iPhones and iPads Now Require a Passcode on Every Backup/Sync

I’m not holding my breath though for Apple to fix this.

In any case, requiring passcode might be a good permanent solution after all.

What I think is far more likely: it's a dark pattern to discourage people from doing their own backups.

One of selling points of iCloud is scaring people into the possibility of their stuff being lost from their phone getting destroyed/lost/stolen.

Up until this change was implemented, it was painless and transparent to do backups of your phone. You just needed to have your Mac or Windows computer turned on and your phone on WiFi with power. It Just Happens.

This is also a convenient way for law enforcement to get people's iMessage history, because iMessage backs up by default to iCloud, unencrypted, including the user's iCloud encryption keys. Without this, if LEOs wanted a criminal's messages they'd have to pound sand.

We know that the FBI has at least a somewhat sympathetic ear at Apple, probably because keeping the FBI happy means Congress doesn't start applying levers on the company.

Given the timing which is right after they deployed the enhanced iCloud security that supposedly E2EE's everything in a (again, supposedly) very secure way, I suspect this was a tradeoff they made to keep the FBI/Congress happy, while also boosting revenue.

'Hey, we'll nerf the local backups, and don't worry too much about enhanced security, most people won't turn it on because it's a pain and we'll put scary warnings on it.'

My password is long, unlocking with another Apple device usually means finding my iPad somewhere in the house (the only device I have on my person is an Android phone - Apple don't seem to consider this case).

End result - it's too much bother usually.

As far as I know, it's always been a requirement, though after entering once, you can install more apps without entering a password for a temporary period. It's a good idea, too, since your AppleID is tied to your debit card or credit card, so if someone got a hold of your unlocked iDevice, if the AppleID password wasn't required, they could install as many apps as your debit card or credit card will allow. That's no good. Getting a refund for an AppStore App is near impossible.

Call it a profit theory instead. Could be wrong, could be right, but it’s no more a conspiracy than planning a Friday party.

At the end of the day, this might desensitize the 5 power users who still use local backups, and they are probably harder to desensitize than most.

This past month I migrated from iphone 12 to 13 and it involved manually reloading/resetting virtually everything, despite making a local backup of the old phone. It would seem that the apple builtin apps specifically just don't restore without icloud - it's almost as if there's a product manager somewhere that's using icloud utilization in GB as their OKR benchmark, and that's one way to hit it.

Apple discontinuing TimeCapsule and disbanding the team couple years back isn't lost on me either.

I don't know the nuances of U.S. antitrust law.

Would this likely qualify as illegal anticompetitive / monopolistic behavior?

And not to mention the complete opaque “System Data” usage of iPhone Storage. One day it’s 1GB and next day it’s 20GB. Without any way of knowing what exactly is taking that space. Of course you can’t clear those up since you are on an Apple device.