I had an iPhone 15 Pro that stopped connecting to cellular after I returned from an international trip and turned off Airplane Mode. The Cellular settings showed an error indicating there was a problem with the phone. I tried updating it and restoring from a backup, but neither fixed the issue.
I took it to an Apple store, where the staff performed an update and restore. That erased the phone, and afterward it could no longer complete activation. During setup, after connecting to Wi-Fi, it displayed an error similar to "Unable to activate—please update your iPhone," with no option to continue.
The staff told me the antenna or cellular hardware would need a repair costing around $500, so I upgraded to a newer iPhone instead. However, I was then told my old phone could not be accepted as a trade-in because it needed to scan a QR code during the trade-in process. It could scan the code before the restore, but no longer worked well enough to do so afterward.
Several employees had previously told me that the phone could potentially be traded in as long as it could scan the QR code, even though it had no cellular service. I realize the phone might have failed the trade-in inspection anyway, but could Apple offer any credit or compensation since the restore left it unable to complete setup?
5 Answers
It’s difficult to assume the phone would definitely have qualified for trade-in. A broken cellular system or failed diagnostics could have caused it to be rejected after the QR scan anyway. The employees may have meant that scanning the code was only the first step, not a guarantee of acceptance.
There may be a manual trade-in assessment available when the normal scan cannot be completed. A manager can sometimes enter the phone’s condition manually and proceed through the eligibility questions, so it may be worth asking the store whether they can process it that way.
“Soft locked” here appears to mean that the phone was not iCloud-locked; it simply could not activate after being erased. Before the restore, it was still usable apart from cellular service. Afterward, the activation failure prevented access to the rest of the phone, which is why the reset felt like it made the situation worse.
You could also ask whether the store can place the phone into diagnostic mode for the trade-in process. One suggested method is to power it off, wait about a minute, hold both volume buttons, and connect it to power while continuing to hold them. The store should confirm the correct procedure and decide whether the device is eligible.
The cellular baseband or related hardware was probably already failing before the restore. The fact that the phone stopped connecting to cellular immediately after Airplane Mode was disabled points to an existing hardware problem, rather than the restore creating the original fault.
That’s possible. Multiple employees made it sound like the phone could still be accepted if it scanned the QR code, even with the antenna issue, but they may have misunderstood the problem or been referring only to starting the assessment.