Please don't make us use iCloud anymore | Hacker News Reader

Please don't make us use iCloud anymore

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131 pointschmars60 comments

I remember a friend of mine complaining about getting his program to sync using iCloud, he said it was complicated but very solid.

He would commonly submit his application to the store and get critical feedback and very helpful comments on why it wouldn't work, what wouldn't work and in one case an architectural issue that could have caused duplication.

As a consumer, I've never had any applications fail to use iCloud effectively, everything I use that actually leverages iCloud (and not dropbox or $proprietary_syncing_method) just works wonderfully and predictibly.

the authors actual gripe seems to be from the developer who has not submitted a fully working version of his program.

I would ask him what specifically makes him think that it's the device causing the issue.. maybe add a contact through the webUI and see if it syncs, or modify data with another application that uses iCloud.

>Obviously I’m using more apps than just MindNode.

which apps, have they been updated recently? iCloud API's have changed in iOS8

Diagnostics is super simple stuff, don't blame everything before at least looking into the issue.

> As a consumer, I've never had any applications fail to use iCloud effectively, everything I use that actually leverages iCloud just works wonderfully and predictibly.

I had the opposite experience with 1Password. Now if I wanna sync I need to buy the AppStore version. I opted re-enabling my dropbox account and keep only to sync data where iCloud fails + with Dropbox sync I can use 1Password on non-mac related platforms as well (e.g. a chromebook).

Same with another iOs/OSX application called 2Do. The iCloud sync is problematic while the Dropbox sync worked flawlessly.

thats' fair, iCloud is not meant to be used with non-apple signed binaries. so you fall outside the usecase for iCloud.

personally I keep my mac stuff and my linux stuff very very seperate, 1password doesn't really work on linux so it's a non-problem for me that iCloud doesn't function for the platform.

I'm going to sound like an apple fan-boy here; I promise you I'm not; but you said "fail" which implies it's not working as intended while appearing like it should. Could you provide more information on this? usually if the iCloud option to sync is present it works as intended for me, and I've never had otherwise (unless it's a fault with the mac/iProduct or networking).

> thats' fair, iCloud is not meant to be used with non-apple signed binaries. so you fall outside the usecase for iCloud.

What do you mean with this?

if you're downloading software from outside the app store then you can't be angry that those packages aren't allowed to talk to iCloud- probably (and I'm speculating) each binary is signed when it leaves the app store so it's allowed to talk to iCloud, I imagine this is a seperate mechanism than the one needed for auth.

and using iCloud from non-mac devices is another. I don't expect my Linux machine to be able to access iCloud.

but perhaps I'm underestimating the flexibility, or overestimating the security.

That has basically told me "never use iCloud, it's a proprietary Apple system that you can't get your data out of without their blessing".

I've never claimed otherwise.

this thing is good for syncing data, if you want the data back get it from your programs.

it's designed to be secure and easy for users not easy for hackers/coders.

I can't think of any iCloud data you can't download from the website or that is not already on your machine anyway.

> it's a proprietary Apple system

Yes, that's true.

> that you can't get your data out of without their blessing

No, that is not true.

I genuinely don't know, I develop in Windowsland and what I'm going on is what I read in this thread. A post above said:

and

I don't expect my Linux machine to be able to access iCloud

which suggest that there is something specific about this that locks the user into Apple hardware and software.

Is getting a Linux machine to talk to it just a matter of reverse-engineering the protocol, or is there more to it?

I'm just saying there is a difference between a proprietary system and needing a company's "blessing" to get data out of it.

If I save bookmarks in IE on Windows 8, I can only sync that data with another Windows 8 machine. That doesn't mean I need Microsoft's blessing to do so--just one or more of their products--which anyone can buy on the open market.

Firefox and Chrome will sync my bookmarks to any device I use. Safari and IE will not. I will not buy an iOS or WinRT device.

I don't understand. Why can't I be angry about Apple artificially limiting what apps can use the service, and also indirectly limiting what apps can do if they use the service?

EDIT: Wording of 'dropping support' to 'dropping support for the legacy API'. Also added a link to the 1Password blog.

1Password dropped support for the legacy Dropbox sync API some time ago. I was a bit bogged as well, because it needed me to re-buy 1Password from the Appstore. Previously I had v3, v4 needed to be re-bought. When you were a user of 1Password v3, they made that very transparent and also wrote[1] about it on their blog

That sucked, _but_ I get why they did it. v3 used an API of DB that was legacy and they didn't want to support it anymore, because they had a new implementation around the corner which used iCloud.

And in my experience synching got improved a lot. Yes, re-buying sucks, but that's the developers choice. That's not related to iCloud at all. Plus, the new version works better for me, so kudos to 1Password to improving their product - and charging for it seems to work, I paid them lots of money and still am a happy customer(;

1. http://blog.agilebits.com/2013/08/08/1password-3-dropbox-syn...

Hm, odd, it's still in my preferences as an option?

It is back in the new version, yes. But not anymore with the deprecated API from Dropbox. When you were a user of 1Password v3, they made that very transparent and also wrote[1] about it on their blog.

Also note that 1Password needs you to sync via Dropbox for secondary vaults.

1. http://blog.agilebits.com/2013/08/08/1password-3-dropbox-syn...

1Password dropped support for Dropbox synching of the main vault some time ago.

Wat? Not only is it still supported, but they recently squished a bug that caused Dropbox syncing to get disabled. Does your copy of the app not allow Dropbox syncing? Where did you hear about this?

The OP mentioned that he _had_ to buy the AppStore version. That was back when 1Password switched from v3 to v4. Then, they also disabled the legacy Dropbox support. They made that very transparent and also wrote[1] about it on their blog. Also note that 1Password needs you to sync via Dropbox for secondary vaults.

1. http://blog.agilebits.com/2013/08/08/1password-3-dropbox-syn...

I think you're mistaken about Dropbox sync, I'm still using it as well as several friends and family that I've turned onto 1Password.

I did answer to a similar comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8482497

>Diagnostics is super simple stuff, [...]

Not at all. Bug hunting and finding what to fix wastes most of devs time.

I've never had any of the issues in the post. I know iCloud sucks for developers (seems like iOS 8 is rectifying that a bit) but for me as a user it's been very reliable. Am I just lucky? Is the experience detailed in this post very common?

P.S. You don't have to use iCloud for anything. iOS supports Google Calendar/Mail, Dropbox has an API for file storage dev can use and with the new document extensions it's easier than ever to use. You choose to use iCloud of the devs of your favourite apps choose to use it.

Same. iCloud has worked perfectly fine for me. My experience has been pretty close to the "It Just Works" that Apple strives for.

Absolutely true. As a user, I have never had any problems using iCloud.

I had several games where savegame syncing was enabled by default (on the top of my head i remember Rayman Jungle Run) and when the sync fails, the game won't start, even after disabling iCloud.

It's difficult to tell if that's an iCloud issue or a bad implementation of iCloud sync by the developer.

Well, if it's so difficult to implement that it happens to a great number of developers, I'd say it's an iCloud issue.

Not necessarily. Sync--particularly sync which can involve changes at the same time by different devices--is hard. A lot of devs just don't want to fully implement the required mechanisms.

I agree that sync is hard and I wouldn't even blame iCloud since it's rather complicated matter, but there are three things that made me do so:

1) They made it a de facto standard and showed developers how easy it is to use when seemingly, it's not

2) iCloud even messes up simple sync tasks, like: buy a new device 3 out of 5 apps won't start after a simple download from iCloud

3) The problems occur to so many customers and developers that Apple should communicate the problem with developers and adapt their approval system.

Sync is not that hard. I have never had a problem with Dropbox, for example, and that was made by brogrammers.

Yup never had any issues either. iCloud stops working one a week for most users? Whee is that statistic coming from?

My eyes are bleeding. Can't read anything without going 200% and hoping for the best with the contrast.

Try the Readability plugin for your browser of choice:

https://www.readability.com/addons

Why bother? The guy should fix his site. http://contrastrebellion.com/

Evernote's Clearly, also a browser plugin, that runs locally unlike Readability, gives you similar presets, but also lets you set your own CSS:

http://evernote.com/clearly/

Here's an example of Clearly typeset with all the Adobe Source fonts: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2071994/Clearly%20set%20...

First off, iCloud has worked great for me. Secondly, you're not made to use it at all... Apple makes it really easy to turn off in settings, and with particularly fine grained control. If you don't use it, things fall back gracefully to local storage. Thirdly, I've not seen a competitor that works better. Google isn't even trying (it's web only- the equivalent of iCloud.com without the numbers, pages and keynote apps for mobile and desktop.) That's not a slam on google, the web is what google does. It's just the closest competitor.

If iCloud was bad in comparison to something else, people would be using that other thing.

I'm just glad I can now finally get rid of Dropbox once and for all.

Did you even read the article? It's asking developers of third-party apps to not use the iCloud sync backend for their apps, due to a lot of problems they are seeing with it.

> Google isn't even trying (it's web only- the equivalent of iCloud.com without the numbers, pages and keynote apps for mobile and desktop.) That's not a slam on google, the web is what google does. It's just the closest competitor.

Really? Google syncs docs, photos, music, and all sorts of stuff from mobile devices. They have a Drive desktop client (for PC and Mac).

And you say it doesn't have the equivalent of Numbers, Pages, or Keynote, but they do. It just so happens that there's a web client for all your word processing, spreadsheet and presentation needs in Google-land (with very cool features like simultaneous multi-user editing and Javascript scripting with a script repository).

Anyhow, Google does have equivalents to what you listed, they work great, not sure about iCloud (don't use it), just wanted to clear that up.

You missed the key word: "numbers, pages and keynote APPS". The parent's point is that Google doesn't have an offline version of their productivity suite, so they aren't trying to do the same thing Apple is.

Sure they do: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2375012?hl=en

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2375012?hl=en

Jus sayin'...

Browser based doesn't mean online-only...

Yes they do: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=google%20docs&hl=en

Docs, Sheets and Slides are all APPS now, with real-time syncing

When your spreadsheet is a web app, you don't need to sync. Because there is no native app to sync to.

That's a whole lot easier than figuring out how to do sync.

Really? So websites just magically sync data? This is news. And here I am messing with databases n shit....

The article is a pretty clearly a plea to third party developers, not Apple, asking them to not force him to use iCloud as the only syncing option. Turning off iCloud, and disabling sync altogether is not really a "fix" (hobsons' choice more like it).

Google docs are available offline - https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2375012?hl=en

"Apple makes it really easy to turn off in settings, and with particularly fine grained control."

Unless things changed since the last time I looked, no, not really. If you decide to turn off iCloud after using it for a period of time you risk having contacts, calendars, notes and other data deleted. This happened to my wife. She had to disconnect due to HIPPA and lost piles of information in the process. Yes, if you are a tech person there are ways to avoid that. That is nit the case for the average person. I think this is really shitty of Apple. How hard would it be to ask: Would you like to keep <information> stored in your <device> after disabling iCloud? Not sure what this says about Apple.

Please don't add `letter-spacing: -1px` to Helvetica Neue. It's hard enough to read as it is!

I had lots of issues using Day One with iCloud. I have the Mac app as well as the iPhone app, but they just wouldn't sync up correctly. Fortunately, after moving to Dropbox syncing everything cleaned up and I've not had a problem since.

The new iCloud APIs are a lot less magic-oriented, and lower level, than the Core Data syncing thing, so hopefully we should see improvements.

Highly tangential project pimp time: https://github.com/atomirex/umbrella

So, sadly I haven't got this further the last couple of weeks, and it's more framework than even proof-of-concept (panic at a paying customer taking precedence), however, the general idea is to provide iCloud/Dropbox/GDrive type functionality to apps (on Android to start with) via the storage app framework wrapping JGit synced over Bonjour or static IPs (and IDed with public keys) with a sane UI, and ultimately things like filetype specific SQLite indexing of documents within.

I don't buy the idea that any of Dropbox/iCloud/whatever are sustainable in the long run, especially with the privacy noise. The whole thing needs to become user-oriented, not service-oriented. How the economics of that will work I have no idea, but it's becoming an itch that's getting intolerable.

> Fortunately this issue didn’t happen too often. Maybe once a week or so, for most users, but now we have iOS 8.

Once a week is incredibly frequent, and it's too bad that it's not working for Andreas. However, if the comments on this thread are any proof, this is not the case for 'most users'.

if you're experiencing these issues, it is possible that there is something wrong with your account. I would highly recommend contacting Apple Support [1] (especially if you have had your account for many years), I can't even begin to explain the obscure issues they have fixed with my account, in no less than 24 hours of contacting them.

[1] Apple ID support is done online, an Apple Retail employee will not be able to help.

iCloud notes syncing between my iPhone and my Mac used to cause conflicts almost daily. And when conflicts arise, iCloud just creates duplicates. So I was left comparing notes manually to fix the mess. 20min lost every day to mind-numbing work is not my idea of a seamless experience.

I then tried Evernote. It's even worse with syncing. It would create duplicates in at least three different ways, all of them annoying, all of them requiring the same manual work to repair. I am pretty sure it also lost some work at one point.

Since then, I've switched to OneNote from Microsoft (which is free!), and I haven't had to waste a single more minute, and haven't lost a single character more.

I've had one issue with iCloud Drive - and that was with Threes. I don't know why/how they're using iCloud, but their instructions to fix it was turning off iCloud Drive for the app.

Other than that, I haven't had any problems. I have seen tweets of people who are having problems, and the most common recommendation I've seen is to turn iCloud Drive off for the app and turn it back on so it regenerates the sync key.

I haven't played with iCloud, but Couchbase Lite + CouchDB on the backend has been pretty great to work with. Data sync is free and Just Works™, and thanks to Couch attachments, supports files as well. Not right for every use-case, obviously, but for keeping data in sync across devices it's been great.

I have never had to reboot my device because of iCloud, and actually never experienced any of the issues described in the post.

Honestly, I suspect the developers of the app is more at fault here, or something weird is going on with the authors iCloud account. Or hey, I might just be one of the lucky few?

Never had a problem personally

You're at a negative score - the text on HN is grey on white to make it deliberately hard to read. Which is sort of what that site is like to read!

I bypass iCloud activation screen lock whit tool from this page : http://removeicloud.wordpress.com/

Wait. Syncing with iCloud freezes the application? Can't you sync in a different thread?

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