William Gallagher
Despite a family following Apple's Digital Legacy instructions, a "mistake" meant the company would not unlock a iPhone after the owner died — until media got involved.
Apple's Digital Legacy is supposed to mean that there is a simple transition when a person dies and their family wants access to their data or their device. "We have great sympathy for surviving family members and try to help with requests as much and as quickly as possible," says Apple's support document.
However, according to Massachusetts ABC affiliate station WCVB NewsCenter 5, a Massachusetts family was denied access to their late mother's iPhone.
"When I found [Digital Legacy], I thought it was a great idea so I could set it up and could have kind of a smoother transition," said Roger Goodman, the late woman's son. "The way we triggered the legacy status was submitting a death certificate, submitting the power of attorney that my mom had assigned for me to have control over other documents, and we submitted the actual will, as well."
These are all steps that Apple asks for, but Goodman says the firm originally flat-out refused to unlock the iPhone.
"We cannot reset the phone. Period," Goodman reports Apple customer support saying. "There was no rationale, no reasoning that [they] gave."
The family then tried other ways to reach Apple, including online chats, more calls, and even a visit to an Apple Store. In each case, they were denied access.
Apple ID problem
Reportedly, the issue centers on a repeated error message saying "Apple ID is not valid or not supported." Goodman and his family suspect that their activating the Digital Legacy program effectively deactivated their late mother's Apple ID.
According to WCVB, deactivating her Apple ID meant the device password could not be reset, and the phone would not be wiped. This Activation Lock is intended to prevent stolen devices being easily wiped, and it should be automatically disabled when the Digital Legacy process begins.
"Someone hasn't really thought through the logistics of what happens when someone passes away and what happens when they deactivate Apple IDs like this," Goodman continued. "I don't know what else we could give them to prove it's our phone to use."
"It seems pretty atrocious to me to send that message that if someone passes away their devices are no longer good to be used," he said.
WCVB says that after it reached out Apple, the company contacted Goodman and unlocked the iPhone. Reportedly, Apple said that there was an error on their system, but it did not elaborate. The family is concerned that the issue may span beyond their device.
AppleInsider has reached out to Apple for clarification.
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6 Comments
Sounds like there were some kinks in the system that needed to be worked out. Hopefully this singular incident will help make the process better for other people in the same situation.
Beyond that, there are a few takeaways to be seen.
The Apple support people have hard and fast rules they must follow. They don’t have the authority to make judgment calls involving Apple IDs and device unlocking. It’s strictly “if this then that” at their level. However, most hard and fast rules that involve humans need to have a process in place to escalate to higher levels when line level workers cannot resolve customer issues at theirt level of support. This is especially true with situations like the one in question which involves the death of a family member and a relatively new process. Sorry Apple leadership, but you’re getting paid the big bucks to help resolve the gnarly problems that don’t fit into the “if this then that” category. You can’t make your customer facing workers look like the bad guy for doing their job and not have their back.
Most Apple customers have learned that the media is the universal escalation point when it comes to Apple. If Apple doesn’t inject a second or higher layer of support into handling customer support issues, especially emotionally charged ones like the one here, the media mediator is going to get called in to take up their cause. Apple is an easy target, as is any company that puts forth stringent and inflexible policies with no regard for handling situations that involve human error or mistakes, as was the case here.
In Apple’s defense, statements like "It seems pretty atrocious to me to send that message that if someone passes away their devices are no longer good to be used," he said.” are unwarranted because this was never Apple’s intention nor something that Apple sent at any level as a message. That’s just piling on more emotional baggage. A mistake was made that uncovered a flaw in the process. Quit with the drama.
"Sounds like there were some kinks in the system that needed to be worked out."
Kinks? Nope, it sounds like they didn't test the Legacy feature. Did they create an Apple ID for a fictitious person, load up an iPhone with photos and stuff, add a Legacy contact, and then pretend the Apple ID owner has passed? Evidently not, or this "kink" (essential bug) would have been discovered. I always wait for a dot release or two before moving to a newer MacOS exactly for this reason. My faith in Apple getting it right the first time is on a downward trajectory.
I have used a higher level of Apple Support a few times, Customer Relations. When you reach a 1st tier Support agent you request that your call is escalated to Customer Relations. CR agents are authorized to go above and beyond what lower-tier Support agents can. One even gave me a $250 credit to use on a future purchase of an Apple hardware product because I was highly misinformed about an Apple policy by a 1st tier support agent. I used it back in the 20 aughts to get my first iPad.
Apple support has been declining of late. I was on a text chat with someone and they closed the support chat without warning or asking and before I had resolved the problem with no way to resume it and no support or chat log that I could find. I was not given a ticket number either. At least I got a follow-up survey in which I rated the experience extremely poorly.
This sounds like a terrible experience when it was supposed to have been made easier with the introduction of the Legacy feature.