It's a sliding scale which depends on the user's competence and not just the hardware. To a completely non-technical person, a hard lock-up is "bricked" even if it could be fixed by pressing buttons. To a normal user, a borked ROM is "bricked" even if it could be fixed by plugging into a computer and re-flashing. To a power user, a busted bootloader is "bricked" if it stops them flashing a ROM, even if it could be fixed with a JTAG debugger. To a sufficiently good EE, it's not bricked until the whole thing is physically destroyed.
This is a good way to describe the reality of "bricked", and I think you could extend this to consider price, too.
Even to the EE, the cost of parts and time to repair may exceed the cost of replacement, much like a car in a relatively minor accident can still be considered "totaled" if the repair cost exceeds its value. "Bricked" may still not be the right term, but the difference is irrelevant at that point.
Another consideration is there's a big difference to a user if the fix requires erasing all data, as the work required (after fixing) is then the same as getting a replacement. At the least, this is the effort of applying updates, restoring backups, then dealing with all the fiddly things that didn't update/reinstall/restore properly. At worst, it's irreplaceable data loss (and a hard lesson in why backups are important).
> much like a car in a relatively minor accident can still be considered "totaled" if the repair cost exceeds its value
I've never heard of a minor incident referred to as being "totalled", but rather a "write-off", since it's the insurance companies that are ultimately making that decision, not the repair service. Is that a regional thing?
I don't know if it is a regional thing, but “totalled” is what I've always heard, and refers specifically to (and the term derives from) the insurance company declaring the vehicle a “total loss” and applying replacement rather than repair compensation.
I think data recovery is a big factor. From all of the discussion around it here, it seems like the key points are "data can't be recovered without physically modifying the hardware" and "hardware can't be made usable for less than the cost of replacement." For me, losing the ability to use my handset is a minor inconvenience but losing the data on it would be a real pain (speaking of which I should back up my contacts list right now...) I'd imagine I'm not alone in this.
Used to work on phones on the Android side. I remember blowing the Qfuse was widely known internally to brick devices, but there was a team that specifically could reverse the brick - except it was a secret because the company didn't want the fact that it could be reverted to be known.
And as my post illustrated, "unrecoverable" is entirely relative to the user's capabilities. There's no such thing as "entirely unrecoverable" to a suitably equipped and motivated person, although you get into a Ship-of-Theseus situation if enough hardware needs replacing.
There’s a fairly meaningful distinction between replace, repair, and recover.
In this case we can recover the phone without replacing any hardware at all, so bringing up repair or replacement is a bit of a red herring.
But as I recall, Theseus’ ship was repaired over so many battles, nothing of the original remained. That is distinctly different than botching a single repair so badly you would have been better off replacing from the onset.
There are plenty of ways to get plenty of hardware into an obviously FUBAR state. It’s simply false to say that there is no such thing as a definitively bricked state for any device whatsoever.
Simple rule of thumb; if the commonly accepted solution is “get a new device” then you’ve probably bricked it.
Absolutely no one will have to buy a new iPhone because of this bug.
I think a fair in-between value on the "sliding scale" is calling a device bricked if it can't be recovered by a sufficiently advanced end-user without special hardware. If there is no way that an end-user could fix it without purchasing something or returning it to the manufacturer, it is bricked.
We can use it like when a car is "totalled". If it would cost the user more to fix the device (because they are nontechnical or need special parts) than the device is worth, then it is bricked.
“Difficult [for someone] to recover” should not be a partially overlapping state as “bricked”.
I had a EdgeMax Lite router which has a propensity for the flash storage to get corrupted at which point it fails to boot. The fix is to buy a particular model of USB flash drive, and image it with a specific .img file. Open the case and replace the flash stick, then boot holding the reset button.
It was a somewhat difficult repair, but in the end just a matter of following step-by-step instructions with readily available tools. I would not consider the device to have been bricked. No more than your computer is bricked when your hard drive dies.
I did brick an Xbox once, trying to solder on an early gen mod chip that was well beyond my soldering abilities!
In this case it’s not even a question of hardware damage. The fix is to reset to factory, upgrade, and restore. This is the happy path recovery process which has done millions of times over on iPhones. I had to do it just a couple weeks ago when my son changed the PIN on an iPhone we use to play music on, and then promptly forgot the new PIN. (He’s 7)
With the proposed meaning, everything is a brick to the technologically illiterate. Better to admit the headline is simply sensationalizing / clickbait.
Not a brick if you have to replace a storage device. Is it a brick if you have to replace a motherboard? Would replacing a motherboard not have fixed your xbox? (Surely the commercial availability of a part isn't the deciding factor in whether something is a brick, right?)
Commercial availability of a part is absolutely a factor in deciding whether something is a brick! I.e. some large expensive machine is bricked because the manufacturer refuses to sell you a small proprietary part without which the machine is entirely non-functional.
It’s a fairly frequent pattern where an IoT device becomes a brick because an API shuts down. Similarly, if you can’t replace a crucial part because the manufacturer won’t sell it to you, that would brick a device. If the device is cheaper to replace than to repair, then it is bricked (the Xbox).
A brick must be entirely non-functional and simply not worth repairing. It’s supposed to be a less vulgar version of FUBAR.
There are rare stories of extraordinary lengths that a maker will go to (such as fabbing your own custom parts, or standing up a private version of an API and DNS hijacking requests from the device in order to make it function again) in order to “un-brick” a device. The defining trait of these stories is that something new is invented in order to make the device function again.
I guess we have fundamentally different definitions of "bricked", then. I'm always going to define brick by the type of damage. It's not like a car being totaled, where even cosmetic damage can total a car when its value is low enough.
Please don't comment on whether someone read a comment. That's informationless point-scoring, and the site guidelines explicitly ask you not to do that.
Technical terms have meaning defined by actual technical usage regardless of common misuse by the less informed.
Your entire tower isn't a cpu, a user recoverable device isn't bricked and if tomorrow most people start calling kidneys livers they will still be kidneys.
Reducing bricked to a subjective statement about the users ability to use their device robs the term of all utility in the same way as calling a computer a cpu.
The author didn't fail to read your words, you are in fact wrong and repeating yourself doesn't make you more correct.
They weren't my words, so I'm not repeating myself. Just agreeing with the point that the term "brick" is subjective. Requiring one to go to heroic measures to render their device useful would make me consider the device "bricked" for all intents and purposes. Folks more technically skilled than I might be able to recover my device, but if I can't get it back, it's all bricked to me. But this is a silly argument.
I agree with you. The title is misleading. I thought this was about frying the device. When people say the raspberry pi is design not to be bricked, they are referring to not fucking the circuitry beyond use without physical repair, not some user process stuck in an infinite loop.
