She said the robbers were bold taking her husband’s phone, but then giving it back because it wasn’t to their liking.
“They basically looked at that phone and was like ‘Oh, that’s an Android? We don’t want this. I thought it was an iPhone,’” she said.
Parts are paired to devices, but some parts will still worked unpaired but with reduced functionality. On the iPhone 15 Pro for example, a transplanted screen will not have True Tone and auto-brightness.
There are plenty of unscrupulous phone repairers who will harvest parts from stolen phones and pass them off to unknowing customers.