> why the hell should Apple prevent someone from putting a counterfeit battery/screen/whatever inside of it?
You can definitely do whatever you want to the machine. And the audit prevents my parents got scammed by those individual shops. eg. Paid the price for a genius battery but got a counterfeit from China.
The scam is already included in the price of the phone itself in my opinion.
I am sick of arguments "for" consumer protection here. There is no chocolate pudding if someone shits on your plate. Sure there is QA, but not in the interest of consumers for any replaceable part.
As someone who has quite a lot of apple phones in my hands, the genuine Chinese batteries die as frequently as the not genuine Chinese batteries. They both smell nicely like bubblegum at least.
You can definitely do whatever you want to the machine. And the audit prevents my parents got scammed by those individual shops. eg. Paid the price for a genius battery but got a counterfeit from China.