iCloud iCloud Account Recovery Mode - Beware

[poppe]

I've got a horror story here, with just a sliver of hope:

At work, on a windows computer. Went to icloud.com to look at my emails. Added user name, then password, then two step authentication pin. Apps loaded up. Clicked on mail. Got the spinning cog. Then browser automatically went back to icloud.com main webpage. Weird.

Started to log back into icloud.com. I receive the message that my ID or Password was incorrect. Weird because it just worked. Try again. Nothing. Type slower, make sure capslock is off, etc - nothing.

Annoying, but okay, I'll change my password. I hit forget password. I put in my cellphone number for a code, give the browser the code. Then it asks if I'm on my mac, but that's at home. I click to do another way, so it says it'll send a code to my icloud email which I can't access because I can't access icloud. Then it asks if I can verify my credit card - but the number doesn't match anything I have - then I remember maybe it's my apple card. I can't access my apple card because the icloud password needed keeps popping up on my phone and removing the numbers. ****. I click on "I don't have access to the card" which puts the account into recover mode.

I call apple. We walk through a bunch of steps. Including them taking over my cell phone screen. The guy concludes there is nothing they can do and we have to wait for the Apple recovery process since it's automated. There is no way of handling it. He says there is a known issue with some of the secondary steps to password resets.

I ask him what happens if they can't recover my account. He tells me that everything will be locked and I'll need to start a new account - there will be no way of recovering the account and I'll lose everything. All my icloud files will be gone. Contacts, gone. They have no answer for why I could log in one moment and not log in the next. Now I'm stuck waiting 23 more hours and it could take longer.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Apple support can take over cellphone screens? Never knew that!

Hope you get this resolved.

 

[poppe]

Apple support can take over cellphone screens? Never knew that!

Hope you get this resolved.

Yeah! Pretty wild. They can do it through icloud (which they didn't have access to) or otherwise Facetime. They can't control the phone, but they can put a little arrow on the screen that they can tell you what button to click and not click.

 

[poppe]

Update: I’ve spoken countlessly with apple and the only thing we can do is wait for recovery mode to run its course.

What’s concerning, is that I’m convinced that gf’s laptop, which is not connected to my iCloud had the pop up to allow accesss during password reset, and she told the service to log out of all devices. My laptop, iPad, and phone are all logged out of iCloud even though I did not trigger it.

 

[poppe]

Update 3:

Another alarming thing is that part of the recovery process has asked for me to put in my "cell phones" passcode, and every time it's said that's incorrect. But I know it's correct because I was doing this all at work where I have to unlock my iphone with my passcode because of work.

 

[poppe]

Update 4: Account recovery did not "stick" according to the Apple Senior technician. I now have to put my account back in recovery mode and wait another 24 hours. if that doesn't work, I have to go do something called "Remove Activation Lock" which then removes my iCloud from my phone. From there, supposedly, I will then trigger a process which could take days to months to correct - in that time I will not have access to any contacts, photos, or any of my saved iCloud based information/my phone will have to be setup as new.

It's looking more and more like I'm going to lose every single thing I've had with my iPhone since the original iPhone.

The Apple technician was nice but this feels very much like once again they are just following a script and hoping for the best instead of getting engineering involved and people that can actually look into this.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses here too. You’d think this would be a bigger deal? Hope you get your account back. I have no idea how this could happen. I have 2FA and two recovery assistant points of contact. I also have a MBP and an iPad so whenever I replace my iPhone they get pinged with the 2FA code. Losing my iCloud account would be pretty bad - I rely on it for everything.

 

[poppe]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses here too. You’d think this would be a bigger deal? Hope you get your account back. I have no idea how this could happen. I have 2FA and two recovery assistant points of contact. I also have a MBP and an iPad so whenever I replace my iPhone they get pinged with the 2FA code. Losing my iCloud account would be pretty bad - I rely on it for everything.

Thanks for the response. It does feel like a big deal, especially as people move to not having a computer where your contacts and photos could be permantenly backed up.

So no progress yet. After talking with 3 service advisors, 4 senior technicians, my case is now being passed onto "engineers" which will take 1-2 business days before they can respond and start to look into this. I have also emailed Tim Cook, Eddy Cue, and Craig Federighi for the hell of it to see if that could get me to an executive level response. Fingers crossed.

--

What seems to be the problem is that on a trip in July, I had logged into my GF's iTunes on her Macbook using my GMAIL account which is what I use to purchase media and things from the app store - She does not use iTunes. It is not my icloud account. My iCloud account uses an iCloud email address.

But by doing this, a glitch in the 2A system has created an loop back issue where it looks for my GF's computer to do the secondary authentication, BUT her computer does not get that authentication. Now, when this happens you should be able to put in other forms of verifications, but those also fail saying that "since you couldn't complete all forms of verification, your account needs to go into recovery mode.

Note: I have my GMAIL as a secondary backup, I have multiple phone numbers as backup, I have an iPad and my own MBP - none of these are getting used. When I click on "I do not have access to my Mac" it triggers the other steps: First it asks to send me a code by text. Then it asks to send me a code. Then it asks for your entire main credit card number/expiration/and security code (seems dangerous). Then it asks for your cell phone's passcode. That's when I get the message of not being able to fill out all the information and needing to go into recovery mode.

When I get into recovery mode. There is a 24 hour wait period. On Friday, I was able to get the recovery mode to "stick." But after that recovery mode you need to wait 2 days before you can trigger a password reset. What's really tricky about this, is that in the recovery mode and the password wait period, you can not use your cell phone, use your computer, use your iPad, or any thing "apple" as that could trigger the automated system to think you have figured out your password - even though the account is locked. All the senior advisors have said they don't know what it is exactly, could it be using an app, could it be making a phone call, could it be as simple as booting your computer up and it logging on to your WiFi - They don't know.

When I got it out of recovery mode and into the password reset mode, I made it to having one day left. Before we figured out the iTunes thing, my GF had logged into her computer, with my one day left, and that triggered the system to think I had gained access to my icloud and so it stopped the process all together.

Now I am waiting to here from Engineers. And then if that doesn't work, my GF and I will need to call out of work, she will need to try and see if her school allows her to take 3-5 days off, and we will need to go into a complete Apple dark age where our phones are off, our computers are off, our ipads are off, our apple TVs are off, Apple watches are off. Etc.

In the mean time, I sit here with a terrible stomach ache that I might lose photos of my family members that have passed. Of my pets that have crossed the rainbow bridge. All my contacts I built over my fairly new career will be gone. My macbook pro was a 2012 and really has been holding on by a thread since 2017. So I have barely launched it since then and don't have any use for a computer. Not thinking, I haven't been turning it on, meaning it is no longer getting photos and contacts to backup. SO at the moment it says it can download over 18,000 photos. Those will all be lost. Many other photos will be lost because iCloud creates low image copies on your phone to save space and then you would normally download a high quality one to get that back. But since I can't access icloud, I won't be able to get any of it.

 

[Luba]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses here too. You’d think this would be a bigger deal? Hope you get your account back. I have no idea how this could happen. I have 2FA and two recovery assistant points of contact. I also have a MBP and an iPad so whenever I replace my iPhone they get pinged with the 2FA code. Losing my iCloud account would be pretty bad - I rely on it for everything.

Do you also have Recovery Key set up or just Recovery Contacts which is new for iOS 15?

 

[Luba]

Thanks for the response. It does feel like a big deal, especially as people move to not having a computer where your contacts and photos could be permantenly backed up.

So no progress yet. After talking with 3 service advisors, 4 senior technicians, my case is now being passed onto "engineers" which will take 1-2 business days before they can respond and start to look into this. I have also emailed Tim Cook, Eddy Cue, and Craig Federighi for the hell of it to see if that could get me to an executive level response. Fingers crossed.

--

What seems to be the problem is that on a trip in July, I had logged into my GF's iTunes on her Macbook using my GMAIL account which is what I use to purchase media and things from the app store - She does not use iTunes. It is not my icloud account. My iCloud account uses an iCloud email address.

But by doing this, a glitch in the 2A system has created an loop back issue where it looks for my GF's computer to do the secondary authentication, BUT her computer does not get that authentication. Now, when this happens you should be able to put in other forms of verifications, but those also fail saying that "since you couldn't complete all forms of verification, your account needs to go into recovery mode.

Note: I have my GMAIL as a secondary backup, I have multiple phone numbers as backup, I have an iPad and my own MBP - none of these are getting used. When I click on "I do not have access to my Mac" it triggers the other steps: First it asks to send me a code by text. Then it asks to send me a code. Then it asks for your entire main credit card number/expiration/and security code (seems dangerous). Then it asks for your cell phone's passcode. That's when I get the message of not being able to fill out all the information and needing to go into recovery mode.

When I get into recovery mode. There is a 24 hour wait period. On Friday, I was able to get the recovery mode to "stick." But after that recovery mode you need to wait 2 days before you can trigger a password reset. What's really tricky about this, is that in the recovery mode and the password wait period, you can not use your cell phone, use your computer, use your iPad, or any thing "apple" as that could trigger the automated system to think you have figured out your password - even though the account is locked. All the senior advisors have said they don't know what it is exactly, could it be using an app, could it be making a phone call, could it be as simple as booting your computer up and it logging on to your WiFi - They don't know.

When I got it out of recovery mode and into the password reset mode, I made it to having one day left. Before we figured out the iTunes thing, my GF had logged into her computer, with my one day left, and that triggered the system to think I had gained access to my icloud and so it stopped the process all together.

Now I am waiting to here from Engineers. And then if that doesn't work, my GF and I will need to call out of work, she will need to try and see if her school allows her to take 3-5 days off, and we will need to go into a complete Apple dark age where our phones are off, our computers are off, our ipads are off, our apple TVs are off, Apple watches are off. Etc.

In the mean time, I sit here with a terrible stomach ache that I might lose photos of my family members that have passed. Of my pets that have crossed the rainbow bridge. All my contacts I built over my fairly new career will be gone. My macbook pro was a 2012 and really has been holding on by a thread since 2017. So I have barely launched it since then and don't have any use for a computer. Not thinking, I haven't been turning it on, meaning it is no longer getting photos and contacts to backup. SO at the moment it says it can download over 18,000 photos. Those will all be lost. Many other photos will be lost because iCloud creates low image copies on your phone to save space and then you would normally download a high quality one to get that back. But since I can't access icloud, I won't be able to get any of it.

I wonder if Recovery Key would have helped in your situation? Recovery Key was available in iOS 14, maybe even in iOS 13, but definitely not well publicized. I read about it on either here or 9to5mac. Surprised Apple password reset system is not letting you use your recovery phone numbers to authenticate you. Maybe because (from what I read) phone numbers are relatively easy to hijack??

 

[BigMcGuire]

Do you also have Recovery Key set up or just Recovery Contacts which is new for iOS 15?

I don't have a recovery key. Just recovery contacts.

 

[Luba]

I don't have a recovery key. Just recovery contacts.

So I'm assuming Recovery Key and Recovery Contacts work the same way and serve the same purpose, that is if don't have your other Apple devices readily accessible or you have only one Apple device, then your Recovery Key or Recovery Contacts will reset your iCloud password.

 

[poppe]

So I'm assuming Recovery Key and Recovery Contacts work the same way and serve the same purpose, that is if don't have your other Apple devices readily accessible or you have only one Apple device, then your Recovery Key or Recovery Contacts will reset your iCloud password.

Unfortunately I did not have that setup, I didn't know anything about that until after the fact.

The big glitch/issue here is that I made a huge mistake and used my GF's Macbook while on a trip, and logged into my iTunes on her iTunes App. She doesn't use iTunes. My iTunes is separate from my iCloud = (GMAIL is for iTunes/App Store and iCLOUD is for iCLOUD/Backups). By doing this, it some how linked her Macbook as becoming THE primary device to 2A.

Now that wouldn't be a problem. It'd be a stupid mistake but it'd be managable. The issue is she clicked "sign out of all devices" which also shouldn't be a problem, but then she went and changed her iCloud password - Again our iClouds are not synced or tied together in anyway, we've never logged into each others devices with iCloud.

When she changed her password, it triggered my password to stop working. It did not sign out of any of her devices though. So there is some weird cross contamination going on. I know that sounds unreal, but all i can say is, I was able to login and it worked - this was a saved password that I had saved both in a password manager on my Windows computer and my iCloud Keychain (which i oddly enough still have access to). Then she did a password change and my password stopped working. I login to my iCloud.com every day at work so I know that i just didn't magically forget my password.

Now trying to reset my password, it continues to look for her Macbook as the 2A, but she no longer gets any notifications for the 2A after that one single solitary time. She has never gotten it before - it usually goes to my iPhone. So it's just strange all around. When I go to unlock and recover the account, it seems to work as long as I don't use any of my devices, but what we also discovered was her using her Macbook stopped the process.

Since I posted, Apple engineers have been requested and are in the process to start looking into this issue. Maybe there is something I'm missing that is linking us, but we really generally don't share anything at all. We don't even generally use each other for backup stuff. And unfortunately I can't look at my iCloud to see if there is something I did wrong like put her email address in as a secondary - I don't ever remember doing that.

 

[poppe]

FINAL UPDATE: Well it finally got all worked out. It took getting with Apple Engineers and a senior tech support specialists with their executive division (who was so wonderfully nice and knew everything about apple in and out), but it's all been solved.

And the issues were as I expected: By logging into iTunes with my iTunes account (not iCloud), my GF's computer, somehow became the Master 2A, but only for a brief moment (about 5 minutes). After the one notification on her computer, we were never able to replicate it again which then created the looping issue of unlocking the account but not being able to 2A it with any device since it was getting lost in the ether.

What's also scary about this is my GF, in the midst of clicking "do not approve 2A" was then prompted to change her password - But it changed my iCloud password - it did not change my iTunes password. She did not have to put in an email address and one was not displayed when changing it. This was further exasperating the issue as we had no way to knowing the password had changed for my account until the engineers got into their end of the account and could confirm a password change.

THEN, finally, what saved all of this, was when Apple to connect with her computer, a popup appeared saying "Apple wants to connect to this computer." And by confirming it, it somehow granted access into a section of my iCloud where they could see all the devices attached to my iCloud account - this included my GF's computer. We then turned off every computer and apple device both me and my GF owned. And went through the 2A system. We clicked on "don't have access to the mac" and this time (using my GF's iCloud password), we were able to unlock my account and change my password. Then we removed her Macbook from my account.

Apple took screenshots of this and it sounded like they had never seen anything like this before.

My concerns - I work at a job where I travel from business to business and will have a different windows computer the company will provide. When I get there, I will login to iTunes/Apple Music so i can listen to my own music. These are all windows computers. But what happens if I forget to log out, what happens if suddenly that windows computer becomes the 2A only option and I don't have access to it again. I'm so very frustrated that iCloud would get merged onto her computer by using iTunes and a completely different account and even more frustrated that a password change could happen like that.

 

[Bodhitree]

It’s an education… perhaps you’re better off using iTunes on your phone and just having that on the local wifi.

 

[poppe]

It’s an education… perhaps you’re better off using iTunes on your phone and just having that on the local wifi.

Perhaps though I'm not quite sure what you mean by having my phone on my local wifi. I was on a trip and we brought her laptop and not mine - forgot the movie I bought was on there. Now should we have family sharing - perhaps as well. But I litterally haven't bought anything since the first season of Mad Men on iTunes. I don't buy media. This happened to be a huge fluke with a purchase - which is why I didn't think anything about it when I bought on mine and then we took her laptop. She has never in her entire life bought anything on iTunes. It had never been logged into before.

I don't think that justifies her computer taking my icloud hostage when I never gave it access to iCloud and never logged into iCloud with it. My opinion is that aboslutely no device should automatically get access to my icloud without my permission. They aren't even the same password and aren't the same email address. To me this is a huge security issue because this seems like you could login to your media and purchases on one device and your iCloud then gets transferred over - even though it doesn't work on that new computer and then stops working on every other device you have.

Furthermore, if this happens to anyone else, had I not been able to get the popup on her computer, that would have been the end of the road for my iCloud account. For the sake of security (which is good) Apple does not have any work around to beating the automated system. The downside is - even without icloud logged into her computer, just by her waking her computer up, it stops the automated system from resetting the password. They also recommend you don't use your phone for 3 days ("but cant take up to weeks") their exact word.

That doesn't seem like anything close to a solution for those that get locked out.

 

[Luba]

FINAL UPDATE: Well it finally got all worked out. It took getting with Apple Engineers and a senior tech support specialists with their executive division (who was so wonderfully nice and knew everything about apple in and out), but it's all been solved.

And the issues were as I expected: By logging into iTunes with my iTunes account (not iCloud), my GF's computer, somehow became the Master 2A, but only for a brief moment (about 5 minutes). After the one notification on her computer, we were never able to replicate it again which then created the looping issue of unlocking the account but not being able to 2A it with any device since it was getting lost in the ether.

What's also scary about this is my GF, in the midst of clicking "do not approve 2A" was then prompted to change her password - But it changed my iCloud password - it did not change my iTunes password. She did not have to put in an email address and one was not displayed when changing it. This was further exasperating the issue as we had no way to knowing the password had changed for my account until the engineers got into their end of the account and could confirm a password change.

THEN, finally, what saved all of this, was when Apple to connect with her computer, a popup appeared saying "Apple wants to connect to this computer." And by confirming it, it somehow granted access into a section of my iCloud where they could see all the devices attached to my iCloud account - this included my GF's computer. We then turned off every computer and apple device both me and my GF owned. And went through the 2A system. We clicked on "don't have access to the mac" and this time (using my GF's iCloud password), we were able to unlock my account and change my password. Then we removed her Macbook from my account.

Apple took screenshots of this and it sounded like they had never seen anything like this before.

My concerns - I work at a job where I travel from business to business and will have a different windows computer the company will provide. When I get there, I will login to iTunes/Apple Music so i can listen to my own music. These are all windows computers. But what happens if I forget to log out, what happens if suddenly that windows computer becomes the 2A only option and I don't have access to it again. I'm so very frustrated that iCloud would get merged onto her computer by using iTunes and a completely different account and even more frustrated that a password change could happen like that.

So your GF was prompted to change her password, but was actually changing yours because it was your iTunes that was logged in?

 

[Luba]

Perhaps though I'm not quite sure what you mean by having my phone on my local wifi. I was on a trip and we brought her laptop and not mine - forgot the movie I bought was on there. Now should we have family sharing - perhaps as well. But I litterally haven't bought anything since the first season of Mad Men on iTunes. I don't buy media. This happened to be a huge fluke with a purchase - which is why I didn't think anything about it when I bought on mine and then we took her laptop. She has never in her entire life bought anything on iTunes. It had never been logged into before.

I don't think that justifies her computer taking my icloud hostage when I never gave it access to iCloud and never logged into iCloud with it. My opinion is that aboslutely no device should automatically get access to my icloud without my permission. They aren't even the same password and aren't the same email address. To me this is a huge security issue because this seems like you could login to your media and purchases on one device and your iCloud then gets transferred over - even though it doesn't work on that new computer and then stops working on every other device you have.

Furthermore, if this happens to anyone else, had I not been able to get the popup on her computer, that would have been the end of the road for my iCloud account. For the sake of security (which is good) Apple does not have any work around to beating the automated system. The downside is - even without icloud logged into her computer, just by her waking her computer up, it stops the automated system from resetting the password. They also recommend you don't use your phone for 3 days ("but cant take up to weeks") their exact word.

That doesn't seem like anything close to a solution for those that get locked out.

When you logged in to iTunes on her laptop you didn't have to sign out of her iTunes account because she had never logged in to iTunes? Hmm, maybe that's why Apple thought that was your MacBook? Then again, when you sign into iCloud on a MacBook, I think it automatically signs you into iTunes. During initial MacBook setup it will ask if you use one Apple ID for iCloud and another for iTunes. BTW, is your GF's laptop a MacBook?

 

[poppe]

When you logged in to iTunes on her laptop you didn't have to sign out of her iTunes account because she had never logged in to iTunes? Hmm, maybe that's why Apple thought that was your MacBook? Then again, when you sign into iCloud on a MacBook, I think it automatically signs you into iTunes. During initial MacBook setup it will ask if you use one Apple ID for iCloud and another for iTunes. BTW, is your GF's laptop a MacBook?

Yeah, so, she has never ever used iTunes in her life actually haha! She doesn't like tech and basically never had anything Apple until only a few years ago starting with the iPhone and immidiately went to Spotify. Then got She bought the Macbook Air M1 in May or April of this year.

She signed into iCloud upon setup. And it did sign her iCloud into "Media and Purchases" under system preferences which counts for the App store - and iTunes if she had an iTunes account. But I opened the iTunes program and it asked me to sign in which I did, it did not have her information in there already (and so I did not have to sign her out). Under her system preferences you then had this situation: iCloud - Hers. Media and Purchases - Her iCloud account and My iTunes account, you could actually scroll through and pick. In system preferences there is a button under Media and Purchases that allows you to "Manage" the account. When you click "manage" under her name it brings up the App Store. But if you bring up my name, it only initiates iTunes and does not sign me into the App store or anything else on her laptop. Under the Apple ID of system preferences her name and iCloud consistently was listed only.

 

[Luba]

Yeah, so, she has never ever used iTunes in her life actually haha! She doesn't like tech and basically never had anything Apple until only a few years ago starting with the iPhone and immidiately went to Spotify. Then got She bought the Macbook Air M1 in May or April of this year.

She signed into iCloud upon setup. And it did sign her iCloud into "Media and Purchases" under system preferences which counts for the App store - and iTunes if she had an iTunes account. But I opened the iTunes program and it asked me to sign in which I did, it did not have her information in there already (and so I did not have to sign her out). Under her system preferences you then had this situation: iCloud - Hers. Media and Purchases - Her iCloud account and My iTunes account, you could actually scroll through and pick. In system preferences there is a button under Media and Purchases that allows you to "Manage" the account. When you click "manage" under her name it brings up the App Store. But if you bring up my name, it only initiates iTunes and does not sign me into the App store or anything else on her laptop. Under the Apple ID of system preferences her name and iCloud consistently was listed only.

Hmm . . .

I guess setting up Recovery Key (and hope it works when the times comes) is the only thing you can do as a future preventative measure. It's just flukey how that happened, kind of a "perfect storm".

 

[poppe]

Hmm . . .

I guess setting up Recovery Key (and hope it works when the times comes) is the only thing you can do as a future preventative measure. It's just flukey how that happened, kind of a "perfect storm".

Oh yeah totally the perfect storm of perfect storms. Everything had to go wrong for this one to work out. Ha! I'm hesitant to go to a recovery key at the sake of some how something happening that I didn't expect and getting permanently removed.

The biggest issue for me, is I've basically gone away from having a computer. So my contacts and photos are only being synced to my iCloud. My Macbook Pro 2012 retina is on it's last legs and I just don't use a computer anymore. So the question is, should I set up some kind of secondary cloud backup - don't want to use Google Photos, so I need to look into that.

If you have any thoughts on that one?

 

[Luba]

Oh yeah totally the perfect storm of perfect storms. Everything had to go wrong for this one to work out. Ha! I'm hesitant to go to a recovery key at the sake of some how something happening that I didn't expect and getting permanently removed.

The biggest issue for me, is I've basically gone away from having a computer. So my contacts and photos are only being synced to my iCloud. My Macbook Pro 2012 retina is on it's last legs and I just don't use a computer anymore. So the question is, should I set up some kind of secondary cloud backup - don't want to use Google Photos, so I need to look into that.

If you have any thoughts on that one?

Maybe get a NAS, although not sure if an iPad can fully access and configure a NAS. I think with a Synology NAS there are iOS apps. I was using iCloud Photos, but noticed it was only syncing most of my photos, around say 98% or 95%, so I decided not to pay the extra money for iCloud storage and put it towards a NAS.

 

[poppe]

Maybe get a NAS, although not sure if an iPad can fully access and configure a NAS. I think with a Synology NAS there are iOS apps. I was using iCloud Photos, but noticed it was syncing most of my photos, around say 98% or 95%, so I decided not to pay the extra money for iCloud storage and put it towards a NAS.

Sweet. I'll look into. I'm even phasing out my iPad. Going phone only! But Synology would be great for my GF macbook air anyways. So it'd be amazing if iCould get my photos to sync to it.

 

[Luba]

Sweet. I'll look into. I'm even phasing out my iPad. Going phone only! But Synology would be great for my GF macbook air anyways. So it'd be amazing if iCould get my photos to sync to it.

I’m down to an iMac, iPad, and iPhone with Apple Watch. Glad I don’t have to take care of a 5th device when it comes time to update OSes. If I need a laptop I’d probably just get an Air. You could phase out the iPad and get a new Air. I’d pick an Air over an iPad, if I had to choose. But your goal is iPhone only with maybe an Apple Watch? What inspired the very minimalist approach?

 

[poppe]

I’m down to an iMac, iPad, and iPhone with Apple Watch. Glad I don’t have to take care of a 5th device when it comes time to update OSes. If I need a laptop I’d probably just get an Air. You could phase out the iPad and get a new Air. I’d pick an Air over an iPad, if I had to choose. But your goal is iPhone only with maybe an Apple Watch? What inspired the very minimalist approach?

Yeah, it’s less minimalist and more that I just don’t have a need for any of the devices anymore. I have a windows computer at work. When I get home I do everything on my phone, even reading new articles in bed I don’t use a laptop or iPad anymore.

I thought if the iPad mini was a little more stacked on high end features I might have gotten that one, but when I saw the specs it just seemed like a waste.

Now, I may buy an M1 Mac because this guy on Reddit is making remarkable strides towards getting Unifiy Protect cameras and NVR on HomeKit and HomeKit Secure Video using Scripted, but you need to run Scripted on a Linux or Mac based computer to achieve this.

So if I did that, then that’d solve everything for backing up photos and contacts as a secondary