Apple to wipe iCloudKit data for iOS 8 and Yosemite betas, new iCloud features affected
Apple on Friday sent out letters to developers testing the iOS 8 beta and OS X 10.10 Yosemite Preview, notifying them of an upcoming server-side wipe of all CloudKit databases scheduled for July 7.
According to the letter, provided by AppleInsider reader Gregg, Apple will be wiping both public and private iCloud data connected to the current iOS 8 and Yosemite beta builds, with features affected including iCloud Drive, iCloud Photo Library and Mail Drop attachments.
As noted by Apple, photos and videos stored in the new iCloud Photo Library feature will be wiped from the servers, but data will remain on iOS 8 devices. After the process is complete, content is will be automatically uploaded back to Photo Library.
With iCloud Drive documents, developers must manually re-enable the feature from Apple's Setup Assistant, though document stored in the cloud service will again be automatically uploaded once services are restored.
Finally, email attachments sent through the forthcoming Mail Drop feature will expire, meaning users will need to resend those messages. With Mail Drop, Apple bypasses the usual email attachment data limit by uploading files up to 5GB in size to iCloud and including a link to download within the message's text.
When Apple launches its upcoming mobile and desktop operating systems this fall, both will come with deeply integrated iCloud features like Dropbox-style storage in iCloud Drive and beefed-up content sharing services like iCloud Photo Library.
AppleInsider recently took a deep dive into iCloudKit as it applies to Apple's future Photos for OS X app and the next-generation of iOS 8 Photos.
According to the letter, provided by AppleInsider reader Gregg, Apple will be wiping both public and private iCloud data connected to the current iOS 8 and Yosemite beta builds, with features affected including iCloud Drive, iCloud Photo Library and Mail Drop attachments.
As noted by Apple, photos and videos stored in the new iCloud Photo Library feature will be wiped from the servers, but data will remain on iOS 8 devices. After the process is complete, content is will be automatically uploaded back to Photo Library.
With iCloud Drive documents, developers must manually re-enable the feature from Apple's Setup Assistant, though document stored in the cloud service will again be automatically uploaded once services are restored.
Finally, email attachments sent through the forthcoming Mail Drop feature will expire, meaning users will need to resend those messages. With Mail Drop, Apple bypasses the usual email attachment data limit by uploading files up to 5GB in size to iCloud and including a link to download within the message's text.
When Apple launches its upcoming mobile and desktop operating systems this fall, both will come with deeply integrated iCloud features like Dropbox-style storage in iCloud Drive and beefed-up content sharing services like iCloud Photo Library.
AppleInsider recently took a deep dive into iCloudKit as it applies to Apple's future Photos for OS X app and the next-generation of iOS 8 Photos.
Comments
My iPhone was crushed accidentally today and, borrowing an older iPhone 5 from a friend, I've managed to install the iOS 8 beta onto it and it quickly loaded up my iCloud Photo Library. All my photos are in the cloud safe and sound and I can selectively download images to my temporary device.
However, I cannot seem to "see" them using Image Capture. All I see via Image Capture are pictures I've just taken on the device itself.
Is there a good, programmatic way to pull down these years of photos from iCloud to my device? It does say that images stored on device will be "re-uploaded" to iCloud after the wipe on the 7th.
Advice and help?
Every one who was at WWDC already expected this outcome.
Did any other developers not get this letter?
Every one who was at WWDC already expected this outcome.
Not every developer attended WWDC nor did they watch every single second of WWDC video footage.
What's the "official" developer attendance at WWDC? Five thousand?
Why would they expect them to dump their server-side files? I don't think they've ever done that before.
Why would they expect them to dump their server-side files? I don't think they've ever done that before.
IIRC, they did it once before during Mavericks development? (don't remember exactly what was deleted).
This is not really news worthy. That said, to your point, I'm not sure there has ever been any equivalent server side set up before. Just speaking for myself, playing with the new iCloud folder has been amazing but I never assumed anything I put there was for anything but testing it.
The files in the iCloud folder in Finder are the exact same ones that I access for Pages and Numbers when I pull up those apps and they mirror what I recall finding in ~/Library/Mobile Documents which is still there. This addition is nice as it's easier to find these documents on the local system in Yosemite but it's not really anything complex from what I can tell.
One advice is to install beta software on test devices only. If you want to download your icloud photos then use Mac (iPhoto) or PC (some Adobe software).
I didn't get one. For some reason I am not getting few emails from Apple developer services. Maybe my email provider is sending them to junk.
I wonder if one has to be a paid Mac developer for this email.
This is not really news worthy. That said, to your point, I'm not sure there has ever been any equivalent server side set up before. Just speaking for myself, playing with the new iCloud folder has been amazing but I never assumed anything I put there was for anything but testing it.
Why are you getting so worked up based on an assumption? All you've done is assumed the worst-case scenario to hedge your bets, which is generally the safer assumption, but still an assumption, and worthy of being confirmed by facts, not conjecture. But in this case, assuming things wasn't necessary, as the release notes stated very clearly that Apple was going to wipe the data.
What they didn't say was exactly when (for what I'd hope are obvious reasons), and that's why this is news-worthy, because it lets people know when, which is pretty damned useful. So useful, in fact, that Apple deemed it worthy of an email to all paid developers.
I cannot fathom people who go to an Apple-related news/rumors/gossip site, then complain that the topics presented are Apple-related news/rumors/gossip.
I really wouldn't know as I'm not a developer, but didn't the release notes from the v8 beta include any info on the topic? For $99 I would expect some good documentation, as Apple usually offers.
That said, have you tried all settings / buttons on this Photos In iCloud? No 'Download Album As .Zip' option anywhere to be found? Perhaps hooking that loner phone to a Windows box; when I do that I see several folders whilst when connected to a Mac I only see photos and videos through IC.
Good luck, and welcome to the forum.
Have you tried plugging the device into a Mac or PC to copy the images?
Yes - remember the problem is that the first device was utterly destroyed, the backup to my MacBook failed - and the only copy is in the beta Cloud.
Although I think I've downloaded everything to my 2nd device running the iOS 8 beta, whenever I plug the device into a Mac neither iPhone nor ImageCapture "sees" any of the older photos.
Yeah, in our household of 5 we all synch/backup our iPhones to a common iTunes library and a common iPhoto Library. So any photos or movies in the cloud are also in the iPhoto library.
You can verify this:
and you'll see the selected photo/video where it resides on your Mac.