4 ms·

This is one of the worst stories I’ve seen yet. It sounds like they were “all in” on Apple with zero backups, which shows some questionable judgment, but still,

This is one of the worst stories I’ve seen yet. It sounds like they were “all in” on Apple with zero backups, which shows some questionable judgment, but still, this sort of thing shouldn’t be possible any more than a bank deciding to take all your money with no recourse. (They can close your account, but they can’t keep your money.) Maybe hosts should be required to mail you a hard drive with your data on it when they close your account. Regardless, never assume cloud data is in safe hands.

parisidau 11mo ago
I do have backups of most data, including photos, but there are things you can't backup like shared actively edited iWork documents, and things like that. I can rebuild from it, but it's still a shitshow and my very expensive devices are bricked.
- holigot 11mo ago
  What a nightmare - hope everything will end well. Concerning all those 'bricked' devices it would be really nice to get some more details concerning the 'block'. Can you use your iPhone to call someone, can you use your MacBook overall? Login, use Apple Passwords(!), looking at photos within photos app and so on... Or are all those devices completely locked?
- xigoi 11mo ago
  > there are things you can't backup like shared actively edited iWork documents If they’re shared, surely someone else can still access them?
- Aachen 11mo ago
  What's an iWord and why can't it be backed up?
  - thih9 11mo ago
    Nobody said iWord.
    - Aachen 11mo ago
      My apologies, I see I've misread it. Still don't know what iWork is. Surely what the question referred to was obvious
      - parisidau 11mo ago
        Here, I Googled it for you https://www.apple.com/iwork/ https://www.apple.com/iwork/
        Aachen 11mo ago
        Oh, so I did understand correctly that it's Apple's version of Word etc. My question was why one can't back up one's data though. I'm even more confused now that I know it refers to Pages/Keynote/etc. since those have always been file-based so far as I've seen from classmates who used it. Surely even Apple allows downloading your documents and spreadsheets from whatever storage front-end their live editing server uses?
- parisidau 11mo ago
  Apple (via Executive Relations) says they won't do anything. Guess I'm stuffed.
nickhodge 11mo ago
When you are an Apple Developer, as the poster states - it goes deeper and more destructive.
0manrho 11mo ago
> which shows some questionable judgment Convenience is a hell of a drug.
st3fan 11mo ago
Great victim blaming there buddy.
- beeflet 11mo ago
  To what extent is the victim their own perpetrator? They allow the status quo to succeed by endorsing it. They voted for this with $30,000 of their own money, and they will likely vote again.
  - wiseowise 11mo ago
    So taking a wrong turn should result in you being mugged, raped and subsequently killed because apparently there was some "safe", but less convenient, passage? You're not helping OSS by making claims like these.
    - noitpmeder 11mo ago
      Obviously you're being facetious, that is not at all what that poster is claiming. While I agree that entering a dark alley shouldn't result in ill effects, if ill effects happen in said dark alley it is still worth the discussion to remind people to stay out of dark alleys in today's day and age (or until the root problem, whatever it is, is improved). Pretending that it is OK to enter dark alleys and forcing blame elsewhere will continue to have people unwittingly enter dark alleys.
      - lapcat 11mo ago
        > While I agree that entering a dark alley shouldn't result in ill effects, if ill effects happen in said dark alley it is still worth the discussion to remind people to stay out of dark alleys in today's day and age (or until the root problem, whatever it is, is improved). This is not a dark alley. It's the main street. It's the world we live in. iPhone has more than half the market share in the US and well over a billion users worldwide. Moreover, Apple, Google, and Microsoft collectively monopolize consumer operating systems on both mobile and desktop. Try going into a retail store and buying a computing device that is not running iOS, Android, macOS, or Windows. That's the reality for most people. The dark alleys are the non-mainstream options that hardly anyone knows about.
jbstack 11mo ago
> this sort of thing shouldn’t be possible any more than a bank deciding to take all your money with no recourse. (They can close your account, but they can’t keep your money.) I once had to help a relative sue a bank who had closed his account after he refused to answer their very intrusive questions (they wanted to know details about distant relatives living in another country). They also refused to return his money (tens of thousands) and refused to explain why. No amount of complaining or escalating made any difference, although we did manage to get a nice recording of an employee saying that he thought the bank was in the wrong. It took me issuing court proceedings, plus several more months of negotiating with their lawyer, before they finally settled out of court. Even then they tried to not pay the court fee, and they tried to get us to sign an NDA (I refused to budge on both). Altogether, it took 6 months to get the money. Similar to how people in this thread are talking about mitigating reliance on cloud providers (e.g. with offline backups), I now do not trust any bank. I avoid being in a position where any one bank can ruin my life. That means having multiple accounts and spreading my money around. Luckily for me I have a legal background so when a corp (big or small) does this sort of thing to me I don't hesitate to sue them. In almost all cases this causes them to "wake up" and start taking your issue seriously, in a way that the front line customer support reps never do. I recommend this to the author of the original post.
- AH4oFVbPT4f8 11mo ago
  Which bank?
  - csomar 11mo ago
    all banks. Any bank that can indefinitely freeze your money and get away with it will do it. And now that everyone is doing it, the reputation damage is minimized.
    - AH4oFVbPT4f8 11mo ago
      Some banks do things that make you never want to do any business with them. Wells Fargo would open checking/savings/credit card accounts without their customers knowing, then Wells Fargo fired thousands of employees as a result of being caught. I will do everything possible to never to business with them.
trinix912 11mo ago
> It sounds like they were “all in” on Apple with zero backups, which shows some questionable judgment iCloud literally encourages users to opt for storing originals only in the cloud. It's marketed as such, it nags you about this every now and then, and iCloud is the preinstalled default cloud storage on every iPhone. Consider non-techies dealing with this too.
IshKebab 11mo ago
You can probably use a GDPR personal information request to get photos and data at least. Doesn't help with other stuff you've paid for though. We really need laws for this sort of thing. They should have included it in the DMA for gatekeepers.
insane_dreamer 11mo ago
> this sort of thing shouldn’t be possible any more than a bank deciding to take all your money with no recourse. (They can close your account, but they can’t keep your money.) To me this is the biggest problem. Just like a bank can decide to close your account at any time, it's reasonable that Apple (or any business) could do the same. But they can't keep your stuff. You can say "don't be naive and assume your cloud data is safe", but in today's world that's like saying "don't keep your money in a bank". The reason I pay for iCloud storage is because it's supposed to be safe (safer than my local HDD going bust or getting lost).

parisidau 11mo ago

I do have backups of most data, including photos, but there are things you can't backup like shared actively edited iWork documents, and things like that. I can rebuild from it, but it's still a shitshow and my very expensive devices are bricked.

holigot 11mo ago
What a nightmare - hope everything will end well. Concerning all those 'bricked' devices it would be really nice to get some more details concerning the 'block'. Can you use your iPhone to call someone, can you use your MacBook overall? Login, use Apple Passwords(!), looking at photos within photos app and so on... Or are all those devices completely locked?
xigoi 11mo ago
> there are things you can't backup like shared actively edited iWork documents If they’re shared, surely someone else can still access them?
Aachen 11mo ago
What's an iWord and why can't it be backed up?
- thih9 11mo ago
  Nobody said iWord.
  - Aachen 11mo ago
    My apologies, I see I've misread it. Still don't know what iWork is. Surely what the question referred to was obvious
    - parisidau 11mo ago
      Here, I Googled it for you https://www.apple.com/iwork/ https://www.apple.com/iwork/
      - Aachen 11mo ago
        Oh, so I did understand correctly that it's Apple's version of Word etc. My question was why one can't back up one's data though. I'm even more confused now that I know it refers to Pages/Keynote/etc. since those have always been file-based so far as I've seen from classmates who used it. Surely even Apple allows downloading your documents and spreadsheets from whatever storage front-end their live editing server uses?
parisidau 11mo ago
Apple (via Executive Relations) says they won't do anything. Guess I'm stuffed.

nickhodge 11mo ago

When you are an Apple Developer, as the poster states - it goes deeper and more destructive.

0manrho 11mo ago

> which shows some questionable judgment Convenience is a hell of a drug.

st3fan 11mo ago

Great victim blaming there buddy.

beeflet 11mo ago
To what extent is the victim their own perpetrator? They allow the status quo to succeed by endorsing it. They voted for this with $30,000 of their own money, and they will likely vote again.
- wiseowise 11mo ago
  So taking a wrong turn should result in you being mugged, raped and subsequently killed because apparently there was some "safe", but less convenient, passage? You're not helping OSS by making claims like these.
  - noitpmeder 11mo ago
    Obviously you're being facetious, that is not at all what that poster is claiming. While I agree that entering a dark alley shouldn't result in ill effects, if ill effects happen in said dark alley it is still worth the discussion to remind people to stay out of dark alleys in today's day and age (or until the root problem, whatever it is, is improved). Pretending that it is OK to enter dark alleys and forcing blame elsewhere will continue to have people unwittingly enter dark alleys.
    - lapcat 11mo ago
      > While I agree that entering a dark alley shouldn't result in ill effects, if ill effects happen in said dark alley it is still worth the discussion to remind people to stay out of dark alleys in today's day and age (or until the root problem, whatever it is, is improved). This is not a dark alley. It's the main street. It's the world we live in. iPhone has more than half the market share in the US and well over a billion users worldwide. Moreover, Apple, Google, and Microsoft collectively monopolize consumer operating systems on both mobile and desktop. Try going into a retail store and buying a computing device that is not running iOS, Android, macOS, or Windows. That's the reality for most people. The dark alleys are the non-mainstream options that hardly anyone knows about.

jbstack 11mo ago

> this sort of thing shouldn’t be possible any more than a bank deciding to take all your money with no recourse. (They can close your account, but they can’t keep your money.) I once had to help a relative sue a bank who had closed his account after he refused to answer their very intrusive questions (they wanted to know details about distant relatives living in another country). They also refused to return his money (tens of thousands) and refused to explain why. No amount of complaining or escalating made any difference, although we did manage to get a nice recording of an employee saying that he thought the bank was in the wrong. It took me issuing court proceedings, plus several more months of negotiating with their lawyer, before they finally settled out of court. Even then they tried to not pay the court fee, and they tried to get us to sign an NDA (I refused to budge on both). Altogether, it took 6 months to get the money. Similar to how people in this thread are talking about mitigating reliance on cloud providers (e.g. with offline backups), I now do not trust any bank. I avoid being in a position where any one bank can ruin my life. That means having multiple accounts and spreading my money around. Luckily for me I have a legal background so when a corp (big or small) does this sort of thing to me I don't hesitate to sue them. In almost all cases this causes them to "wake up" and start taking your issue seriously, in a way that the front line customer support reps never do. I recommend this to the author of the original post.

AH4oFVbPT4f8 11mo ago
Which bank?
- csomar 11mo ago
  all banks. Any bank that can indefinitely freeze your money and get away with it will do it. And now that everyone is doing it, the reputation damage is minimized.
  - AH4oFVbPT4f8 11mo ago
    Some banks do things that make you never want to do any business with them. Wells Fargo would open checking/savings/credit card accounts without their customers knowing, then Wells Fargo fired thousands of employees as a result of being caught. I will do everything possible to never to business with them.

trinix912 11mo ago

> It sounds like they were “all in” on Apple with zero backups, which shows some questionable judgment iCloud literally encourages users to opt for storing originals only in the cloud. It's marketed as such, it nags you about this every now and then, and iCloud is the preinstalled default cloud storage on every iPhone. Consider non-techies dealing with this too.

IshKebab 11mo ago

You can probably use a GDPR personal information request to get photos and data at least. Doesn't help with other stuff you've paid for though. We really need laws for this sort of thing. They should have included it in the DMA for gatekeepers.

insane_dreamer 11mo ago

> this sort of thing shouldn’t be possible any more than a bank deciding to take all your money with no recourse. (They can close your account, but they can’t keep your money.) To me this is the biggest problem. Just like a bank can decide to close your account at any time, it's reasonable that Apple (or any business) could do the same. But they can't keep your stuff. You can say "don't be naive and assume your cloud data is safe", but in today's world that's like saying "don't keep your money in a bank". The reason I pay for iCloud storage is because it's supposed to be safe (safer than my local HDD going bust or getting lost).