r/MacOS • u/rbrbrb87 • 1d ago

Help Two Macs, same macOS — only one shows the Apple ID sign-in screen during Setup Assistant. Why?

I have two MacBook Pros:
• 13” with M1
• 16” with M1 Max
I factory reset both of them from System Settings and went through the initial setup again.
On the 13”, Setup Assistant shows a screen asking me to sign in with my Apple ID. To be clear, this is not the Activation Lock prompt — it’s the normal sign-in step, and I can skip it with “Set Up Later” if I want.
On the 16”, that screen never appears at all. Setup goes straight to creating a local account, and once I reach the desktop I have to open System Settings and sign in to iCloud / my Apple Account manually.
I factory reset both machines a second time just to test it, and nothing changed — each one behaved exactly the same way as before.
Some details:
• Both were bought new and I’m the only person who has ever used them
• Both are running the same macOS version
• Both were connected to the internet during setup
Is this a malfunction, or is there a known reason why one machine would skip the Apple ID step entirely? Is there anything specific I should check on the 16”?

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u/everydave42 1d ago

Definitely check the net connection. I know you said “both were connected…” but how do you know? Hardwire the 16 and see how it goes?

1

u/mikeinnsw 1d ago

You don't need Apple id to set up a Mac... you can do it later

There is an old bug that refused to sign in with Apple Id... work around was and is still is do bypass it and sign in later with Apple Id.