iPhone 5s gift headache - please help

[Sarah L]

We were recently on holiday in Qatar where my husband works, and a Qatari friend of one of his colleagues gave our daughter an iPhone 5s (because he had upgraded to a 6).

Our daughter (11) is over the moon but we have a couple of problems before she can use it:

The password is unknown (he said it was **** but it wasn't)

From googling it seems we could do a "hard reset" to get over that problem and wipe the phone (that's OK, he, the colleague's friend, had told us to delete everything) but I looked to see if it was connected to an iCloud account (by checking here: https://www.icloud.com/activationlock/ ) and it is.

The colleague's friend knows nothing about computers and probably had someone else set it all up for him. He has given my husband his iCloud account details and I think I understand what I need to do : When the phone has an internet connection (wifi or 3G) I can connect to the iCloud account and disassociate the device from the account.

BUT - the phone has no SIM in it and because we don't have the password we can't enter the phone to turn on the wifi so that it appears on the account....

Does anyone have any suggestions?

We could probably track him down again and get him to open the phone with a fingerprint and switch off the passcode lock but we don't really want to bother him with it.

The phone is still in Qatar with my husband, and my daughter and I are back in France now.

 

[AlliFlowers]

Even if you get him to use his finger to unlock the phone, he'll still need to enter the passcode in order to turn off FindMyiPhone and complete the transition.

 

[Sarah L]

Even if you get him to use his finger to unlock the phone, he'll still need to enter the passcode in order to turn off FindMyiPhone and complete the transition.

Thanks for reading, AlliFlowers. Does that mean that if you forget your passcode your phone is useless? Even if it's registered your fingerprint?

We do have his iCloud details and password. Just not the 4 digit phone code which he seems to have forgotten because he gave us the wrong one :-(

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Yes, that is the whole point of a password.

 

[Sarah L]

Yes, that is the whole point of a password.

Of course, but there is usually another way of getting in - a password retrieval system or something.

I think (from googling) it's possible to do a wipe of the whole phone, a factory reset which will get rid of all the data including passcode, but that it will still retain the iCloud lock (as anti-theft deterrent).

I'm hoping someone can confirm that it will be ok to do this and that I can then go in to connect to wifi, put the phone online and disassociate the phone from its original iCloud account.

 

[bandofbrothers]

Here is the official help and support from Apple.


If you forgot the passcode for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or your device is disabled

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204306

 

[C DM]

Of course, but there is usually another way of getting in - a password retrieval system or something.

I think (from googling) it's possible to do a wipe of the whole phone, a factory reset which will get rid of all the data including passcode, but that it will still retain the iCloud lock (as anti-theft deterrent).

I'm hoping someone can confirm that it will be ok to do this and that I can then go in to connect to wifi, put the phone online and disassociate the phone from its original iCloud account.

If you have the iCloud login information then you should be able to use that to get through the iCloud Activation Lock that would come up after you restore the phone, right?

 

[Sarah L]

If you have the iCloud login information then you should be able to use that to get through the iCloud Activation Lock that would come up after you restore the phone, right?

Hi C DM,
Yes, that's what I'm thinking, but the device will only show up if it's online (I already tried). It no longer has a sim card in it. I'm not sure how much access the phone will give once it's wiped before it asks for Apple identification. i.e. Will I be able to connect it to wifi?


Hmmm, maybe a silly question but I'll ask it anyway - Is 'Apple ID' (that the phone will ask for) and 'iCloud ID' (needed to dissociate the phone from the previous owner) the same thing?

 

[C DM]

Hi C DM,
Yes, that's what I'm thinking, but the device will only show up if it's online (I already tried). It no longer has a sim card in it. I'm not sure how much access the phone will give once it's wiped before it asks for Apple identification. i.e. Will I be able to connect it to wifi?


Hmmm, maybe a silly question but I'll ask it anyway - Is 'Apple ID' (that the phone will ask for) and 'iCloud ID' (needed to dissociate the phone from the previous owner) the same thing?

They should be the same thing, unless you were given information about a different account than the one that was set up on the phone. As for entering it after the phone has been restored, the phone will provide the necessary means to validate it (if it will need WiFi then it will offer to connect before that). That said I'm not completely sure if it will activate without any SIM in it.

 

[Sarah L]

They should be the same thing, unless you were given information about a different account than the one that was set up on the phone. As for entering it after the phone has been restored, the phone will provide the necessary means to validate it (if it will need WiFi then it will offer to connect before that). That said I'm not completely sure if it will activate without any SIM in it.

Brilliant, if they're the same that will solve a lot of problems! Thanks C DM. If that's the case then we should have brought it home with us because the new nano sim is coming here. Never mind, husband and phone are coming home in May (if daughter can wait that long!)
[doublepost=1457292801][/doublepost]I've just been reading more stuff by googling. I have a new theory:

> Husband wipes the phone doing a 'hard reset' by holding the home & off button simultaneously for 10 seconds until the apple appears followed by the 'restore' option. He then wipes the phone.
> Then he inserts his own nano sim card in order to get into the phone and to prompt it to ask for the iCloud/Apple ID, which he then enters so that the phone can go online.
> Once it's online, I go into the iCloud account from here and dissociate the phone from the previous owner's account.
> Husband recovers his sim card and the phone is wifi operational and will be ready to use as new when it gets here in May.

Any comments/suggestions/flaws in this plan??

 

[C DM]

Brilliant, if they're the same that will solve a lot of problems! Thanks C DM. If that's the case then we should have brought it home with us because the new nano sim is coming here. Never mind, husband and phone are coming home in May (if daughter can wait that long!)
[doublepost=1457292801][/doublepost]I've just been reading more stuff by googling. I have a new theory:

> Husband wipes the phone doing a 'hard reset' by holding the home & off button simultaneously for 10 seconds until the apple appears followed by the 'restore' option. He then wipes the phone.
> Then he inserts his own nano sim card in order to get into the phone and to prompt it to ask for the iCloud/Apple ID, which he then enters so that the phone can go online.
> Once it's online, I go into the iCloud account from here and dissociate the phone from the previous owner's account.
> Husband recovers his sim card and the phone is wifi operational and will be ready to use as new when it gets here in May.

Any comments/suggestions/flaws in this plan??

Seems like it should work.

 

[iThingsGurl]

If that doesn't work, go to an Apple Retail Store and tell them that your device isn't connected to a Wi-Fi or cellular network, and hence you can't erase it with Find My iPhone. They'll erase your device with recovery mode by physically connecting it to iTunes on their computer.