what does icloud locked mean?

My friend here at work just ask another interesting question, He says that he stopped paying his bill but never used iCloud, did not ever have an apple ID attached to iPhone, and only used the phone to make phone calls. Would this iPhone eventually get iCloud locked? Thanks

Craig's list is very risky. eBay is a little better, because of eBay's buyer protection. For either, however, a common scam is to sell a phone on one of the sites, then report it stolen to collect the insurance. This results in the phone being IMEI blacklisted. As @deggie pointed out, you can check the iCloud lock status here: https://www.icloud.com/activationlock/. But that still doesn't guarantee that the phone will be unlocked when you get it, only that it was when you checked.

I am the original owner of my iPhone, and it suffered water damage. I already sent it off to a trusted person to try fixing the damage, but there was no positive result. It is now a password protected paperweight.

Since the phone cannot turn on to remove the lock, would I be able to sell the phone for parts and not worry about my information?

I had lost my phone and got a phone, to use temporarily, from a family member.

1) I got a phone and is now selling the temporary phone. The person is asking if it is icloud locked. After reading this post, it would appear that it is not as it does not show in my iCloud account. Is that correct?

2) They are also asking for the IMEI but I no longer have the SIM card so I can't get that info or is there another way? Although I did see somewhere where they said that this information should not be given out.

Thanks in advance.

I ran a test and it says that the phone is Factory Simlock=locked and SIM Lock = Locked. Does this mean that whomever I give it to just needs to unlock it or no one else can use it?

https://imeidata.net/iphone/unlock-check?imei=013276004672078

Thanks!

That site and others like it are all scams. They really do not have access to the information the claim to give you. You can call Apple and ask them which carrier the phone is locked to. Then check with the carrier to see if they will unlock it. If it is Activation Locked, however, no one will be able to ever use it unless the owner of the activation lock releases it.

Mr. Finch, you appear to be one of the most educated on this particular thread. So with my shovel I'm gonna dig it up again.

Ok, so if I buy a phone with a crushed screen from someone and it happens to be locked or iCloud locked, but they're only selling it to me for parts can I still purchase this phone and take this broken phone to Apple and get a refurbished replacement for it?

IF they are the legitimate owner of the phone, they can remove the lock by removing the device in iCloud. If they can't or won't do so, don't buy it. There is a very real possibility that the phone is not theirs to sell, broken or not.

Thanks for the moral advise Tim. I instead would prefer to spare the police station from this matter and let them deal with more pressing issues, but I will keep your advise and opinions in mind. However, back to my initial question...IF IT IS iCloud locked, can I still take this broken phone to Apple and get a refurbished replacement for it?

My understanding of how it's supposed to work is they will check the serial number to see if the device is activation locked. If it is, they will ask you to sign into the iCloud account used to lock it and remove the lock. If you can't or won't do that, no replacement will be given.

"If you buy an iCloud locked iPhone or iPad off eBay, you are in possession of a stolen good..."

Not necessarily. My neighbor's father died so she sold his possessions to pay off debts and funeral expenses. Among the items is an iPhone, for which no one else has any account information. She sold it on eBay for parts (ie the camera, touch panel, etc), stating that it was locked.

In this case, where's the illegality? Are you saying that the phone dies with its owner? A social worker told me that such scenarios are increasingly common in the Information Age, where a deceased's passwords are unknown to survivors. This is especially true of young people who die unexpectedly, never having had the need to write a will, etc. And they are the demographic with the most online accounts and electronic gadgets.

I can think of several other scenarios where a locked iPhone doesn't mean theft. For example, abandoned property at a Lost-and-Found or storage facility. There is no legal requirement to turn such items over to the police or Apple. In fact, I'm pretty sure the law doesn't require any found items to be turned over to the police. A item found on the street does not constitute a "stolen item," even if the owner lost it unwillingly.

I have a similar question and hope someone can help. I don't yet have an iPhone (or any Apple product) so please forgive the ignorance. I need an iPhone 4S to run one specific medical probe. That's it. I don't need to make calls or access the internet (except to download the app, although I can probably sideload it through my laptop). I found a 4S on eBay that is cosmetically very good. It is a bargain at $7 with free shipping. But it is described as iCloud locked. Will I be able to run my app? Or is an iCloud locked device totally inaccessible? I think it's running iOS 4 (maybe up to iOS 6). Thanks!

sdc100 wrote:

I have a similar question and hope someone can help. I don't yet have an iPhone (or any Apple product) so please forgive the ignorance. I need an iPhone 4S to run one specific medical probe. That's it. I don't need to make calls or access the internet (except to download the app, although I can probably sideload it through my laptop). I found a 4S on eBay that is cosmetically very good. It is a bargain at $7 with free shipping. But it is described as iCloud locked. Will I be able to run my app? Or is an iCloud locked device totally inaccessible? I think it's running iOS 4 (maybe up to iOS 6). Thanks!

Leave it alone. 'iCloud locked' (Activation Locked) means it's unusable at all. Even if it's working when you get it (which as it's so described it presumable isn't) it would lock itself if reset or updated. Once locked only the person who set the lock can unlock it - there is absolutely no other way round this. There's a fair chance this item is stolen.

No, in the US, the finders-keepers rule generally applies when it comes to lost or abandoned property. In other words, the finder of such property becomes the new owner. The exception is mislaid property, where an item is intentionally put somewhere, then forgotten. A legal case can be argued to claim mislaid property if found someone else. Laws do vary from state to state. California law comes close to what you have in the UK, where property worth more than $100 must be turned over to the police for 90 days. But that is the exception. Most states let you keep found items immediately.

Regardless, found items are never considered "stolen" as the original poster claimed. The link below has an excellent article on this very subject. It even mentions the laws in London.

http://time.com/10118/california-gold-coins-finders-keepers-john-mary/

When you first turn on an iOS device and after telling it WiFi info, the iOS device says something like “activating”. I don’t know much, but I am guessing that this is similar to “activating” Windows when installing it. I can only imagine that when the device claims to be “activating” itself it is contacting Apple and determining if the device should shut down permanently or otherwise allow Apple to log that a particular device with a particular serial number was turned on.

This is completely different than activating your SIM card or phone service. Even iPods and iPads without cellular data have to be “activated” before you can use them at all. Activating your SIM card gets you cellular access and is done directly through your cellular service provider and has nothing, I assume, to do with your iOS device.