Activation Lock is a mighty fine tool to keep unwanted visitors out of your iPhone should you happen to lose or have it stolen. While you’ll probably want to set the feature up once you purchase and set up your iPhone, you probably don’t want Activation Lock active on your freshly purchased and sealed iPhone. That’s what some users are reporting happening to them as it looks like brand new out of the box iPhones are showing up with someone else’s Apple ID and Activation Lock active, preventing the purchaser from doing anything with the device.
MacRumors noticed several people reporting the issue on its forums, with many more iPhone owners chiming to back up those claims. The Activation Lock issue appears to mostly affect new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models. Members of our staff have had similar issues after resetting the iPhone 6s Plus.
One person reported buying a new iPhone 7 Plus and seeing an Activation Lock on the device associated with an iCloud email account they didn’t recognize. Another Apple customer noted that, after successfully activating a new iPhone 7 Plus, the old iPhone 6s suffered from the same issue.
Seeing that some are reporting that their old iPhones are showing Activation Lock after wiping them is a possible indicator that there might be a bug in iOS somewhere. As to why brand new phones are showing up with Activation Lock, we’re pretty sure that these phones are tested before shipping and once tested they’re wiped and sent out for sale. The same bug showing up on the iPhone 6s is probably happening to factory units after an initial reset. It certainly is a frustrating issue and one we hope Apple can address. Right now the only course of action, should you get one of these phones, is to contact Apple and get their help in unlocking the phone. Be prepared to show proof of purchase though and if you don’t have that, you might end up with a very expensive brick.
Have you purchased an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus and experienced this Activation Lock issue? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”http://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/10/06/iphone-7-plus-activation-lock-glitch/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: TechnoBuffalo[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
