[limitedsupply]

Not going to try to justify Apple but feel like a piece of info is missing from the post. How did they unlock the phone? Maybe the phone had no auth set up?

In general, it's expected that you should be able to update your own phone number in your iCloud account.

[probably_wrong]

Author here. We do not know for sure how they unlocked it, but the phone was locked with a numerical pin. My guess is that those numbers must have been easy to see on the screen based on the smudges alone. I wanted to ask for more details, but I decided against further traumatizing him with my (as far as he's concerned) pointless geeky questions.

Also, trivia for iPhone users: my brother used to have Face ID set up, but he disabled it because he couldn't figure out how to set up a second face and it was annoying when he needed to share the phone with his wife. So don't do that!

[nraynaud]

Buy pointing a gun at the owner?

[limitedsupply]

It would have been helpful to explain that instead of leaving everyone guessing. Being able to unlock the phone is one of if not the most important detail here.

[sitkack]

https://xkcd.com/538/

Lots of people keep talking about password codes, etc. You should be able to hand over your phone to an attacker and walk away knowing you and your data is safe.

At least don't use biometrics, they will cut off your thumb AND steal your iphone.

[schiffern]

That's fine. The issue is that criminals can use it to lock you out of Find My, etc.

[limitedsupply]

Would you prefer not being able to remove your own old phone from Find My?

There is a lot of disappointment expressed in the comments here but we need level-headed solutions, not just rage against things that are actually useful in 99.9999……% situations.