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Arndroid

macrumors 6502a
Oct 3, 2013
903
461
Oh I guess no more selling my old iPhones for $99 and the unlock password for $349
 

MyopicPaideia

macrumors 68020
Mar 19, 2011
2,155
980
Sweden

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Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
I can see why this would be useful before the seller sells their used phone from eBay, but the seller knows what he's doing,

If they just want your money, why would they bother even checking, when the seller knows if they enabled Activation Lock...

Useful tool, but it's still in their users hands as to weather how many will use this either before, afterwards the customer has bought it, and/or weather the original owner would be willing to unlock the device on request...
 

Yumbo

macrumors 6502
Oct 1, 2011
334
66
Australia
Yeah but what about the edge case of a terminated, disgruntled employee who refuses to cooperate?

I have gotten stuck with this a couple of times in the past year. Got an $1k brick sitting next to me now because of this.

There is no way to prevent a user from putting their ID on a device from a corporate perspective and this has made us pause our deployment of iPads across the board to all field employees.

Furnish your original purchase receipt and get Apple to unlock.

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besides the activation lock status, it should also include the status if the serial number is already attached to an advanced RMA. remember that guy in the Macbook thread who said he bought it from craiglist and took it into the Apple store. it was sent off for repair and Apple said this serial number was from an advanced RMA and now that the laptop is returned and processed they will not be sending it back. the seller had received a replacement macbook and instead of sending the broken one back he flipped it on craigslist in hopes the buyer would take it into apple and send it off to be repaired.

apparently it's a scam that gets repeated over and over again so perhaps they should include "RMA status" in that as well

Wouldn't advanced replacement require a holding amount on a credit card in case of non return?
And it depends on the timeframe and depot requirements.
 

AverageBob

macrumors member
Sep 13, 2014
92
0
I used the Mercury browser on my iPad and changed the user agent to Firefox and it worked fine. A pain no doubt but it worked.

Thanks for the workaround. Bringing my laptop and finding wifi etc to check when buying from a stranger adds to the hassle.
 

luckyjat

macrumors newbie
Sep 25, 2014
14
4
Selling iPad on Craigslist

I am selling my iPad on Craigslist (thanks iPhone 6 Plus!), and a potential buyer asked what the my iPad's serial number is. Is it safe to give the serial number to the potential buyer? Any reason I should/shouldn't?
 

pauliaK

macrumors regular
Jan 16, 2012
142
56
Banff, AB
I wish there would be an option to send an email to the person who is locking the device, let's say without me knowing persons to whom I send it to email address.

In my case I found an iPhone while traveling which I would like to return but I had absolutely no luck in my attempts to find out whose iPhone it is. I've tried calling both T-mobile (sim was inside) and Apple and they could not help me out for different reasons. T-mobile said SIM was deactivated already and all the customer info was removed from the system while Apple said they had a different email on file associated with the device thus can only send an email to that email address, which was different from the one that was locking the device. No one has ever got in touch with me.

The phone was found in Israel while traveling and seemed to belong to an American. If only there would be an option to the let person know I have his phone and want to return it back...
 

LucasLand

macrumors 6502a
Mar 6, 2002
756
92
New England
I wish there would be an option to send an email to the person who is locking the device, let's say without me knowing persons to whom I send it to email address.

In my case I found an iPhone while traveling which I would like to return but I had absolutely no luck in my attempts to find out whose iPhone it is. I've tried calling both T-mobile (sim was inside) and Apple and they could not help me out for different reasons. T-mobile said SIM was deactivated already and all the customer info was removed from the system while Apple said they had a different email on file associated with the device thus can only send an email to that email address, which was different from the one that was locking the device. No one has ever got in touch with me.

The phone was found in Israel while traveling and seemed to belong to an American. If only there would be an option to the let person know I have his phone and want to return it back...

i think there are places that can unlock it for a price. maybe you can learn how to do it yourself
 

myname70

macrumors 6502a
May 5, 2014
630
81
I use iPhone 6 plus with latest 8.1 beta 2, but when trying to open the link for activationlock it says - unsupported browser :)) does matter I use the build in Safari..... Strange
 

im14u2en

macrumors newbie
Nov 8, 2014
1
0
Apple Creates Tool to Check Activation Lock Status on iOS Devices

I have mixed feelings about this. Why it is a good measure to lock out the thieves. What about us that have bought clean iphones second hand where the owner clearly forgot to remove find my iphone. Many are unaware this function lingers once they wipe or restore their phone. Why make it hard for us to get through the activation. All of this can be checked upon removal. I contacted the owner several time no response. Contacted apple hoping they could use the info off the phone to send a message to the owner informing them of this, no help!. I even went to the at&t store willing to do a voluntary surrender to allow them the chance to verify with the owner that the phone was clean. I took these measures because these entities have the owners contact info in which this check can be cleared up allowing me to use my phone. Instead apple put everyone in the same boat categorizing us all as a thief. There are so many simple fixes apple can do: on the activation page a tab can be implemented in which the owner will be notified through apple or what ever carrier server is locked to the phone. Informing them someone is trying to activate said phone. A) did you recently sell this phone if yes the lock should be removed immediately upon confirmation . B) has this phone been reported lost or stolen. In this case it should remain locked. But not to offer up any type of remedy is unfair.
 
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TimelessOne

macrumors regular
Oct 29, 2014
236
2
How about they create a tool that checks for bugs in their software? Seems like they could use that.

Chances are they have that. Software development is hard and depends how under the gun they were to get a release out the door to see how many of the fringe cases are tested. Where I work we got burned and still are dealing with a mess of a software update we released that works fine 95% of the time heck it works great in those 95% cases. The other 5% it is a night mare in clean up and for tech support. Now is the code good, yes. Are the issue that hard to fix. No. Just it was a huge feature set and we got put up against a hard deadline so a lot of cases got missed and once it got into the wild they got found. We knew we were going to have issues due to how complex and big the project was but it needed a much much larger sample size to find everything.

Heck I just fixed one issue that we spent a week tracking down after it was reported to us. Most of that week was banging our heads against the wall. I found the issue by mostly shear luck. That was I wiped out my data, fresh installed it on the device, let it do it initial data loading and then I was just seeing what my starting data was before I started the debug stage and I saw something odd. I had some old test data from a previous project on the server that showed the cause of the bug. The left over test data was not the bug nor was causing it but it did expose the real bug in the software.

Basicly I happen to of dumb lucked into having a the fringed case that cause the issue that we spent a week trying to solve for a customer. We fix the issue after than with in about 1 hour and loaded it for the next release.

My point was, and still is, that the vast majority of people that NEED this service probably won't know abut it. Often times sellers are weary about giving out info, such as IMEI, for God knows what reason. I have had people ask me why on earth I need a VIN when buying a car... It's a good start, nonetheless.

Yeah I find that funny that people are oh so scared to give that number when really they are pretty easy to get if I wanted a clean one. For a phone I just walk into a store look at some boxes and boom IMEI number on the sticker. With a camera I could save it. It is not like it can really do that much.
Car vin OMG you have my vin number. You can run a car fax report on it.

Furnish your original purchase receipt and get Apple to unlock.

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Wouldn't advanced replacement require a holding amount on a credit card in case of non return?
And it depends on the timeframe and depot requirements.

Yeah you do but what they are hoping is you buy it and take it to the Apple store to get it repaired. As such it gets sent in and returned like it needs to be. They get a new working laptop plus some cash.
 

cuongnq

macrumors member
Jul 16, 2014
79
0
I am selling my iPad on Craigslist (thanks iPhone 6 Plus!), and a potential buyer asked what the my iPad's serial number is. Is it safe to give the serial number to the potential buyer? Any reason I should/shouldn't?

It's safe, cos this info only use to check your iPad model, size, and may be repair status. I can do that check at imeidata.net, and some time i got carrier info too. :D
 

LucasLand

macrumors 6502a
Mar 6, 2002
756
92
New England
I am selling my iPad on Craigslist (thanks iPhone 6 Plus!), and a potential buyer asked what the my iPad's serial number is. Is it safe to give the serial number to the potential buyer? Any reason I should/shouldn't?

this is what a buyer should be doing, and why apple has a website so people can check out the device.
 
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