It’s worth pointing out that iCloud is not one service, but several bundled together. iCloud Drive does the syncing and cloud storage of files, but probably more important is the “Cloudkit” facility that developers can use for their apps to synchronise databases. There’s also a lot of authentication services, mail, etc. as well as collaboration.
In my experience, these services differ in how fast and reliable they are. I’d put iCloud Drive far behind the “Cloudkit” service, for example.
What is urgently needed, though, is a higher level of information and optional control to the end user. It’s ridiculous that I can’t even tell if a file has been uploaded to the cloud, see a version history or force a re-sync. I should be able to set priorities for some files and there should be somewhere obvious to check if it is all working.
I think a layman could figure out 90% of it (remote copy looks exactly the same as the local copy, match modified and created dates, file name, file size).
The difficulty I think comes in the optimisation. But the billions that users spend on storage means that the extra 10% should be a relatively simple problem, versus the other problems that apple are able to solve.
As I’ve posted several times over the years, I have had my frustrations with iCloud syncing but curiously, only with Apple Notes. All other apps sync flawlessly.
I had a scare the other day. For some reason, 86 notes neatly saved in sub-folders mysteriously appeared in the main Notes folder. I had to move each one to the correct folder manually. That is frustrating, a waste of time, and scary. I’d move to a different note-taking app, but I can’t find one with the complete feature set of AN, as well integrated and without a subscription, and available with equal features across devices. Accordingly, for now, I’m sticking with AN.
My solace is that I discovered that I could import my Apple Notes directly to DT, bypassing the need to use the Exporter app. So I created a DT archive database exclusively for this purpose. I import to the archive each month. Besides my external backups, this relieves my concern about losing my notes.
I don’t have many problems on my iPhone and iPad. I have individual messages and a few threads going back as much as five years on both of them.
But I usually have to uncheck “Enable Messages in iCloud” on my Mac, wait a minute, then turn it back on in order to get messages sent/received while the Mac was off. This works about 70% of the time.
I occasionally export all my messages as PDFs using iMazing because iCloud . . .
For me iCloud Drive works basically as expected. Very occasional hiccups only happen on desktop and usually get resolved by running ‘killall bird’ from the terminal. I think it is better than Google Drive for Desktop but Dropbox runs circles around it.
CloudKit, on the other hand, is surprisingly unpredictable with Apple stock apps Apple Photos, Music Library take their sweet time to sync but Apple Notes is basically unuseable. I have never had an issue with 3rd party apps that use iCloud services, though: DEVON, KeepIt, Noteplan, Agenda to name a few.
I have the gut feeling that the reason why Apple stock apps have such unpredictability is because Apple are outsmarting themselves and everything is due to the aggressive background sync optimizations Apple does to save battery or mobile data usage. Why we are not having selective sync for iCloud Drive folders is also a mistery to me.
If you’ve got a Mac in the loop, you could try the Sync Now button in Messages. That may kick something loose. But according to Apple, this only affects the Mac, so I don’t know if it will help with other devices.
Have you ever tried contacting Apple about this? There might be something tech support can do, because this sounds like a screwed up database to me! They might have the ability to delete absolutely everything so you can start from scratch.
Visibility and control might surface enough of the problem that Apple are forced to take notice. Might.
iCloud Drive has been absolutely fine for me, except the (possibly infamous) 843 day window where it flatly refused to perform certain transfers.
For a little balance here, I use OneDrive for work and it is… shall we say… special. By far the worst part of it is the company-enforced timeout of the login credentials, but I have learned the hard way not to do certain things with it, like put an Eclipse Workspace in there. I have also learned it is a strictly linear processor. So when your Eclipse Workspace is busily updating every few milliseconds and OneDrive is struggling to catch up — that one file you place in there because you need it on another device… well that waits in the queue, seemingly indefinitely.
iCloud, or at least parts of it, is also linear like this. If you use iCloud Photos you can see this in action by doing this:
Drop, say, 20 photos into the Photos app.
Immediately delete them.
Immediately clear out deleted items.
Now watch as it proceeds to upload all 20 images to iCloud and, if you pay close enough attention, move all 20 to the trash, then delete all 20.
The main reason I can think for it to work like this is reliability.
I just did a Google search for iCloud drive sync problems and set the search range to the years 2015 to 2023. It returned 8 years of the same basic problems and suggestions we have been discussing here.
So after all these years all we know is iCloud works well for some people and not for others. Plan accordingly.
If iCloud was not so baked into the OS I suspect very few would use it. It is just not great as a cloud service.
I have had the notes sync issue several times. Yesterday I had a short video I had taken on my phone that I wanted transferred onto my mac mini.The video was taken in the morning and by 8 at night it still had not transferred so I had to air drop it. Lot of little little things, and occasionally some catastrophic things - but my experience has been there is always some little issue.
It’s hard for any of us on the outside to accurately judge. I’ve found iCloud to be rock solid for almost everything. When I have had hiccups they’re usually temporary and resolve within a few hours. Obviously that’s not everyone’s experience. I often use my extended family as a gauge and I’ve heard few to no complaints. The only issue I’m aware of recently is reminders not syncing for one person. But it’s all anecdotal because none of us work at Apple with inside stats on the actual trustworthiness of the service.
In any case, considering the scope of what iCloud is used for, from storage and sync of files and photos to back-up of devices to app settings/data, email, etc, I’m actually really impressed. Practically EVERY app I use is using iCloud. I can’t recall the last time I had a problem. And I would add that when I’ve set-up new devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac that set-up is basically just log in to iCloud. Download the apps I know I use, adjust settings for iCloud and then go walk the dogs. 45 minutes later and my new device is well on its way to having everything I need.
My only real complaint is that I wish Apple provided more purchase options. At the moment I’m good at 250GB but would pay for 500GB if they offered it. But I definitely don’t need 1TB.
I loved Dropbox back in the day when there were so many iOS text editors that Brett Terpstra had to make a large shared spreadsheet just to keep track of them all. Dropbox was the glue that held my Mac, iPad, and iPhone together. Guido Van Rossum had a hit on on his hands with Python as the engine at the heart of Dropbox. At some point, podcasters began bad-mouthing Dropbox as too heavy and intrusive on the Mac. Eventually the MPU guys pronounced iCloud good enough to use and I switched.
I contact Apple or Adobe or AT&T for help as a last resort since I know it’s going to drag on for FAR too long and may not even result in an answer – while I wade through their suggested “solutions” that actually have nothing to do with my issue (The focus on large companies starting with an “A” is coincidental – they just happen to be that last three support cases I’ve entered in).
I have a current issue with Backblaze that I was initially unhappy about, but after dealing with their support help for a few days I’m no longer unhappy about it. They’re communicating on-point, with explanations and tools so that I can help them solve the problem. In many cases I’m less concerned with the actual problem, but with how easy it is to get approriate help. I wish more companies made this a priority.
All my iOS & iPadOS devices sync with iCloud just fine (regardless if it’s iCloud Drive or CloudKit in apps) but my iMac has been having issues syncing with iCloud Drive for years and nothing helps.
It works for a while, then it gets stuck syncing a mysterious 32-byte file forever, blocking any further uploads or downloads, making iCloud Drive pretty much useless if one expects to have files in sync and readily available across devices. At this point nothing works, neither files in iCloud Drive get synced, nor can I count on Ulysses and other apps that use iCloud to update properly.
Luxury! I’ve detailed my experiences elsewhere, but 48 hours would have been a HUGE improvement for me. A big chunk of my 843 days was waiting on a fix to ship* but there was a heck of a lot of waiting on Senior Advisors to call and often they’d have no real news.
I did get one Senior Advisor who was actually good at his job and cared about the outcome. He used to conspire with me to formulate responses to Engineering such that they actually had to do meaningful work to answer questions. In my limited experience, the Aussie senior advisors are a lot more effective than those in other parts of the world. Perhaps because they’re willing to have a real conversation rather than the guarded script reading I often get.
*This was the worst part. After I got to the “known problem, a fix will be delivered at some time in the future and we cannot tell you when nor even after it has happened” I still had one heck of a wait. I have recorded the releases that came after then that did not fix it…
I’m sure Apple have their reasons, but I think Joz or whoever it was needs to learn what it’s like for customers and not just drive over to Craig’s house.
My experience of Apple support is similar. First level are polite and enthusiastic but just aren’t set up to deal with anything off-script, though they insist on following every step to verify that there is an issue. Senior support people vary but generally try very hard to pin down the issue and pick up quickly if you know what you are talking about.
It’s quite obvious that there is a huge disconnect between support (in my case based in Cork, Ireland) and “engineering” (in Cupertino). I’ve had senior support people read out the response they’ve received from engineering to see if it means anything to me, either. (Usually on the lines of “requires an engineering response, has been escalated within engineering, will take weeks to months”) There’s no concept from engineering that there are real people trying to get systems they need working again but unable to because Apple are the problem and won’t even tell them what is being done to solve their issue.
It’s by far the worst aspect of dealing with Apple and is becoming more and more important as Apple becomes more of a service company - if your hardware breaks or your OS goes horribly wrong, in the last resort you replace or reinstall, but that’s simply not possible when you have no access at all to what needs to be fixed and have to wait “weeks to months” for an engineer to do something that s/he isn’t willing to talk about. You don’t even know if you are in a huge queue for something that takes seconds, or if there is a lot of work involved in the fix.
I get that Apple tech support can be a mixed bag, and a huge time-suck at worst.
The reason I asked about this is because your problem sounds to me like some sort of database corruption. I’ve had it happen to one of my clients. The only fix is to contact Apple to get them to press the magic button that either erases the corrupted cache or sets everything back to zero so you can repopulate that part of iCloud again.
The trick is getting to a person who can press the magic button. For my client, this was not an engineering problem because it wasn’t a weird bug. It was just messed up data, and apparently there was a fix that was accessible to a more senior level of tech support. I was on the phone with Apple for my client, and perhaps because I spoke knowledgeably about the problem (and convinced them that we had a good backup of all the data), they were willing to erase everything and set it back to zero.
(Of course, this was a few years ago, and things may have changed.)
