Apple Watch and HomePod owners are reporting that their new devices fail to activate during setup when signing in with iCloud. Many of the complaints landed on Christmas morning, apparently from people unboxing fresh Apple products received as gifts. Apple's own status page confirmed an ongoing problem with iCloud Account and Sign In, noting that some users were affected and may be experiencing trouble with the service.
The disruption appears to stem from the verification step that links a new device to an Apple ID. With activation servers under heavy holiday load, buyers cannot complete pairing, leaving their hardware unusable until the issue is resolved.
What is going wrong with Apple Watch setup
The issue was first reported by MacRumors, whose forums filled with posts about setup failures on both the Apple Watch and the HomePod. Apple's status page still listed the iCloud Account and Sign In problem as ongoing at the time the original report was written.
A forum user posting as BeatCrazy wrote that his new Apple Watch SE units were failing verification during setup. Several other members commented to confirm they were hitting the same wall.
Where the verification breaks down
BeatCrazy said he bought Apple Watch SE GPS + Cellular models for his two children, both under 18, intending to activate them through Family Setup and sharing. He could start pairing from his iPhone and sign in with the kids' existing Apple IDs, but the process stalled when it asked him to enter the passcode of another device.
- Pairing begins normally from the iPhone.
- Sign-in with the Apple ID and password succeeds.
- The process hangs at the prompt to enter another device's passcode.
- The only offered alternative is to reset encrypted data.
In his words, he was reluctant to take that route: he read the reset encrypted data option as an offer to destroy his children's existing Apple ID passwords and data, which he did not consider a good choice. He also acknowledged that Apple's activation servers were probably overloaded on Christmas morning, even as he called the experience unnecessarily frustrating.
HomePod owners hit a similar wall
HomePod users crowded the same MacRumors forums to report that speaker setup was getting stuck on configuring. According to the complaints, the process froze even after repeated resets.
One user posting as alecc131 said the HomePod mini would get stuck on configuring after initial setup and then reset itself after a while. That user noted owning three other HomePods without ever running into the problem before, and concluded the mini was unusable unless a fix arrived.
Both the watch and the speaker complaints point back to the same root cause. For more coverage of the company's hardware and services, see our Apple hub.
Why the failures appear to be happening
Because of these setup issues, some owners cannot use their new purchases until a fix is in place. Apple had not yet responded to the reports, but the pattern suggests an overload of traffic on Apple's servers, with a surge of users starting the verification process after opening their Christmas presents for the first time.
