I don’t often write about my personal experiences, but my recent few days with Apple has left me seething.

It’s a combo of trying to reinstall macOS and iCloud sign in issues that has gotten my back up and it has come at a time when I have lost all love for Apple, with this being the final nail in my Apple coffin.

I had decided to sell my Mac, so needed to put a fresh install of macOS on it, it complicated the matter because I was dual booting with Linux, which gave me unusual partitioning – something I am not unfamiliar with.

I created a USB installer for High Sierra and it should have been an easy process of just rebooting to it and wiping everything that is on there. I couldn’t get it to boot, so I booted to a Linux live USB to try and sort out the partitions, however I messed it up and left my Mac with no OS on and just a flashing GRUB screen going no where.

You can only create a Mac OSX/macOS USB installer on a Mac, which at a time when your Mac might be broken is daft. You need a second Mac and it cant be created on Windows or Linux.

My next and final option was to try an Internet Recovery, which looked like it was going ok, albeit a bit slow but it failed after 5 hours. A second attempt worked and I was surprised to see Mountain Lion pop up – perhaps it was the version that originally came with my Mac. This on its own wasn’t an issue, I thought I could simply update to High Sierra, which is where I wanted to get to.

And here lies my next problem. I couldn’t remember my Apple ID password and recovering it was impossible without having an iOS device – because I had turned on two factor authentication. I no longer use or own an iOS device and you can’t turn it off once it’s on.

I managed to borrow someones iOS device and installed the Apple Support app and recovered my password, but the next issue arose. When signing in to iCloud it kept asking for me to input a verification code, but I couldn’t find anywhere to put it.

It turns out Mountain Lion doesn’t support two factor authentication – that requires El Capitan or upwards. A few calls to Apple tech support and they couldn’t get me any further help. Two factor is on and none of my devices support it, therefore I couldn’t even get to the App Store to update my OS.

Finally, Apple tech support decided to send me a direct link to Sierra which I downloaded and installed which got me to Sierra and then allowed two factor authentication and the ability to input it in to my Mac.

Once that was one done, I could access the App Store and update to High Sierra. That was another 4 GB download and a few hours wasted.

This whole experience has left me fuming at how Apple treat its loyal customers and make you jump through hoops to get the simplest of tasks. I have been a Mac user for over 20 years, but I have grown distant from this for a while and this whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.

After all this time, I cannot wait to see the back of Apple. I ditched iOS a few years back and it was the best decision I ever made, now leaving Apple is going to be the second best decision. I no longer want anything to do with them.

My Mac is up for sale and I will be closing my Apple ID.

After hundreds of articles and over 10 years of writing for LowEndMac, this is my final article. This is me signing off.

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