Why can't I logon with my AppleID to download apps on no longer supported 27" iMac running Mojave?

Roy Martin German wrote:

That Mac also runs my 40TB Thunderbolt Drobo in double redundancy mode so that even if 2 of it's five 8 TB drives were to fail, my 18TB of photos, videos, documents and music would survive. Unfortunately, Drobo went out of business during COVID and there is no Drobo software supported after Mojave so, I must keep this computer running or loose my entire life's computer works! I am 70 years old.

I sure hope you have a good backup of all that data and are not relying on the RAID aspect to keep it safe. RAID is not a backup. RAID is only good for keeping a storage unit up & running longer without downtime when a drive (or two) fails. And to sometimes increase performance over a single drive.

FYI, the Drobos are not as reliable as you think they are. My organization used them for a while. We discovered that you can only replace one drive and must wait for the rebuild to complete before you can replace a second failed drive. This is true even when you have two Drobo units connected to a single computer with one failed drive each! Because it is all controlled by a junk proprietary software. We could not believe it when we saw it. It takes a long time to rebuild an 8TB drive.

I would also suggesting making a bootable clone of that boot drive if you no longer have the Drobo installer in order to rebuild the system in the event of a drive failure.

This week, when I went to the App Store to download a couple of updates, I was told that I needed to logon with my AppleID but when I did, I was told that, "It was not in the correct format"?

To better understand that cryptic message, I typed in an incorrect password and was instantly told that it was not my password so, it's clear that the system can read my input from the iMac.

Again, I attempted to logon and again I get that cryptic message.

Then when I tried this on my iPhone 12 Pro Max, I get the following explanation:

"Devices

Before you can turn on Advanced Data Protection, you need to update these devices or go to Settings and remove them from your account.

2017 iMac - update to the latest version of the MacOS

2009 iMac - This device can't be updated to the latest MacOS. Remove it from your account.

Apple Watch - This device can't be updated to the latest watchOS. Remove it from your account.

12.9" iPad - This device can't be updated to the latest version of iOS. Remove it from your account."

All of these devices use iCloud sharing for books, music, documents, photos, etc.

Without iCloud they are now worthless.

I'm now retired, having supported Macs at several major corporations and sold multiple millions of dollars of them, while doing so.

This is so unreasonable and dastardly, words fail me!

Now that I'm retired, without warning of any kind, you kill all of my life's work on my Drobo? Eliminate all of my apps, books, music, documents, etc.

Can anyone tell me how to fix this? It's no longer possible to even move my stuff from my Drobo because Apple didn't warn us they were going to kill iCloud for older Apple Devices?

See this Apple article for turning off the Advanced Data Protection for iCloud:

Advanced Data Protection for iCloud - Apple Support

So, I can't even download the installers for all of those apps that I paid for from the App Store? Any suggestions would be much appreciated. All I needed was a warning and I would have done all of this before they killed older Apple people?

Never blindly turn on new features from Apple without thoroughly researching them beforehand. Apple's documentation and messaging/notices are many times very poor, confusing, and even misleading. I still don't use iCloud except for syncing my Contacts and backing up my iPhone because I find the documentation & interface confusing...especially if you try to log out or turn off features, or encounter other difficulties. I've seen some very knowledgeable contributors who are very familiar with iCloud have mixed understandings of how iCloud behaves in some instances.

Remember this......Apple doesn't care about the past....even just yesterday. Apple is always moving forward and expects their users to move forward with them by applying every OS update & upgrade when it becomes available. And upgrading to a new Mac when the OS on the old one is no longer supported. Apple also expects users to go with system defaults since making some system customizations can cause issues even if those customizations are readily available within the main GUI interface. Also realize that Apple's computers and macOS are all moving towards becoming a glorified iPad with built-in keyboard & no touchscreen. One day I don't think Apple will have any real computers (or what we traditionally consider computers).

The Apple today is far from the Apple that made them.

I hear you brother. But if you have been paying attention it has become abundantly clear for at least a couple decades now that Apple doesn't make computers in the traditional sense. They changed their name all the way back in 2007, a change that was already so overdue that it took exactly nobody by surprise. Things don't get any clearer than that.

Apple makes information appliances which was itself the stated goal of its initial founders way back when you started with them in 1983. They are not computers. They are Macs. At one time they were "computers" but that was a very long time ago. People don't know and don't care about "computers" or how they work. They just want their Google, their Facebook, ad nauseam.

This is the market that Apple arguably created, and that now sustains them. Their customers demand it.

HWTech wrote:

One day I don't think Apple will have any real computers (or what we traditionally consider computers).

That day passed a long time ago.

If you want a computer, build one. I'm not being facetious, that's what Apple's founders did. It's orders of magnitude easier to do that today than it was forty years ago.