This morning, my wife picked up her iPhone and tried to unlock it1. She couldn’t after a few try2. She tried a few times with a slight variation, but the iPhone refused to unlock itself, now showing a 15-minute delay on the lock screen. Her passcode is a complex one as per corporate security rules. She knows it by heart, she told me. She doesn’t know what to do, and she is in deep doubt now. Eventually, she asked me for help, but I told her I cannot do much about it3.

At first, I thought it was the infamous Apple ID being locked out, but it’s not the case. As a reminder: the passcode used to unlock your iPhone has little to do with your Apple ID. But, when using 2FA, the iPhone is required to get access to the Apple ID and must be unlocked for this to work. Maybe this is why people think they are both linked together. It’s not the case.

As I finish writing this up, my wife tried again to unlock her iPhone and it worked. All is good now. But it’s a reminder that, for most people, security is hard. It’s hard to experience. It’s hard to explain. It’s hard to get over it.

  1. Face ID requires using the passcode to unlock the device after a period of time. ↩︎

  2. She couldn’t tell me how many times she tried. ↩︎

  3. Eventually, without the passcode, an iPhone needs to be fully erased to be able to use it again. It’s a security measure. It’s by design, in case you didn’t know. ↩︎