasing people will be a crucial role in buying and distinguishing between the two types of hardware.

The term counterfeit is here being used by some people to mean 'genuine parts sold off-license', which is much more like a bootleg copy[1]. That is, it's the same item sold off-license.

To some extent words mean what people who use them intend to mean, but in my opinion we shouldn't be calling parts from the same production line counterfeit, because the word implies forgery.[2]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleg_recording

2. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/counterfeit

Edit: changed a word for clarity.

> To some extent words mean what people who use them intend to mean, but in my opinion we shouldn't be calling parts from the same production line counterfeit, because the word implies forgery.[2]

If they had a particular QC standard marking, but had not been manufactured in accordance with that level of QC, that would be forgery, right?

If they bear the trademark of a company that demands certain QC standards, but were produced without those checks, it seems like the same thing in a way.

I think you're intentional straining to disagree with me.

You don't have to do that.

You're probably partly right some of the time, and my perspective probably has some value perhaps maybe.

I'm straining to rationalise my own position tbh. I'm not going out of my way to disagree with you, this kind of practice feels viscerally counterfeit-like to me and I'm trying to work through why I think that.

That's a way more honest response than I expected.

I respect that a lot.

In the absence of a legal after market or licensed / genuine / third party parts ecosystem, this is, or should be, the expected natural response: off license / bootleg / counterfeit parts ecosystem.

In my opinion, then, the fault lies with Apple, and / or the absence of a regulated market for those parts and the necessary documentation.

People will find a way to source what they want. How you approach or deal with those problems is probably a political / ideological thing.

That seems like an orthogonal question. Maybe Apple has set up their system in a way that (intentionally or not) encourages or necessitates counterfeiting. But those parts may still be counterfeit in the ways that matter to the end user (e.g. not necessarily as safe as they appear to be certified to be).

There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, it should be a legal requirement that all OEMs allow 3rd parties to manufacture these parts to provide as replacements.

Saving the planet is far more important than protecting the profits for replacement parts. Of course they shouldn’t be allowed to sell complete phones but selling screens is good.

Of course they shouldn’t be allowed to sell complete phones but selling screens is good.

For an interesting contrast, look at the automotive industry, where (with the exception of perhaps some newer companies/models, like Tesla et.al.) there is a thriving aftermarket which is so complete that for certain models of cars, you can likely build an entire powertrain and even rolling chassis using zero original parts. Entire engine blocks, internals, transmissions, axles, suspension, brakes, even frame rails, can be bought from the aftermarket. Of course a lot of these parts are enhanced and marked with different manufacturer's names, but the OEMs themselves have in general not minded and sometimes even encouraged the aftermarket.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com