Ahhhhh that makes sense. Thanks for closing the loop in my brain.

I wonder what the economics of a phone chop shop ring looks like.

Don't they do some part of identification for more expensive parts like battery and display so that you can't even switch them between two phones? But maybe I remember that wrong.

It seems like we (good people) would want Apple to prevent these stolen, parted-out components from being used as replacement parts. Apple could prevent that, in theory through software that looks at secure serial numbers from components ... but how will this comport with "right to repair"?

Wouldn’t they detect said parts and have the phone not boot? Seems like a pretty easy fix. All those parts have serial numbers recognized by the OS