"Owning" new-to-me MBA

[cognus]

I bought a MB Air to keep my MBP company, but how do I determine ownership? I see a lot of threads about the new Apple Profile pages @support.apple, but nothing about adding devices. Is it ONLY/Exclusively via iTunes that this is managed? It seems to me that what they're doing with iTunes only relates to sharing of media [device limitations... one would think they'd want you to have all the devices you can eat].

This Air was bought via Ebay, and appears to have been setup 'fresh' but as you know, the install routine requires one to sign-in so I think that is the only thing that 'marks' it as the prior owner or Refurbisher machine. There is only the one account on the system [the virgin one]

 

[elf69]

If you sign in and turn on the cloud bits then the machine will show up when you sign into your iCloud account via a browser on any machine.

If you turn on find my Mac on the air then you can remotely lock and or wipe it too if lost.

Love my air.

 

[BrianBaughn]

A machine purchased used should be "wiped clean" by the new owner. Do not assume that this has been done properly by the previous owner.

 

[cognus]

thank you both~
Elf: sign-in to what? iCloud?
Brian, yep. I will be doing that shortly but that does not solve or address the issue of ownership [what passes for ownership in the apple world] - did my MBP high sierra from scratch using external drive. its faster than the i7 SSD equipped MBA. strange but understandable - looks like the MBA was upgraded OTA, which probably left some package.

BTW... speaking of that - I had no idea that osx would inventory former externally connected devices , apparently at the beginning of the install-from-external device routine. i was surprised to open the bluetooth device utility and see a couple of ancient devices once connected by bluetooth, AFTER nuking the original volume, formatting partition, and installing High Sierra from scratch.

 

[elf69]

I guess for ownership you need sign into your icloud yes and activate find my mac.

but then I guess it is same with a car.
E.G. here in UK having logbook in your name is not proof of ownership.

I own another macbook air 1st gen but is signed into my fiancee icloud account. It is my device but she uses it and has her details.
So still not sure how apple would determine the owner.
She is user and I am the owner, from my point of view.

However from apples point of view it is her machine.