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I bought my mother an iPad 2 as a gift for her birthday, hoping that it would enable my toddler son to do Facetime with his grandmother.

I tried to walk her through the activation process (over email) by having her download iTunes to her Windows laptop, etc. She managed to do that much, but when the activation process asked her to create an Apple ID and give a credit card number, she refused to proceed.

I can't imagine that she would even buy an app, or music, or a book. I thought the device would be worth it just for mobile Safari, Facetime, and the other built in apps.

Is it possible to activate the device without creating an Apple ID? If not, is it possible to get around the credit-card number field?

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I think you are going to need an iTunes account, but you can get around the need of a credit card. You can follow Apple's support documentation on how to setup an iTunes account without a credit card.

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Awesome. I didn't know that was possible. – wjl Apr 11 '11 at 2:39
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Also, it is possible to set up an account with an iTunes gift card alone. That's the way I have mine set up, and if I want to add to its balance, I purchase another "gift" card. – timothymh Jan 19 '12 at 3:07

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