Apple states they require a court order for access to a deceased customer's accounts.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510

But they have accepted an affidavit for small estates
https://saclaw.org/wp-content/...ersonal-property.pdf (again thanks Steve aka HRK!)
accompanied by a death certificate and my driver's license.

This involves a factory reset of my son's iPhone 11Pro followed by a restoration of his data from his iCloud accounts. The 6 digit passcode will be able to be reset as well.

I intend to download his data from the phone to my computer without using iTunes. That said we're still looking at the right way to do this. Suggestions?

As for future use of the phone, we are assuming it is locked to his California provider Spectrum so it will need to be unlocked should my other son want to use it. Again looking for the best means to unlock the iPhone.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bald1,

Just so you clearly understand what may happen...

Some people do not back up their data to iCloud. For example, my in-laws do not back up their photos and videos to iCloud. They don't like their "personal" information in the cloud. Some people may also have too many photos and videos and don't want to pay for upgraded storage limits.

The result is the same: anything that wasn't uploaded to iCloud will be lost when the phone is reset.

Your son may have had his phone to automatically backup to the cloud. Or he may not have.

In any case, there may not be any practical difference, as anything on the phone is lost to you anyway by encryption. But, just wanted you to be aware of the possible outcomes as there is a certain finality to resetting the phone.

Glad it's working for you!

Aeteocles is correct you could end up with just a reset blank phone if he didnt hook it up to the cloud.

Not sure what you can do to get in short of trying normal codes, birthday, important to him dates, maybe something to do with his military service dates, remember if he set the phone to delete after 10 failed attempts poof it's going to be bricked...

If it comes up after charging asking for the 6 number code, won't hurt to try at least his Birth date... once won't hurt anything...

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
In any case, there may not be any practical difference, as anything on the phone is lost to you anyway by encryption.

This is pretty much the bottom line.

He had the phone hooked to the iCloud (we have his account IDs) and set to auto upload (per his IT friends who had recently "scrubbed" his laptop for him) so we aren't worried about the loss of data.

The issues for us are still:
-- how to backup the iPhone to a Win10 desktop without iTunes
-- how to unlock the phone from the Spectrum carrier

These obviously after restoration.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:

The issues for us are still:
-- how to backup the iPhone to a Win10 desktop without iTunes

-- how to unlock the phone from the Spectrum carrier

I can't really help you with the first question, I'm not a Windows user.

Re how to unlock from Spectrum, I use Spectrum mobile service and I can answer that one. There might be two contractual issues:

1. There is no contract for the service plan. This can be terminated at any time. Spectrum does use auto-pay from a credit card, so you'll want to terminate the Spectrum service plan ASAP if it has not already been done, and it would probably be a good idea to lock the credit card, for this and for any other auto-pay accounts that might exist.
   
   
2. The other possible contractual issue is the phone itself. If your son bought the phone from Spectrum on a payment plan, any remaining balance will need to be paid before Spectrum will release the lock. If he owned the phone outright, then Spectrum should release the lock on request, and provide the account number and pin to transfer the phone number to another service provider, if you want to do that.

Preceding is a quick summary, you'll need to contact Spectrum's Customer Service to get those things done.