Hello,
Last week my iPhone 11 was "Locked to Owner" on its own and later reset up as a new phone with all data wiped out. I have since been puzzled with this question: How could this have happened? The following was my experience. Hope someone can shed some light on this question.
Last week I was in a trip and doing a guided mountainous hiking. At the advice of the guide, we put our iPhones in the Airplane mode to save power. My wife was with me. She has an iPhone 12 and has my phone in its "Find My". At the top of the mountain I used my iPhone to take some pictures. Everything was fine until we were on our way down, when I checked my iPhone, I found it was rotating different languages that I don't understand. I tried to turn it off but failed, because there was a label on top of the "Slide to power off" button. I simply turn off the screen. A few minutes later, I checked it again, and found the screen displayed "iPhone locked to owner ..." with two options: "Quick Start" and "Set up manually". I turned it off without doing anything.
When I was back to the hotel, I live-chatted with the Apple support, which was apparently an AI. The only meaningful advice it provided was to connect iTunes. I did that and entered my Apple ID. My iPhone was unlocked as a new phone, with all data wiped out. After I was back from the trip, I visited the Apple store genius bar, only to talk to a couple of young guys who were even less knowledgeable than I am.
While I have to accept the permanent loss of my data, I wonder how this could have happened:
Last week my iPhone 11 was "Locked to Owner" on its own and later reset up as a new phone with all data wiped out. I have since been puzzled with this question: How could this have happened? The following was my experience. Hope someone can shed some light on this question.
Last week I was in a trip and doing a guided mountainous hiking. At the advice of the guide, we put our iPhones in the Airplane mode to save power. My wife was with me. She has an iPhone 12 and has my phone in its "Find My". At the top of the mountain I used my iPhone to take some pictures. Everything was fine until we were on our way down, when I checked my iPhone, I found it was rotating different languages that I don't understand. I tried to turn it off but failed, because there was a label on top of the "Slide to power off" button. I simply turn off the screen. A few minutes later, I checked it again, and found the screen displayed "iPhone locked to owner ..." with two options: "Quick Start" and "Set up manually". I turned it off without doing anything.
When I was back to the hotel, I live-chatted with the Apple support, which was apparently an AI. The only meaningful advice it provided was to connect iTunes. I did that and entered my Apple ID. My iPhone was unlocked as a new phone, with all data wiped out. After I was back from the trip, I visited the Apple store genius bar, only to talk to a couple of young guys who were even less knowledgeable than I am.
While I have to accept the permanent loss of my data, I wonder how this could have happened:
- Is it possible that I locked my own phone and reset it up by accidently touching some key/button?
- Is it possible that someone (my wife, or my company who manages my phone, etc) locked it with my Apple ID while my phone was in Airplane mode?
- At the hiking, it was raining and my phone might be wet but definitely not soaked. Could this be a cause?
