Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 07-02-2018

If you are considering buying a used iPhone, you may wonder if the previous owner bought the device as a new, refurbished or as a replacement device provided by Apple.

To determine the origin of the device, you can use an interesting device model identifier trick to discover the history of the phone.

This can be helpful information for buyers of used devices, if you’re troubleshooting or repairing an iPhone.

So how do you discover the origin of your iPhone,iPad or possibly other iOS devices?

1.  Open the “Settings” app on the iPhone
2.  Go to “General” and then go to “About”
3. Look for “Model” and then read the model identifier next to that text, it will look something like “MN572LL/A”, the first character will let you know if the device is new, refurbished, replacement, or personalized:  

• M – Brand new device, meaning the device was purchased new
• F – Refurbished device, meaning the device has been through refurbishing process
• N – Replacement device, meaning the originally bought device was replaced by this model likely due to a service request
• P – Personalized device with engraving, meaning the device was customized with an engraving on purchase

It’s important to note the model identifier shown here (like MN572LL/A) is different from the general model (like iPhone X) and model number of the iOS device (like A1822) – admittedly a bit confusing since they all have similar labels, but they are indeed entirely different things.

– Apple New. 

Twitter: @FaizelPatel143