Bit of an Apple rant

[Chester11]

I'm not an apple hater, but some of their account related tools make me nuts.

I setup a family sharing account, and created an account for a small gift card my son received. In my mind, his account would a sub account of the family account - and if I set up an account for him, I could setup parental controls on an Ipad he uses, and he would hopefully learn a life lesson on managing "money."

Set him up, loaded the gift card, and thought we were good to go.

Well - we lost the password. No big deal right? Wrong.

Enter the phone number associated with the account (mine - he doesn't have a phone). They want to verify via email also. (He doesn't need email, so I didn't set up his Icloud email). Because I can't verify the code sent via email, I have to use Iforgot. It took 2 days for them to tell me it will be another 13 days before they can send instructions, while they "monitor how the device connects to the apple servers." .

What sense is sending an email verification to the account where the password is lost? Good security I guess. So good I can't use the account.

I want to use more Apple services, like Apple Pay, but something like this, which stops everything dead, gives me pause.

 

[PimTac]

Security is tight and that’s what you want. How old is your son?

The parental controls for Apple are really thorough.

 

[JeffKeryk]

When you are in the Apple Ecosystem, you are pretty locked in. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending...

 

[Chester11]

He is 10. I appreciate the security - which is the only reason I set up an account for him. (Other than his school, Apple is the only company where he has an online account - and I thrashed that around in my head before doing it).

But Apple has at least 45 different ways to verify my identity - including location tracking on multiple devices assigned to the account, and a credit card number.

The fact they rely on email is somewhat strange. If I had access to the icloud email, chances are I would have the password. I feel like I'm missing something in the logic.

 

[tombalas]

You may have trouble getting Apple Pay to work with your 10 year old. It works on my 13 year old's phone, but not my 11 year old - I assume 12 or 13 is the age requirement.

 

[MRC01]

I'll never be an Apple customer because they have such poor customer service.

Back when the iPad first came out, my company got me one. It was the first Apple device I had used since the Apple II in high school decades earlier.

Apple strike 1: you can't use the device unless you create an iTunes account, and you can't do that without giving Apple your credit card number, even if you aren't buying anything, all you want are system updates and free apps. I don't mind giving them my credit card if I'm actually buying something, but not otherwise. It's too much of a security risk.

Apple strike 2: a week after doing this, a fraudulent charge from iTunes shows up on my credit card, proving that I wasn't paranoid in not wanting to give them my card number. This card had never had fraudulent charges before.

Apple strike 3: I call Apple support to remove the charge, and they do. Immediately afterward, iTunes rejects my credit card on file because it's been marked as invalid. Of course the card is not invalid, the only fraudulent charge it ever had came from Apple themselves, and they reversed it! But Apple now refuses to recognize the card since it's been "compromised", ignoring the irony that they themselves are the ones who compromised it! To continue using the device, I have to give them a different credit card. A voice in the back of my mind says, "so they can compromise this card too?" No thanks, I return the iPad and close the iTunes account.

Apple strike 4: Primephonic gives me a coupon code for 6 months of Apple Music. I figure what the heck, I'll try it. But Apple's site fails to recognize the code. No reason given, but maybe I have to create an Apple Music account first. So I do that, which starts a free trial. Coupon code still doesn't work. I call Apple support, they say an account can only have 1 promotion, and the free trial counts as a promotion, so they will not recognize the coupon code. I explain the free trial comes with every new account that is opened, and the only I reason I opened the account before using the coupon was because Apple's own site didn't let me use the coupon before I had an account. Nope, Apple just doesn't care. So they lost my business again.

So yeah, I may be an "Apple hater", but I went into it with an open mind and Apple made me a hater with their poor security and terrible support.

 

[Chester11]

Ok - now I feel stupid. I was missing something in the logic.

Apparently when I signed him into the ipad - it created an Icloud mail account on the device. All I had to do was go on the Ipad and read the email there. Not sure why I didn't think to check this earlier. (I assumed I had not set the account up)

Not sure what would have happened if the Ipad was lost - which I'm sure happens.

My frustration with support was that they kept telling me that if I did not have 2 factor authentication, I had to wait for the Iforgot process. (I had checked 2 factor).

Oh well. Live and learn. (As I tried to explain to support - I created my account before Icloud was a thing - they seemed to think I was some kind of alien being from Mars).

MRC01 - When I first signed up for itunes, they did not require a card. It was a little disconcerting when the started requiring it. (They even asked for a card when I set up my son's account, which was even more concerning). That said, when I had a phone battery issue (can't remember the model, but a lot of people did and the store was packed), they replaced the device out of warranty even though I had purchased a shady refurb via Amazon. Frankly I was shocked. (Maybe I am a fanboy after all).

Tom - yeah, apple pay would be for me. I am intrigued, I just don't like having to lock the phone with a passcode. (Dumb I know). My neighbor has sent me cash to repay me for small purchases and I feel like a dinosaur.

Thanks for listening folks.

 

[MRC01]

... when I had a phone battery issue (can't remember the model, but a lot of people did and the store was packed), they replaced the device out of warranty even though I had purchased a shady refurb via Amazon. Frankly I was shocked. (Maybe I am a fanboy after all).
...

A few years back Apple improved their battery replacement policies after the whole battery performance throttling debacle.

 

[PimTac]

The fact they rely on email is somewhat strange. If I had access to the icloud email, chances are I would have the password. I feel like I'm missing something in the logic.

Apple is doing this to make sure there is a live body on the other end, like those I’m not a robot things.

 

[alarmguy]

Been computing on Windows since 1995, moved into the Apple world around 2019. Never go back.
There isnt a holy grail among any of these huge mega companies but I have never seen such responsive and complete tech support as Apple among them.

Our family is pretty much completely Apple now, heck, I went out shopping the other day and thought to myself, heck, I didnt take my wallet out the entire day of shopping, used my phone to pay for everything, including showing my card to get in my Warehouse Club.

As far as your post, well its just reinforces to me how secure it is for such a huge company. Thank you, all you need to do in the future, which you will is take the security protocols serious and fill out the information in case you lose your password.

I certainly dont want everyone using Apple so always glad to see people who dump them, it helps keep prices in check.

Ps. just read through all the threads, thanks for the update and glad things worked out.

 

[Brybo86]

I use a Mac desktop but cannot stand the insane amount of technical limitations on my wife's iphone.

 

[KrisZ]

My apple account as well as my kids accounts don't have a credit card linked, it is not required, but that choice is not made obvious when setting it up. Sort of like windows 10 tries to make users think they need to create an MS account in order to install the system, but it's not really required.

As far as security, yeah you want to make sure that password is not lost or have another device that at the very least has access to the email.

There is another way to change the password though if you remember device lock pin and it has to be done through a device that's connected to the account. It's in settings, under Apple ID---> Password & Security ---> Change Password. It will ask for the lock pin and from there you can create a new password.

 

[LDM]

As an IT guy at a hospital, we have more problems with iOS devices than anything else. The whole "it just works" thing is the furthest from the truth in an enterprise environment there is. Not to mention all the security problems we have to spend time locking down to prevent those issues. We refuse to even allow OSX devices on anything but the guest network for security reasons. If I had my way, we would ban every Apple device from everything except the guest network period. You couldn't pay me to use Apple's products, just having to support at work them is enough for me to know how terrible they are.

 

[Andrew1972]

As an IT guy at a hospital, we have more problems with iOS devices than anything else. The whole "it just works" thing is the furthest from the truth in an enterprise environment there is. Not to mention all the security problems we have to spend time locking down to prevent those issues. We refuse to even allow OSX devices on anything but the guest network for security reasons. If I had my way, we would ban every Apple device from everything except the guest network period. You couldn't pay me to use Apple's products, just having to support at work them is enough for me to know how terrible they are.

I work at a tech company with 250 Mac Book pro's and we simply don't encounter much issue like you do. Even the Windows developers for Xbox use MacBook Pro with bootcamp installed. That being said we hire people with Apple certs for IT and it seems to get managed well.


Just a different experience with Apple.

 

[OVERKILL]

I work at a tech company with 250 Mac Book pro's and we simply don't encounter much issue like you do. Even the Windows developers for Xbox use MacBook Pro with bootcamp installed. That being said we hire people with Apple certs for IT and it seems to get managed well.


Just a different experience with Apple.

Yup, that mirrors my experience as well. I also work in healthcare in IT and Apple devices are easier to support than Windows ones. I'd also like some details on what MacOS specific security problems that are presenting that don't have a Windows counterpart. Windows 10 is constantly getting security updates (that have to be vetted in case they break something) whereas the Apple patches are far less frequent and the errata are typically reasonably detailed.

 

[Jim K]

Try these Apples.