How To Check If You Bought A New IPhone (activated Or Not)?

Video: How To Check If You Bought A New IPhone (activated Or Not)?

2023 Author: Gordon Kinson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-06-04 23:58

You have been sold an iPhone in a sealed box and the seller assures that it is new. Before you can start using your new Apple smartphone, you need to activate it. The activation procedure involves connecting a smartphone with an inserted SIM card to Apple's activation servers. To do this, you just need to connect to Wi-Fi or use cellular data.

And only after the iPhone owner receives confirmation of activation, he will be able to use his device.

Thus, if, when the smartphone is first turned on, the user immediately goes to the home screen, bypassing the welcome, activation and settings screens, then it has already been used. At the same time, if after the first start-up of the iPhone, the welcome screen appeared, this does not mean that the gadget was not used. The fact is that the screen with the word "Hello" in different languages of the world appears every time the iPhone is reset to factory settings or after the iOS restore procedure on the computer. In other words, even unpacking the sealed box and the appearance of the welcome screen when you turn on the purchased iPhone does not guarantee that the smartphone is new.

Detailed video instruction

How to check if you bought a new iPhone?

Apple has a Service and Support Eligibility section on Apple's website that lets you quickly and effortlessly verify that the iPhone you're purchasing hasn't actually been used before. All the user needs to know to work with the service is the serial number of the device. For activated gadgets, this number can be found in the "Settings", in the "General" section, the menu item "About this device". In the event that the smartphone meets the user with the start-up welcome screen, his serial code can be found by pressing the "i" button in the lower right corner.

In addition, the serial number of the iPhone can be found on a label located on the back of the original box.

So, to test your iPhone, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Check Service and Support Eligibility section of the Apple website.

2. Enter the iPhone serial number in the appropriate field (how to find the serial number), enter the code shown in the picture and click Continue.

ATTENTION:

Your iPhone serial number NEVER contains the letter "O" (uses the number "0" (zero).

3. If, when checking a supposedly new iPhone (or an officially restored (ref, refurbished) Apple), the message "Activate your device" appears, then this really confirms that the smartphone had no history and is really new.

After activation, the Right to Service and Support service will display (perhaps not immediately, but within 24 hours) the estimated expiration date of the Right to Service and Repair, which is determined by adding 365 days to the activation day. In other words, to find out the date of the first activation, subtract exactly 1 year from the calculated date.

NOTE: The data on the Apple server may not change immediately, it usually happens in the interval from 1 minute to 12 hours.

If the activation date that you carried out differs from the one specified in the service "Checking the eligibility for service and support", then you can safely file a claim with the seller - the smartphone was activated earlier, i.e. unfortunately, you are not the first owner of this iPhone.

Video review:

Let's take a real life example. In the post-Soviet space, the sale of gray (illegally imported) activated iPhones under the guise of new ones is often used. How does this happen? New locked (tied to a mobile operator) iPhones are sold, for example, in the United States, at a fairly low price. They are bought by "businessmen" for the purpose of subsequent unlocking (decoupling from the operator) for a fee.

However, often in order to unlock such an iPhone, in most cases its box must be unpacked, software restored and repacked. By and large, this is a new phone (in fact, it was not used), identical to the one purchased from an official reseller, but the date of its first activation will not correspond to the date of activation by the buyer, since it has already been produced earlier. Naturally, the service and support period for such a phone will be less than a year.