by Dan Moren
Glenn Fleishman on troubleshooting iCloud Drive
iCloud problems are all the rage now! Friend, colleague, and occasional Six Colors contributor Glenn Fleishman has an extensive article about trying to figure out problems with iCloud Drive syncing:
Thus was the beginning of my pain. While I had suffered from iCloud Drive synchronization problems in the past, I’d never had such a sustained and resistant issue as over the last five months. That’s right—five months. Worst of all? The problem is now solved, but I don’t know what caused it nor how to avoid it in the future. Apple’s engineering elves fixed it without sending information back through the super senior Apple technical support person I dealt with across many emails, calls, and hours of troubleshooting.
Yes, the old iCloud black box strikes again. Since posting my story, I’ve gotten a ton of emails and social media messages about people with iCloud problems, and while I’d expect any service with as many users as Apple’s offering to have a fair number of edge cases, it does at times feel like the whole thing is made out of edge.
Technology issues aside, Apple does need to do a much better job about communicating with its users, especially in regards to services. These are customers contributing to one of the company’s most important (and profitable) segments, and it’s a fundamentally different proposition than Apple’s usual transactional business of having somebody buy a product and walk away. If the company wants to retain these customers for the long run—not to mention bring in additional customers—then support needs to be job one.