Not setting up Find My bricked my MacBook

I had a similar issue with Apple a few days ago. I was running and an AirPod fell out of my ear and I just happened to be by a drainage drain. It fell through the grate. I immediately rode my bike to the Apple Store (still with a working case and left AirPod) and purchased a replacement right AirPod. The Apple person who helped disconnected the left one and told me to have it plugged in for 30 minutes so the case and AirPods could reconnect and connect to my phone.

Except they didn't. I brought it back to Apple after lots of phone calls and troubleshooting and Apple has now told me that something must have gotten messed up with the software. I am able to buy a new pair of AirPods if I would like to, or I can spend $250 for them to diagnose the issue (the price of a new set of AirPods).

I can't imagine having a problem like this that seems so obvious to be a software bug and passing that cost down to the consumer instead of making it right. I left the Apple Store in a worse situation than when I arrived. I had a working case and one working AirPod. I left with having spent $90 on my replacement AirPod, with none of them working.

I worked at Apple years ago in Apple Retail. I am shocked the people there thought this was the right approach to take. I love Apple products, but this is making me rethink the Apple ecosystem. I am certainly not buying another pair of AirPods. The environmental impacts of this also irk me. Instead of trying to solve the problem they want me to just throw away my AirPods and buy new ones.

If a company has a software issue and pushes the cost of that bug onto the consumer the company is incredibly unlikely to ever solve it. Apple pushed the pain point of their software issue onto the consumer. That's a painful experience as a customer.

Should have been a travel insurance claim.

This person lost their laptop at an airport - to all intents and purposes it was stolen. They even bought a replacement on the assumption they weren't going to see it again.

The person who returned the laptop returned an unusable MacBook that Apple refuses to even confirm is the original laptop that belonged to them. In addition they incurred shipping and import costs to have this brick shipped. But they don't have their laptop back in working order, so... effectively that laptop was stolen and destroyed, just as surely as if a stranger at the airport had grabbed it and smashed it in front of them.

Let the insurance company deal with this stuff.

Why would someone not set up activation lock? This is exactly what it is for!

> An attacker could “prank” someone by wiping their MacBook, activating it with their own Apple ID, and then reporting it as lost. The victim then has no way to recover it.

When you lose physical control of a device, there's an even bigger denial-of-service vulnerability: https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/breaking-a-laptop-compu...

There is really no solving denial-of-service problems associated with losing a device. The priority in that case should be preventing unwanted disclosure of data, which is exactly what Apple did here.

Activation Lock is a weird feature. Users love it when it helps prevent device theft. But really, at the end of the day, you're giving up control of the device to Apple.

Apple has already stopped supporting activation of certain versions of iOS[0]. Also, just as a user can request locking down a phone at any time, Apple could technically lock down your device when they see fit. They're not going to do that, but the fact that it's possible is a bit freaky.

Someday, far in the future, their activation servers will go down, and no unactivated Apple device will be usable. Already, it is not possible to set up a new device without an Internet connection. Hopefully the jailbreak community figures something out by then, or maybe Apple would release a tool...

[0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-no-longer-activat...

Forgot this was Hacker News for a second.

Hardwares doing its job; locking unauthenticated users out of it. Unfortunately, this is a consequence of not understanding how to use it and you not using it.

I wish Apple was more informative about the risk of not using Find My, but this is software doing a good thing. The reason why Macs become bricks is because 9/10 of the times they’re stolen. And guess what? You’re not getting past Activation Lock. Really good deterrent.

Sorry this happened to you, but this is Apple doing a good thing and something I wish more manufacturers did.

> I also needed to pay ¥11,100 of import duties on it - it didn’t seem to matter that the MacBook was mine.

I traveled to Mexico a few weeks ago. In my luggage I had two MacBook Pro laptops and an old ThinkPad. To my dismay the people at the airport in Mexico demanded quite a bit of money, telling me that because I had brought more than one laptop I had to pay import taxes. I am a tourist from Europe traveling with three laptops. I begrudgingly paid up. It’s abusive and stupid to demand import taxes in situations both like that in the OP story and like they did from me.

Just take Apple to small claims court. Every single person who runs into a Stupid Apple Problem like this should immediately file in small claims court. Apple can continue this kind of policy because they have no incentive to fix it. Sometimes if someone makes a stink (on HN or other) in an act of Deus Ex Apple, they will descend from the cloud and fix it. Maybe.

But if 20 or 200 people go to small claims court they will have to pay legal fees to represent themself. They may decide fixing the problem is cheaper that lawyers fees

It is relatively easy to go so small claims court.

1. SearchEngine your state and small claims. - for example "New Hampshire Small Claims" => https://www.courts.nh.gov/our-courts/circuit-court/district-...

2. Follow the directions.

3. Get your ducks/facts in a row. Collect receipts, emails, phone notes. Get the names of people you talk to.

4. Get the procedure in a row. Much of court is about procedure. Forget to notify the other party? You are dead in the water. Miss a deadline, don't follow rule 33.b.7A? you lose. But you just have to be diligent. And if you make a mistake ask the judge if you can fix it.

4. Serve Apple.

5. Show up at Court, bring your documentation, find out what else you need to bring.

6. Be a fair and reasonable person.

Some states like New Hampshire allow you to appeal small claims decisions to the state Supreme Court. Do not accept easy failure. Many judges and lawyers look down on commoners and find them annoying. Don't be annoying and don't accept arbitrary rulings by a judge.

In New Hampshire a coffee shop owner took Instagram to court, lost the case and appealed to the NH Supreme Court who reversed the decision.

Do not be a victim, but do not expect to win. Do expect to make it clear to Apple that you will contest the "oh this is policy" or "oh we can't do this" kind of nonsense.

And do submit your experience to HN.

I don't understand why if you have the invoice apple won't remove the FMM activation lock from the device.

I have gotten apple to unlock devices just with screenshots of them being managed in an MDM at one time and a copy of my work badge.

An invoice is like the golden ticket they require that you have.

> But when I opened it up, a stranger’s profile greeted me. Evidently we had swapped laptops going through security. So I raced back, and returned the stranger’s laptop, and explained the situation.

A friend had this exact problem going through airport security. It ended up being a huge ordeal getting things settled.

Before hearing his story I was against putting stickers on my laptops, I felt it ruined the clean aesthetic. However, after hearing that story I always add a sticker to my laptops just to be damn sure there are no mixups like this.

they kept the unlocked laptop and bought an icloud locked device on ebay and sent that one to you, thats why it took a long time and they wouldnt return it to their airport.

> Since Apple isn’t able to handle legitimate requests to disable the Activation Lock like mine, you should turn on Find My on your own MacBook, or risk it becoming a brick like mine.

Why do people accept this nonsense when it's Apple? They wouldn't for any other company.

You bought and paid for a laptop from them. It's broken. You've gone through their process and they haven't fixed it. At that point you escalate to a credit card chargeback and/or small claims court.

Laptop stickers, and don't let your belongings out of your sight at the airport.

> Since Apple isn’t able to handle legitimate requests to disable the Activation Lock like mine, you should turn on Find My on your own MacBook, or risk it becoming a brick like mine.

Or not buy MacBooks anymore. I don't want my computer doing anything out of my control.

> An attacker could “prank” someone by wiping their MacBook, activating it with their own Apple ID, and then reporting it as lost. The victim then has no way to recover it.

An attacker can also prank you by running a drill through your laptop.

I feel like this story is just a longer version of "I left my laptop at the airport and never saw it again." The moral should be don't let your laptop leave the airport without you.

"Apple ID requires you to have a phone number associated with the account, and only allows one phone number per account."

That's not right.

Login to applied.apple.com / iCloud and add multiple phone numbers to your Apple ID for 2FA purposes.

Pro tip: when you put your laptop on the tray also put some other personal belongings in the same tray (but not ON the laptop) such as shoes, belt, watch etc. This way it would be more difficult for other people to get confused when they pick their own stuff

Second tip: Add some stickers to personalize your laptop

Less than a year old device and it is no longing functional. That would be covered by consumer rights in Europe. I would start a small claim against the apple store if i was in that position.

It sounds like the other person tampered with the computer. Either by swapping HW, or adding their own iCloud info.

I believe at least with older MacBooks, if you swapped the logic board, it’d effectively remove any kind of association with the iCloud account / MDM. I wonder if OP can do that.

Ah yes, Apple support. It's been decades, sure things must have changed now, but as an anecdote. Back then my wife and me both used computers for work at home. I had a Dell, she had an Apple. When my Dell needed repair, a technician would come to the house next business day (it was a standard support option you clould choose back then even for their 'consumer' line) and perform the task. When her Mac needed repair, the only option was to deliver it by hand to the Apple store in town, and then you could pick it up again in 2 weeks. There was no other option. That was the last time she used an Apple product for work.

Something doesn’t sound right.

I’ve had the same phone number of mine connected to different Apple IDs over the years. Based on different places that I’ve worked I’ve been able to tie my phone number to different Apple IDs with different email addresses.

The other thing that the author should’ve done is physically, walked into an Apple Store and asked them to remove the lock. I’ve had this removed a couple of times for clients of mine with no issue. You just have to show a receipt and someone at the store will go in the back and come out in 2030 minutes later at the machine unlocked.

This makes no sense this article

> included having them use remote access on my iPhone.

I don’t understand what this refers to

Why are people still buying Apple products?

For another two weeks I am making my living as an Apple developer.

Then I'm gone.

I started programming in the late eighties on Mac Plus

In the intervening years, they have gotten awful

Everything looks good, but it all mostly works

Mostly works is not good enough

Just walk away

There are an awful number of Macbook got bricked and there no no other way to destroyed it as scrap. Yes, it is quite intended, but irony for the company claimed that they protect the environment.

An old article, not sure the same one I read, but same problem: https://www.vice.com/en/article/akw558/apples-t2-security-ch...

The iCloud thing is weird, is it possible that the email was automatically created for you using your username? I believe that Apple used to do that or something similar, regardless of which email the AppleID actually used. Alternatively, it seems like whoever had your laptop had your full name, so maybe they factory reset your laptop and then created a new AppleID under that name. Unclear why they would go to all this trouble to then brick it and send it back to you, especially when they already owned a comparable one which you had returned to them. Do you recall enough to confirm whether the AppleID on the other laptop matched the name of the person who emailed you? Or does it match the one you're currently seeing?

Overall this truly sucks, sorry you had to go through it. However I'm not sure if "Not setting up Find My" is what bricked your laptop. Rather it sounds like you didn't utilize Find My, and then an adversary was able to use it to brick your laptop. It's frustrating that Apple isn't making an exception to help unblock you here, but I can also understand how they might have a pretty strict anti-theft policy that you're falling just outside of.

If I have to go somewhere via an international airport, and that somewhere is outside Schengen zone, I’m not taking any laptop with me that I would mind parting with.

Which is why I have a small stack of old thinkpads and whatnot.

The risks range from misplacement to customs officers being corrupt and petty, or airport security being draconian and wanting to poke around.

Thankfully, VPNs like Tailscale or Zerotier exist, and I can leave the dearer pieces of tech at home and get into them when I need them.

If Find My was not activated, therefore there was no Activation Lock, the most likely scenario is that the other person just reset and activated it themselves with this "mysterious" new iCloud account and is lying about it. The device can still be attached to Paul's original Apple account if its not removed from the list of devices by Paul, new activation lock or not.

Did the author try asking the UAE person to de-register the computer from their account?

Not seeing any mention of that but that seems like it would be my first step before trying to get Apple to do anything. They were willing to send it back to you, so if they really did just wipe it so that they could use it, seems like they'd probably be willing to remove the lock.

A side note, the author (Paul) is one of the nicest people I knew in Tokyo. Sorry about your laptop buddy.

I read as far as “Or so I thought. About 30 minutes before my flight was boarding, I pulled out my laptop to do some last minute work. But when I opened it up, a stranger’s profile greeted me.”

At this point, everything below that line is working as intended. Be glad you still have your identity and bank accounts whole.

I know this sounds harsh but, your laptop and your data is just as personal and vital to you as your phone. When going through airport security, throw your ID and phone in the same basket as your laptop. If they make you separate them, throw your ID in the laptop basket. Better, put a sticker on your laptop. Stop keeping it pristine and uniform like everyone else’s macbook. Then you would easily know you picked up the wrong laptop. Next time buy a Lenovo.

To my eyes: you send a formal letter to Apple, describing the issue, with proof of purchasing and advise them if they do not unlock your device, regularly purchase they have to respond to a formal aggravated theft complaint because not only the device it's yours but also you data (a copy of them, maybe) it's on it and their tool prevent you to access them.

I do not know the Japanese law but here in EU such complaint PLUS a copy with some chatty journals will make the deal VERY quickly.

Sometimes peoples tend to avoid biting when they should.

Availability is a key part of security. When Apple can trivially authenticate that this man is the legitimate owner of the device, given he:

1: Bought it 2: Possesses it

I’m not sure how “But it’s not him linked with the Apple ID” is a legitimate reason not to assume him the owner pending any evidence to the contrary. If the man had his laptop stolen by somebody at the post office, who set it up with their own Apple ID, does Apple just shrug its shoulders and go “lol how is this our problem buy another Mac XD”.

Going through an onboarding process does not actually prove ownership, at all. I don’t believe what Apple is doing is actively illegal but it sure smacks of bureaucratic ineptitude.

Or, you know, stop buying apple products.

It's a disgusting waste of resources and extremely anti environmental that Apple bricks its devices.

Loads of old second hands Apple devices can never be used again.

I suppose that's exactly what Tim Cook wants.

Shouldn't be legal.

While I appreciate the security implications for Apple of reversing Activation Lock when they can't verify that you are the current, legitimate owner of the hardware (given Find My hasn't been set up), there is something intensely frustrating about the idea of a perfectly functional piece of hardware becoming unusable because of a software lock.

Perhaps Apple should consider making Find My mandatory? I can't imagine this is the only case where this has happened.

The macbook should still be usable if you wipe the OS and replace it with Linux. Still, that shouldn't be necessary, considering this is a problem that Apple created.

It was stolen and a security feature was turned on. I think the fact that you lost physical control of your own hardware is why your MacBook is bricked.

I only used a macbook personally around 2009, but I imagine these days you can't just buy a new drive and install MacOS on it...

I don't understand why we accept a product there the above isn't possible. If security is the argument, those claims need to have some proof of a widespread problem actually existing that was solved by removing the ability to swap your drive in your own computer.

Very small nit: there's a reference to the Apple T2 chip. The Apple Silicon devices don't have a T2 - the functionality is integrated directly into the SoC. If it had been a T2 device then it would be possible to "simply" jailbreak the T2 and wipe all enrolled ownership data, since the T2 is based on the Apple A10 and has the same bootrom vulnerability.

Seems like a warranty claim if your device is broken

Those problems are unavoidable in a monoculture. Worst, we are trying to adress them by putting more power on the monopoly in charge.