Several months back, Apple refurbisher John Bumstead received a batch of about 20 MacBooks from an e-waste recycler. Bumstead, who routinely refurbishes MacBooks that are more than 10 years old, shouldn’t have had a problem salvaging these computers, the oldest of which were from 2018. But only half of them were fully restorable.
Five of the MacBooks were “activation locked,” meaning the prior owner had forgotten to wipe the device and nobody else could reactivate it. Another five had…
