Apple bricked hundreds of iPhones.

     

The iPhone was a major hit across North America, so much so that many people wanted to use it on non AT&T networks. They achieved this through SIM card, but Apple did not approve, so they did what any other company would do, naturally, they bricked the iPhone. Essentially, they made it so that if you had an iPhone modified to use another network, it would be permanently broken when the firmware was updated. Was this necessary? No, as someone from the Dev Team Core put it, "Apple has multiple ways of upgrading the baseband without committing a 500,000-phone massacre. First, they can issue a secpack for everything in the firmware. They could simply issue one of these to restore the value if a regular token is not detected, thus rewriting this part to its original state. This process would most likely defeat any unlock available, Dev Team or iPhone Sim Free, without bricking the iPhone in any way." [source]

Apple bricking these iPhones is simply a way for them to attack those who don't follow their rules when it comes to products that were paid for by the user. Why would any consumer wish to purchase a device in which they will never be given control of? If you are always told what to do with things that cost you several hundred dollars, why bother paying for it? It's very simple, Apple doesn't let their consumers do as they please with the devices they bought, therefore it is best that consumers don't buy from Apple.