Regarding ridiculously-expensive Apple heirloom tools: Go to eBay right now, and buy any Activation-Locked Apple device. It's OK, I'll wait.
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OK, now: try to use it to do something. Anything. Something as simple as write a NOTEPAD note, or play one song from iTunes.
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Nope! You are surely getting screenfulls of information telling you, this Apple device has been locked and only the original owner can unlock it.
I suppose this is to prevent people from stealing Apple devices and reselling them to pawn shops or on eBay and Craigslist, and it must be working. All thieves everywhere must know by now, don't even bother to try to steal an Apple device or a Tesla car, for as soon as you do it gets bricked from all the satellites in space.
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I'm writing this because I bought a nine year old iPad on eBay and have spent the last two weeks trying to get through to AL-SUPPORT Activation Lock support at Apple, asking them to unlock it. And of course they don't care, I am not the original owner of the device, and unless I am, it is as useless as a digital brick. Battery life, screen quality, beautiful craftsmanship of the item itself, nothing matters. It just sits there telling me I'm practically a criminal for even owning this device.
No matter that the original owner gave up on it long ago, when even the simplest apps like YouTube and Gmail stopped working on it, by design, intentional planned-obsolescence coming down from Apple themselves. With the iOS getting relentlessly updated every year, all the apps get forcibly recompiled and anything old just doesn't work any more at all.
They don't care about this device any more. It was just a real-world dongle they used to get information from and about the original owner, information they've got stored in their giant database in the Cloud. They don't really care about me at all.
I imagine the universe is now littered with these devices, an Oort Cloud of them completely surrounding the planet, mentally bricked by annual iOS updates and physically bricked by Activation Locks, I'm a criminal for owning one, and were I to bring it to an Apple store to complain, they would have no useful help for me at all, "Buy a new one!" they'll tell me, "that's our company policy!"
If it was stolen from the original owner then you don't really own the device legally and this is the anti-theft part of activation lock functioning as designed. If you're an innocent third party to the original theft, your remedy is to get a full refund.
If it was just because the original owner forgot to disable activation lock, you should be chasing them to unlock it for you. If they refuse, your remedy is to get a full refund.
edit: reputable recycling places require you to have disabled activation lock on functional devices, or they don't pay out.
I've got a bizarre situation in which an OS upgrade bricked my Mac. I can't remember the details now, but it was something about an interface change in which I had managed to activate 2FA, but the login interface didn't have an input box for it.
The device was old enough that I just heaved a sigh and gave it to Apple for recycling.
> What if I use two-factor authentication on a device running older software?
> If you use two-factor authentication with devices running older OS versions – such as an Apple TV (2nd or 3rd generation) – you may be asked to add your six-digit verification code to the end of your password when signing in. Get your verification code from a trusted device running iOS 9 and later or OS X El Capitan and later, or have it sent to your trusted phone number. Then type your password followed by the six-digit verification code directly into the password field.
This weirdly works in some other places. Iirc one of the Amazon's seller login pages accepts the 2FA code appended to the password to avoid having to go through another page.
> It just sits there telling me I'm practically a criminal
I mean, you bought stolen goods. The law says you are culpable to some degree. If this was a legit sale, the original owner would be willing to do what's needed to make it useable.
If you bought it from a less than reputable vendor, then this is the kind of thing that happens. If a reseller purchased this from the original owner in this condition, I would not call them a reputable dealer.
Apologies if this sounds like victim blaming, it's not what I'm going for. Just trying to enlighten on how to avoid this in the future.
Well don't tell Facebook, those greedy bastards. They'd probably provide the people in those countries with Facebook-only smartphones, or Facebook-only Internet connections, or something else horrible and dystopian like that.
I think people go way too hard on these Facebook-sponsored internet deals.
Like, yeah, they help build Facebook's brand and place it in a position of market dominance... but they're doing that by providing low-cost internet to vast populations that otherwise couldn't afford it.
There are millions of people that can talk to their relatives and have better access to government services and communicate with people they've never met, that would still be cut off if not for Facebook.
> but they're doing that by providing low-cost internet to vast populations that otherwise couldn't afford it.
This is a tad misleading. Your sentence implies they are given access to 'the internet', but in reality it's a select list of Facebook-approved sites that are slimmed down. Obviously, this sets a bad precedent and is anti-competitive (other social media platforms on Internet.org, etc.). This is far from the internet: this is a locked-down Facebook-controlled vision of what they'd like the internet to be.
> There are millions of people that can talk to their relatives and have better access to government services and communicate with people they've never met, that would still be cut off if not for Facebook.
No, none of the connectivity is because of Facebook. They didn't build the connectivity; they're a parasite on it. What they add is a layer of disconnection, under their control, that they use to exploit.
> No, none of the connectivity is because of Facebook. They didn't build the connectivity; they're a parasite on it.
That doesn't make sense.
If Facebook was purely parasitic in these deals, people would just buy regular internet subscriptions (yes, there are counter-arguments to that, but the general principle holds). The fact that they don't implies that there are large swathes of people who can't afford internet subscriptions, and therefore would not get any of the benefits of one without Facebook.
What is a layer of "disconnection"? Is this a new rhetorical device?
Facebook does actually help build the connectivity up in these countries so they do in fact pay for the infrastructure. It is still exploitative in that they mislead folks in developing countries to think they have access to the internet when instead they're on Facebook's private network. But they do pay the cost of connectivity, at least somewhat.
> What is a layer of "disconnection"? Is this a new rhetorical device?
Not a rhetorical device. I mean that FB inserts itself as a kind of centralized middleman that can disconnect people that the internet connects. To speak of it in computer architecture terms it could be called a single point of failure.
It makes everybody go through their App and watch their ads or else they get disconnected from everybody else. This isn't something that should be called connecting people.
> Facebook does actually help build the connectivity up in these countries so they do in fact pay for the infrastructure.
Facebook "pays for" the expansion of infrastructure with proceeds from parasitism on the existing infrastructure.
> There are millions of people that can talk to their relatives and have better access to government services and communicate with people they've never met, that would still be cut off if not for Facebook.
One option is to advocate for corporations to be allowed to act as sole providers of social services in exchange for a monopoly on network platform infrastructure.....
....but why not just advocate for taxing the corporations and using the money to provide those services to the public on an open platform instead?
If I could give an analogy: if facebook is the hammer, everything would look like a nail and we (in a civilized society) would know the difference whereas people new to such platform may not.
The UN may be the arbiter of global politics but what they might be exempting are people whom are part of the "opt out" crowd or, would rather not have to explicitly opt out of such (free) services.
But it literally results in genocides (Rohingya) because those people aren't technically literate and Facebook can't be bothered to hide moderators for exotic (non-english) languages.
The benefits are great, but it's not among the things that should be done by a for profit company, let alone one that lives on "engagement".
Tor is used for CSAM. PhpBB and PeerTube are used for djihadist propaganda.
There really isn't any trivial way to give people better communication technology without giving them better ability to coordinate to do awful things. If you don't want that, fine, but then the natural conclusion isn't "we shouldn't push Whatsapp on third-world countries", it's "we shouldn't develop the internet in third-world countries". Telegram and Signal can be used to incite genocides just was well.
The key point is moderation is a requirement if they are going to offer these services in new places. Hire locals that speak the language to remove problematic content or don’t do this at all.
I don’t think being technically literate has anything to do with it. We in the developed world are just as susceptible to misinformation.
> They'd probably provide the people in those countries with Facebook-only smartphones, or Facebook-only Internet connections, or something else horrible and dystopian like that.
Considering how Google’s treated AR and VR in the last 10 years, hyping people up then quietly pulling back support and finally cancellation after just 2-3 years, I don’t see this going well.
They had a toehold 6-10 years ago which they could have easily kept iterating on and making small marketshare gains, but I guess that wasn’t good enough. Now instead of entering 2022 with 10-20% marketshare, a mature platform, and developer/user mindshare, they’re starting the new year with none of that and the idea “Hey maybe we should try AR/VR stuff again.”
Get bent Google. You shouldn’t have cancelled Daydream and killed the small amount of goodwill you were starting to cultivate. Lenovo got burned, developers got burned, users got burned. And they still want to try again?
Instead of taking your Google Glass ball and running home with it after everyone was mean about the idea, maybe listen to the feedback and change the product? But no, despite Glass being introduced almost purely around consumer-targeted ideas and concepts, it’s now an “Enterprise” product out of reach of us mere mortals.
ARCore, with its many naming and branding changes, has also failed to catch on like Google hyped.
Google, you’re charging into battle with Apple and Zuck and you got a dildo made of American cheese. Good luck.
Definitely not interested in trying what Google has planned if they decide to reenter this market, they aren't inspiring confidence if they can't commit to their existing projects.
There's a special kind of grumpy old techno-luddite, and I am describing myself here, who says "Ha! You actually fell for all that e-book and digital downloads trickery, buying DIGITAL-ONLY products with no way to be sure that you really truly own them or have them? You TRUSTED THE CLOUD? Then you get what they deserve when they all disappear, I've been bracing for the day that happens ever since the whole thing started."
and since 1998 have only bought actual tangible physical books with pages that turn, video games on physical disc, and movies only on VHS and DVD and BluRay. ((But yeah, I have a STEAM library. Nobody's perfect.))
Once I used a brand new credit card with a $1000 credit limit at a Walmart in the deep dark of a Sunday morning at 2a.m., to try to buy a PS4 game system and a copy of DEATH STRANDING. The card was declined. I contacted the bank via phone and they asked me to upload copies of my driver's license and/or passport. I never did. Oh well, so much for that credit card!
I didn't believe in the Metaverse when William Gibson or Neal Stephenson wrote about it, when people were selling virtual office space in virtual malls, when it was called SIM CITY or SECOND LIFE, and I don't believe in it now.
You don't have to believe in it yourself but mass advertising and hype through mainstream channels with nearly unlimited marketing budget will convince the masses to buy into it and sooner or later you will be the odd one out and be forced to join into it.
Anybody is welcome to download the Robinhood app, and buy FAANG/FAGMAN stocks with all your disposable income. Then you, too, will be contributing to the leading cause of the next "Great Depression", plus, you'll come out of it having become quite Rich.
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OK, now: try to use it to do something. Anything. Something as simple as write a NOTEPAD note, or play one song from iTunes.
=== ====
Nope! You are surely getting screenfulls of information telling you, this Apple device has been locked and only the original owner can unlock it.
I suppose this is to prevent people from stealing Apple devices and reselling them to pawn shops or on eBay and Craigslist, and it must be working. All thieves everywhere must know by now, don't even bother to try to steal an Apple device or a Tesla car, for as soon as you do it gets bricked from all the satellites in space.
=== ====
I'm writing this because I bought a nine year old iPad on eBay and have spent the last two weeks trying to get through to AL-SUPPORT Activation Lock support at Apple, asking them to unlock it. And of course they don't care, I am not the original owner of the device, and unless I am, it is as useless as a digital brick. Battery life, screen quality, beautiful craftsmanship of the item itself, nothing matters. It just sits there telling me I'm practically a criminal for even owning this device.
No matter that the original owner gave up on it long ago, when even the simplest apps like YouTube and Gmail stopped working on it, by design, intentional planned-obsolescence coming down from Apple themselves. With the iOS getting relentlessly updated every year, all the apps get forcibly recompiled and anything old just doesn't work any more at all.
They don't care about this device any more. It was just a real-world dongle they used to get information from and about the original owner, information they've got stored in their giant database in the Cloud. They don't really care about me at all.
I imagine the universe is now littered with these devices, an Oort Cloud of them completely surrounding the planet, mentally bricked by annual iOS updates and physically bricked by Activation Locks, I'm a criminal for owning one, and were I to bring it to an Apple store to complain, they would have no useful help for me at all, "Buy a new one!" they'll tell me, "that's our company policy!"
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Who is causing the problem here --- me, or Apple?