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 L4 got wedged in there, because you're not a TRUE power user unless you have L4 running under bhyve under FreeBSD under KVM under linux on hardware the manufacturer would really prefer you just run Mach on. I am wild. I am the wind.
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, mostly that I really should visit an apple support web site. 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."
Or more seriously... I wonder if you don't boot macOS or log into macOS with your AppleId every now and again, you go on the "naughty" or "potentially naughty" list. This whole affair really makes me miss my Atari 520ST.
[/Edit]
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.
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.
almost all of those are blacklisted from banks and email providers, yes.
btw there’s no restriction on creating new Apple accounts under a phone number that’s already associated with one. I’ve lost access to several Apple IDs over the last 20 years w the same phone number.
what there is a restriction on: after creating something like 4 or 5 Apple IDs from the same phone or computer. Apple goes that’s it , this device isn’t allowed to create any more IDs.
you could do that, but you’ll want to serialize a hackintosh for it to register w. iMessage or iCloud
You can disregard the instructions for generating one [0] and just use the serial of your “Mac that hasn’t been booted since 2015.” I’ve been using one of of a long-dead long-gone G5 and prefer to use a real one from a computer I actually own (or owned).
Or use OpenCore Patcher to boot off of a usb stick and install a more recent version of macOS on your real mac. In this case. iMessage and iCloud should just work because it’ll pick up your genuine serial number.
The likely issue you’re having on an older Mac and an older macOS is that it has an Apple root certificate that’s now expired and unable to register with either of those things. You’re SOL on anything prior to 10.10 Yosemite…. The apple root certs in 10.10 through 10.15 expired in 2019 and the installers for 10.10 through 10.15 were re-distributed by Apple with root certs expiring in 2029 [1] -
(internet recovery should download and reinstall the new updated version with updated root certs if yours shipped with at least 10.10 Yosemite. You have to use the hotkey for internet recovery - not the recovery partition on your HDD)
However….. OpenCore patcher will even let you install Tahoe, which doesn’t have this problem and will even get updates for another …(?) it’s the last Intel version , so whenever Apple says to hell with Intel I guess.
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.]
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.
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 L4 got wedged in there, because you're not a TRUE power user unless you have L4 running under bhyve under FreeBSD under KVM under linux on hardware the manufacturer would really prefer you just run Mach on. I am wild. I am the wind.
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, mostly that I really should visit an apple support web site. 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."
Or more seriously... I wonder if you don't boot macOS or log into macOS with your AppleId every now and again, you go on the "naughty" or "potentially naughty" list. This whole affair really makes me miss my Atari 520ST. [/Edit]
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.
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.
almost all of those are blacklisted from banks and email providers, yes.
btw there’s no restriction on creating new Apple accounts under a phone number that’s already associated with one. I’ve lost access to several Apple IDs over the last 20 years w the same phone number.
what there is a restriction on: after creating something like 4 or 5 Apple IDs from the same phone or computer. Apple goes that’s it , this device isn’t allowed to create any more IDs.
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.
you could do that, but you’ll want to serialize a hackintosh for it to register w. iMessage or iCloud
You can disregard the instructions for generating one [0] and just use the serial of your “Mac that hasn’t been booted since 2015.” I’ve been using one of of a long-dead long-gone G5 and prefer to use a real one from a computer I actually own (or owned).
Or use OpenCore Patcher to boot off of a usb stick and install a more recent version of macOS on your real mac. In this case. iMessage and iCloud should just work because it’ll pick up your genuine serial number.
[0] https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/universal/i...
The likely issue you’re having on an older Mac and an older macOS is that it has an Apple root certificate that’s now expired and unable to register with either of those things. You’re SOL on anything prior to 10.10 Yosemite…. The apple root certs in 10.10 through 10.15 expired in 2019 and the installers for 10.10 through 10.15 were re-distributed by Apple with root certs expiring in 2029 [1] -
(internet recovery should download and reinstall the new updated version with updated root certs if yours shipped with at least 10.10 Yosemite. You have to use the hotkey for internet recovery - not the recovery partition on your HDD)
However….. OpenCore patcher will even let you install Tahoe, which doesn’t have this problem and will even get updates for another …(?) it’s the last Intel version , so whenever Apple says to hell with Intel I guess.
[1] https://tidbits.com/2019/10/28/redownload-archived-macos-ins...
Try and deregister your phone number from imessage (there is a place on apple.com to do this)
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."
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.
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.]
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.
Oh wait. You said "call." Does Apple have a support phone number?
support.apple.com