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"As if it were a swarm of bees, you should stay away from the SyncServices folder." - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1865 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1865 Wow

by btown 14y ago

"As if it were a swarm of bees, you should stay away from the SyncServices folder." - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1865 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1865 Wow. When Apple's copywriting is that down-to-earth, you know that something is different. In seriousness, between this fragility and the lack of nested folders in iCloud, I get the feeling that Apple's taken a leaf out of Windows 8's book on this one... by focusing on non-power users, they'll generate a lot of hate and bad press from their once-loyal power-user customers.

Udo 14y ago
I'm a non-iCloud user (well, sort of), and I can't fathom a scenario where I would ever be tempted to use it. However, it's completely understandable what happened here and the guy even states this repeatedly: it was entirely his fault. He corrupted his own data. That said, the magnitude of problems resulting from this surprised me. What happens if an iCloud sync folders gets corrupted due to a technical problem one day? Isn't this fragility also kind of a nightmare for Apple's developers?
- gwillen 14y ago
  Yeah, I don't think he can reasonably declare this to be his own fault. He's doing that to avoid criticism, but realistically, there's no conceivable reason that moving the local endpoint of the sync on one machine should cause the other machines to try to move their local endpoint. I can't even fathom how you could code it to make this kind of disaster happen.
  - wvs 14y ago
    Most file references in Apple's frameworks track by both the target's path and inode, with the inode considered "more canonical". This is used in NSDocument apps where when you move a file with it still open, the app can tell where it went and continue working at the new path. Finder aliases (different from symlinks) also do this.
ryannielsen 14y ago
1) That support article was written in the Tiger, if not the Panther, time frame. It's been around since at least 2005. 2) Mucking with this folder's rather like mucking with a Courier mail store, or a MySQL data directory: If you're gonna screw with it, you'd better know what you're doing and how all the pieces work. Apple hasn't published those details, and likely never will, so don't touch it. They've placed it in a hidden directory for a reason. 3) iCloud was never targeted at power users. Maybe it'll evolve at some point, but I wouldn't bet on it. Power users can use Dropbox, like they probably already are. Apple's not doing anything to stop you, there.

by btown 14y ago

Udo 14y ago

I'm a non-iCloud user (well, sort of), and I can't fathom a scenario where I would ever be tempted to use it. However, it's completely understandable what happened here and the guy even states this repeatedly: it was entirely his fault. He corrupted his own data. That said, the magnitude of problems resulting from this surprised me. What happens if an iCloud sync folders gets corrupted due to a technical problem one day? Isn't this fragility also kind of a nightmare for Apple's developers?

gwillen 14y ago
Yeah, I don't think he can reasonably declare this to be his own fault. He's doing that to avoid criticism, but realistically, there's no conceivable reason that moving the local endpoint of the sync on one machine should cause the other machines to try to move their local endpoint. I can't even fathom how you could code it to make this kind of disaster happen.
- wvs 14y ago
  Most file references in Apple's frameworks track by both the target's path and inode, with the inode considered "more canonical". This is used in NSDocument apps where when you move a file with it still open, the app can tell where it went and continue working at the new path. Finder aliases (different from symlinks) also do this.

ryannielsen 14y ago

1) That support article was written in the Tiger, if not the Panther, time frame. It's been around since at least 2005. 2) Mucking with this folder's rather like mucking with a Courier mail store, or a MySQL data directory: If you're gonna screw with it, you'd better know what you're doing and how all the pieces work. Apple hasn't published those details, and likely never will, so don't touch it. They've placed it in a hidden directory for a reason. 3) iCloud was never targeted at power users. Maybe it'll evolve at some point, but I wouldn't bet on it. Power users can use Dropbox, like they probably already are. Apple's not doing anything to stop you, there.