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The actual story states that something unique in the customer's storage was causing an error on Apple's side, yielding downtime. I'm not remotely blaming the c

The actual story states that something unique in the customer's storage was causing an error on Apple's side, yielding downtime. I'm not remotely blaming the customer, but what a nothing-burger this submission is: Apple didn't "shut down" his iCloud account, they met an edge in their implementation that they had to remediate. Obviously customer support should be better and convey more information, but I picture a bunch of engineers frantically trying to deal with something they didn't plan for (cue replies claiming that the perfect programmers of HN would never have such an edge, how is it possible, etc) and things getting lost in translation. I do find the story interesting in that he immediately filed a complaint with the BBB. That seems...risky. It's unfortunate that big corps can do this, but I wouldn't want to be perceived as a "problem" customer doing things like that when big Corps control your online existence.

gigel82 5y ago
So it's their fault because "the dress was too short, and they're asking for it", got it. I find the "Apple can do no evil" answers despicable. You would not accept to have a non-functional service for a couple of months from anyone else either if you'll be honest with it.
- defaultname 5y ago
  Astonishing. And there it is.
- chc 5y ago
  I think the point is that it doesn't sound like Apple did anything to this person. This person apparently ran into a bug and it took Apple's engineers a few days to get a fix out. I do agree, though, that I wouldn't suggest hosting critical files on a service with no SLA like iCloud.
  - simion314 5y ago
    I see a few issues with Apple behavior 1 users had serious issue but it was handled like some low priority, it took a long time to fix too so either was a serious issue or it really was a low priority thing 2 rubbing the shitty TOS in the face of an upset customer is a terrible idea, I stopped giving money to companies that id that to me. 3 Apple did not apologize or offer to compensate for the time the user paid for a service that Apple did not delivered, this is typical Apple where only a judge can make them admit blame and do the right/legal thing.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  Restating what someone said in a way which is deliberately far more outrageous and then arguing with the restatement is dishonest. First off, the article headline: > Apple shut down my iCloud account for five days You: > You would not accept to have a non-functional service for a couple of months from anyone else Is five days acceptable? Probably not, no. Is five days remotely the same as "a couple of months"? No, and you know it, so knock it off. And what people are pointing out is that even though "shut down my account" and "had a maintenance issue that made my account unavailable" obviously have the same effect -- you can't get to your account, and that's bad -- the two phrases carry very different semantic meaning. If I say "my Twitter account isn't working", what you take away from it is going to be very different than if I say "Twitter locked me out of my account". In this article's case, the headline says one thing and the article says another. Nobody is saying it's just fine if you can't get to your iCloud account for five days if Apple screws something up. Nobody is defending Apple's bad communication here. Historically, not even the most enthusiastic Mac fans have ever once said "You know what Apple is great at? Cloud services." What we're saying is criticize them for the right thing.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
> > I'm not remotely blaming the customer, but what a nothing-burger this submission is: Apple didn't "shut down" his iCloud account, they met an edge in their implementation that they had to remediate. Apple acknowledged they were not providing this person with the product the person was paying for, yet (presumably), no refund was offered. > I do find the story interesting in that he immediately filed a complaint with the BBB. That seems...risky. Why do people think BBB matters? I’ve had customers at my businesses threaten to go to the BBB and it affects business not one bit.
- defaultname 5y ago
  I guess. Though I've never seen HN so invested in someone getting a $1.65 refund. Maybe we can setup a GoFundMe or something. As to the BBB, personally I find it to be a worse-than-useless corrupt joke. But running to them, forcing Apple to respond, is the kind of thing that just doesn't have a lot of pull against large companies.
- jjkaczor 5y ago
  Why do people think BBB matters? It's a generational thing - BBB tends to be respected by people who reached maturity before the internet became big. There was no easy way to complain or vent about business back then, so the BBB actually had clout... With businesses that actually paid to be a member... So, still not that useful, even then.
  - mikestew 5y ago
    The BBB never mattered, even if my fellow olde pharts thought it mattered. Note the part where you state that "businesses...paid". What's that phrase folks on HN throw around way too much about who pays, and who the real customer is? BBB was the /dev/null for customer complaints that the businesses paid to cause customers to think they had effective complaint channel. Source: oldster from back when folks naively thought a complaint to the BBB made any difference, and a former owner of a business that was a member of the BBB.
shkkmo 5y ago
I think it is far from a "nothing-burger" but a strong warning not to depend on Apple for business critical cloud sevices because they don't care strongly about or take any responsibility for customer downtime. Issues happen, but it is the response that companies give you that tells you how much they value your business amd how much you should trust them with critical infrastructure.
- sbuk 5y ago
  If you're using iCloud, a consumer service, for business critical operations, you're doing business critical very wrong.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    What makes iCloud a consumer service but iPhones not a consumer product in the same way? Unless they are, in which case we should get out the megaphones and warn all businesses that those expensive phones they're buying can't be relied upon.
    - sbuk 5y ago
      That you can use any one of Box, Google Drive or OneDrive, all of which have enterprise tiers and features for your files answers that question. In term of mail or messaging, Google Workspace and/or Microsoft 365, you knowBoth of which are backed by SLAs. Look at the consumer version, both of which offer paid consumer versions and compare the SLAs...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
> I wouldn't want to be perceived as a "problem" customer doing things like that when big Corps control your online existence. Being a PITA on social media tends to be the only way to reach someone authorized and competent to actually resolve issues. Sure, try to resolve it through normal support channels first, but if you're given the run-around, you want to be a "problem customer". The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
simion314 5y ago
We had bugs at work, but I assure you we do not take days to fix critical issues like a customer can't login and use the stuff he is paying us for. We would never show you a TOS and say to you "sucker you clicked accept, please wait until someone has the time to fix this minor issue for us but important for you). In cases where an issue inconvenienced a customer I know we were compensating them with stuff(like upgrades or discounts).
- msh 5y ago
  How much does each customer pay you every month?
  - simion314 5y ago
    I am just a dev but support has direct access to me, when a customer has a problem that support can't handle the issue is forwarded to me and most of the time I fix the issue. A small company really needs to try to keep each customer. In the past I worked on even smaller company I was doing support and dev , this forced me to automate support related tasks like gathering reports with detailed information, then as dev I could get user reports and fixed. This would not have worked if the application would have been fulled of bugs but it was done in a managed language so there were few bugs and some of them were not the app but the platform.

gigel82 5y ago

So it's their fault because "the dress was too short, and they're asking for it", got it. I find the "Apple can do no evil" answers despicable. You would not accept to have a non-functional service for a couple of months from anyone else either if you'll be honest with it.

defaultname 5y ago
Astonishing. And there it is.
chc 5y ago
I think the point is that it doesn't sound like Apple did anything to this person. This person apparently ran into a bug and it took Apple's engineers a few days to get a fix out. I do agree, though, that I wouldn't suggest hosting critical files on a service with no SLA like iCloud.
- simion314 5y ago
  I see a few issues with Apple behavior 1 users had serious issue but it was handled like some low priority, it took a long time to fix too so either was a serious issue or it really was a low priority thing 2 rubbing the shitty TOS in the face of an upset customer is a terrible idea, I stopped giving money to companies that id that to me. 3 Apple did not apologize or offer to compensate for the time the user paid for a service that Apple did not delivered, this is typical Apple where only a judge can make them admit blame and do the right/legal thing.
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
Restating what someone said in a way which is deliberately far more outrageous and then arguing with the restatement is dishonest. First off, the article headline: > Apple shut down my iCloud account for five days You: > You would not accept to have a non-functional service for a couple of months from anyone else Is five days acceptable? Probably not, no. Is five days remotely the same as "a couple of months"? No, and you know it, so knock it off. And what people are pointing out is that even though "shut down my account" and "had a maintenance issue that made my account unavailable" obviously have the same effect -- you can't get to your account, and that's bad -- the two phrases carry very different semantic meaning. If I say "my Twitter account isn't working", what you take away from it is going to be very different than if I say "Twitter locked me out of my account". In this article's case, the headline says one thing and the article says another. Nobody is saying it's just fine if you can't get to your iCloud account for five days if Apple screws something up. Nobody is defending Apple's bad communication here. Historically, not even the most enthusiastic Mac fans have ever once said "You know what Apple is great at? Cloud services." What we're saying is criticize them for the right thing.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

> > I'm not remotely blaming the customer, but what a nothing-burger this submission is: Apple didn't "shut down" his iCloud account, they met an edge in their implementation that they had to remediate. Apple acknowledged they were not providing this person with the product the person was paying for, yet (presumably), no refund was offered. > I do find the story interesting in that he immediately filed a complaint with the BBB. That seems...risky. Why do people think BBB matters? I’ve had customers at my businesses threaten to go to the BBB and it affects business not one bit.

defaultname 5y ago
I guess. Though I've never seen HN so invested in someone getting a $1.65 refund. Maybe we can setup a GoFundMe or something. As to the BBB, personally I find it to be a worse-than-useless corrupt joke. But running to them, forcing Apple to respond, is the kind of thing that just doesn't have a lot of pull against large companies.
jjkaczor 5y ago
Why do people think BBB matters? It's a generational thing - BBB tends to be respected by people who reached maturity before the internet became big. There was no easy way to complain or vent about business back then, so the BBB actually had clout... With businesses that actually paid to be a member... So, still not that useful, even then.
- mikestew 5y ago
  The BBB never mattered, even if my fellow olde pharts thought it mattered. Note the part where you state that "businesses...paid". What's that phrase folks on HN throw around way too much about who pays, and who the real customer is? BBB was the /dev/null for customer complaints that the businesses paid to cause customers to think they had effective complaint channel. Source: oldster from back when folks naively thought a complaint to the BBB made any difference, and a former owner of a business that was a member of the BBB.

shkkmo 5y ago

I think it is far from a "nothing-burger" but a strong warning not to depend on Apple for business critical cloud sevices because they don't care strongly about or take any responsibility for customer downtime. Issues happen, but it is the response that companies give you that tells you how much they value your business amd how much you should trust them with critical infrastructure.

sbuk 5y ago
If you're using iCloud, a consumer service, for business critical operations, you're doing business critical very wrong.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  What makes iCloud a consumer service but iPhones not a consumer product in the same way? Unless they are, in which case we should get out the megaphones and warn all businesses that those expensive phones they're buying can't be relied upon.
  - sbuk 5y ago
    That you can use any one of Box, Google Drive or OneDrive, all of which have enterprise tiers and features for your files answers that question. In term of mail or messaging, Google Workspace and/or Microsoft 365, you knowBoth of which are backed by SLAs. Look at the consumer version, both of which offer paid consumer versions and compare the SLAs...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

> I wouldn't want to be perceived as a "problem" customer doing things like that when big Corps control your online existence. Being a PITA on social media tends to be the only way to reach someone authorized and competent to actually resolve issues. Sure, try to resolve it through normal support channels first, but if you're given the run-around, you want to be a "problem customer". The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

simion314 5y ago

We had bugs at work, but I assure you we do not take days to fix critical issues like a customer can't login and use the stuff he is paying us for. We would never show you a TOS and say to you "sucker you clicked accept, please wait until someone has the time to fix this minor issue for us but important for you). In cases where an issue inconvenienced a customer I know we were compensating them with stuff(like upgrades or discounts).

msh 5y ago
How much does each customer pay you every month?
- simion314 5y ago
  I am just a dev but support has direct access to me, when a customer has a problem that support can't handle the issue is forwarded to me and most of the time I fix the issue. A small company really needs to try to keep each customer. In the past I worked on even smaller company I was doing support and dev , this forced me to automate support related tasks like gathering reports with detailed information, then as dev I could get user reports and fixed. This would not have worked if the application would have been fulled of bugs but it was done in a managed language so there were few bugs and some of them were not the app but the platform.