Tell HN: Full macOS reinstall because Apple ID
I tried to reset my password, but they blocked the whole account, it seems to me that they even deleted the account from the database as they could not locate the ID of other information (name, mail, etc.). Coming from another OS, one can imagine that you can swap two IDs and continue, but ... NO! Here you need to provide a password to log out, but since my account has been deleted, I don't have any password. Also, one can imagine that a +2000$ machine designed for "professional" users can actually recover from these types of errors using magic links or text messages. They wanted me to wait for an appointment with the service. Just to reset an account!!
Why did I reinstall all? Every 30 seconds, a message appears asking me to check the ID.
TL;DR: Adult human crying.
283 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 282 ms ] threadDo you have an screenshot and a photo of the bricked macbook? It adds a lot of realism to the complain.
Anecdote time: My wife bought a new Android phone and gave me her older phone. After a factory reset, the old phone asked for her gmail account before I could add my gmail account. It's a nice anti thief feature, but it surprised me a lot!!! (What happens if you want to sell a used phone?)
Yet this is still safe as you need your unlock code to remove an account, even if the phone is already unlocked
The word “unlocked” in the context of phones usually implies the lack of a carrier lock on the device as originally manufactured and sold. It is not precisely correct to refer to phones originally locked to a carrier as unlocked when offering them for sale without disclosing any original carrier lock, as there are differences in supported frequency bands depending on the jurisdiction the phone was sold in that may make it incompatible with some carriers, whereas “factory unlocked” phones of the same model are usually world band phones and support all common carrier frequencies.
To recap: it’s fine to refer to phones which have had an unlock code applied to them as unlocked. To differentiate phones which came unlocked when originally manufactured, this second group of phones is referred to as “factory unlocked.”
Sorry to be pendantic, and this isn’t directed at OP. Most of this is inside baseball and is only important when buying or selling phones secondhand, in order to make sure the new owner is able to use their phone on a different carrier than the prior owner.
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All of the above is separate to anti-theft locks which are supported by Android and iOS devices, which must be removed before sale in order for the new owner to associate the device with their own personal Google or Apple account, respectively.
The Android and Google locks are independent of the above types of locks, and are account bound like the above locks, but instead of being linked to your phone service account, they are linked to your Google or Apple accounts. You could have one and not the other, or neither, or both. However, no end user benefits from a carrier or SIM locked phone. Mobile device OS-level blocks are important for security, however, and are under the control of the legitimate user and may be turned off anytime. To disable the SIM or carrier locks, you need the unlock code you originally mentioned.
After support clears up any issues with the second account, reinstall macOS on the device with Internet Recovery.[0]
[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904
Having a working personal Apple ID should help facilitate reaching Apple Support quicker, but you don’t need a working Apple ID to use the support site, or to receive support over the phone or in person at an Apple Store.
Even quicker still may be using the iOS Apple Support app if you have an iOS device handy. Doesn’t even have to be yours, you could borrow a friend’s. In my experience, setting an appointment on the support site is very quick and easy with callbacks under a minute being normal for me.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-support/id1130498044
Someone may have owned or used the computer before you, even if you bought it “new.” It might have been purchased and returned and resold as new without your knowledge, and not properly removed from a prior associated Apple ID, perhaps. It might have been purchased fraudulently by this hypothetical prior owner. Or your purchase may have been flagged as fraud post-sale by the vendor for unknown or no reason, and reported to Apple as stolen by said vendor.
Apple will be able to help you with any of these concerns, if you are the legitimate owner. I don’t mean to offend, or to imply or to suggest you are not. All Apple needs to prove ownership is a picture of your receipt or a screenshot of the invoice if purchased online, whether from Apple or a third party.
If that's true, couldn't someone just print out a fake invoice, with no way for them to verify it either way?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/local-authorities-wi...
It's inconvenient, but life is inconvenient. Such is the way of the world.
While it's true that this sort of thing shouldn't happen, your comments here seem to indicate that your big blocking point is that you don't want to talk to a human being. You want 2FA or magic links or some tech-focused hands-off method of resolving your problem.
Real life isn't like that. Sometimes you actually HAVE to go down to the DMV, or the post office, or the county clerk, or the returns counter at the store. The world is not the ideal tech utopia that the SV bubble has sold us. It's still run by wetware. Sometimes you have to just go through the motions instead of having a hissy fit on social media.
You can also log into the OS with an Apple ID but also not required.
i recently walked a friend through setting up a their MacBook Air M1. and, like you said, i told them to skip setting an Apple ID. that it was not necessary.
but the first setup doesn't allow you to skip. or didn't make it obvious how to do so. (dark pattern?)
i suppose one could use keyboard shortcuts, or install in safe mode, etc... but for the regular users won't be able to skip that step.
While this is true (to my increasing chagrin), having an Apple ID in and of itself doesn't cost you anything. It does create an account that you can then tie charges to.
I don't, however, recall this quite rising to the level of what I'd call a "dark pattern"; IIRC when I set up my M1 MacBook Air not that long ago, the "Enter your Apple ID" had a "Skip this step" link that was pretty easy to find.
Privacy.
You can't get an Apple ID without an email and a phone number.
When you enter it during the machine setup, it ties that identity to that hardware serial, which maintains a persistent TLS hardware-serial-linked connection to Apple at all times, letting them know in what cities and at what times that phone number's owner is using their computer.
It does allow you to skip, and it is obvious.
There’s a screen asking you to log in to your Apple ID. There’s a button that says “Set up later”. When you click it, it asks you if you are sure. You confirm. That’s all.
Here are the screenshots:
https://i.imgur.com/2s3sA2L.png
https://i.imgur.com/wU0GU5l.png
Can it be kept updated with system updates? Don't know any more.
At least, on Android you can use the Aurora store, or install .apk files manually... but that's another story.
The AppleID you use is used for the AppStore and iCloud (you can use different ones and to some extend multiple ones). Usually you create an additional AppleID for just buying/downloading sofware from the AppStore, just like you would do on Android or the Microsoft store. Same deal here. And use a different iCloud account, if you want to use any of it's offerings.
If an account is locked or disasbled you usually just reset the password as one of both is usually done on suspicious login attempts.
Never heard of what the OP descibes, unless it is a pre-owned device still associated with a different account or some enterprise management profile in installed. Both should not be the case if he just bought it from Apple directly.
In any case sounds more like an issue with the device itself than the AppleID. But I can just speculate here, which is ofc not helpful for the OP.
For this reason, I always leave it off, and recommend everybody does the same.
However, the Mac is still usable and they can reboot into Recovery mode to download and re-install the OS. Not sure about Find My (for iPad/iPhone), as it's an anti-theft feature it can't be disabled or factory reset.
Weird. I rotate my password on a regular basis and I’ve never had this happen. I wonder what service triggers it for you.
So yes, these comments are unhelpful.
This isn't as easy as it used to be - the performance of the new M1 Mac's is pretty great compared to the competition at a similar price point (especially considering the form factor).
They aren't really overpriced anymore (although it does depend on what you value). I've not seen another laptop I would trade in for my 16GB M1 Macbook Air at the same price point, even a year on.
It's exactly the same on Windows if you sign in with a Microsoft Account, what's different about Apple here?
And I'm locked out of the account, but not my hardware.
What's happening on your Mac, however, is by design. Apple designed the software to do that, and they get away with it. That's the difference.
If my AMD microcode started doing that, the whole world would be in uproar. Because, at least in present time, present day, they're not able to get away with that. Same applies to Intel and ARM. But Apple does.
But there are always switching costs, and a billion long-tail reasons that could be keeping someone on a platform. The odds are minuscule that a) switching is a reasonable option on a timescale that would help OP and b) he's unaware of the option.
While I agree with you, a Linux machine cant be used to develop iOS apps. I tried for some time using an external build service for my Cordova apps and it wasn't very smooth. In the end, I gave up and bought an old macbook. The problem is, Apple tends to drop support for older hardware withe very iteration, and now (thanks to dosdude!) I reached the maximum supported age for recent Xcode versions. Something inside me is revolting against buying a new macbook just to keep my app in the apps store (yes they need to be updated even if they are feature complete to fit in the new requirements).
Of course, and serious gamers or users of specialty software may still need Windows, etc etc. These are examples of the "billions of reasons" that I alluded to in my comment, and it's why i took care to refer to it as the _default_ choice, not the universal one.
(Or Virtualbox or Parallels, but I've consistently found VMWare to be the best with macOS guests.)
(Linux user who wishes there was an easy way to build iOS apps from Linux)
It struggles with just a few dozen tabs open. Opening a new Google doc takes ten seconds. And no, it isn’t out of memory; it’s just slow. The CPU isn’t maxed out, but I think the GPU is.
It’s hot, and the battery life is maybe three hours.
I also have an M1 MacBook. Under the same workload it’s cool to the touch, window switching is instant, opening a new doc takes maybe two seconds, and battery life is about eight hours.
Now I use a somewhat old P51 and it's an absolute beast, but is certainly a brick when compared to lighter models like the X1 or a MacBook.
I don't like what Lenovo has done to the T-line, but Thinkpads in general are still high quality in my opinion.
i.e Do not buy an M1 for Linux, this still funds Apple to do more of this shit.
On a more serious note, I ran macs on multiple occasions without an AppleID - it presents maybe one nag a month, usually when you accidentally open “Messages”.
Microsoft, sadly, has also been increasingly more annoying with pushing online accounts on people’s machines lately.
edit: Just to clarify, I'm sure that it was a false-positive and Apple mishandled the situation in the worst manner possible. Don't trust Apple your money and data.
I've heard plenty about how HIPAA gets in the way of legitimate sharing with outsiders (e.g. making a common format for medical profile transfer impractical), but I don't recall having heard about it preventing the principal individual from getting answers from their own provider.
Edit: Why in the hell is my iPhone erroneously autocorrecting HIPAA to HIPPA?
Crowd-sourced autocorrect dictionary on display. :\",
Realistically corporations are more likely to use less blatantly stupid excuses ("our insurance policy forbids...").
And macOS 13 Guantanamo :)
It was never yours. Buy music from Bandcamp and save it on your hard drive. That is yours.
but itunes music is DRM-free as well?
[1]funny story: I have one (or more) tracks in my music library that a friend shared with me almost 20 years ago when we were in college and he added me as one of the 5 computers that could play the tracks. Every time I’ve moved my library to a new computer it asks me to log into that account to approve that track, but it won’t give me a list of the tracks so I can delete it/them. It isn’t enough of an annoyance that I’ve tried too hard to find them.
https://xkcd.com/488/
Indeed. I never spent much money on Apple media or applications, but in the last few years I've spent nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iran
All the iranians I met in person, were lovely people, though .
Ah, you wrote about someone involved with the IRA, so probably some other name.
What is this? Some kind of Axis of Sanity?
Can you cite any "news" you've heard in Seattle about terrorist organizations operating out of Canada?
not a fanboy though i may sound like one. don’t get me wrong. i have my fair share of gripes with apple, but the way apple id makes my life better is not a bad trade off.
Apple can lock you out of your laptop, but if that causes damages to your well-being, your business, etc. you can sue.
They can write whatever they want on their T&C, that doesn't make it enforceable.
You're just asking for paternalistic, Apple-knows-best trouble. Apple's cloud services are mostly garbage, anyway.
The OP used an Apple account to log into the Mac itself.
That’s different than using your Apple ID to login to iCloud or the App Store.
I just can't understand how people actively choose to endure into this situation.
If you want iCloud or Apple Music you can set those up with your AppleID later (I cannot imagine wanting iCloud but that's just me).
Did Apple hire the guy in charge of Windows 10 user accounts?
This is not true of Microsoft.
>Windows 10 users are annoyed that Microsoft has hidden the local account option when setting up a new PC or reinstalling Windows 10. A user on a popular Reddit thread notes that the local account option is now invisible if the device is connected to the internet.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-users-fume-microsof...
I would argue that making the use of cloud services be the default forces users who aren't aware that it's optional and especially when they don't know that there *are* real downsides to using it.
The button to skip that step in Apple's setup wizard is even labeled "Set this up later" to make it clear that the user isn't giving up the ability to use a cloud account later by skipping the step during the setup wizard.
No, but on the other hand there are plenty of services where "later" means "nag me" and "stop functioning after a certain amount of time"
It would be better and clearer if Apple simply and clearly stated "iCloud account is optional and not required to use your Mac"
Offering an easily skippable option during setup is not the same thing as the intentional dark patterns common on other platforms.
>In this report, we analyze a sample of settings in Facebook, Google and Windows 10, and show how default settings and dark patterns, techniques and features of interface design meant to manipulate users, are used to nudge users towards privacy intrusive options.
The findings include privacy intrusive default settings, misleading wording, giving users an illusion of control, hiding away privacy-friendly choices, take-it-or-leave-it choices, and choice architectures where choosing the privacy friendly option requires more effort for the users.
https://www.forbrukerradet.no/undersokelse/no-undersokelseka...
The iTunes store still exists though. Which is probably what the agreement stuff was for.
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/47253/can-i-safely...
Each time an Apple process tries to connect, make a rule that says that app is never allowed to connect to any server, and set the rule lifetime to "forever". There are about 20-30 Apple processes in macOS that phone home even if you don't use iCloud, iMessage, or FaceTime, or the App Store. Once you block all of them your computer will be quiet on the network.
I suggest revisiting and if it’s not for you, that’s fine. But otherwise, yeah never sign-in with Apple.
At least they are not agressive about it, unlike Windows 10 or even 11 home which doesn’t even allow local accounts.
Remember when librarians basically revolted because the patriot act let the feds get library borrowing records without a warrant? Apple's Books app is several times worse. It's nonconsensual spyware, even if you use only your own local files and never engage in trade with Apple for ebooks.
Don't use it.
Apple can decrypt the entire thing without you, your password, or your device. They do this when they receive a warrant, and they do this 20,000+ times a year for warrantless requests (no probable cause) from the USG, too. This includes all your photos (effectively unencrypted) and all your iMessages and attachments. Nothing really important on your iPhone is private from Apple.
Also, if your cc fails for whatever reason, you will get locked out of your Apple ID, and won't be able to log in to or use any of the services you use Sign in with Apple on.
Bad, bad tradeoff.
Obviously this issue of needing to change accounts is problematic and I can see resetting your account password through your Apple ID to be a pro/con depending on the person. Is there something else I’m missing?
It’s entirely possible that something like this did exist in some earlier installer version but I don’t know that from a vague statement like this. Feels kinda like throwing Windows under the bus unnecessarily.
https://hothardware.com/news/bypass-windows-11-internet-setu...
So if you don't want the issues described, don't opt into "Find my Mac" (Personally, I'm quite fond of the option, but YMMV).
You don't need to login to the laptop with your Apple ID to do that, you just need to put your account into messenger.
It confounds me how many of my colleagues don't do this. But when I explain my reasoning, nobody has complained.
I understand that Apple requires its own employees to use personal IDs, which is really messed up. That organizational design flaw probably contributes to situations like the one we're discussing, since it might seem abnormal to an Apple person that someone would be associated with multiple IDs.
If they were to send that email to your locked iCloud account, you wouldn't be able to receive it.
When you wake up in bed you don't grab two phones, you grab one.
When setting up, create a local account first. You’ll have an opportunity to later log into your AppleID for use with messages, FaceTime, App Store, etc.
You can also switch to a local sign in account after the fact. This may have changed in recent versions, but try going to system preferences and selecting to reset your password. You should see an option to switch to a local account for sign in, which will only impact the log in process. You’ll still be able to keep your id associated for all of the other benefits.
I have set up several MBPs from factory over the past ten years and it hasn’t ever been apparent to me that you could use your AppleID to log in locally.
I’ve attached every single one of these devices to my AppleID for iCloud but none of them have used anything but local credentials to sign in. And it’s been far from hard to do. It was—as best as I can tell—the normal setup path.
It's not hard to have a personality without being condescending.
I have never even noticed the ability to log in with my AppleID (as opposed to local authentication), but GP is arguing that Apple actively makes it difficult to avoid doing so. Something about that is wildly incongruent with my own personal experience and I am truly, genuinely confused.
However, the commenter I responded to did not realize this. Likewise, most of the non-technical Apple users that I encounter in my work make the same incorrect assumptions. I probably overcorrect a bit here, but I’ve learned that it helps to to validate the experience of the person I’m trying to educate.
To be more precise in my initial statement, I don’t think Apple makes this part of their interface as clear as it could be (or should be), and I don’t think they provide the average user with the information to understand the implications of using Apple credentials to sign into their device. I don’t assume that this is malicious. I’m sure they are driven some by benefits to the company, but I also suspect they think that this makes life easier for their users. There may be some truth to that, but I think it’s a poor default.
I work with small business owners and employees in the health care field (and teach as a University adjunct). At least in the health care context, there are compliance implications associated with these features (something that Apple Support and Genius’s often fail to understand as well).
In terms of the interface, when I’m working with a developer or tech worker, I consider the first-time setup and system preferences UI to be good enough. But I don’t think that’s true when it comes to a therapist, office manager, non-profit director, or even the majority of my undergraduate informatics students.
On a separate note, I do have thick of enough skin not to be bothered by this response, but I hope you consider some of the replies regarding the tone. In this type of forum, reframing that bewilderment as curiosity will be much better received and help you avoid invalid assumptions about your intent!
With Home a workaround I've found is just creating a throwaway windows account, then after installation creating a local user/local login and removing that throwaway account.
However one has to be careful one's license does not become/is not associated with that account.
It makes me sad that we now have to treat a MacOS initial setup as a hostile experience, the same way as setting up Windows 10 for an offline user account and intentionally not creating a microsoft account. The number of steps and dark pattern UI things a Windows 10 Home or Pro user has to jump through in the initial install to create a local-only account is really quite amazing. I just did a fresh install of a win10 home VM recently and ran into this.
Two of the reasons I switched from a FreeBSD desktop environment to MacOS back in the 10.4 days (Tiger?) was because of the switch to the Intel CPUs with the first gen Macbook Pro, and that MacOS had become a fairly refined, polished desktop environment with a CLI, macports, and a decent selection of applications.
Not only is apple now hostile but it's actively dangerous and harmful to its users' data, as shown in the example linked in this post, because if you go with the "online" apple account you risk getting locked out of everything you were using on a regular day-to-day basis.
Now if we have to think of Apple as a hostile entity that is doing the same shit as microsoft, it makes me very disappointed.
This is certainly true for companies like Google that very famously refuse to provide customer support.
However, companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Apple provide robust, free customer support.
based on the amount of fake/fraudulent products sold on amazon's marketplace I really can't concur that they have robust customer support that is really empowered to do anything.
Between Apple, Google and Microsoft, only Apple provides free customer support, in person, or over the phone.
Microsoft provides support, but you have to pay for it.
Google is the only one of the big three computing platforms that literally couldn't couldn't care less about your issues.
Its not free, you paid for that as part of your purchase cost.
You just didn't get it.
It's sad and disappointing but not surprising in any way. The immutable truth is we simply can't trust these companies. We need to cut them out of our lives as much as humanly possible.
Linux is flawed but it's ours. I hope we continue to have unlocked computers to run it on forever.
It's meant for theft protection but it causes us headaches at work when employees have left and used their personal Apple ID. Apple will disable it but only if you can prove ownership.
At least OP was able to contact Apple support,
1. I couldn't delete my Facebook account because my startup FB page backup isn't getting generated and there's no way to reach the support[1].
2. LinkedIn has fingerprinted my account login from a particular browser/OS that I'm unable to login via any other browser/OS(In the same network).
[1] https://abishekmuthian.com/meta-is-holding-my-facebook-page-...
And on the other hand, only manages to handle accounts issues like we were still in the 90's.
That is, brutally locking people out of their own systems (sometimes for explainable reasons, which should still be resolvable) without any possible discussion or recourse.
The only thing you can do is go at an Apple Store or call Apple support on the phone, only to spend hours and hours with them carefully following their scripts, sometimes escalating the issue to a more senior one, all of them sorry in the end that they can't fix it, and asking you to still note them well, because the issue is not on their side but on Apple's procedure wall.
Which makes the first selling point ("all my life sync'd across my devices") moot at best, adversary at worst.
The senior population is especially vulnerable to account hijacking and loss of their account, and then, their data, and then their devices (at least, they can recover their devices with the help of someone else, but most of their data is lost).
And/or something is definitely rotten in the account reset/recovery procedures.
I thought there was a quick, scriptable command-line method of downloading xcode:
PD: Apple, fix this anyway please.
I gave up and created a new one, but lost all my old purchases.
Finally recovered on some old backup his password but without the second factor it was impossible to get full control of the account. So I disabled FindMyIPhone, wiped the phone and set up a new AppleId and restored from a not encrypted backup.
Everything worked for a while until the old apps needed updating (Whatsapp...) and the iPhone asked for the password for the Apple Store. Now the new password did not work. Took us ages to figure out that it was asking for the old appleid password - iOS remembers with which account an app was bought but it does not tell you what AppleID it asks the password for when trying to update.
We need to normalize this.
Every time they pull some shenanigan on you - invoice them.