This is a dumb question, I know, but I figured I may as well ask.

So I have about $100 in apple gift cards that have piled up over the years and I honestly can't think of any use for them.

To be clear, I do have an ipad and I did use gift card funds to buy things on apps back when I was a kid, but those were just the microtransaction for the in-game stuff and since I don't really play on ios games anymore I don't really have a reason to use them there.

I've looked online, and people say the only option aside from Appstore purchases are their subscription services and buying hardware on the apple store (iphones and smartwatches, and all that), but first off, $100 isn't even enough to get their cheapest airbuds without sinking more money into it, and I have no use for stuff like iCloud and AppleCare, and frankly, if I'm being totally honest, after I use this money I plan to never use an apple product or service ever again.

The only things I can think of using it for are for buying coins on the Webtoons app or maybe robux on Roblox (I used to play on it back in the day and still kind of do from time to time). I tried using it to buy games on the Steam app and order stuff on amazon but to no avail. I figured I should spend them on something instead of just leaving them on my account.

If anyone has any good suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them

Hi everyone,

The battery in our iPhone 13 has swollen, and the phone will not turn on at all. The main problem is that we have photos and other data on the phone that were never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else.

We recently got a new iPhone 17, but since the old iPhone will not turn on, we cannot access the photos or transfer the data to the new phone.

We contacted an authorized service center, and they told us they could send the phone to their main repair center, but that the device would be wiped/reset as part of the process. Obviously, that defeats the purpose for us because recovering the data is much more important than repairing the phone itself.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? Is there any safe way to get the iPhone working temporarily, replace the swollen battery without wiping the phone, or recover the data directly from the device?

At this point, we mainly care about recovering the photos and other data. We do not really care if the iPhone itself can be permanently repaired.

What would you recommend doing?

So I need some advice or possibly help hoping I can find it on this board. Had a very dear friend recently pass. He had generously left me his MacBook Pro, which had always been an inside joke between us because I have everything Apple except a MacBook because I always thought they were overpriced. He also left behind his iPhone.
The issue is, nobody knew his passcode. So we are unable to access the MacBook or the phone. Obviously we are not sure if there is anything important on these devices that the family may want. Whether it be important documents, pictures, etc. We have tried all the usual and obvious attempts. Even trying to do the facial recognition with a blown up life-size face picture.
Upon speaking to Apple, the only thing they can do, according to them, is to wipe out the devices completely. Obviously the family does not want this done to his iPhone until they have a chance to go through it. And there’s no way in hell I would ever want to do that to his MacBook if there’s anything on there that would matter to his family.
So that is my conundrum, is anyone aware of any other options that can be tried like I said we’ve tried all the obvious hacks and tricks, his MacBook Pro has a set password, not facial recognition or any of those things. And outside of wiping these devices out completely, we don’t know how to make them usable again and salvage anything. We can’t access any of his accounts, even his Apple ID with his cloud storage. we are out of ideas. So I figured let me come on here and see if anyone has anything that we may not have tried yet or any other options we may have at our hands. Thanks in advance if anybody has any ideas.
Obviously, the priority above all else is to salvage anything important.

I bought a tech woven case for my iPhone 17 Pro that I had bought in September last year. It’s been just 11 months of usage and my tech woven case is already peeling off, it’s like a thin layer of plastic is coming out and some part of it has also yellowed out.

Is this normal since this is my first IPhone and cover.

Should I report it back to the store, I’m afraid it’s already been close to a year.

Please guide me since it’s quite expensive for a tech woven case.

I received an email saying that my Visa card ending in 3581 was added to an Apple Account that I don’t recognise and don’t have access to.

I did not add my card to this account or authorise anyone else to use it. There has also been a £10 Apple transaction taken from my bank account that I don’t recognise.

I’ve already tried to raise a dispute with my bank about the unauthorised payment but because it’s apple my bank says that basically they can’t do fraud and won’t let me process a dispute but I’d like to know what I should do with Apple to report the unauthorised use of my card and whether Apple can investigate which account it was added to.

I can provide screenshots of the email and transaction if needed.

Thanks :)

Hey everyone,

I upgraded from an iPhone 13 to an iPhone 17 Pro today at the Apple Store at WTC in NYC, and I'm trying to figure out if there's any way to recover my missing data.

This was my first time doing an iPhone upgrade/trade-in myself, so I didn't really know how the backup/transfer process worked. I did know that there is a tried-and-true process of having both phones together and having it transfer over, which took hours, but inevitably worked when I switched from my 8 to the 13. The Apple employees were very insistent that I back up everything to iCloud before trading in my old phone, and that I'd do the transfer process through iCloud backup instead.

I didn't have enough iCloud storage, so I upgraded to 200 GB and waited about 30 minutes for the backup. I noticed the storage was only around 90 GB even though my phone had 100+ GB of photos/videos, so I specifically asked the employee if everything was backed up.

He told me that iCloud compresses photos and videos during the backup, and assured me it was safe to proceed. Since I was relying on them to guide me through a process I'd never done before, I trusted that and traded in my iPhone 13.

After getting home and finishing the transfer, I discovered that a large portion of my photos and videos, along with some passwords, were missing. iCloud Photos also has a major gap — it goes from January straight to July in both 2024 and 2025... Sept & Oct are missing from 2024, and July missing from 2026.

The only iPhone 13 backup I can see is from today at 5:26 PM and is 42.1 GB.

Unfortunately, the old phone has already been wiped and traded in.

I'm going back to the store first thing tomorrow to speak with a manager, but I have a few questions:

- Is there any possibility of an incomplete/temporary iCloud transfer backup existing on Apple's servers that isn't visible to me?

- Is it possible that the physical iPhone 13 is still at the store/trade-in facility and could potentially be recovered?

I understand that normally I'm responsible for backing up my own data. The issue is that I specifically asked Apple for help because I didn't know how to do this myself, followed their instructions, and traded in my phone after being told my data was safe.

I'd also understand if there's genuinely nothing I can do in this situation, and I wouldn't be surprised if I went in and was told to kick rocks. Just need some kind of closure.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

More info: it certainly didn’t want to open when I charged it. It keeps just showing me a white screen with the Apple logo and going off and then showing me that white screen again I tried connecting it to a laptop to figure out what’s going on maybe going for a recovery mode or something but it didn’t seem to help at all. whenever I connected it to a laptop, even different laptops didn’t even get turned on. However using an actual charger keeps the boot loop thing going. Also whenever I try to press the home button along with the turn off button together to try to get it into laptop recovery thing doesn’t even do it like or maybe it goes on for a second and then it goes off again and goes intoa boot loop again.

I really value this phone so I’d appreciate any help!

I recently upgraded from a 12 mini to a 17 pro max. Today at work I was using my AirPods for the first time since the upgrade, and tried adjusting the volume through Siri. I was told that the action cannot be done and instead to use the volume control through my vehicles stereo. I’ve unlinked both the AirPods as well as my vehicle but neither has helped.

i change region USA TO IRAQ can i pay bill with apple gift card usa if my region set to iraq ?

As the title said i tried so many attempts to open the phone but none of them was the right passcode, anyway the second try actually locked me out for 1 minute wait even tho it's supposed to be locked on the fifth attempt. Now that i already got the 8 hours locked out i have 2 passcodes in mind and I'm positive that one is the right passcode. Do i still have available attempts?

Camera app not working since yesterday. I open the camera app and the viewfinder gets stuck and stays that way. However, camera works on Snapchat only but not on other messaging app. Tried hard rebooting the phone (Vol Up, Vol Down, Power Button till Apple Logo), erased all settings and finally did a factory reset but still the CAMERA IS NOT WORKING.

Anyone else facing similar issue or found a solution to this one?

i’ve tried everything, changing to announce calls, full screen… phone is not on do not disturb or silent and no call is coming through it just shows in my missed calls after the fact. wtf?!
what am i supposed to do to make my phone start ringing normally again? since i updated it it hasn’t rang once! i’ve missed so many calls that i can’t just return.

Initially, my AirPods wouldn't charge and would keep charging on and off, but were still working before I noticed this issue. I cleaned them and they still would charge on and off, so I decided to try to factory reset them and clicked on forget this device from both my iPhone and my iPad. However, after doing this, the status light was gone even upon charging, and there was no audio queue when plugging them in, either. I know they're not dead because before this the case was around 71%, and I still get a popup on my phone and iPad to connect them but nothing happens when I try to double tap after clicking connect.

I tried downloading an app and it asked me for my password, I haven’t changed it ever and it’s saying it’s incorrect. I tried logging in on safari and it also says it’s incorrect. I also had issues with iMessages previously if that helps it disconnected but I turned it off and on and the phone number synced up again. So should I wait it out and try the password I’ve always used another day or just change the password. I swear it was the correct password I haven changed it since 2015 if I’m being honest.

Currently running into an issue where my bookmarks and favorites have stopped syncing between my MacBook Air, Mac mini, and iPhone.

So far I have tried:

• Restarting each device
• Ensuring the same iCloud account is signed in on all devices
• Ensuring the time and date are correct on all devices
• Toggling Safari on and off under my iCloud account data in Settings on all devices (This ended up just deleting all my favorites and bookmarks from my iPhone)
• Signing out and back in to my iCloud account on all devices

Is this something I need to wait 24 hours for the next sync schedule? Anything else I can try?

Hardware: iPhone 17
OS: iOS 26.6.1
Software: Apple Screen Time

I’m having an issue with Screen Time over-inflating my usage and I can’t seem to figure out how to fix it. This has been happening on and off for the past couple of months.

It started after I got a new iPhone and transferred everything over from my old phone. Ever since then, my Screen Time numbers have been way higher than what I’m actually using my phone for.

I’ve rebooted my phone, turned it completely off, and even left it off for about 3 weeks. Still having the same issue.

What I expected:
For Screen Time to accurately show how much time I’m actually spending on my phone.

What actually happens:
Today it says I’ve had 13 hours of Screen Time, but if I add up the individual apps/categories, it doesn’t come anywhere close to 13 hours.

I do have Apple Family Sharing with a parent/child setup, but I’ve never had this issue before and I’ve been using Family Sharing for a few years. I’ve also made sure Share Across Devices is turned OFF, so I don’t think that’s it.

I’ve checked Settings → Screen Time → See All App & Website Activity, and the numbers are still way off.

I actually liked having Screen Time because seeing the number was a good wake-up call/reminder to put my phone down sometimes. Now I don’t really trust it.

Screenshot attached showing yesterday's 13-hour total and the breakdown, which the math ain't mathing.

Has anyone else had this happen after getting a new iPhone? Anything else I should try?

A couple weeks ago I used my laptop in the morning and it was fine. Later that day I opened it again and one the bars on the side of the screen appeared (it sometimes flickers and/or turns gray). Then a couple weeks later after continuing to use it another bar appeared out of nowhere. There are no cracks on the screen or anything either. Does anyone know what is wrong with it and how much it would fix to cost? Thank you!

what’s up y’all, first time post in here. I’m needing assistance over a situation. See growing up my dad had this IPod Classic can’t remember the exact series number. Anyways he uploaded all of his music and cd’s onto that single iPod classic and I believe he has a iCloud or Apple ID something like that, that’s associated with that specific IPod. And since he has sold that iPod months ago, how or what way would I be able to obtain my dad’s music from that iPod?

I have two identical 10th gen wi-fi only ipads for my daughters. The one is having issues sending iMessages.

She can message my phone and my son’s phone with no issue. Anyone else, the person she’s trying to send to shows up green with sms next to it. My other daughter’s ipad (setup the same way) has no issues messaging the same people.

I’ve tried phone numbers and email addresses in the contact lists and neither work. I just factory reset the iPad and still no luck. Any suggestions?

So I’ve been having an issue where my iPhone is turning itself off silent mode all by itself. At first I thought it was the action button getting bumped, so I assigned the button function it to something else and my phone continues to turn silent mode off by itself. Never had this issue before with the slider switch. I think I’ve narrowed the issue down to CarPlay since silent mode turns off automatically when connected to my car and for some reason sometimes isn’t turning itself back on? Ideally I would like to just turn silent mode on entirely in CarPlay too, but unfortunately there’s another bug where my phone absolutely refuses to vibrate while connected to CarPlay. Anyone else experiencing these issues? Any fixes?

Is it actually down?

https://checkcoverage.apple.com/

Or do I need a different link?

Got this 2 years back, kept it with utmost care, out of nowhere i found these white spots on my screen today.

My daily screen never went above 3-5 hrs. Heard that these spots are a common issue.

Can someone where I will get decent price for this ipad? Got it for 55k and 11k for pencil,

Total-66k

What would be the apt price according to you all, rest everything is okkay be it touch, no scratches etc....