Ask HN: Locked Out of New, Unregistered iPad

4 points

2 years ago

Our machinist at work just bought an iPad and was having some troubles getting it setup, so he asked me for help. He was attempting to verify his phone number to create an account for the device, but kept getting a "cannot communicate with apple servers" error. I tried to start the account creation procedure from scratch but got the same error message - at that point, I (apparently) made a serious mistake and restarted the device.

Now he can't log into the device. The password he has doesn't work and it won't accept his finger print for the initial login. He purchased the device at Best Buy, and they won't take it back because its locked. He has called Apple and they couldn't help him. I can get the device into it's recovery mode as per https://support.apple.com/en-us/118430 but I can't get my PCs to recognize it through iTunes or the Apple Devices app. I assume this is because I'm not logged in to the correct Apple account, but the device itself doesn't have _any_ account associated with it.

Do I have any other options? Feel like I just bricked a brand new iPad by restarting it.

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