Personal Consumer Issues • Any Mac experts out there?

Questions:
Does she need an iCloud email address to use iMessages? I created one for her but now that seems to be causing issues with her Apple ID I keep getting “this ID can’t be verified at this time” messages when I try to sign in and use iMessages.

Is it even possible to text/FaceTime via the computer alone without an iPhone?

Is the Apple store the best place to get help if we really hit a wall, or is there a number we can call? Or Best Buy Geek Squad?

to answer your questions:

1. No, you do not need to use an iCloud email address to create / use an AppleID. You can use any email address, BUT you must then log in with this AppleID (email address) on every apple device you would like to use. I would not use a college email address for this since I assume that's temporary. But don't change this yet - step 1 is getting it working, which brings me to...

2. Regarding FaceTime, yes, it is possible without an iPhone and it should "just work". (We do exactly this with our elderly parents using an iPad). Open FaceTime on her Air and select FaceTime -> Settings from the menu bar. You will see 2 setting that matter: "Apple ID", and "You can be reached for Facetime at". Make sure that the Apple ID is correct - ie the one you set up. Make sure the email address used for the Apple ID is checked in the list next to "You can be reached for Facetime at". Further down that settings panel you will also see, "Start new calls from". Make sure that shows the email address from the Apple ID as well*.

3. If you still can't make it work, yes, the Apple Store "Genius" bar is really good. You need to make an appointment and take the laptop with you. It's free.

Feel free to PM me if you need help.

Good luck!

* I'm keeping it simple here - there are other options but from what you describe, this will get you working.

Thank you! When we open FaceTime, and click on FaceTime in the tab, the only options in the drop down are About FaceTime, Services, Hide, Quit. We can’t see Settings. If we try to log in with the Apple ID and password we set up, this pops up: “An error occurred during activation, please try again.” Then it says: “This Mac can’t connect to iCloud because of a problem with [the email address]. Open iCloud preferences to fix this problem.”

When we open it, it says: Enter the Apple ID password for [this email address]. The password for [this email address] needs to be updated.” There is a Forgot Password link, and an option to type in a password … which isn’t working. When we try, it says “An unknown error occurred.”

Not even sure where to start but greatly appreciate all the advice here. Working my way through it!

Ah. I suspect that's your actual problem: the device is not logged into iCloud. For both iMessage and FaceTime to work, that is a pre-requisite.

If you search for that error string, you will find a number of articles on the apple community website. From my quick reading, it seems there are a lot of suggestions to try but nothing I can see that is definitive (though I didn't look that hard). You could go on iCloud.com and try a password reset from a different device. But for sure I would go to iCloud.com and give it a try.

If that doesn't work then if you have not yet used the account or the device, it might make sense to go through the guided setup again from scratch and create a new Apple ID as part of that process.

Statistics: Posted by meadowrue — Sun Aug 18, 2024 4:58 pm — Replies 15 — Views 984