Buying Android next time
I went to the Tucson Apple store and bought my wife a new iPhone 17 to replace her iPhone SE. The sales guy said he could sync the new phone to the old while we waited. Unfortunately she couldn't remember her Apple password correctly so after a couple of tries, the guy said he could request a PW reset, we would get an email with the code to reset and we could come in the following day and he would complete the transfer. When we got the email all it said was that three days later, at a time of XXX GMT PM, we would get either a text or phone call with further instructions. We called the store and after a lot of hoop jumping, got an "Apple Care" person. She basically said, "I guess you have to wait, my hands are tied." For a tech company, Apple is clueless about time. GMT is 24 hour time and there is no AM or PM but there is a seven hour difference from our local time. Ignoring the useless "PM" we computed the expected time and waited. And waited and waited. Finally we followed the link in the email to iforgot.apple.com. That form asks for a phone number or Apple ID. She put in her number. Then there is a scrambled image code that needs to be entered. A few tries at this and finally she gets, "There is no such account." Back to calling Apple "Support". This time she gets an AI robot. She gives up and I take over after asking for some human help. I might as well have stuck with the AI "guy". (She preferred "him.") I laid out the story from the purchase. He didn't care. When I mentioned email with the bogus time he said he didn't want to talk about emails. Eventually, I figured out that he didn't know anything about the email. I actually questioned him about his knowledge of the email and suggested that he was clueless about them and he changed the subject again. He did tell me that the sales people are non-technical and can't be believed. (I already figured this out.) I don't have all day to discuss this conservation, suffice it to say we were directed back to the website, where despite being offered the option of either using a telephone number or an Apple account number for ID we learned that they really want the Apple ID. After navigating this we learned that now they want another 24 hours to verify our account, after which they will take two or three days more to give us a code to reset our password. In the meantime, we need to keep checking the website, since once they offer the code we only have a limited time to use it. So we wait some more. To summarize: We have nearly $900 "invested" (wasted) in a piece of glass and metal that is half functional. It's now associated with the telephone number, making the old device worthless as a telephone. But the new device is devoid of contacts, messages, photos, etc. so you need to carry the old device to have those things on hand. I understand that Apple is concerned about security but what I don't understand is the difficulty with provisioning a new device with the old device information. If I have in my left hand a functional device, connected to a wireless carrier with my name on the account (that Apple verified) why do I need a password to transfer that info to a new device in my right hand, that Apple just sold me? If I actually need the Apple account for some other purpose I can reset the PW later, the lack of it shouldn't make my new device dysfunctional. It makes no sense to me but then I'm only human.