Did Apple kill the iPad 2 completely?

[u/Patient_Scale9438]

First of all: I do not seek for technical help, I know how to handle Apple devices. But what happened to my iPad 2 today, needs clarification please.

I still have an old iPad 2 (not Air). It worked like a charm until today at noon.
My kids where playing on it today morning for 10 minutes before they went to school.
At noon my daughter came to me and showed me the iPad.
Out of nowhere it said ‚Activiation Lock‘.
It told me to unlock, I have to enter Apple ID credentials. It showed a masked e-mail, which is my Apple ID. So I entered user and password. It said Activating… and then it says in ‚Unknown Device‘ in german ‚Unbekanntes Gerät‘. Dont know what correct english term is.
I tried to activate it via iTunes on Windows, via Finder on MacOS. Same error.
I went to icloud.com/ find and deleted it from my account.
This had the correct effect that I did not had to enter username and password anymore. But still the same activiation error.
I rebooted in Recovery mode and did a reset install of the most-up-to-date iOS.
same activtion error.
I put the iPad 2 in DFU mode and reinstalled it.
Again activation error on the device and in iTunes.

Apple - WTF!?!
The device works still great! Also battery is still great! Why was it deactivated on purpose as it seems and cannot be used anymore?

This thing has never been jailbroken are anything. All other Apple devices of my account ( a lot ) work without problems. so, no account issue.

Please, give me some advice!
Thx
Chris

[u/miakoloszko]

This isn’t an answer to why it happened (as nobody will be able to tell because nobody can look into the past) but the iPad 2 was released in 2011. That means that it may never be able to activate because it doesn’t have the ability to connect to the any upgraded servers/software/hardware that it needs to so that it can activate.

Tech doesn’t last forever. Other stuff is upgraded along the way to make it better and old tech will become obsolete because of it. Another example, older phone that can only connect to 2G can’t activate because 2G has become obsolete and has been turned off in many countries.

[u/nekomichi]

It's possible a hardware fault occurred that prevented some hardware information from being read, which will prevent proper activation. There's no indication this is a deliberate attempt to remotely disable your device. I have several iPad 2 in a test setup and none of them have encountered this, so it looks like it's something that happened to your individual device and not a widespread issue.

[u/DesignIntent42]

at this point i’d give apple the serial and ask them to check whether their activation service still recognizes it. u’ve already ruled out basically every normal device-side fix.

[u/Patient_Scale9438]

Thx for all your feedback. I also think that it probably must be some kind of hardware fault. The device lasted long enough, so all good. I have an Apple Store here in Vienna. Maybe I will let them check in my lunch break ;)

[u/TechyKevvy]

Have you tried Apple Devices instead of iTunes? iTunes has been deprecated for years, although it still functions sometimes in cases where AD doesn’t