All subscriptions inevitably turn to shit

Try the “forgot your password” link on his iCloud account. When you go to iCloud.com, there’s a link there for it. There might be some way that you can reset the iCloud account and get in that way. Most of these methods have you verify you own the account like a link in an email or text to the phone or something. Worth a try to see especially since you physically have the phone.

If he left his iPhone with the messages showing on the screen even when locked, you may be lucky and get to send a text to the phone and get a code to reset the iCloud account that way.

Either that or going through Apple may be your best bet since the pics are likely backed up to his Apple’s iCloud. Apple gives everyone free 5GB so surely there’s something there even if he didn’t pay for it or it lapsed after his passing.

I got this idea from the San Bernardino shooters years ago. Apple refused to help the FBI hack into the phone but said they would help if the FBI let the phone back up to iCloud at night like this because it’d be on their servers and technically theirs to comply with.

So it seems this might be some type of legitimate way of getting stuff out of an iPhone like this by Apple’s own admission. I just checked and Apple does have an article on this exact situation and what they can and cannot do https://support.apple.com/en-us/102431

My condolences to you and your family. Good luck getting those pictures.

There’s a decent chance that the iPhone syncs to iCloud each night. It’s a feature Apple kind of snuck onto people and most people don’t change. Photos are one of those things that gets backed up during this time.

Thing is, you need to get it connected to WiFi that it has connected to before and just leave it on the charger, probably best to do this over 48 hours and then try getting in. The backups usually happen at night time.

If you know the WiFi where he lived but can’t access it, you could trick the iPhone into thinking it’s the same WiFi by creating that same WiFi signal name and password and the iPhone will connect to that new hotspot you create with the same instructions. If it’s valuable enough to you, you could buy a router and set it up on yours at home with that information or go cheap and set it up on your phone’s hotspot. If you don’t know that one, any other WiFi network it once connected to should do. It just only works over WiFi at night.

Once that happens, you can try resetting his password on iCloud.com and see if that lets you in. Or see if Apple can help you getting into the iCloud account with his death certificate. I’m not sure on that last part, might need to check into it before asking just to make sure they don’t lock you out of it or something.

You may not even have to do the WiFi trick, it might already have backed up everything already and you can try getting into this iCloud account now and see if the pictures are there. They’re accessible over any web browser on any operating system.

I’m fine with not buying any Sony games if they’re just going to lock them on PlayStation consoles.

Sony hasn’t always had the best track record of standing behind their hardware with devices such as the PS Vita or PS Move. And even more successful projects like the PSVR1, those games aren’t compatible with PSVR2 hardware. So you bought a bunch of games that can only ever be played and dependent on you having old hardware that’s no longer manufactured or supported.

I don’t have faith that my purchases will be as long lasting with PlayStation like they are with Steam where I still have games I bought nearly 20 years ago and work to this day.

I didn’t know that was a thing but makes sense. Do banks have a similar name to it like credit cards have chargeback?

That makes sense on the fees, I had forgotten the fees they get charged for processing plastic.

So this is why some gyms like mine are now doing discounts for using a checking account now. I wondered why that was when I set up my account last year.

I speak only for myself, but I’m not mad at any developers for following with this. I wish they wouldn’t, but I can’t blame them for following the law to protect themselves.

I still think this is bullshit and just going down the slippery slope. The next thing is “this value doesn’t do anything. Now we need a law that actually checks an ID!” And it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Don’t give them an inch on any of this bullshit. And by them, I do mean the governments trying these stupid laws that, at best, waste taxpayer money and valuable time spent on other worthwhile things.

Personal computing is being chipped away and the goal seems clear to force everyone into cloud computing or something similar to it in the very near future.

Both businesses and governments benefit from this move.

Businesses want control over your data and what you can and cannot do. Allowing you to use open source projects causes too much disruption to their business models to continue to allow that. SaaS is a much better model for them to continue to grow and maintain their presence over your choices and wallet and wall you into their garden and this would allow them to do that indefinitely in some cases. Even for gaming companies like Nintendo, it would be best for everyone to only ever use approved hardware. Allowing emulators is a hit to their goals and if a business like Microsoft owns the virtual computer you use, then they can refuse to allow emulators to run on their computers used for cloud computing at Nintendo’s request, whether willingly or by force.

The exception I see to that is a business like Apple that relies heavily on selling you new hardware as often as they can. Just one more device and also ensuring you stay up to date with the latest hardware. I’m not exactly sure how a business like theirs benefits from the reduction of personal computing, but they’re not doing much to fight these advances. Perhaps they see themselves selling us the hardware clients that serve no other purpose than to connect to the virtual computers.

Governments like it because businesses cave to their demands. Damn be the Constitution and other laws that purposely limit their overreach into your life. They just get the company to do it for them and override your freedom to choose. See covid and ICE. Both political spectrums are doing it for different reasons but likely with the same common goal at the end of the line.

Shortages like the RAM and GPU shortage greatly favor this push and causes consumers to view cloud computing in a more favorable light. At least, that’s what they hope for, but it’s difficult to do that when cloud computing and AI are the reason you’re lacking new hardware and it’s not for another more justifiable reason.

It seems inevitable at this point as they keep trying to force it.

Wow, the “premium” edition is now the price it should have been on release.

These companies are nuts thinking these prices are reasonable.

The premium edition is what we would have gotten on release 30 years ago until the next game in the series. Now they expect you to buy the base game, wait for the day 1 update and another update to fix game breaking bugs, pay for the season pass, pay for another season pass because the first one didn’t cover all of the additional DLC…