A friend gave me an old iPhone in a similar state. Really annoying that it couldn't be wiped and reused. It had a broken screen, so I was just going to use it a

A friend gave me an old iPhone in a similar state. Really annoying that it couldn't be wiped and reused. It had a broken screen, so I was just going to use it as a cheap ipod to play music in the background in my bathroom, but ended up just recycling it for scrap cause it couldn't be unlocked. Edit: people are asking, the old iPhone 5 was left at a yoga center for over a year in the lost and found. nobody claimed it. nothing nefarious. my friend who works there gave it to me to see if i could get into it. nope. e-waste. no way to contact the original owner. ended up buying an iphone 6 with a broken screen off fb marketplace for $10... problem solved. personally, i think they should either have some better mechanism of contacting the original owner or they should have a way to totally wipe the phone after some extended amount of time to get around the theft issue. if someone activates the device again with an icloud account, maybe the device could be restricted until apple contacts you or you provide proof of 'ownership' to the police or something.