Q: Could not Activate iPhone

Right there with ya! I'm on AT&T and they told me the same thing. Never seen this before, yada yada. Been working on this for literally 12 hours now and nothing!

Got my iPhone 7 plus today too and I was in the Apple Store for more than 5 hours and the don't know what to do. icloud won't download. I want my iPhone 6s back !!!!!!!!

Same issue here. Both Verizon and Apple claim it's due to a fault on the other's side. The issue has been sent up to the Apple engineers at this point as a new sim didn't fix the issue. I'll update if I have any news.

I can use my iPhone 7 plus as a new phone but all my text data are empty and so are my notes. Back and forth with apple chat and now the apple care team for the past 3 days now. They forward my problem to the engineers too. Wil have another phone session this afternoon with apple care.      

Same issue, same phone (iPhone 7, 256gb, Jet Black). But, I am on Sprint. I cannot get past the activation process, I get the same error message each time after entering my "Billing Zip Code" and "Account PIN":

"Sprint was unable to verify your identity using the information you entered. It could be as simple as a typo. Please re-check your information and try again."

I've obviously re-checked it numerous times. I also went to my local Sprint store and they tried everything: entered the billing zip and account PIN straight from my account screen, used a new SIM, etc... I called the 1-800-MY-IPHONE number (given to you after so many failed attempts) while at the Sprint store and spoke to them for a good 45min with no luck.

Just as others have mentioned, they escalated my case to "Apple Engineers". That was yesterday afternoon. I called again today, but no updates have been posted to my case number.

Day 3 working through this problem with no luck. Frustrating.

I was finally able to get my phone fixed and working. Like BlinkCherokee, that's exactly where I was stuck. They sent me up to apple engineers who were able to to a tweak to the billing zip and social. Turns out I actually had a bad sim card. But Blink, try these 2 methods, then I would go do a walk in genius bar appointment

1. For billing, do 00000. For social, do 0000.

2. If that doesn't work, try a previous zip, and the regular last 4 digits.

If neither of those work, maybe even try apple support 1 more time, and ask to have engineering change your billing and zip to all 0's. That will bypass the communication between your carrier and apple.

Good luck!

Where are you seeing these options?

I got past the activation screen!

Your mention of "social" was the ticket. For Sprint users it asks for your "Billing Zip Code" and "Account PIN". The account PIN is used anytime you talk to Sprint, make an account change, etc... to verify your identity. For example, at the Sprint store they asked for my account PIN before they could access my information. It's a 6-10 digit code you setup when you first opened your account.

It sounds like they are the only ones to use this method (Billing Zip + Account PIN), versus what others have mentioned of Billing Zip + Last 4 of your SSN.

Here is what the Sprint activation screen looks like on my phone:

And, the dreaded error:

When you mentioned "social" I thought I'd give it a shot. I entered my billing zip code as usual and the last 4 of my SSN. Boom, it worked!

It looks like my activation was setup with my social instead of the account pin as it indicates you should enter. I'm surprised no one at Apple mentioned trying that instead.

Once I got past the activation screen, it continued the setup process. When my phone completed my backup and started it was still not activated on Sprint. So, I just went to the Sprint site and did a quick chat (as I had done previously) and asked them to activate the new phone. This time it worked with no problems, I am up and running.

Thanks again for your suggestion. For anyone else using Sprint with this problem, I'd try using the last 4 digits of your SSN versus your account PIN.

That's so awesome that that worked for you! Hopefully it will work for others with the issue as well. The frustration is literally unbearable.

Finally was fixed! Apple engineers changed my profile which allowed me to get to a screen where I entered all zeros for the zip and social. Now it's all up and running!

you're lucky ! I'm still waiting for a solution. Had my phone chat again with apple care this afternoon

and she told me the engineers are still working on it and might release an iOS 10.0.2 soon. I guess it's an ongoing problem.