TIPS

Activation Lock-3 Important things to know

What is an Activation lock?

Many times, you have heard about an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or iPod being in an activation lock state and is unusable until you sign in with the original Apple ID and password attached to the device. This is because the device has Find My/FMI (device) turned on before it was erased or restored, thanks to Activation Lock, a feature found in Apple devices such as iPhone, iPad, iPod, apple watch, and now MacBook with a T2 security chip.

Activation Lock is a security feature designed to prevent anyone from using your Activation lock-enabled apple device whenever it is lost or stolen. The activation lock turns on automatically when you turn on Find My (device) in the idevice. As such, the feature helps you to keep your device secure even when in the wrong hands and can increase your chances of recovering it.

How does Activation Lock work?

When you turn on Find My (device) on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, or Mac computer that has an Apple T2 security chip, your Apple ID is securely stored on Apple’s activation servers and linked to your device. From that point on, your Apple ID password or device passcode is required before anyone can turn off Find My, erase your device, or reactivate and use your device.

Activation Lock is enabled automatically when you set up Find My and turn it on.

What causes activation lock?

Activation lock happens when a supported device does not have valid activation records and FMI is turned on. When you restore or erase such a device using either iTunes or 3utools, an activation window will pop up during the set-up process requesting the apple id and password attached to the device. Erasing or restoring without keeping the user data deletes everything from the device including activation records. Thus, without these activation records the operating system will load the setup assistant by default.

To learn more about activation lock and the processes involved during iPhone set up, head over to this great article (Credits: Appletech752).

What Next, if you have an activation-locked idevice??

Whenever you have an apple device with activation lock, panic seems to set in since you are locked out of the device completely. This is the case mainly if you purchased the device from someone else and unable to reach them. However, if the device is locked to your account, simply use your Apple ID and password to complete the device setup. In case you have forgotten your password, then you can do a password recovery through forgot apple ID or password option.

In case you don’t have the Apple ID and password linked to the device or have failed to recover the login credentials, then you don’t need to worry much. I am going to show you in the next article how you can get your device through the activation lock screen and get a full access to the device, so stay tuned.

For tips before purchasing a refurbished or used iPhone, please read this article

Happy learning and stay Rontech my friends.

Rontech

Tech enthusiast. Love sharing new tech tips and tricks to help the community.

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