Ask HN: How do you reset an AppleID?

3•OhMeadhbh•1h ago

So I'm trying to submit a resume to Apple, but to do so, I need an AppleId. Okay. I try to sign up for one and discover my phone number has been used by someone else. I dropped into the local Apple Store (who supposedly have the ability to reset or create AppleIds) but, spoiler alert, after two hours they couldn't figure out why my phone number won't work.

Does anyone know if there's a way to create an AppleId w/o a phone number? Apple's public docs say it's impossible.

Maybe there's an email alias I can use to submit my resume instead of buying an iProduct?

I guess I could get a dirt cheap sim for my (non-apple) phone and use it for a day, just to sign up for a new AppleId. But somehow this seems... wrong. It also seems unreasonable for a company to force me to buy an $1000 device just for the privilege of submitting my resume.

[edit: Forgot to mention, I own precisely zero iProducts.]

Comments

tokyobreakfast•1h ago

Try and deregister your phone number from imessage (there is a place on apple.com to do this)

OhMeadhbh•1h ago

We tried that at the Apple Store. My phone number is not registered with iMessage.

Just for kicks, I tried doing it at home. The error messages I got were:

"Enter a valid Phone Number" (I had) "Service::Unavailable" ??? "That Code has been used. Hit Refresh Code." (the refresh code link is unresponsive)

and also, the error we got at the Apple Store:

"It looks like the phone number you provided is not registered with iMessage. Please verify the number and try again."

tokyobreakfast•1h ago

You can always call/chat with Apple ID support. They are likely better equipped to solve this than the t-shirt crew in your local store.

OhMeadhbh•53m ago

How do you call / chat w/ AppleID support without logging in first?

Or rather... thank you for the suggestion. I'm going to dig into the docs on their web page and see if there's a way to contact support w/o having to log in first.

[edit: After a bit of digging around, as best I can tell, I have to log in with an AppleId before I can post a question in the support forums about how to reset my AppleId.]

OhMeadhbh•49m ago

Oh wait. You said "call." Does Apple have a support phone number?

OhMeadhbh•42m ago

Let me also say I am truly grateful for the time you took to respond to this message. If I sound gruff, it's because the situation is so bizarre and a little frustrating. Please don't take this to mean I'm unappreciative.

OhMeadhbh•1h ago

Maybe I could sign in with someone else's AppleId, then submit the resume. It has my email and phone number on it, so hopefully they would send correspondence to that email address and not the one associated w/ the AppleId.

Maybe this is a test. Maybe everyone who tries to login to jobs.apple.com is told "oh yeah... that AppleId is invalid," and then they wait and see what people do. If they give up, then they're not Apple material. If they cheat and use someone else's AppleId, then they're morals are found lacking. If they post about their experience on a public forum, then they're a security risk.

OhMeadhbh•59m ago

I guess I could boot a Hackintosh in a VM and try to create an AppleId that way. But I think it will ask me for a phone number again.

OhMeadhbh•57m ago

I tried with a new email address and throw-away public one time use SMS numbers from textrapp.com, esimplus.me, receive-sms.io and 7sim.net. I think Apple knows those are fake numbers.

OhMeadhbh•27m ago

Well... I went through the iforgot.apple.com flow. If the past is any indication, I'll likely have to wait 30 or 90 days to get a response. This just seems... sub-optimal. It's a very strange set of hoops to have candidates jump through.

And sad, too. I think my cover letter was one of the best I've ever written. Now no one will be able to appreciate it but me.

This is not how things were in the old days. Back then we would just show up at a job site and after working for a few weeks go to HR and say "hey. I didn't get a check." And then when HR couldn't find your records, they just assumed they were lost somewhere and helpfully set you up as an employee with information you gave them.

How you have changed, outlaw sili valley.

[Edit] So when I say I have zero iProducts, that's not entirely true. I do have an old 2015 era iMac. But the first thing I did with it was put a new hard drive in it and boot up FreeBSD. And then I installed Linux and installed FreeBSD as a VM under Linux because I have nothing better to do with my time. And somewhere along the way, the L4 got wedged in there.

So I found the old macOS hard drive and installed it. It really did not want to boot. It told me so many horrible things when I tried to boot. The AppleID I'm trying to recover is the same one I used to create a macOS account with. I wonder if apple knows I've installed Linux, FreeBSD and L4/Linux on their hardware and have marked my AppleId as "unholy spawn of Satan" ? I guess if the roles were reversed I might think anyone who installed L4 on Apple Hardware is "not to be trusted." [/Edit]

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