I’ve been working on trying to save phones that would otherwise be destroyed. I have researched and figured out how to fix many things on Android phones to keep them from going to the landfill. The issue I have is with iPhones. The company I work for gets tech from large companies and we try to refurb the tech to resell it back into the market but iPhones have been the hardest thing to deal with.
They have Find my iPhone and iCloud lock and when this happens I can’t find a way to get the phone usable again. The companies don’t have much interest in finding a solution to this issue. I just want to try to save usable tech and put it in the hands of people who could use it instead of destroying it.
My question is has anyone else dealt with this and found a way to make these phones usable again?
I know its a long shot but I had to ask, there are a lot of knowledgable people here so who knows.
Thanks for reading this and any info is greatly appreciated.
I’m not an apple person so don’t know how to fix it but many corps let their users log onto their phones with their own apple ID so they are at the mercy of the end user removing the lock before giving it back to the company.
Sadly they are never going to put the resources into chasing their users up to do this for you because they have already ticked the sustainability box by making sure their phones are ‘recycled’. Whether they are usable or not is neither here nor there.
Yeah the companies actually put Mobile Device Management software through apple so they can actually get past that if its just a case of a device being turned back in and being redeployed its not much of an issue.
You’re right here though because that is the issue that I face that they simply don’t want to push some buttons and release the devices from mobile device management. So we get stuck with a lot of aluminum paperweights. I know there are companies out there in the recycling business that are able to get beyond this because I’ve seen it advertised, I simply don’t know what the answer is. Hopefully someone out there can clue me in. Thanks for the reply @LycheeMcPie
This may not be what you’re looking for as you mentioned re-selling, however the unofficial way includes using the Checkm8 tool that will bypass the iCloud activation lock (if you’re ok to jailbreak the phone first using Checkra1n). This applies to any of the devices using an A5 through A11 chip (iPhone 4S through iPhone X).
Alternatively, the official Apple way is they can unlock it if you have proof of ownership (if you don’t have this immediately you can hand it in as lost property to a government authority for example the police, and if unclaimed during the statutory period you become the owner and can be provided with the new proof of ownership). Just takes a while.
You can also pay intermediaries to remove mobile device management, when a device is enrolled in the Device Enrolment Program. Effectively, they get the device’s serial number removed from Apple’s iCloud servers (that in turn defer a device to its corporate mobile device management server, when iCloud recognises its serial number as being registered in this program). Remove its serial number from the DEP program, it releases this lock.
Yeah that’s the issue most of the companies we deal with don’t want to take the time to remove them from MDM so we are stuck with trying to figure out a way to remove it ourselves.
Since this is for a company that basically refurbs and sells these devices (sometimes by the hundreds) I don’t think there is a way to prove ownership to get apple to release them.
Thanks for the info about jail breaking I will run that across some people and see if they want to go that route.
In Apple’s case, they are very specific that the device needs to be removed from “Find your iPhone” before giving to someone else. In fact, when I buy my new Pixels, they tell me that if I were trading in an iPhone, I’d need to do this before sending it in. Also, if the company is setup so that the device automatically goes into MDM, they need to remove the serial from the Apple config. Really nothing you can do.
Yeah I kinda figured as much but there are constantly people who make things do what they aren’t supposed to so I didn’t figure it hurt asking. Thanks for the info guys.