Apple added Find My to AirPods in 2021, and it’s causing problems for resellers of these wireless headphones. Many people are unaware that their AirPods now support Activation Lock, which means they are locked to their user’s Apple ID. This must be deactivated when selling or giving the devices away or no one else can use them.
Here’s how to turn off Activation Lock on your AirPods.
When you sell an iPhone, Mac or other Apple computer, it’s critical to turn off Activation Lock or else the buyer won‘t be able to use the device. It’s easy to do when you still have the product, and not that much harder if you’ve already sold it.
Here’s what you need to know to prevent problems.
An editorial by an iFixit employee condemns Activation Lock, a security feature of iPhones and recent Macs because it makes these computers hard to recycle.
But Walt Mossberg, well-known journalist formerly of the Wall Street Journal, calls the editorial “outrageous.”
Apple has pulled its iCloud Activation Lock page which helped users find out if an iOS device was locked to an iCloud account.
The tool could be used to verify that a used iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch wasn’t stolen before you purchased it — but the website’s URL now leads to an error page.
Since its introduction with iOS 7, Activation Lock has gotten stronger and stronger. But every so often, researchers stumble across a bug that allows it to be cracked. The latest is found in iOS 10.1.1, and it makes it surprisingly easy to get into a locked iPhone or iPad.
Police in Brooklyn arrived to a bloody scene at the busy Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center train station on Friday morning after a 33-year-old man was stabbed while riding the N train.
The assailant apparently knifed the victim in the stomach after grabbing his iPhone while the Coney Island-bound train pulled into the subway station.
This week’s release of watchOS 2 brings a much-needed security update to Apple’s wearable by adding Activation Lock to the device, and the great news is that you may not even have to do anything to add it.
Activation Lock has been around for a while for other Apple devices, and its purpose is to keep thieves from using them even if they manage to get ahold of your preciouses. The first version of watchOS only included basic locking features and a passkey, which wouldn’t keep smart evildoers from gaining access to sensitive data like your Apple Pay data.
Here’s how the feature shows up on the Apple Watch.
Your shiny new Apple Watch? It’s a lot more vulnerable to being stolen than you might know.
As highly-desirable and premium-priced tech goodies, it’s no surprise that iPhones have previously been among the most stolen items we carry around on a regular basis. In fact, police have even correlated spikes in crime rate to the launch of new iPhone models — suggesting that it’s not just upstanding citizens who keep an eye on the blogosphere.
That all changed when Apple added its Activation Lock feature with iOS 7, allowing users to locate, lock and even wipe their iPhones remotely in the event that they are stolen. Based on that, a new report claims that the number of stolen iPhones fell significantly in major cities around the world between September 2013, when Activation Lock was introduced, and one year later.
Take that, iCriminals!
Apple’s fabulous iPhone used to be the number one reason crime was on the rise in New York City, but now that Apple’s added Activation Lock to iOS 7, thieves have given up their iLust and are targeting Samsung phones like never before.
Just look at the sudden change in thefts in the chart below:
