A reader asks:
“I got a used iPod touch recently, and everything seems fine except that when I attempt to log into iTunes, the previous owner’s Apple ID pops-up and it requests a password. How can I get rid of this so that I can use my own Apple ID?”
Apple’s iOS devices—including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch lineups—use a security feature called Activation Lock that’s designed to keep anyone else from using your device in case it is lost or stolen. While this is a great anti-theft feature, it can make things very difficult if a device’s former owner is intentionally rehoming it.
If the Find my iPhone/Find my iPod feature was enabled—which is part of the Activation Lock process—Apple stores a device’s serial number along with the Apple ID in their database. Even after a clean restore, the device will register with Apple’s database and see the feature is enabled based on the serial number of the device. An Apple store can bypass this, but they are unlikely to do so unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you own the device. Often, they’ll just turn you away and say they can’t do it.
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