Apple's iCloud inaccessible for some users
Apple is reporting inaccessible iCloud services for some users after previous issues that similarly affected some users over the last two days.
Apple's iCloud system status page reported an outage occurring within the last half hour, an issue at least one reader also noted. AppleInsider was unable to experience any issues with iCloud services, but the company reports that the issues only affect "some" users.
Yesterday, Apple reported issues connecting to mail and notes, a problem it similarly said affected "some" users without providing a metric for how widespread the issue actually was. According to its status report, the issues were resolved in an hour and half.
Earlier in the week, Apple reported account issues that affected "less than 3 percent" of users, but prevented them from logging in or changing passwords.
Apple has also been experiencing some downtime issues with its cloud-based Siri voice assistance service for iPhone 4S, although those problems are not tracked or reported on the iCloud system status page.
The company has worked hard to turn around the negative perception of its MobileMe services, which were introduced into a storm of problems at the release of iOS 3.0 just over two years ago, in part by renaming and streamlining the cloud services under the new name "iCloud."
Apple's iCloud system status page reported an outage occurring within the last half hour, an issue at least one reader also noted. AppleInsider was unable to experience any issues with iCloud services, but the company reports that the issues only affect "some" users.
Yesterday, Apple reported issues connecting to mail and notes, a problem it similarly said affected "some" users without providing a metric for how widespread the issue actually was. According to its status report, the issues were resolved in an hour and half.
Earlier in the week, Apple reported account issues that affected "less than 3 percent" of users, but prevented them from logging in or changing passwords.
Apple has also been experiencing some downtime issues with its cloud-based Siri voice assistance service for iPhone 4S, although those problems are not tracked or reported on the iCloud system status page.
The company has worked hard to turn around the negative perception of its MobileMe services, which were introduced into a storm of problems at the release of iOS 3.0 just over two years ago, in part by renaming and streamlining the cloud services under the new name "iCloud."
Comments
Also iCloud Mail doesn't seem to work for me at the moment...
Just tried running iCal and got an error message saying "Cannot connect to iCloud".
Also iCloud Mail doesn't seem to work for me at the moment...
Same here...
Same here...
Hmm... seems to be working now. I added an event on iCloud Calendar and it appeared straight away on iCal. Mail is now working
You might want to try again...
As an original subscriber to .mac way back from the release date, then MobileMe, and now iCloud, I concluded that Apple just doesn't know how to run a good email service, nor can they securely maintain your data, even if you pay $99 a year. They already lost two years worth of saved email when they switched me from .mac to MobileMe, if that had been Gmail, people would've cried bloody-mary.
I have built photo albums and a few sites on my .mac account which will be closed come June or July. To me that is unacceptable, I'll have to pull all my photos, re-categorize them, copy all my captions, and re-upload them to photo-bucket or Picasa. I would assume a good full days work. After that, I would have to email everyone who I think needs a new link to the new pages, update links to my multiple online resumes, facebook, and Linked-In.
I mean why? Why would Apple need to cut-out such a simple service, can't they continue an enhanced Photo Service within iCloud? I've been assigned 25 Gigs, I should be able to use it like I wish. I don't use Pages nor any of Apple's suites, so what else can I use this storage for? Nothing! So that's gonna get downgraded, I really can't change my email so I can only hope to eventually improve it.
Edit: Wow look at that my post is longer than the article. I was waiting for such an article so I can blow off some iCloud steam, thanks AI
Edit: Wow look at that my post is longer than the article. I was waiting for such an article so I can blow off some iCloud steam, thanks AI
lol!
Apple needs to learn to do slow, systematic rollouts better. All the in-app betas of apps in MM was a great start. Having Siri be a beta is also a great start. But you don't have to offer everything at the same time to all users. Let the longtime MM users be first and ten give them passes to give to other users a your system can handle it. Same goes for iTM, though admittedly the problem there might be related so something above and beyond the number of users.
All that app and device integration makes it tough to roll out a piece at a time, too many dependencies.
Might have been trying to sync in the background and couldn`t because of this?
very similar problems to first couple days of iCloud.
People can't point to Blackberry as the only service with issues.
I could not connect for email for a couple hours.
very similar problems to first couple days of iCloud.
People can't point to Blackberry as the only service with issues.
Half an hour of iCloud downtime for a small percentage of users hardly compares to a worldwide outage lasting four days.
There's bound to be some bumps and hiccups. I don't know a company in the world that has NEVER had an issue with their online services, and I think Apple more than makes up for most issues with the speed in which they react to resolve them.
As an original subscriber to .mac way back from the release date, then MobileMe, and now iCloud, I concluded that Apple just doesn't know how to run a good email service, nor can they securely maintain your data, even if you pay $99 a year. They already lost two years worth of saved email when they switched me from .mac to MobileMe, if that had been Gmail, people would've cried bloody-mary.
I was with Apple back in the free iTool days. I thought the service quite good. When it changed to a paid model, I didn't think Apple's service was worth what others were giving away for free. I was also a little bitter that Apple duped me into relying on its services based on it being offered for free, and then making it a paid service.
WIth all that said, I am giving Apple another try. So far, I have been quite impressed with iCloud. I have slowly been moving everything over from Gmail. I have set up a few Mail rules, and even have a couple of alias' created. I also like that Apple doesn't use me to sell advertisements.
I want to point out there is a difference between losing your email internally through bad data management, and losing it to a third party. Losing it internally probably isn't what most people think of when they think of security. For instance, if a bank burned down because of some faulty wiring inside a wall and you lost your possessions stored there in a safe deposit box, you probably wouldn't claim the fire was a matter of poor security. Theft on the other hand would be an issue of security. I have had four people I know have their Gmail accounts hacked, myself included. Two of these people were locked out of their email, and their email contacts received realistic fraudulent emails seeking money. They never regained access to these accounts. I regained access to my account, but my contacts were all sent viruses. Google's gmail service was compromised to hackers, to my knowledge Apple has not been so unfortunate to date. Apple's problems were more analogous to a bank burning down due to faulty wiring, as opposed to being robbed like Google was.
Based on my personal experiences with both Apple and Google, I trust Apple more with my data when it comes to third parties, but it probably is a good idea to keep a hard copy of valuable email regardless of who you use. The Microsoft issue with its sidekick phones, RIM's recent data problems, as well as the Google gmail problems should serve as a warning. My point is Apple isn't the only company that has lost user data.
If I recall, when Apple switched from .Mac to MobileMe people did scream bloody murder. When Jobs introduced iClouds he acknowledged as much. Same with the Sidekick issue, the press was all over the issue. When Gmail was hacked, people seemed to gloss over that fact despite Google having to call in the NSA to try and sort the mess out. I am not even sure Google publicly acknowledged the issue.
Apple bit off more than it can chew hereand we are paying the consequences. Siri barely works, and no be can explain its cloud under 5 minutes. This is so not like Apple.
Actually, based on your posting history, this is exactly like Apple. At least the Apple you seem to be dealing with.
By my count, you loath iTunes, you've had a number of defective iPods, you had to return an iPad, what, three times?, you think iCloud sucks, you think Siri sucks, you think Lion sucks, you have nothing but contempt for Apple's management and policies, you think Apple TV is crippled and are enthusiastic about Google TVs prospects, etc. etc. etc.
Leaves my wondering why you continue to punish yourself by purchasing Apple products. Are you perchance a masochist?
Apple bit off more than it can chew hereand we are paying the consequences. Siri barely works, and no be can explain its cloud under 5 minutes. This is so not like Apple.
Actually, based on your posting history, this is exactly like Apple. At least the Apple you seem to be dealing with.
By my count, you loath iTunes, you've had a number of defective iPods, you had to return an iPad, what, three times?, you think iCloud sucks, you think Siri sucks, you think Lion sucks, you have nothing but contempt for Apple's management and policies, you think Apple TV is crippled and are enthusiastic about Google TVs prospects, etc. etc. etc.
Leaves my wondering why you continue to punish yourself by purchasing Apple products. Are you perchance a masochist?
I think he's a Google employee
Actually, based on your posting history, this is exactly like Apple. At least the Apple you seem to be dealing with.
By my count, you loath iTunes, you've had a number of defective iPods, you had to return an iPad, what, three times?, you think iCloud sucks, you think Siri sucks, you think Lion sucks, you have nothing but contempt for Apple's management and policies, you think Apple TV is crippled and are enthusiastic about Google TVs prospects, etc. etc. etc.
Leaves my wondering why you continue to punish yourself by purchasing Apple products. Are you perchance a masochist?
Not at all - I like Apple 85% of the time.
And I have no idea what you like or don't as I haven't been stalking you.
Not at all - I like Apple 85% of the time.
That's complete BS.
Actually, based on your posting history, this is exactly like Apple. At least the Apple you seem to be dealing with.
By my count, you loath iTunes, you've had a number of defective iPods, you had to return an iPad, what, three times?, you think iCloud sucks, you think Siri sucks, you think Lion sucks, you have nothing but contempt for Apple's management and policies, you think Apple TV is crippled and are enthusiastic about Google TVs prospects, etc. etc. etc.
Leaves my wondering why you continue to punish yourself by purchasing Apple products. Are you perchance a masochist?
lol... Good catch.
Yes, iPhone syncing is very useful, but "documents in the cloud" seems silly.
Who wants their files to be grouped "by app"? No one. That's only useful if you have 10 documents and 10 spreadsheet. Anything beyond that is a bad user experience.
I need to store my entire projects in a folder: spreadsheets, documents, sketches, music, movies.
I organize my files based on how I work. Apple now takes away that feature.
on my iOS devices, I'd rather have a "iCloud file requester" (open/save dialog) where I can browse to my files and add folder bookmarks for quick access.
Hence, what iOS could do is show all irrelevant file types ghosted (e.g music when I'm opening a file in Pages).
the day I switched to iCloud, I opened a DropBox account which is working very well. Miles better than iDisk did. The only big problem is that it will never have a good integration because Apple controls the platform.