The concern is about a specific component of the OS that behaves (knowingly) in a manner that can corrupt or destroy data. And then hides the destructive behavior behind a cloud of smoke while promoting its benefits with blissful fanfare.
I’d be more prone to suggest that such insights suggest a bit of callous disregard, not imperfection.
Said otherwise, I look for excellence in the tools I should decide to use, not perfection.
–
JJW
My real question is that the paper posted above claims iCloud problems are due to a fundamental flaw in the design. They mention git as a way to properly implement sync. As a daily user of git, it works great, but it is the opposite of a user friendly technology. As far as I can tell Dropbox, et al have the same problem as iCloud. Is that wrong?
It’s all Apple’s fault - their FileProviderAPI has forced changes on all cloud sync providers, much to the detriment of the end user.
A great and sobering read! It seems as if Apple’s SWE’s have diverged from some very fundamental approaches to system and network architecture. It does not inspire confidence…
I had a good experience with Apple support in troubleshooting a week long iCloud sync problem. They were friendly and helpful. It took 2+ hours on the phone with them to restore 2 Macs to a functioning state.
LLMs, Google, and this good post (Cloudy with a Chance of Insanity: Unsticking iCloud Drive - TidBITS) did not work for me.
iCloud drive had been rock solid for me until this recent sync issue. I’m more cautious now after this episode. The culprit - moving ~200GB of files, even with an ethernet connection - seemed to overwhelm iCloud.
As a reminder: I spent 843 days with a fundamental iCloud issue. That was one that Apple investigated and (eventually) admitted was a known problem. It took them twelve releases after that admission before the fix arrived. (At least, I assume it did, because they refuse to tell anyone, but my iCloud started working again.)
But… before then and since then, it has been absolutely fine, though occasionally slow.
I’ve never had problems with Dropbox, but then I’ve never really used it much. I only have a little more than the free storage level. Others here have.
I’ve had problems with OneDrive (on Mac and Windows). I’ve had problems with several “independent” file sync tools. I tried setting up one of the open source thingies and it never worked.
In short… file sync is only close to reliable if it’s sneaker net. With backups.
I switched from iCloud to Dropbox some years ago when iCloud lost some of my files. Apple support tried to help but couldn’t get the files back. Dropbox has been solid. After the problems with Backblaze developed, I tried Arq, but it didn’t work for me. Currently, I’m trying iDrive, and so far, so good.
a known problem. It took them twelve releases after that admission before the fix arrived.
This is my biggest complaint with Apple: bugs that never get fixed.
I hope you were intending to prove my point… you’re on at least your fourth tool.
To borrow from Siracusa… on an infinite time scale, they do get fixed. Or at least superseded by new ones. 
Absolutely, I agree with your point. I don’t try to use Dropbox as a backup, since it isn’t an all of computer solution, but it has been a safe and convenient place for my files. So I guess I’m on my second cloud solution and third backup solution. And to be complete, I tried iDrive several years ago and it didn’t work at that time. But with a little configuring (Thank you for your help Grok and Claude.), it has been smooth sailing this time.
But yes, I agree with your point. Sometimes I wonder if people who work at Apple use Apple computers. Yet, to my mind, Apple certainly is the best option.
IMHO seven releases pretty much equates to “never.” You obviously have more patience than I, I would have given up hope long before 7 years.
It wasn’t patience so much as resgination.
Well… and… a crafty workaround. Because I had two Macs at the time and it only affected one, I had created a script I added to the Services menu for Finder that was called “iCloud Fix”. It allowed me to simply select a file or files (anything I created or changed on the affected Mac) and it would then use the other Mac, which was running Hazel, to get it into iCloud, from where it would sync back to the affected Mac. Net effect, iCloud ‘worked’.