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Apple users are being locked out of their Apple IDs with no explanation
- 12BMS34STD 2y agoApparently, you are the ones that have been hacked and your people are paying for it
- arthurcolle 3y agoyeah this happened to me yesterday! i can still get in with passkey on my iphone but im dreading needing to go to apple store and tell them that i have been progressively getting logged out of my normal couple apple devices super weird, somethings going on
- peanball 3y agoI had the same thing this morning. Unlock and password reset via another device worked through.
- jen729w 3y agoSame here in AU, this happened to me about 8 hours ago. Standard reset procedure worked. Now when trying to configure a Recovery Key from my 2021 iPad Pro I’m told that I can’t do that from ‘this new device’ of mine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And when I try it from my iPhone I have to wait an hour because of Stolen Device Protection. Apparently I’m not at a ‘familiar location’. I’m at home. I work from home. This phone is in this house for 99% of the time. Not amazing is it.
- throwaway290 3y agoCheck if you have location services -> system services -> significant locations On. If it's disabled then effectively you have no "familiar location" as far as iOS is concerned
- jen729w 3y agoYeah it’s on… always been on. Thanks for the tip tho’.
- mwexler 3y agoI loved Stolen Device Protection when I first heard about it. And now I've wasted hours of my life dealing with it as part of the "Daily Lockout". And tech companies again demonstrate that they are "all about the user" by providing no clarity, acknowledgement, or empathy around the issue. It's depressing. Perhaps this is real talent in tech: to make things seem rather than be, and to build ways to avoid service and accountability unless it leads to max profit. I shouldn't be surprised each time this happens, but optimistically I still am.
- j45 3y agoGoing to an apple store might be an option too with ID, etc.
- mmcnl 3y agoMy other device is locked out too unfortunately.
- a_random_canuck 3y agoI’m betting they’ve turned on some AI “features” for detecting fraud and it’s not working out as well as promised.
- miyuru 3y agosimilar seems to be happening at stripe, their LinkedIn was full of accounts locking out last week.
- southerntofu 3y agoThis is exactly what CloudFlare and Google have been doing for a while. i meet so many tech illiterate people who "can't log in to the internet" because of some discouraging CAPTCHA or because Gmail decided that even though they knew their passwords, a phone number they haven't used in 2 years (and has probably been reallocated to someone else) is a better proof of identity. It's a shame it's even legal to discriminate people's browsers based on shady stats and not actual abuse.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago[flagged]
- southerntofu 3y agoThat's very unlikely. If you talk to anyone working in a public library or a local non-profit assisting elderly/homeless people, you will notice these issues are systemic and not isolated cases. From the cases i would see first hand, nothing would suggest that they had been compromised in any way.
- noname120 3y agoMore likely is that they are behind a CGNAT.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- benreesman 3y ago[flagged]
- SOVIETIC-BOSS88 3y agoOk, now I'm genuinely interested. Can you expand? Especially on the creepy undocumented file properties part?
- benreesman 3y agoObviously we’re guessing. But the “quarantine” semi-visible file mode is a pretty good example IMHO. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68505425/cannot-interact-with-com-apple-quarantined-file-with-mac-terminal https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68505425/cannot-interact...
- hoten 3y agoUh, what? Dicks picks from xcode? Creepy file properties?
- arthur_sav 3y agoCan't tell if this is a bot comment or I just don't understand a word
- benreesman 3y agoI have a growth area around excessive jargon. If you have questions about it, I will do my best to clarify.
- vundercind 3y agoLast I saw you could enable full dtrace. Involved a reboot IIRC, which makes sense. I think the process wasn’t too different from what you do to enable unsigned kexts.
- benreesman 3y agoI’m aware that shoulder surgery that voids the wattrranty can do some stuff (yubai for example). But we pay the markup because it Just Works. Well it doesn’t just workes anymore.
- gigatexal 3y agoAre they being hacked on a massive scale?
- benreesman 3y ago[flagged]
- noduerme 3y agogood reason to use little snitch to block all appĺe ips and any other apps from making unsolicited connections.
- benreesman 3y agoDon’t know why you got downvoted, I tried something similar. Unfortunately “can’t phone home” === break.
- mmcnl 3y agoI don't have a Mac and I'm locked out of my Apple ID too.
- vondur 3y agoHappened to me today. First got the message on my computer that my location was unknown and needed to enter a code from the phone. By the end of it, I had to reset my Apple password. No idea why it happened.
- ImHereToVote 3y agoDidn't someone discover the unpachable NSA backdoors in the M series processors recently? Could be related.
- zikduruqe 3y agoHappened to me last night. I got a push notification on my watch that I needed to update my iCloud password. I thought that this isn't right, so I went to my phone and MacBook. Same thing, those devices said I needed to change my password. So I figured someone has my @iCloud email address and tried to login. I do have hardware keys setup, so wasn't terribly worried. But none the less, I liked my old password and had to change to something else.
- chrisjj 3y ago> figured someone has my @iCloud email address and tried to login. So... anyone with just your iCloud email address can get you locked out?? That's not what I would call secure...
- nottorp 3y agoHmm I used to get kicked out regularly (like 3 times per month) out of my apple login before i enabled 2FA. It completely stopped after. I assumed they were fraudulent login attempts. This does look more like a glitch on their side though...
- speedylight 3y agoConsidering how important an Apple ID is, this is kind of scary to be honest.
- iLoveOncall 3y agoHow important is it exactly? I have had iPhones for more than a decade, and I never leveraged any "feature" of having an Apple ID on any of them. I've never bought an app or spent money on one, and I don't use iCloud, so the Apple ID for me is literally just a gateway to downloading free apps that I can always redownload with another one.
- kemayo 3y agoYou understand that you're an outlier here, right?
- iLoveOncall 3y agoNo I really don't think I am. In fact 98% of the revenue on apps come from free apps.
- FdbkHb 3y agoIf your device is associated with the "Find my Mac" "Find my iPhone" stuff, losing your Apple ID is the same as possibly (only possibly because you can still have user accounts with separate passwords and use the OS, but there will be limitations) bricking your device. You can't even wipe the hard drive and reinstall macOS without access to the associated Apple ID. This is a good measure to dissuade thieves from wanting to steal Apple devices, but it is a terrible measure from the point of view of a user who has lost their ID.
- iLoveOncall 3y agoHmm I have a Mac for work and it doesn't have any Apple ID associated...
- Animats 3y agoApple says there is nothing wrong.[1] When your identity provider has total control over your life, and you signed away your right to sue for damages, this is what happens. [1] https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/ https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/
- cjk2 3y agoI suspect there is nothing wrong as such ie the system is working as intended. The intention is either overzealous or broken. As for not suing them, I suspect that wouldn’t wash if you were deprived of property due to a software issue.
- 1oooqooq 3y agoexactly. they already hit the revenue goals even with shitty quality. it's the only goal that motivates work and in a monopoly it's tied to market size only. what's a few thousand people per month losing all access to their data, if that is not even a blip on their revenue or revenue protections? if you're going to buy a new iphone, you're going to buy a new iphone. it doesn't matter the slightest if you read some nerds complaining something broke one theirs that same week.
- eastbound 3y agoPeople pay in average $1000 every 3 years ($27 per month). So if 1% people choose Android next time, Apple will lose 1% of 2 billion users x $1000 / 3 years = 7 billion dollars per year.
- 1oooqooq 3y agoalready way more than 1% do switch. but if you're close to a monopoly, numbers go up with market size increase. you can lose ((market size Delta) - 1) until your bonus motivated employees have to care.
- leptons 3y agoNot only does the "walled garden" keep you safe, the walls are also too tall to escape it.
- _cenw 3y agoSounds like someone's doing credential stuffing. Apple had quite a few of those "other people can hit my rate limit" problems.
- LAC-Tech 3y agoWhat does it mean to be locked out of your Apple ID? What's it used for?
- happymellon 3y agoYour Apple Id is used for everything Apple related. To set up your iPhone, you have to log into your Apple account. Macs don't care as much. If you use "Log In With Apple" then you'll lose that. And if you've decided to use the terrible Passkeys idea, you're locked out of that too.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LAC-Tech 3y agoSo people can't use their iphones anymore?
- brainchild-adam 3y agoThere seem to be four main use cases: (1) AppStore This is especially relevant on iPhones and iPads where this is the only way to practically access software and updates. (2) iCloud Data sync and backup. Some iPhone/iPad software might insist on this to work. (3) Subscriptions, purchases through Apple Music, software, movies, TV shows, Fitness, etc. (4) ID for other services Using ApplelD to log into other services. Some don't allow for any other way of signing in.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cjk2 3y agoNot sure if it’s a valid data point or not. I manage 7 people’s Apple ID accounts. This has happened a few times including twice last night but only on the people who use the @icloud.com as their primary email address. Assume that is related to password guessing attacks. Both addresses are in public email leak databases. Can only advise that you should have recovery contacts and a recovery key set up in case something goes wrong.
- throwaway290 3y ago> If you lose your recovery key and can't access your devices, Apple won't be able to help you regain access to your account or your data. Seems like a dangerous advice for a regular person who can just go to Apple and get stuff back?
- cjk2 3y agoQuite possibly. But it’s roll dice and hope Apple will fix it or guaranteed have a way out. Regular person can’t even remember their email address so a good point though.
- throwaway290 3y agoCan you disable recovery key later? I ask because Apple's docs helpfully say > If you decide to stop using a recovery key, follow the steps above on your device and turn off recovery key. When you do, you can use account recovery to regain access to your Apple ID. But the "steps above" only describe how to turn it on, not off. Edit: thank you.
- cjk2 3y agoThere is an option to disable it but I’ve never tried it. So I assume yes.
- quitit 3y agoI’d say your guess is right - the accounts typically get locked because hacking groups are running attacks on lists of email addresses. The email addresses ending in @icloud.com are scraped from a master list and the attack is directed to apple, while the custom domains are ignored because there is work involved in figuring out where those are hosted. iCloud lets the user generate secondary email addresses, it’s better to use that and keep the login email address secret.
- vbezhenar 3y agoI'm using my own domain for e-mail, but obviously I need another e-mail for registrar, hoster, etc. I used to use gmail for that, but recently switched to icloud as I thought gmail is too dangerous with Google banning people around. Seems Apple's no better. I have no idea how to untangle this dependency chain. I'm using registrar in my country, so if everything goes wrong, I can just contact them with my ID and hopefully fix things up, but I'd prefer to have 100% reliable e-mail in the first place.
- ricardbejarano 3y agoI do this with ProtonMail, that's my root email. Not for any particular security reason. It's just another email provider.
- cjk2 3y agoThe only thing you need to own is your primary email address and as long as that’s on a domain you own then you can move it. That’s about the only independence there is these days. If you use @icloud.com or @gmail.com for everything then you’re screwed. You have to depend on someone somewhere. Just make that dependency less of an issue should anything show stopping happen. Personally I’d like to see some legislation around identity providers and service levels and account retention.
- mdavidn 3y agoI think vbezhenar's point was simply that the recovery e-mail at a registrar should not depend on a domain managed by that same registrar. The registrar can update MX records.
- zeofig 3y ago[flagged]
- tempodox 3y agoBut since you need it for the AppStores and your subscriptions, Apple has an interest in keeping it functional.
- zamalek 3y ago> Apple has an interest in keeping it functional. For the majority of users.
- chrisjj 3y agoUntrue. "Their" = belonging to /or associated with/.
- zeofig 3y agoCan you infer in which sense I was using it?
- tempodox 3y agoScary indeed. I tried it just now, after I saw the headline, and I could log into iCloud. But then, I have 2FA activated on my account and Safari uses Sign in with Apple to log in. Or maybe whatever problem it was has been fixed by now.
- dsego 3y agoThe thing that scared me recently was two updates that gave me new encryption keys. At first I trusted apple and wrote down the new key. But I became suspicious after the second update and checked online. It seems like it's happening to others, so I used the recommended command-line tool to verify my new encryption key and it didn't verify. Apparently it works after disabling and enabling encryption, but I'm just keeping it disabled for now.
- adastra22 3y agoThis also spooked me. I’m a former security professional—there are few good reasons Apple should be doing this, and it smells of a targeted attack. If I had a zero-day exploit to steal your data, this is what it would look like. In the other hand, if Apple suddenly found out that a good chunk of encrypted volumes weren’t actually encrypted / the key was recoverable by an offline attacker, this would also explain the facts. But the lack of explanation from Apple is troubling.
- fuomag9 3y agoYeah, I’m one of the people affected by this and it has happened to me on multiple machines on multiple updates and I have no idea what’s happening. Of course the keys do not actually work like for everyone else, which is even worse from a consumer UX standpoint (if I didn’t knew better I’d just throw away the old key…)
- adastra22 3y agoIt's on my todo list to backup and wipe that machine at some point. It's a desktop machine, not a laptop, and I don't save the recovery key to my iCloud, so I don't see how this could be a security threat. But something smells fishy.
- walterbell 3y ago> updates that gave me new encryption keys On iOS or macOS? Was a consent dialog presented before the update was installed?
- HaZeust 3y agoTo this day, I still get random "Enter your password to continue using iCloud" push notifications on my iPhone with no relevant action to trigger such a notification. My Apple ID uses a unique password, I keep a recovery key, I don't have its login credentials saved anywhere, and it's a dev account; so I have my LLC's DUNS number attached to it. My devices are the only ones listed in my settings portal. I have no idea why I get these notifications, lol.
- coldtea 3y ago>I have no idea why I get these notifications, lol Perhaps so that someone who found your iphone unlocked can't just keep using it and your iCloud in perpetuity?
- jamescontrol 3y agoI think he means, what causes apple to trigger those notifications. I don’t remember ever seeing that prompt, at least not without myself doing some action to trigger it.
- coldtea 3y ago>I think he means, what causes apple to trigger those notifications Yeah, that's what I tried to guess too. Like, maybe those are sent periodically? Could be there's some heuristics like "logged in from a different city" or such, too.
- ratg13 3y agoPerhaps you are connecting from a VPN or endpoint that known bad actors have also used in previous attacks (university network, guest network). Or a device on your network is or was compromised and used as a channel to attack others on the internet. Or your ISP has given you a public address where the last owner was abusing it.. or perhaps the whole ISP block has been added to a shitlist.
- garyrob 3y agoI got that prompt on all my apple devices a couple days ago. I just clicked Cancel on every one. The prompts stopped coming and everything seems to still work. I don't know whether there will be some ongoing problem with my AppleID that I'm not aware of yet, but so far so good.
- newrotik 3y agoOnly tangentially related, but I have been trying to enroll for Apple's developer program for almost 3 months now. Understanding what the problem is is essentially impossible. Going to a physical store doesn't help, calling their customer service has them telling you to go to www.apple.com/support (???), and writing for support has them rotate you through 4 different, and decreasingly useful, representatives. The last response I got I was told the issue had to be handled by yet a different representative and it would take an "indefinite amount of time". Which may be a nice way of them saying it's never going to happen. It really is demoralizing when you realize there is nothing you can do really, even in cases when you have done nothing wrong. Not impressed to say the least.
- adastra22 3y agoI had similar issues, and I wish I could remember what solved it. It was something stupidly dumb like I had to log out and log back in on my phone or something. There have a couple of different edge case bugs that prevent people from signing up, and Apple customer support is useless on this.
- brailsafe 3y agoSame here. It was something trivial with the form that I fussed around with until it worked, or maybe I didn't have iCloud enabled at all and the form didn't alert me about it.
- sammy2255 3y agoRegister yourself as a company
- nativeit 3y agoThis requires a Dun & Bradstreet DUNS ID number, which isn’t the most difficult thing in the world to obtain, but also isn’t trivial, especially if you don’t actually have any formal business documents.
- 3y ago
- goodburb 3y agoCouldn't see older photos/videos in the Photo app. Reminder for any iOS user that needs instant iCloud Photos backups (instead of manual monthly), get a Mac Mini, enable the Photos app, disable optimize for storage and keep it on to keep your memories safe. Always check the recently deleted folder on the Mac every month since iCloud by design is a two-way sync and not a backup, unlike most clouds that are one-way upload (doesn't touch your local files). Cold storage backup every month using the photos on the Mac should be easier as well.
- FBISurveillance 3y agoAdding to that, also suggest having a self-hosted Immich on a home server.
- mmcnl 3y agoOr use iCloud Photos Downloader once in a while: https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_downloader https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do...
- cjk2 3y agoYeah this. I keep a weekly time machine and quarterly "copy everything to an SSD without time machine" backup in place.
- sambazi 3y agoan old linux laptop with a ubus-rule to rsync DCIM-folder upon device-uid connection would also work and not be dependent on apple products
- radicality 3y agoThat’s part of the reason I always opt for the highest possible storage on my main MacBook whenever upgrading - to set Optimize=off for Photos and iCloud. Last upgrade was the 8TB M1. And then I connect that to a local NAS Time Machine backup every few days.
- gerdemb 3y agoWhile that might be Apple's "official" solution, there's a major caveat: the Photos app doesn't support storing the Photos library on a networked disk. This forces you to either fit your entire library on your Mac's internal storage or use a directly connected external disk with no network involved. To overcome this limitation, I developed a MacOS app that creates a full backup of your Photos library. You can safely store this backup on any external storage like a NAS, network drive, internal disk, or external disk. Check it out here: https://ibeni.net https://ibeni.net Compared to the "iCloud Photos Downloader," which scrapes data from iCloud, my app uses the official Apple Photokit APIs to back up your photos. This method is more reliable and efficient.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- holoduke 3y agoIn the future you have people living in excile because the conputer says no. Nobody understands why. Nobody knows how to fix it. The computer says no. Nobody gives a damn. You have no access to a bank account. No access to find a job. No access to get health care etc
- initplus 3y agoIn the future? This is almost certainly already the case.
- TheRoque 3y agoI suggest people to watch "I, Daniel Blake" who talks about malfunctioning administrative systems, and nobody caring about it. I'm aware it's not related to credential issues, but I see it as the same: you have an issue that's related to an edge case, and nobody gives a damn about it, nobody takes the responsibility to look and see what's wrong about it
- robocat 3y agoComputers don't make mistakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFmPFLIH5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFmPFLIH5s
- chrisjj 3y agoThe only protection is to subvert the system by using a false ID in the first place. Ultimate irony.
- blackeyeblitzar 3y agoOne frustrating thing about Apple is that if you try to get help, there isn’t really any way to do it. There isn’t any way to open a real support ticket that will be seen by an engineering team there. The store staff can only do basic things. And if you go to their forums, you will get bot-like responses telling you to follow some useless generic steps that do nothing for your specific problem, or weird replies justifying some obviously incorrect thing with an Apple product like asking why you would even want to do whatever you’re trying to do. I am not even sure who those people are that troll those Apple forums and serve as Apple apologists - like if they are employees of Apple or random users - but they are completely useless and basically deter anyone from seeking help in the first place. It is staggering that a company this big has nonexistent support and I think given the decline in their quality over the years, this will become a bigger and bigger problem. Unfortunately for most people the alternative is Windows, where Microsoft is abusing their monopolistic market power to shove ads and their services everyhwere. We really need new antitrust laws to break up these companies and support fair competition, and we also need regulations to reign in the biggest technology companies.
- int_19h 3y agoFor a non-business user, the situation with support (or rather lack thereof) is pretty much the same across Microsoft/Google/Apple. It's amazing that this is even legal, especially when it comes to account suspension/recovery.
- throwaway290 3y agoCan't you go to an Apple Store? Every time I see some customers seem to have a problem around Apple ID and such and staff helping. The opposite of Google, Microsoft etc. And there is a recovery process for Apple ID if you don't use a recovery key (and I guess if you have some government ID or such).
- SSLy 3y agoNearest is 600 km away.
- quitit 3y agoAs a tip: use your AppleID to generate a secondary email that you use for your day to day email, while keeping the login email secret. The problem stems from nefarious groups getting a hold of email addresses and running distributed dictionary attacks. Apple’s response is to prevent all logins (including valid ones) from accounts that are under attack. Unlocking the account involves calling Apple, they’re not going to tell you why the account was locked.
- kmlx 3y agoi also did this: created an email address that i use exclusively on apple. it actually wasn’t hard at all. zero issues since. > The problem stems from nefarious groups getting a hold of email addresses and running distributed dictionary attacks. years back my email was leaked by a website that i never visited. apparently someone signed up using my email address and the website never verified the email. in the meantime more and more people used the same email address [0] to signup everywhere (it’s not the same person, i checked). [0] gmail ignores dots in usernames: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en#:~:text=Adding%20dots%20doesn't%20change,own%20johnsmith%40gmail.com https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en#:~:text.... at this point my emails should be random hashes@random hash domain
- quitit 3y agoAnother tip is to run a custom domain for email that just serves to redirect mail to your real email address. It's is a handy way of keeping track of how and who has leaked your information. For example I give custom email addresses to every service I sign up for, then I can see who they on-sold that information to, or if the email address turns up in database hack. The only thing to be mindful about with this approach is to choose a service that gives you a fair bit of control over how to manage that incoming email. Such as being able to bounce or block specific email addresses including the use of wildcards, because I notice some hacking groups will try permutations based on the original email address.
- everybodyknows 3y ago> gmail ignores dots in usernames Does account sign-in also ignore dots? If not, if sign-in is sensitive, there's a path to somewhat better safety: Start incrementally moving all daily email to variants containing added dot characters.
- notemaker 3y agoWith risk of being spammy, this is probably the most relevant discussion I've seen so far on HN w.r.t my experience of being locked out from my Apple ID. I hope legislation will force Apple to step up and be more transparent / helpful. https://skogsbrus.xyz/dont-put-all-your-apples-in-one-basket/ https://skogsbrus.xyz/dont-put-all-your-apples-in-one-basket...
- 1oooqooq 3y ago[flagged]
- phantomathkg 3y agoI would expand to cover not only Apple, but Google and Microsoft.
- 1970-01-01 3y agoYou don't have a requirement to have an email account to login to Windows. MS is pushing it hard, (deceptive trend in big software) but the user can still push back.
- antiframe 3y agoI don't know if its still true today, but last time I setup a macOS machine (2020), it didn't require, but pushed, an Apple ID. My Pixel phone I setup this February also didn't require, but pushed, a Google account. I think iOS did require an AppleID, though.
- int_19h 3y agomacOS doesn't require Apple ID, although you wouldn't be able to use the app store without it (but pretty much everything worth installing is available as direct downloads anyway). This is similar to the current state of affairs with Win11, except that the latter very aggressively pushes you to use your online email/password as Windows login, whereas macOS insists on having a local account even if you do also set up Apple ID.
- anmdi 3y ago[flagged]
- cpa 3y agoNot exactly what's outlined in the article, but earlier this week I encountered an issue where I couldn't log into my laptop despite entering the correct password (it kept showing 'wrong password' errors). I managed to reset the password using the recovery feature through my Apple ID, but it was still unsettling.
- hgyjnbdet 3y agoI can only imagine the uproar if this was happening to the users of any other company. But it's pretty muted here with a lot of consideration given for apple rather hostility. Nice to see.
- CodesInChaos 3y agoOther big identity providers suck too. For example, google attempts to extort a phone number by randomly locking me out of one of my accounts.
- kmlx 3y agoi switched to passkeys on google and now i no longer need to input codes or passwords. there are caveats to passkeys thou.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 3y agoRemember when you didn't need any fucking online account to use your computer? Pepperidge farm remembers.
- endgame 3y agoLinux is still here.
- tkiolp4 3y agoProblem is hardware. I don’t like macos nor Apple, but their laptops are the best hardware out there.
- randunel 3y agoI see this repeated over and over, but there's no proof that "apple hardware" is better than any combination of every possible hardware out there, it's just fanboyism. Anecdotes of bad hardware are everywhere, given that the majority of hardware are cheaper thus more prevalent. But a comparison of all possible hardware with the same price points? Not feasible, so it's all just feels.
- verandaguy 3y agoI'll preface this by saying that this is not a defence of Apple's SSO issues as outlined in this article; but I think I can bring some quantifiable points to this discussion. Anecdotally, after over a decade of professional computer use: - No laptop as light as an MBP that I've been exposed to comes close to the weight-to-stiffness ratio of that case - No laptop out there has a trackpad that feels anywhere close to the MBP, that I've seen. It's a combination of palm rejection, latency, fineness of controls, and correct handling of multi-fingered gestures, with the actual glass of the trackpad being nice too. - Most other laptops out there don't ship with as good a display. Granted, the MBP displays aren't P3 calibrated or anything, but the colour reproduction is great, and the HiDPI clarity is excellent. Font rendering in particular is outstanding. That's just to name a few headline features. Is it possible to buy/build a laptop with those similar qualities? Hard to say. Trackpad drivers in particular tend to be tricky, and Windows precision drivers are the closest I've seen to Apple's trackpad feel, but those will typically fall apart on material feel. I doubt that you'd be able to make or buy a daily driver that feels as good while spending a reasonable amount of money, and you'd likely spend a good amount of time sourcing parts. I've had the opportunity to use three other laptop types during my career: two reasonably recent (at the time I had them) Lenovo Thinkpads, a Framework (briefly), and a recentish Dell Latitude. The Thinkpads stand out, but fall short on the display and trackpad points; otherwise they had a reasonably rigid keyboard compared to the MBP. The Framework was fine, honestly. The modularity is excellent, but the deck flex on the first-gen model was way more than I'm used to, and the display colours were deeply meh. The Latitude was bulky, but I mitigated that and other issues by just running it closed-lid and plugging it into a display, mouse, and keyboard.
- dijit 3y agocould be somewhat related, last week I had a successful login for my Apple ID from a location I didn't recognise (somewhere in central asia). I noticed because I got a prompt on my phone, which requested I allow (or disallow) the access. Since I'm pretty good about password hygiene and security, I of course changed my password immediately and force-signed out all my devices. That being said: if someone has a password list and is using a bot to scan them all; Apple will of course lock-out sign-in attempts. Not to say what they're doing is right, there's better ways to handle it. But if I were to apply very recent anecdotal data to this even then this is a meaningful conclusion I could draw.
- Ylpertnodi 3y ago>But if I were to apply very recent anecdotal data to this even then this is a meaningful conclusion I could draw. That being.....?
- dijit 3y agothat an account database is being brute force checked with various leaked passwords, and accounts that are being brute forced are being locked. Its a common problem that can cause denial of service to users, but failure to do anything can lead to account compromise.
- chrisjj 3y agoCan cause? Will cause, surely. > failure to do anything can lead to account compromise. Only on negligently managed accounts, right?
- chrisjj 3y ago> if someone has a password list and is using a bot to scan them all; Apple will of course lock-out sign-in attempts. Of course?? That would be insane. Password-guessing bots are all over the place. Apple should not allow them to cause lockouts.
- 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dinckelman 3y agoSo i'm not the only one, huh. Got myself an iPhone, downloaded 2 apps, went to bed, woke up to a complete lockout. They unblocked me through a phone support request, after 18 hours, and then hit me with a fresh ban, not even 24 hours later. Account got permabanned after like 5 more calls, where they just started sending me a legal notice instead. The fact that your device can become a complete brick, because of an issue in their completely hands-off account management system, smells like a class action suit
- luckylettuce 3y agoThis is scary…
- Nextgrid 3y agoWhat did the legal notice say?
- dinckelman 3y agoNothing. It’s just a link to the generic legal notice on apple.com
- Handprint4469 3y agoI bought an iPhone a couple of days ago, and was planning on using the weekend to finally migrate from my old Android phone. Luckily, I haven't even opened the box so I should be able to return it for a full refund. No way I'm spending over $1000 for this kind of experience.
- cal85 3y agoApple lets you return anything, opened and used, within 14 days.
- PedroBatista 3y agoApple doesn’t really “let”, the law demands.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- switch007 3y agoI'm so glad I recently made the decision to leave the Apple ecosystem. I'm fed up paying a large premium for a lot of expensive marketing. Apple HomeKit has completely busted for me. I've done hard resets of all TVs + HomePods 4 times, tried 5GHz and 2.2GHz....no difference. It's Apple's problem - clearly with either their latest OS versions and/or their cloud. I just had to replace a TV remote that didn't even last a year. Anyone want to buy a MBP, iPhone 8, iPhone 12, iPad, 5 HomePods and an Apple TV...? :)
- heyoni 3y agoSometimes HomeKit will pick the lowest power device to be the hub causing everything to stop working. The only fix is to find out which device that is and power cycle it.
- switch007 3y agoYup, have read that useless advice a lot. Did you read that I did 4 hard resets of all HomeKit devices? Of course multiple reboots too Even if that were the cause of many issues, it seems like a really simple fix to adjust the selection algorithm. So why haven't Apple done it?
- user3939382 3y agoMy phone was spontaneously logged out of iMessage yesterday which has never happened before.
- j16sdiz 3y agoFrom the anti fraud pov, giving explaination is "tipping". From user pov, this is frustrating. I can't see how this can be solved.
- api 3y agoIt’s happened with Google too. The use of these huge companies as ID providers is not a great idea, especially given that they practically have no tech support. Apple will let you talk to a human I guess but you have to make an appointment. Google I have no idea.
- barlog 3y agoStrangely, I don't see this in Japan? Any Japanese users out there?
- ThinkBeat 3y agoI was thinking about something related yesterday. It is amazing how "big social silos "Google", "Facebook"
- ThinkBeat 3y agoI was thinking about something related yesterday. It is amazing how big "Internet Silos" Google, Facebook, etc provide close to no customer support services and that we "users" have accepted this. Getting cut off from one of these places can have a huge impact on people. They happen without warning and often without explanation. I think they ought to be forced to be more open around the process and how to get help in general. For Apple I have usually managed to get a hold of some support. Often not helpful but at least somebody. With Google and Facebook I have never been able to find anyone. Sameting that is demonstrated on this site frequently when someone will post a plea for someone who knows people at Google who they can't contact on their behalf. Since they can't get hold of anyone themselves. (Yes I am sure its covered in the EULA several times that there is close to no support) (For Google Workplace it is usually possible to get a hold of someone.)
- rchaud 3y ago> Google, Facebook, etc provide close to no customer support services and that we "users" have accepted this. This is why I've always rejected the concept of vendor "ecosystems" and cloud-first SaaS solutions for my personal computing. I've also designed my life so it's not dependent on having uninterrupted access to Facebook or Gmail.
- lelanthran 3y ago> I was thinking about something related yesterday. It is amazing how big "Internet Silos" Google, Facebook, etc provide close to no customer support services and that we "users" have accepted this. That's because you aren't the "customer", you're the product. The people paying the bills for Google and Facebook are the actual customers. With Apple it's supposed to work differently - the user is the customer.
- Freedom2 3y agoThat doesn't really make sense as I pay for GCP and Google Enterprise. They specifically refer to me as a customer and in a roundabout way I pay for their bills. Your statement, while a neat adage, doesn't reflect the complexity of it all.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- amadeuspagel 3y agoI'm guessing this is due to Apple's paranoia that someone might get an Apple ID and use iMessage without buying an Apple device.
- wepple 3y agoAdditional datapoint: my account just got locked, was forced to change password. I use a gmail email as my login
- someonehere 3y agoI feel like these random behind the scenes issues happen a month or two before WWDC to give Apple the foundation they need to announce new services. I had read Apple is switching the name AppleID to be Apple Account or something similar at WWDC. Me thinks they are quietly pushing code that somehow is causing this for people. Maybe it’s an age of account issue or some other commonality. I signed up for an at me account twenty years ago and still use that as my living and haven’t had issues. Maybe icloud.com users?
- sjackso 3y agoAs a datapoint, yesterday's lockout affected my Apple ID that is based on a ~25-year-old mac.com address.
- LeoPanthera 3y agoAs another datapoint, my account is equally old, also mac.com, and I have not been affected.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoTangential business idea: insurance against getting locked out of your Google, Apple or Microsoft account.
- accrual 3y agoHow could it work? It would seem the business would need to have some agreement or side channel with Google/Apple/Microsoft to bypass the issue. Something like "we will pay you $Amount/year to let us reset any agreed upon account". Then collect a monthly fee from the users to subsidize the expense.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoInsurance, not fixing service. They'd collect enough data on signing the policy to be able to independently verify your ownership of the account, and in case the account gets locked in the future, you'll get an insurance payout to help you cope with the damage. Not that different from order kinds of property insurance.
- accrual 3y agoAh that makes sense, thanks for clarifying. It would be cool though - subsidize for some dedicated account "unlock/fix/repair" team at $CORP. They get paid a bunch to sit around and wait for incoming tickets, then actually help out versus stonewalling the user like Google does.
- amelius 3y agoIt could work like this. You pay a monthly fee. When you are locked out, then the insurance will cover the legal expenses.
- chiefgeek 3y agoHappened to me while on holiday in Costa Rica. Was able to reset PW this morning, thank goodness.
- JattMannu 3y ago[dead]
- mococa 3y agoIt happened to me last night! At that moment, I froze, thinking that somehow my password had leaked and someone was trying to brute-force my MFA. At the time, I was at a restaurant celebrating my son's birthday and couldn't change the password on my phone... So I just ignored it and when I got home, I changed the password on my MacBook without any trouble. This morning, as a precaution, I changed all my important passwords. Good to know it wasn't just me.
- epolanski 3y agoBeen locked for almost 3 months between November 2022 and January 2023. Apple is crazy. My iPad with the authenticator broke, and even though I filled endless forms, verified emails and phone number they just keep sending me emails I was gonna be called by support at a date 3 weeks away. Got no call, restarted the procedure. Got called in January, and it was an automatic voicemail or something.. I literally couldn't use my work machine (had a backup desktop to use). Needless to say, except for the MBP I sadly need for work I'm not giving apple a dime for my life.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoPlease file an FTC complaint. https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/
- rtaylorgarlock 3y agoSame sentiment here. Actively working to reduce dependence on anything FAANG.
- ametrau 3y ago[dead]
- sleight42 3y agoWTF? Apple used to have amazing support, just a few years ago! My experience, on the phone and via Message, has been uniformly garbage for years. It used to be that you could go to the Apple Store and the "Geniuses" or their management would make it right. What the hell happened??
- epolanski 3y agoOriginal poster here and I share what you say. I admit I had to interface twice in my life with apple support (this was the second). But the first my iPod stopped working, and they just mailed me a new one without even asking a question or taking back the broken one.
- indymike 3y agoWe need to get a legal advocacy group started for dealing with digital rights (EFF isn't getting it done with consumer rights). A couple of well-funded lawsuits on behalf of wronged users will fix this with all of the vendors. This kind of thing should never happen.
- codedokode 3y agoI hope Linux will never switch to cloud accounts.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- archsurface 3y agoOne of the things that helped push me away from Apple was the crazy circles the ID system would have me going around in. It's been too long to remember the details but it was madness.
- grork 3y agoWhat’s the overlap between people who had their password reset, and people who used/signed up for Beeper iMessage verification?
- js4ever 3y agonone it seems, some users that just bought an iphone 2 days ago had the issue today in this thread
- easeout 3y agoI'm glad this is news, because it means I was probably affected by a mistake and not a specific attack. Nonetheless you can't go spooking your users like this.
- k8svet 3y agoLol and I got some pushback here for saying Apple ID was not a serious product and that I wouldn't trust Apple to use Apple Pay even if they let me as a lowly Android user. I mean, ffs, the only 2fa option for an Apple ID is SMS auth. Just not a serious company when it comes to actual services.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- k8svet 3y agoThis comment being downmodded in a thread with dozens upon dozens of comments explaining BAFFLING behavior including shit where people are like "yeah I get random notifications all the time asking for my password and I just enter it" is BONKERS, I'm actually softly chuckling at the casual detachment some of yall have about it.
- FZ_BA 3y agoFormer Beeper mini users?!
- schnatterer 3y agoHappened to me too with apple music in November 23. They just deleted my account with my playlists and listening history. Even support couldn't tell me why after countless calls and emails. This implicitly canceled my yearly subscription and refunded only a small part after I requested it. I learned my lesson about Apple.
- Retric 3y agoTake it as a lesson about SaaS and closed ecosystems in general not just Apple. Any dependencies on 3rd parties can be broken at any time without recourse be that Steam, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, or less obvious services on smart devices.
- schnatterer 3y agoTrue! If read before about similar cases with other SaaS, e.g. the famous one about google drive: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-csam-account-blocked https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-cs... Difficult to avoid though for some cases like streaming. Fortunately I had a backup of my playlists. Still annoying. I wonder if those kinds of things happen with spotify as well. Because once your subscription ends you're only relegated to a free account, not deleted.
- ineedaj0b 3y agoI had Apple Music back in 2018. Unsubbed and never used the app till March 2024 when I got a free trial. It had my complete playlists and history from then. Sounds like a lie everything disappeared after 3 months
- schnatterer 3y agoThat's interesting! Before the disaster was also my second subscription. Now that you say it, some data was left. Not the playlists but some listening history. Might be that they only delete the iTunes-related stuff. Maybe if I subscribed again, there still would be something. But I won't. The support person on the phone also told me that everything gets deleted once the subscription ends, even when it's by mistake. Which seems to have been the case with me.
- Waterluvian 3y agoI wish there was a crowdsourced site, similar to Down Detector, that tried to estimate how common these issues are. In particular, an attempt to normalize the data to stave off reporting biases you get when reading the comments section in HN, Reddit, etc. It feels like medical conditions… without statistics, there’s just too many of them to be fearful of. Not that this issue isn’t worth criticism and discussion. But I can’t tell if I really ought to care personally right now or not. Life’s just a wee bit too short to act on every report.
- someguydave 3y agoyou are basically asking for multiple companies to give up their crown jewels for free
- standardUser 3y agoI understand why people enjoy Apple products, but I will never understand why people defend the company when we all know, often through direct personal experience or the experience of someone we know, that the wealthiest company is the world has chosen to provide insultingly miserable customer support as a business decision.
- zac23or 3y agoApple is like a religion. An Apple user told me “Apple never makes mistakes” during the Antennagate. I never forgot that, and I try not to have conversations with Apple fans after that.
- trogdor 3y ago>An Apple user told me “Apple never makes mistakes” during the Antennagate. I never forgot that, and I try not to have conversations with Apple fans after that. Someone made an absurd statement to you about Apple, so you have spent the last fourteen years trying to avoid conversations with people who like Apple products?
- hu3 3y agoAbsurd? Yes. And common. It's not rare to read comments to the effect of: "Why are you, a single person, doubting the decision a trillion dollar company? Certainly they know best". edit: Algolia for the win. Quick search [1] returned this pearl from 7 days ago [2]: > What would you have them do? Sacrifice a trillion dollar business in token protest? You’re just a keyboard warrior with no point at all who would make the same choice and justify it the same way you imagine I do if you were ever in the position they are. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=trillion%20apple&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40098425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40098425
- zac23or 3y ago> Someone made ... This example demonstrated to me that Apple is a religion, after many other examples. Try reading Apple's blogs, it's crazy. I recommend not trying to talk to extremists in any area. Your life will be much better.
- j45 3y agoThis makes me want to minimize my touchpoints with any of any cloud services of the hardware I purchase to ensure I can't be locked out of my life for 18-24 hours. | Some people have to take care of critical dependants. I don't exist and serve at the pleasure and convenience of any aspiring digital identity provider. I actually never wanted any of them to be my digital identity. What's convenient may also be a bigger security gap and impact than many ppl realize. The recent threads about PalmOS phones seem timely in hindsight. With Palm devices, you installed apps yourself with a sync cable to your computer, and there was no convenient app store, no one could lock you out of your smart phone and your life. Maybe that's an option that should come back. iTunes used to backup and sync just fine. If there's no real acknowledgement or detailed coming out about this, it's very possible it's a cybersecurity incident of some kind that is serious enough. And it's not just an Apple thing. This has or will happen with every digital identity provider. There's no one to really pick the phone or answer an email at google or apple when it comes to your digital identity that they want to be holders and providers of.. At least with the government there's a DMV or registry to go to.
- throwaway918274 3y agoI got locked out my apple account the other day while trying to login to webmail - thankfully I was able to just unlock it again by reseting my password using my iphone. Kinda terrifying.
- crossroadsguy 3y agoThen I believe it's slightly better to use a non-iCloud.com emails as iCloud accounts. At least one less reason in the scheme of single point Apple ID failure.
- infogulch 3y agoThe tech sector desperately needs due process. By regulation if not voluntarily.
- matiasfernandez 3y agoYep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXe-rvXVL-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXe-rvXVL-g
- drewg123 3y agoApple support is useless. My partner lost her phone with AppleCare loss & damage coverage. She hadn't synced to iCloud in quite a while, so she delayed reporting it lost/stolen (as that flow wipes the phone). After ~4 months she gave up on finding it, and reported it stolen. This started a Kafkaesque process where the Apple site for reporting your phone lost and initiating a claim with AIG failed to work because the phone had been lost for more than 3 months. Support was useless, they pointed the finger at AIG. AIG pointed the finger right back. Several escalations further and 6 months later, we still have no replacement phone. I'll never, ever get Applecare again.
- Aaronn 3y agoReporting the phone as lost does not wipe the phone. That is a separate step.
- drewg123 3y agoThere is a big thing in the reporting your phone lost & asking for a replacement that says it will wipe it...
- windowsrookie 3y agoI just checked the terms and conditions for AppleCare+ with theft protection, and it it states: "IX. DUTIES IN THE EVENT OF LOSS You must report the Loss promptly to Our Authorized Representative not later than sixty (60) days from the Date of Loss. If You do not report the Loss within sixty (60) days, You will have forfeited Your claim." https://www.apple.com/legal/sales-support/applecare/applecareplus/2209/220907_applecareplus_us_tl_coverage-certs_mn.pdf https://www.apple.com/legal/sales-support/applecare/applecar...
- drewg123 3y agoThanks. Now I know we can give up, and just never get apple care again. I don't know why any of the 10 apple people we talked to didn't mention that.
- blueprint 3y agothis actually sounds like the sort of thing they might do if some master key that they were storing for some subset of accounts was internally breached, and they had to force a password reset on them.
- fakedang 3y agoPosted just 19 hrs ago, has 478 comments and 675 points at the time of writing this, and already relegated to the third page. This site sure has some whacky algorithms!
- f0ld 3y agoI've recently had the same issue but with my Google accounts. I had to get a new Phone number just to get the account back and then it got disabled again. Not much is on that account. I just casually used it for signing into websites or services that I just wanted to try out and also for having separate subscription list for youtube & watching some gaming/movie/music videos that I don't want to be recommended on my main account. Now I'm worried that my other accounts might get suspended out of the blue. What is going on? I'm already degoogled and use custom domain. I don't even block ads on Youtube. I want to support the content creators. That's why I still even use them to watch videos. Is it finally time to move on to custom youtube frontend?? But if this happens to Apple accounts too, I can't just deApple. This is concerning. I didn't lose much from that incident but I recommend everyone to make a backup of your important stuff now!!!!
- greatman001 3y ago[dead]