Summary: A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. Can you help? Email paris AT paris.id.au (and read on for the details). ❤️
Update 14 December 2025: Someone from Executive Relations at Apple says they’re looking into it. I hope this is true. They say they’ll call me back tomorrow, on 15 December 2025. In the mean time, it’s been covered by Daring Fireball, Apple Insider, Michael Tsai, and others, thanks folks! I’ve received 100s of emails of support, and will reply to you all in time, thank you. Finger’s crossed Apple calls back.
Wrote books on Apple software. Bought five figures of gear over decades. Then bought an Apple giftcard, & suddenly permabanned in spite of raising issue with internal contacts.
Look this must really suck for them but god this is some peak leopard-on-face-action. Like yeah, this is the issue with the apple ecosystem; you’re completely at the mercy of one uncaring amoral megacorp. It happening to someone who’s shilled so hard for them, for so long, is a perfect demonstration of this concern.
… This is the problem with the apple ecosystem, though? It isn’t a problem unique to the apple ecosystem (though apple is the worst about tying features and services into a single ID) but you realize you’re doing a whattaboutism in defense of a megacorp right?
The topic here is apple, not google or M$ or samsung or etc, hence why I’m not discussing them. It doesn’t devalue the other companies and their contributions to shitty business practices to not bring them up in every discussion about shitty business practices.
Look this must really suck for them but god this is some peak leopard-on-face-action. Like yeah, this is the issue with the apple ecosystem; you’re completely at the mercy of one uncaring amoral megacorp. It happening to someone who’s shilled so hard for them, for so long, is a perfect demonstration of this concern.
I don’t think this is exclusive to Apple.
Sure, but this article is about apple, hence talking about apple.
I get that. I’m just saying that the sentence “this is the problem with apple ecosystem” isn’t accurate, since all mega corps behave the same.
… This is the problem with the apple ecosystem, though? It isn’t a problem unique to the apple ecosystem (though apple is the worst about tying features and services into a single ID) but you realize you’re doing a whattaboutism in defense of a megacorp right?
The topic here is apple, not google or M$ or samsung or etc, hence why I’m not discussing them. It doesn’t devalue the other companies and their contributions to shitty business practices to not bring them up in every discussion about shitty business practices.