I guess I could boot a Hackintosh in a VM and try to create an AppleId that way. But I think it will ask me for a phone number again.

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razingeden a day ago | parent [-]

you could do that, but you’ll want to serialize a hackintosh for it to register w. iMessage or iCloud

You can disregard the instructions for generating one [0] and just use the serial of your “Mac that hasn’t been booted since 2015.” I’ve been using one of of a long-dead long-gone G5 and prefer to use a real one from a computer I actually own (or owned).

Or use OpenCore Patcher to boot off of a usb stick and install a more recent version of macOS on your real mac. In this case. iMessage and iCloud should just work because it’ll pick up your genuine serial number.

[0] https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/universal/i...

The likely issue you’re having on an older Mac and an older macOS is that it has an Apple root certificate that’s now expired and unable to register with either of those things. You’re SOL on anything prior to 10.10 Yosemite…. The apple root certs in 10.10 through 10.15 expired in 2019 and the installers for 10.10 through 10.15 were re-distributed by Apple with root certs expiring in 2029 [1] -

(internet recovery should download and reinstall the new updated version with updated root certs if yours shipped with at least 10.10 Yosemite. You have to use the hotkey for internet recovery - not the recovery partition on your HDD)

However….. OpenCore patcher will even let you install Tahoe, which doesn’t have this problem and will even get updates for another …(?) it’s the last Intel version , so whenever Apple says to hell with Intel I guess.

[1] https://tidbits.com/2019/10/28/redownload-archived-macos-ins...

	▲	OhMeadhbh a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I can't find a place where I'm asked for the iMac's serial number. But I probably should have written it down the last time I booted (see the update about me finally being able to boot an old iMac.) I'm going to laugh my a* off if they try to tell me the serial number they have associated with my AppleId is the 20 year old G5 iMac they admitted died due to a design flaw and they were responsible for replacing but then refused to replace because I bought it from a reseller that had since gone out of business. But thx for the references. I probably need to spend a little more time digging through them.
	▲	OhMeadhbh a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Also. You have a WORKING iMac G5? Mine died a couple months after delivery. Apple then refused to replace, repair or refund, even after admitting they were responsible for it under their warranty. This was about the same time I started de-applifying my life. The irony is at the time I was performing a security review of the code that went into the QualComm baseband processor apple used for the original iPhone.