Dealing with Apple is like being in a Kafka novel

[neveruseApple]

Trying to get my 89-year-old father-n-law's password reset. The layers of so called security are insane. We have spent about three days with umpteen phone calls trying to sort this out. Absolute nightmare. Ipad itself of course is also pretty naff. Thank God for Microsoft.

 

[twerppoet]

When the usual methods of password recovery fail, then things get problematic.

Keep in mind that the easier it is to convince suport to reset/recover a password that is not your own the easier it is for a criminal to fool support into handing that account over.

After Apple was burned by this once, publicly and embarassingly, they've gotten pretty strick in their requirements. Combine this with their public stance on security and they'd rather take the bad will of someone not getting access to their account than the even worse publicity of handing that account over to someone who shouldn't have it.

Criminals asside, even giving this info to the wrong (not legally empowered) family member could get them sued. And because it's Apple it would be as public and as embarasing as the media could make it.

Security is always a tradeoff between convinience and safety. And someone is always on the wrong side of that tradeoff no matter how hard you try.

None of this helps you, of course. But it might make you feel a bit better to understand why Apple's doing this. It's not about not carring. It's about having to choose what you care about the most, and knowing that no matter what you choose, someones going to be mad at you.

 

[neveruseApple]

We still have no access. Eventually managed to set a new password. Now we have, via a automated phone call, a verification code - that does not work! Call 'support' and they say we should not have received a verificaton code! Also, once we managed to change the password online (using a user-friendly Microsoft PC) were unable to change memorable information unless we first enetered the forgotten 'memorable' information! Next step is probably to get a club hammer and enjoy smashing the useless thing to pieces.

 

[Pit bull puppy]

If you don't care about security and you like using a substandard operating system enjoy Microsoft. I much rather use a beautifully designed device with an operating system that is not only extremely secure but also bullet proof. I used Windows and android products for years and was always frustrated with the amount of issues they would develop in a short period of time. The last straw for Microsoft was windows vista on a brand new laptop that would constantly crash. Took the pile of garbage back to Best Buy numerous times and they could not make it stop crashing....their answer was to wait for a software update. My friend let me use his MacBook one evening and it was so awesome to use a computer that was not only extremely easy to use and not crash every 10 minutes. Told him I have to buy a laptop like his. He then told me he was buying a MacBook Pro and I could buy his MacBook, which I did on the spot, followed by a trip to the Apple Store to buy a Mac desktop. Now I have a Mac mini, a MacBook and now my iPad 2. Only thing left to get is an iPhone and I will never use anything but Apple. Plus Apple takes the users privacy very seriously as well as was shown by the refusal to crack the iPhone for the fbi since they had no valid reason or probable cause to do so.

 

[KevinJS]

If you really want some fun, encrypt your backup of an iPad or iPhone and forget the password.

Back in the day, we used to have "unrecoverable" errors. Well, this is an example of that. You forget that password, you ain't never recovering from that.

As far back as 1968, HAL9000 got it right. "This kind of thing has happened before, and it's always been down to human error."