This has happened twice now.
In March, I went to see Ragtime. Of course I turned off my iPhone at the start of the show. After, when I turned it back on, I found that it had decided to apply a software update. This happened to be the same day that iOS 26.4 was released, which included some security fixes.
To my surprise, in order to unlock my phone, I needed to connect to wi-fi, so it could “activate”. Uhh. Okay. Lincoln Center happened to have a public wi-fi network, so I tried connecting to that.
Then it told me that this iPhone is “Locked to Owner”, and that “Activation Lock prevents anyone who is not the owner from using this iPhone. To unlock this iPhone, enter the Apple Account and password that were used during setup.”
This is a reference to a feature called Activation Lock that I apparently have enabled.
In theory this is cool – if my phone is stolen, I like the idea of making it harder for the thief to get in to my phone. But why does it think my phone was stolen? I was just trying to be a conscientious theater-goer.
I have a problem now – I don’t have my Apple Account password memorized. I use a password manager to store all of my super strong, randomly-generated passwords. And my password manager is on my phone, which is locked.
Then I notice that there is an option to use a “passcode” instead of my Apple Account password. Oh okay great, I know that. I have a passphrase, not a passcode, but okay, let’s try it.
On that screen, I see “To unlock this iPhone, enter the passcode that was previously used on this device.”
What does that mean?
I try my current passphrase. Nope.
I try the passphrase I’m pretty sure I used before my current passphrase. Nope.
I try a passcode I think I might have used a few years ago before switching to a passphrase. Nope.
At this, I see a dialog indicating “Incorrect Passcode” and “A device passcode can no longer be used to activatet his device. The passcode was entered incorrectly too many times”. Oh okay.
So I turned my phone off and went home.
Thankfully I know how to get home from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Thankfully I wasn’t dependent on Apple Pay to tap in to the subway. Thankfully I didn’t need to call a taxi. Thankfully I didn’t need to contact anyone or be contacted by anyone urgently. Thankfully I had a paperback with me.
At home, I pulled up 1Password on my computer, looked up my Apple Account password, and unlocked my iPhone. Then I forgot all about it.
Until it happened again last night while I was seeing Schmigadoon!!
After the show when I turned my phone back on I saw that I had updated to 26.4.1 and I was locked out again.
This experience sucks.
The funny thing is that I love installing updates. There’s no need for them to wait to spring it on me unexpectedly when my phone is off. Just put a little red dot on the Settings app and I’ll happily install the update within hours. 26.4.1 was released like two weeks ago. Why wait until the worst possible moment?
The other funny thing is that 26.4.2 was released yesterday and it has security fixes. But they didn’t update me to that one, for reasons that are not at all clear to me.
I’m seeing another show in the next few weeks – feel free to place bets on whether I learn any lesson from this.