iCloud

Currently, if you’re deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem, you likely have a huge range of data stored on iCloud – contacts, messages, calendars, photos, videos, mail, notes, documents, device backups, and more. Moving data from iCloud to a different cloud service (because of a price increase, say) is non-trivial, and that’s something a new law aims to change.

While Apple is committed to the principle of data portability, it doesn’t yet go out of its way to make the process easy for non-techy users …

Apple announced last month that it plans to discontinue its My Photo Stream service this summer. Today marks the deadline for media uploads using the free iCloud feature. This effectively ends the service after more than a decade of providing a basic sync solution at no cost to Apple device users.

It may be news to many that Apple’s “My Photo Stream” feature was still alive and kicking, but the real news today is that Apple is pulling the plug on the free iCloud feature this summer.

Earlier this week, the Apple Weather app went offline for hours. And even after Apple said the problem had been fixed, users have been complaining that the app is taking too long to show updated information. Now it seems that multiple Apple services like iCloud and iMessage are experiencing slowdowns and outages.

Update: Apple confirmed the outage and said that the issues have now been fixed. You can read the original article below.

Apple is set to lose another top executive this spring, this time the company’s chief of cloud services. The change comes after Apple lost one of its top services executives, Peter Stern, at the end of January this year.

There have been numerous examples of people losing a lifetime’s worth of photos after being locked out of their iCloud account. The Apple account recovery process often proves impossible, especially in cases where an iPhone has been stolen and its owner forced to unlock it.

Just yesterday there was a fresh example, where an unlocked iPhone was stolen at gunpoint by seemingly tech-savvy thieves …

Apple launched a big security enhancement with iOS 16.2 that brings the long-requested feature of full encryption for iMessage in iCloud, iPhone backups, and eight other apps/categories. As part of the process, you’ll need to set up a recovery contact/key – here’s how to turn on iPhone end-to-end encryption for iMessage, iCloud, device backups, Notes, Safari, Photos, and more.

Some of Apple’s services are currently down for some users around the world. Apple has confirmed the ongoing outage, which affects Find My, iCloud Calendar, iCloud Mail, the iCloud website, and even the Screen Time feature.

Apple on Wednesday announced new iCloud security features to strengthen users’ privacy. This includes Advanced Data Protection with end-to-end encryption for all data saved in the cloud, as well as support for physical security keys. In an interview with WSJ’s Joanna Stern, Apple’s SVP of software, Craig Federighi, shared some details about what led the company to introduce such features to iCloud.

There are ongoing issues apparently affecting the iCloud for Windows app, particularly in regards to photo and video storage. According to a number of online complaints from users, iCloud for Windows is corrupting certain videos. There are also reports of a more worrying problem: photos from strangers popping up in people’s iCloud Photo library.

Apple has launched a new iCloud interface on the web for all users. This new design is far more modern and customizable, with a tile-based interface that shows information from Apple’s various iCloud apps and services. This includes Mail, Reminders, Photos, and more.

If you’re experiencing any problems when trying to access iCloud Mail, you’re not alone. Apple’s email service is currently down for many users, while others can still access it but with considerable slowdowns.

Update: Apple says the outage was fixed at 4:05 a.m ET. You can read the original article below.

Apple is close to launching a major new feature in the Photos app that makes it much easier to share photos and videos with loved ones. iCloud Shared Photo Library lets you automatically or manually share your whole library or parts of it. But while the feature is available in the iOS 16.1 public and developer beta, you can’t share with anyone running the public iOS 16.0.2 release or earlier.

A Chinese spy carrying out industrial espionage against GE Aviation and Honeywell’s aerospace division was caught with the help of access to an iCloud backup of his iPhone. The data obtained included a never-before-seen copy of a security form used by the Chinese security service when recruiting spies.

Xu Yanjun, an officer in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) was arrested and brought to trial in the US after investigators lured him out of the country to a meeting in Belgium, from where he was extradited to America …

With the release of iOS 15 last year, Apple added a new perk for those buying a new iPhone or iPad. When you buy a new iPhone or iPad, including the new iPhone 14, you’ll get a temporary boost in iCloud storage to back up your old iPhone. This streamlines the process of setting up your new iPhone 14.

Update: A federal judge has now approved the settlement – see bottom of piece for details

An iCloud class action lawsuit has been settled out of court, with Apple agreeing to pay a total of $14.8M to US residents subscribing to one of the paid storage tiers during a specific time period.

The payout was agreed upon after it was alleged that Apple breached the service terms and conditions by storing user data on non-Apple servers …

Apple last year updated its iCloud Utility for Windows with a password manager for the first time, so that users can access and manage their passwords stored in iCloud Keychain from a Windows PC. Now the iCloud Utility has been updated with support for two-factor authentication (2FA) code generator.

An Apple Indonesia agreement could force the company to hand over to the government the personal data of iCloud users.

Other tech companies also signed the agreement after the government set a deadline to avoid fines or even being banned from operating in the country.

iCloud Photos is a fantastic feature for syncing large photo and video libraries across all your devices. Have a 300GB photo library? With an iCloud subscription and Optimize Storage, you don’t need a 512GB or 1TB iPhone to take your media with you. Still, iCloud Photos backups shouldn’t be ignored.

Keeping a local backup of your photo library is mighty important. iCloud Photos can feel like a backup. It’s really just your photo library in a single place — even if you don’t use Optimize Storage. iCloud Photos really doesn’t encourage methods of keeping separate, offline copies of photos and videos.

Apple has just released iOS 16 beta 2 for developers, and while we’re still not sure what exactly is new, the company has confirmed a subtle change coming with today’s update. With the latest beta version of iOS 16, users will finally be able to backup their devices to iCloud over LTE and 5G networks.

Introduced in 2014, iCloud Documents and Data was a system that automatically synchronized data from different apps and made them available across a wide array of devices. Now, Apple has announced that this service was discontinued and it’s now part of iCloud Drive.