Apple iCloud Two-way verification: Impossible situation?

[ZipZilla]

Got Mom a 2020 iPhone SE for Mother's Day and went to activate it. Got through the carrier activation, but then came to signing into her iCloud account and that is where the fun began. Also on her iCloud account:

-Her old iPhone 6
-Her Apple Watch Series 5
-Her Old iPad 2 running iOS 9.3.6, the newest OS it will run

So after trying a few wrong passwords, we get the right one and the new phone says it is sending a verification message to another device on the iCloud account, but that it has to be running iOS 10 or later and (I think) Sierra or later. Mom has neither on her account. So I declined that and it send it would send a text message to the phone I was activating. That never came through. Then it asked for the device password from a previous iPhone on the account. That didn't work either.

Seems I was stuck in a loop. So I logged into her iCloud account on the computer and deleted the old iPhone and an old Mac, so the iCloud account was up to date.

I attempted the iCloud sign in again on the new phone. It still wouldn't do it,but then informed me I could still sign in, but some things wouldn't work.

I then went in the menu and this time it took the password from the previous iPhone.

I have 2 questions:

-Is this normal behavior, or was iCloud just glitching?

-Do I now have to get a new iPad? How do I prevent this from happening again?

Thanks in advance! I've been using Macs for 22 years and OS X since the Public Beta. But this stumped me.

 

[Rigby]

Sounds like the new phone setup tried to get you to activate two-factor authentication (2FA) by default, but at some point you were able to skip it. 2FA improves account security and is required for Apple Pay Cash and I believe a few other features. But if your mom didn't have it so far, she doesn't seem to be using any of those features.

Normally the text message should have worked. Note that you can add alternative phone numbers (e.g. your own) within the phone settings or at appleid.apple.com. The old iPhone 6 should also be able to receive or generate verification codes, since it supports up to iOS 12.

Beware: once you have activated 2FA, you cannot turn it off again.

 

[Dean402002]

Don't turn it on if you can avoid it its been nothing but a useless pain since it was forced on me and now they won't turn it off