Half of the time stolen iPhones are listed for sale to try and scam people into thinking they are getting a good deal on an iPhone yet it will be basically useless for a new owner since it will be backlisted among other things.

The other main reason which is far less profitable for thieves is to part out stolen iPhones but thanks to apples efforts to serialize parts and in some cases basically disable them from working as intended (which also hurts right to repair efforts) that’s if you can safely extract them from the phone to begin with become basically useless on another iPhone and the fact the parts are obviously no longer new OEM and could be damaged as well.

A third reason comes down to criminals being stupid and not many realizing the hassle it takes to make any amount of profit off a stolen iPhone and how locked down a stolen iPhone is in actuality.

Unless you’re an absolute camera nerd like me with smartphones the differences year to year for the past few years are more minute than ever. This year coming from the 14 Pro Max I can appreciate the more consistent HDR and overall camera processing and the 5x is a nice to have on the Max. It’s also the little things I like as you mention the lighter phone and some other niceties.

I have it because 1. These are expensive devices and 2. Much cheaper to get it repaired or replaced if it’s stolen.

This has been a thing for years and is done on device no internet required and is a pretty neat and useful feature. Nothing creepy about it.

2-3 years at least.

Sorry to hear you’ve had a bad experience. Have made several purchases from gazelle and a few trade ins, never had an issue.

Sounds like bad luck on your end. But in general with the volume apple ships products at defective units are bound to pop up here and there.

I get two solid days with mine on the latest WatchOS.

It really depends on the lighting, it’s more of a barely blue color than anything. Think of it like 80% white with 20% blue pigment added in, all I’m saying is that you didn’t get scammed it’s just how the color is and it’s just not that blue.

Having used a note the pen was something I barely used. Apple would rather people go and buy an iPad if they want an Apple Pencil capable device. I wouldn’t hold your breath expecting apple to ever bring the pencil to iPhone the demand isn’t there not to mention apple having to compromise on how they design the iPhone.

The 15 Pro Max to me is nearly as perfect a phone can get and it’s the first time I’m considering not upgrading annually like I normally do.

Unfortunately with those barriers you won’t be able to find it. Hopefully you can get a replacement phone soon and to prevent this in the future make sure she remembers her Apple ID info or have it written down somewhere safe at home to hopefully track the phone but even then a stolen phone is likely gone for good.

To reduce the chances of her new phone from getting stolen in the future make sure she keeps it secured in a bag or purse and well attached to her person. Some criminals are so brazen they will even snatch phone out of a persons hand depending on the area.

Apple should simply replace both phones. Unfortunately sounds like you both got defective devices. The cameras should be much better than the 12’s. Unclear and blurry photos are clear symptoms of a defect, you can look at this sub to see how great photos should come out and even see posts of the occasional defective phone to get an idea.

If it’s MDM locked the phone is a paperweight unless they decide to unlock it. No free or paid software will fix this, if you can it’s time to look into getting your own personal device.

There is no auto enhance it’s called photo processing which every modem smartphone does. You can tweak to some degree how photos turn out with photographic styles and iOS 17 did fix some processing issues with the 13/14 series. If none of that helps using a third party camera app can help.

No. Go for the 13 if that’s what you can afford.

Not sure what nonsense you’re hearing about the cameras, most agree these are some of the best and most refined iPhone cameras in years. You can look here for yourself in terms of how happy people are with the cameras and the phone as a whole. Apple really did great this year across all the 15’s.

It’s not capped at 80hz. It’s called a variable refresh rate, software dependent it can hit a peak of 120hz especially when you’re scrolling. Safari for example being a stock app is well optimized for ProMotion and easily hits 120hz at its peak when scrolling. The phone can go down as low as 10hz in most situations and 1hz when using AOD.

13 Pro and the 13 Pro Max have identical cameras same with the 14 Pros. It depends on which device you want and size.

Unfortunately you are out of luck. You’d need to physically have the phone to add it.

Took me a bit over a week and everything is normal to me now. I’m actually quite happy with how everything works and I really wasn’t sure initially especially with not everyone liking OS 10 and I’m a big fan of the app redesigns.