Unlocking and resetting a locked iPhone 14 Pro Max for new iCloud setup

You don't have a friend who can wipe the phone through iTunes, because your friend doesn't know the Apple Account and Password which was used to set up the phone. The only person who can unlock the phone is whoever actually owns the phone and knows the account credentials to unlock it. You have a useless phone, you can't use. It doesn't matter if it is connected to a carrier or not. You can't use the phone and Apple won't help you unlock the phone.

Turn the phone over to the local authorities where you live as maybe someone filed a lost or stolen report. Or recycle the phone responsibly as again, you can never use the phone.

Even the FBI can't bypass activation lock, which is what you're up against. The FBI has $Miilions upon $Millions in tech gear. Going by the internet means nothing. I read on the internet the earth is flat. So much for accuracy. They called it a hard reset? LOL. That's actually amusing. And no, they can't do a hard reset on an Activation Locked iPhone.

But if you have $60 to throw away, knock yourself out. They WON'T be able to bypass Activation Lock, however. They'll be $60 richer. You'll be $60 poorer. And you still won't be able to use the phone.

What's sad is why you think you should have ANY right to use someone else's phone? That goes to character and sadly, what you're asking to be able to do is simply wrong and you should honestly be ashamed. This isn't kindergarten Finders Keepers. So you'd be just fine if someone found your phone and all they had to do to use it for themselves is pay some company $60? Thankfully, there is no way a company can bypass activation lock.

Do the right thing and turn the phone over to the local authorities.

A “hard reset” is just a forced restart.

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

You would do this if your iPhone was not responding and seemed to be hung up. It will not clear the passcode lock, let alone Activation Lock. But hey, if you feel like throwing away $60 on something that won’t let you take over someone else’s iPhone …

I suppose that the local shop

could have been referring to the procedure to reset and wipe an iPhone when you have entered too many incorrect passcodes. But that won’t bypass Activation Lock, either. You will still have a “brick” that really belongs to someone else.

"Unlocking and resetting a locked iPhone 14 Pro Max for new iCloud setup: I’m going by what I read on the Internet, I asked a local company here and they said that for 60 bucks that they can unlock the phone without any passwords needed, think they called it a hard reset"

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Getting Info Another Phone:

Sounds like a hack to me. Not so certain a company doing this would be obeying the law. So, I'd say bring it to a local retailer, and have it recycled.