ICloud is a Disaster

After spending a few hours upgrading to Lion and activating iCloud, I fully realize now that Apple eliminated GALLERY and iWEB....infuriating!!!
Apple has a great reputation for making products that people like and are willing to pay a premium price.
However, time after time, it seems that the launch of any new software/serice is riddled with disasters!!

As much as I understand the frustration of Ex-MobileMe Users, let's not forget the fact that iCloud is a new product, created for the new Apple customers that are owning their first iDevices and don't know OSX or MobileMe at all. ( Don't laugh . I know people that never owned a PC but use only such for internet ).
To these the syncing across their ipads,phones and pods is more important then having a storage facility or a web-hosting solution.
Apple obviously has done market research of what the "typical" iDevice user wants :
- they share pictures and videos on facebook,flickr,vimeo,youtube and the likes. So no need for a Gallery.
- the IOS filesystem is often refered as being a "jail" - because the end user has nothing to see, nothing to manage. They see their apps and the files are in these apps, not in some folders to remember. Apple wants to do away with path-names,folders or file-associations. They want the users to only remember "write letters,open pages." "where are my letters ? Open pages" .. that scheme. So no need for iDisk.
IT and Expectations of Users have drastically changed. If yesterday we all sat with the Finder open and multitudes full of files and folders, having to use spotlight to search for our stuff and remember which app to use for opening files a, b and c. this is soon all a thing of the past.
Just look at Lion and the "Launchpad". Now imagine there would not be a Finder, no Harddisk icons, only your apps. That is OS'X direction and everybody can clearly see this coming who is not blind. The "iOSification" is a process that has just begun in Lion; ultimately it will be very similar in coming versions. If not a universal iOS comes out to run on everything from iPod to iMac. Or if Desktop Macs dissapear complety.Would also be no shock - Apple sells more of the mobile devices then on desktops or laptops. The iOS Appstore is the number one income source for Apple as well all developers.So there must be users "en masse".
The new generation of "IT/PC/Mac-users" have just their iPad on the table and just launch their apps.
Such conversion processes are always twilight : The "classic" users keep whining about how different this all is, how inconvienent, how "hard", "strange" or "limiting" - but the new users, the younger ones they welcome this all and get used to it, having their laugh at how "limiting" "hard" "strange" was the way we,the "old" ones have used computers ..
I am now 34 years old, have kept up since 1994 with the evolution in PCs and Macs and I had to get used to lots of evolving, learn new tools, new apps, new Operating systems - ever developing skills and knowledge. And as much as I am also one of the "old school" Mac users, as much as I loved the "iTools", the upload from iWeb to Apples mobile me servers - so much I also welcome the shift over to iOS and social media sharing in flickr and co. I had to change my workflows, my behaviours. I needed to tell my friends that in future I would use different Email, different services .. but was that really such a "mess" to do ? Was it hard ? ..
You might forgive me my non-native-english-language .. Hope it is somehow clear what I wanted to express :
Not everything "missing" in the "new" must be bad = Choices and alternatives are a great thing.
Message was edited by: Sjazbec. typo

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In iOS 8, how can I share my photo stream AND assign different names to each of our devices in Find My Friends?

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I chatted with Apple tech support. They said [add rolling eyes here] that this is easily solved with the new Family Sharing feature. In other words, I sign in on my phone, my wife signs in on hers, and we share our photos in the Family folder. Of course, no photos are automatically shared in the Family folder. It's just a shared folder, something anybody could have created in iOS 7. I would still have to drag all of my photos and my wife would have to drag all of her photos to the folder in order to share them. Also, I notice that app updates on her phone are strangely being downloaded under her account, so when we make a change, it says the downloaded app will have to be deleted, because it was not downloaded through my account. This Family Sharing thing is a joke. I told the tech support lady that this didn't feel like much of a "feature" at all. She suggested that I provide feedback if I didn't like it, which I did.
So there is no way to do what I'm wanting to do under iOS 8 at the moment. I love Apple products, but wow, iCloud is a disaster at the moment. Just look at all of the people who upgraded to iOS 8 and upgraded to iCloud Drive without understanding the implications. Now they're getting an error message that they need to download Yosemite in order to access their documents, even though Yosemite isn't available to the public yet. Not well planned. In the meantime, we just don't share our photos in exchange for finding each other for lunch.

Photo stream discrepancies across different devices

I recently restored the firmware on my iPhone 4S and set it up as a new phone (iOS 5.1). After entering my iCloud login/password and waiting for data to be downloaded, I noted that Photo Steam has 380 photos on this device, but on my MacBook Pro, Photo Stream shows 639 photos.
How can this be? Turning off PS on the iPhone and turning it back on again doesn't change this situation.

I chatted with Apple tech support. They said [add rolling eyes here] that this is easily solved with the new Family Sharing feature. In other words, I sign in on my phone, my wife signs in on hers, and we share our photos in the Family folder. Of course, no photos are automatically shared in the Family folder. It's just a shared folder, something anybody could have created in iOS 7. I would still have to drag all of my photos and my wife would have to drag all of her photos to the folder in order to share them. Also, I notice that app updates on her phone are strangely being downloaded under her account, so when we make a change, it says the downloaded app will have to be deleted, because it was not downloaded through my account. This Family Sharing thing is a joke. I told the tech support lady that this didn't feel like much of a "feature" at all. She suggested that I provide feedback if I didn't like it, which I did.
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Lion address book 3 columns

Is there anyway to pruduce the veiwing of 3 columns in the new address book without turning pages. It seems they have made this not user friendly with this upgrade. I am constatnly going back and forth between pages. OR is there another app out there that uses the old system?

I definitely wrote a piece of mind a few weeks ago.
It sounds horrible, but in my opinion, Steve's last hurrah was a total wooden spoon. Lion is a weak update, and doesn't actually add any cool new features. Instead, it tries — and fails — to bring the simplicity of iOS to the Mac. That "natural" swiping thing is just the tip of the iceberg, there are hundreds of "features" that are just terrible.
iCloud is a disaster. The fact that it doesn't work on Snow Leopard is a travesty, and approximately 1/3 people in the Apple store are having problems with syncing, retrieving, or installing it somewhere. Photostream is tragic in its heavy-handedness. Not to mention the fact that they are incredibly inconsistent in how they name and assign IDs with @mac.com @me.com and @icloud.com (for example, you go to icloud.com, log-in with your @me.com address, but actually, your Apple ID is @mac.com since you're a legacy user.) Ridiculous.
Similarly, Address Book and iCal have been disimproved. I do not understand why they took away useful sidebars in iCal and the third column in Address Book and replaced them with faux-leather body styling.
I hope 2012 is a better year for Apple, starting with fixing some of their last roll-outs.

ICloud disaster destroyed all my Pages work on the iPad!

I have an IPad 2 with Pages that I have used for months to write business articles and research papers for publication. I have been using iCloud to synch it through a single user account.
Last week, I was forced to upgrade my iMac to Lion because corrupted account permissions locked me out of all my home folders as well as my two different external drives and even my Time Capsule and Time Machine --- something supposedly impossible. But it all inexplicably happened. It took over a week for assorted sympathetic Apple care specialists and engineers to try to sort it out. The original problem was still never diagnosed or solved. Instead, my hard drive was erased, OSX 10.6 reinstalled, a date back up restored, and then Lion loaded as new.
As per Apple care instruction, iCloud in Lion was immediately activated on the iMac -- but no document files were ever shared.
Four days later, after synching my iPad to iCloud, when I next opened Pages I watched in horror as in a mere second more than 30 documents vanished en masse right before my eyes.
Somehow all these files never got backed up in my iTunes even though I had made several recent saves to the hard drive as well as an iCloud back up!
And as for the files or even the mobile documents library folder being save in my recent Time Machine back ups, they never were. The back ups contain no iOS Pages text nor any deleted folder files to restore.
Despite all the Time Machine and iTunes back ups, and despite all the free space on the iPad where I actually did all the work without an internet connection, as soon as I synched they were mysteriously deleted by iCloud.
Pages on iPad was left empty and blank. Replacing the mobile documents folder on my iMac from a back up did at least managed to provide Pages file some icons with names dates, but they are ghost documents, mere skeleton files that can’t be opened. All my actual text content is now apparently nowhere; lost in Apple’s iCloud ether!
This is an iPad which for months I used for Pages work without any internet connection, 3G or WiFi, and yet in an instant the iCloud on its own disintegrated everything it contained! Apple essentially reached down into my device, into my personal property that I own, and without warning, notice, or permission and simply erased all my work; all my personal labor and effort that belonged to me. They essentially committed sabotage and theft.
I have nothing saved anywhere despite being told how the iCloud was a trustworthy safety net, that Time Machine provided worry free back up, and that saving through iTunes could restore iPad content. Garbage. I did everything right and still got screwed.
Further…
In just the past two weeks alone I have suffered: my second iPhone -- a month old replacement for a previous defective iPhone itself only a month old -- experience a “software corruption” that caused it to continuously shut down if unplugged; my iMac and Time Capsule failing; and now this catastrophic iPad disaster.
If this is not resolved with my fiels returned to me I simply will never use iCloud and I will never trust Apple again.
I am disgusted and furious beyond words.
JC
Atlanta

Hi JC,
My iPad is in a similar state, although I arrived in the bizarro state by a different path. I am also waiting for the apple experts to get back with me. I have an iPad 1 with ios 5.1.1 and Pages 1.7.1.
In the mean time, while I was waiting, I found a way to extract the TEXT from a large Pages document I did not want to lose; it was the result of many years of notes. This might save you some time instead of sifting through the raw index.db.
The index.db file is a sqlite3 file. If you are on mac you can open it from a terminal with the command:
sqlite3 index.db.
I suggest you move the file out of the iTunes directory before you start working with it, just in case something unexpected happens, you don't want to lose the only copy of the data you are trying to recover.
1) Once the file is open via 'sqlite3 index.db' from a terminal command line, type ".tables" at the 'sqlite>" prompt and press enter. It should show five tables:
cullingState
dataStates
document
objects
relationships
2) The file with your data is named dataStates, but it has many records in it. I found my data by looking for the "largest" record. Let me explain. There are two fields in the dataStates table:
identifier
state
Your data is stored in the 'state' field and it's data type is 'blob'. (I know that sounds stupid, but stick with me.)
3) I found the largest record by typing this query at the 'sqlite>' prompt:
select identifier, length(state) from dataStates order by length(state) asc;
My 'dataStates' table had 599 records, so many lines fly by, but the largest state field is at the bottom of the list with it's identifier. Mine was:
3|173212
That identified a dataStates record with identifier '3' and 173,212 bytes of data in the 'state' field. Most of the bytes where printable ascii. It WAS the text of my original Pages document.
DISCLAIMER: This method does not retrieve ANY formatting, pagination, tables bullets or numbering, images or other document rendering information. It is just the TEXT.
4) Type this SQL command at the 'sqlite>' prompt to pull out the blob data:
select hex(state) from dataStates where identifier=X;
In my case the identifier was 3 so MY command was:
select hex(state) from dataStates where identifier=3;
5) Now is when the funs begins.   The large block of gibberish is 'ascii encoded binary' brought to you courtesy of the hex function.
To store it in a file, use the the sqlite3 '.output' command and type the preceding sql select. Like the following:
.output binacii.txt
select hex(state) from dataStates where identifier=3;
.output stdout
This takes the large block of 'binary encoded ascii' and writes it to file named 'binascii.txt' rather than displaying it in the terminal window. After the select statement ends, the output is switched back to the terminal window (stdout).    The 'binascii.txt' file is located in the same folder/directory that was the current directory when you launched the sqlite3 command.
6) I moved my 'binascii.txt' file to a windows computer at this point and wrote a simple conversion routine to decode the 'ascii coded binary' into something usable with a work processor. In "ascii coded binary", each 8-bit byte of data is encoded as two ascii characters, it enables sending binary data via the internet, etc, similar to uuencode, but NOT the same.
7) Here is a small python program to convert the 'binascii.txt' file to the text from your Pages document on a Mac:
import sys
p = sys.stdin.read()
s = []
for location in range(0, len(p), 2):
   value = int(p[location:location+2], 16)
   if value >=32 and value <=126 or value==10:
       s.append(chr(value))
sys.stdout.write(''.join(s))
8) (NOTE: The last line has two single quotes (') not a double quote (")). I am assuming at this point that you know how to create a text file using a terminal window.   Add the python script to a text file, make sure you honor the indentations! I named my python file 'convert.py'. To use the python script, type the following command:
cat binascii.txt | python convert.py > your.txt
This method also assumes that the files 'binascii.txt', 'convert.py' and 'your.txt' are all in the same folder/directory.
9) The resulting file, 'your.txt' can be opened by Word or Pages (you can name the file 'your.txt' to whatever you want). In my case, I opened the file 'your.txt' with MS Word. It had some rudimentary formatting in the form of paragraph breaks, single lines, some headings etc. I did lose the data stored in tables, although I expect the text is still lurking somewhere in the index.db file.
There were some ascii characters that were not part of my original document, but they were pretty easy to find and remove. In my case the errant ascii characters were outside my document's large text block.   Also numbered and bulleted blocks run together. Again the formatting information is still buried within the index.db file.
The iOS Pages file format is more cryptic than the simple zip/XML format from the desktop OS X version of Pages.
Hope this helps a little, although you seem to be OK with the approach of sifting through the raw index.db file. The Pages document I wanted to recover was 63 pages long and manually sifting through all the crap in the index.db drove me on a quest to find the real text within the index.db file, which i found.
Sorry for the length of this post,
Cheers

ICloud a disaster - due to moving from old .mac account?

A long time ago, I had a .mac account and email address. Then I didnt feel like paying for the yearly service, and I dropped it. But my id (which ends in "@mac.com" remained for itunes purchases and the like.
When icloud launched, I used this id to setup, but when I tried to use the same id (the part BEFORE the "@mac.com") I was told it was taken, and chose a new email address (ending in "@me.com"). it appeared to setup properly, then...nothing. checking the box for icloud email in prefs does nothing, trying to web login at icloud.com produces an error when trying to access mail (although other services work), And I can't get icloud mail on my mac nor my iphone. On the mac, it never sets up a mail.app account, and trying to add one manually gives all kinds of errors. On the iphone, the account seems to have been setup automatically, but when I launch mail I get the following error:
"Cannot Get Mail
The user name or password for 'iCloud' is incorrect."
Even though I have checked and rechecked my login and it works in the prefs (with checkmarks and all!)
This is one crappy rollout, nothing works. I don't know if it is related to my previously exisitng .mac account or what, but this should have been tested far better than it was. What a disaster.

After activatin iCloud, my dotMac account wouldn't retrieve mail anymore. It kept saying that my username or password were not good. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn't restore the service.
Here's how I got it working again.
Apparently my 6 letter password is no longer acceptable. You need to update it to an 8 letter password that includes numbers and capital letters.
So I went to https://iforgot.apple.com and asked to reset my password.
Because I could still get my emails logging into iCloud with Safari, I responded to Apple's email, and created a stronger password.
Than I updated the passwords on my computer's Mail program, iPhone, and iPad (and of course everything else, iTunes, etc.).
That was it!
Everything works as normal again, I even was finally able to synchronize calendars over different computers again.
Try it out, it could be your issue as well.

Since I activated iCloud my contacts are a disaster-any ideas?

Since I activated icloud my contacts are a disaster - any ideas?

If you sync contacts over the air with iCloud, you need to stop syncing contacts through iTunes with a supported contact application on your computer. You do one or the other, not both.

ICloud disaster

Using an iPod Touch 4th generation, have been unable to access iCloud. It won't accept my Apple password. Apple Store does. iTunes does. Apple Support Communities do. Not only that, but can't download the new operating system for iPod. For the first time am considering leaving Apple products.

To update the issue--after changing my Apple password three times, iCloud finally accepts it. Hooray!

Why is iCloud syncing such a disaster? How can I fix?

I have two Macs and an iPhone. I have a separate iCloud account (separate from my iTunes/App Store account) for iCloud syncing. Until now, I have never had this working properly in any way:
- Keychain syncing doesn't work at all. Both macs have a different set of keywords in their iCloud Keychain, new passwords are (sometimes) added to both, existing passwords do not sync at all.
- Contacts syncing does not work at all. I have a set of Contacts on my iPhone. Even resetting iCloud Contact syncing on the Mac does not get them. I finally got them because it turned out that when System Preferences thinks Contacts are synced, Contacts.app itself has no idea about that account. Add the account to Contacts.app and in your System Preferences Contacts syncing is turned off. etc.
What is needed is that Apple fixes this, also in the current OS versions. And what I need is some sort of manual to get this unstable mess in working order.
(I am clearly frustrated, I've been wrestling with this for ages and ages and ages and I have better things to do than wrestling with Apple's unstable implementation of a good idea).

My first instruction may well be exactly what you've done but I want to ensure that we're talking about the same thing.
First, try a system reset. It cures many ills and it's quick, easy and harmless...
Hold down the on/off switch and the Home button simultaneously until the screen blacks out or you see the Apple logo. Ignore the "Slide to power off" text if it appears. You will not lose any apps, data, music, movies, settings, etc.
If the Reset doesn't work, try a Restore. Note that it's nowhere near as quick as a Reset. Connect via cable to the computer that you use for sync. From iTunes, select the iPad/iPod and then select the Summary tab. Follow directions for Restore and be sure to say "yes" to the backup. You will be warned that all data (apps, music, movies, etc.) will be erased but, as the Restore finishes, you will be asked if you wish the contents of the backup to be copied to the iPad/iPod. Again, say "yes."
Finally, if the Restore doesn't work, let the battery drain completely. Then recharge for at least an hour and Restore again.

ICloud Disaster with Poor internet connection

i have been working on a document for a day while Internet connection ok. Today it is poor and while working on Pages document on iPad Air connection was slow. I turned off Icloud assuming I could work on document on ipad locally.
I have now lost ALL today's work.
it seems using iOS devices is totally dependent on good connections to icloud
How can I use ipad, iphone iwork apps when iCloud not available and update when it is.
This is going to be a nightmare when travelling.

Firstly, I think it is worth attempting to break this down into two parts: Is it the wireless or the wired part of the network which is causing the problem.
Is it possible to temporarily connect the Mac directly to your cablemodem/whatever via Ethernet, and check the speeds you get? It could just be that your ISP is overloaded and its throughputs are significantly slower than advertised. Googling for bandwith test should give you some sites that let you test download speeds.
If that's OK then its time to look at the airlink. Who is the ISP? What equipment (make/model) have they supplied you with?

Multiple email accounts with invites on same iCloud account

Were a small company all with emails under the company name: [email protected], but all have our iCloud calendars under our own personal email addresses. The issue is getting company meetings/events synced with our iCloud accounts to be able to see them on all devices.
Just to be clear: I have [email protected] and [email protected] (icloud email address). I need [email protected] iCal invites to sync with [email protected] (icloud account).
Has anyone had the same issue with any type of conclusion?
Thanks

Frankly, sharing an iPad like that would be a disaster in my humble opinion.
Not only calendars, notes, reminders would be co-mingled, but so would bookmarks, iMessages, ...
I strongly recommend against sharing an iPad.

My husband and I share his apple ID on our iphone5s. I created own Apple ID. How can I put it on my phone for own iCloud and keep joint itunes?

My husband and I presently share his Apple ID on our respective 5c iPhones. I want my own iCloud account. I created an Apple ID for myself.
1} how do I change from his apple ID in my phone
2) how do I continue to use the joint iTunes account under his name
3) see below - how do I switch the iTunes account to my apple ID
Also, under a totally different subject. My husbands iPhone was just stolen while he was doing volunteer disaster work in the Philippines. Since he did not have internet access I was not able to wipe out his phone on Find My iPhone until about 8 hours after it was stolen. After he found a way to call me back in the states, I wiped out all his data using FInd My iphone, notified Verizon and they suspended service.
Because the nonplan iPhones are so expensive ($600 +) I think he will buy an Android when he returns. Is there any way to transfer what is on our iTunes account to his Android?
The Verizon service person told me that whoever stole it will not be able to use the phone as it has been reported stolen. I can not imagine that is correct as there seems to be a thriving secondary market online. Is that correct? I am concerned that some super technical person will be able to retrieve data that was purged via Find My iPhone.... Is there anything else I should do?

Did you take a look at the new feature Apple - iOS 8 - Family Sharing ?
Apple - iCloud - Family Sharing
Up to now, songs bought from iTunes could only be played by the Apple ID that has been used to buy them.
If you set up Family Sharing, your daughter can also play your songs and use the same contact info as before.
If you don't want to do that, sync the contact info to the address book on your computer, and sync the info back, using iTunes:
Sync your iPhone, iPad and iPod with iTunes using USB
If the iPad already has her Apple ID and contact info on it, restore the phone from the latest iPad backup.

ICloud syncs my Reminders to Tasks in Outlook, but they do not show up on the To-Do List

When I make new tasks in the Reminders App on my new iPhone 4S, I notice that iCloud syncs it to Outlook in a new "iCloud Tasks" file separate from the original Outlook Data File. The tasks in the "iCloud Tasks" do not appear on the To-Do bar on the bottom right. Anyone know how to configure this to display correctly?

iCloud-Windows Outlook To-Do Bar Incompatibility Disaster:
Although I don't blame anyone else but myself since I installed iCloud on Windows, my dependence on the To-Do Bar list in Windows Outlook for a quick view of upcoming appointments over several weeks became apparent yesterday when I missed a job interview that I thought was today.
Since iCloud sends reminders a few minutes before events and it is difficult to depend on the small calendar boxes in month view for upcoming appointments, I find I have fallen back to depending on memory alone since installing iCloud. I thought I had a good memory until this disaster.
For those of us required to use Windows Outlook, and grown dependent on the convenient To-Do Bar list on the right hand side for our upcoming appointments, this loss of the list after installing iCloud can result in disastrous consequences
Although I have appreciated the instantaneous sync across all my devices using iCloud, the inability to easily see the appointments well ahead of time makes it useless to me. I'm afraid I will have to reinstall Office to hopefully get rid of iCloud in Outlook. Hopefully the Outlook.pst file will be clean when Outlook without iCloud opens it.
I continued using iCloud with the hope this problem would soon be corrected, but now it's too late.

ICloud doesn't remember synch folder for Photostream on Win7 PC

After the iCloud update that accompanied the iTunes 10.7 download, it's apparently forgotten how to remember configuration settings including the folder assigned for photostream synching.
Symptoms include the "Options ...." button alongside the Photostream option in the iCloud control panel not responding. I tried signing out and signing back in. The first time I did this, it did open up the Options dialog which is when I saw that it had changed the synch folder and started using what I assume is a default configuration, under My Pictures > Photostream. I deleted the Photostream folder under My Pictures, changed the synch folder location in the iCloud panel back to where I wanted it, saved the configuration and tested it again by taking a new picture on my iPad. Nothing. No pictures synched to the specified folder on the PC. I checked, and sure enough, it had recreated the Photostream folder under My Pictures, but hadn't synched the photo there either. And the Options button alongside Photostream in the iCloud control panel has stopped responding again.
For a company that promotes itself as one that provides a superior user experience, Apple totally suck at user experiences outside their own sandbox. iTunes is a disaster on the PC and now iCloud joins it in the "I'd trash it the minute I have a choice" category.

Thanks HeliDavid, this seems to have resolved the problem. It still created My Photostream and Uploads folders, but at least this time they're within the folder I gave it, and it did synch photos.
Apple, if you're listening, it's inelegance of the highest order for an automatic software update to require one to have to uninstall it, reboot the machine and reinstall the software just to get it to work as it was intended to. Horrible customer experience, even Microsoft is beyond this point now. Get your act together.

ICloud ruined my life- how can I escalate this case further!!!

The unthinkable has been hande to me by Apple.
iCloud corrupted 40% of my documents. Then 'reset' the remaining 60%
100% of my documents erased by Apple. This has taken 8 months of my life away, the apple care process has been woeful. So many Senior Advisors said they would 'take ownership of the case' and 'call me back'. Nothing, no call back- I am forced to call up again- explain the case again- be promised again by another Senior Advisor that they would 'take ownership of the case' and 'call me back'...
I am left shattered.
This was a few months ago- i have lost huge amounts of irreplaceable research generated from over 2000 hours of my own personal work.
It was not backed up to my mac book as it was rendered inoperable when i 'upgraded' to OSX Lion.
I did all my work for 8 months on my ipad. All documents were created and stored locally on my ipad. I had no access to my LaCie external because my macbook was inoperable.
It was recommended by Apple Genius that I turn on icloud for Documents. iCloud then corrupted the documents and synced that corruption back to my documents locally stored on my ipad.
I could then see all the images in pages documents view. But could not open them- that was for about 40%of my documents. I could still access the other 60%
My account was then referred to the iCloud engineers. After a few weeks with no contact from apple I called up to chase up this loss of my documents- it had been going on for 7 weeks at this point.
The senior advisor told me that my account had been 'reset' and should be working fine now..
WHAT!!!! Reset!!!?????? so what about the 60% of docs that i had access to?
Gone. Deleted from the icloud account, synced back to my ipad.
All Gone.\
If i had been contacted by the engineers. 'We cannot fix your corrupted documents. We propose to reset your account. That will erase all data and documents in your account. Is this ok? Please backup any documents you have on your ipad.'
This would have saved 60% of my 8 months research- which is a lot.
but no- no contact, just reset my account and erased my documents.
its unbelieveable and unthinkable.
I am a MASSIVE apple fan- i have 22 Apple devices and tell everyone in my network that all my dreams have come true with Apple- ridiculing them for using other devices. It has now turned into a nightmare.
I WENT TO THE APPLE STORE IN SYDNEY IN DESPARATION- TO FIND OUT IF THERE WAS AN IMAGE OF THE DOCUMENTS SOMEWHERE/ANYWHERE!!! I KNOW THEY CAN ONLY CONTACT ICLOUD IN THE SAME WAY AS ME- BUT WHAT OPTIONS DID I HAVE- I COULDN'T ESCALATE THROUGH APPLE ANY HIGHER- THEY TOLD ME THAT THE SENIOR ADVISORS AND ENGINEERS WERE AS HIGH AS I COULD ESCALATE. SO I WENT TO THE APPLE STORE AND TOLD THEM THAT I WOULD NOT LEAVE THE STORE UNTIL IT WAS RESOLVED- THEY TOLD ME THEY COULDN'T HELP ME- I STAYED FOR 8 HOURS- AFTER 1.5 HOURS WE FOUDN OUT THAT THE ENGINEERS LIKENED TRYING TO RESTORE MY DOCUMENTS TO TRYING TO REBUILD A BURNT DOWN HOUSE.
We were about to release our energy saving App globally. I had a meltdown and just went away on holiday to New Zealand and Thailand with my kids- I couldn't face the reality of what i had to do to recover.
I came back to try and get back on track recently. My only way forward was to forget about it and start again.
AND THEN!!!
I stupidly used pages on my ipad to edit a document from our development partner the other day. I opened my pages today, the document was there- then in front of my eyes all the documents shuffled around. Guess what- the doc I had edited disappeared.. In shock i called Apple Support. He asked me to check on icloud. com. 15 documents, not the one i want, advisor can see my doc- i cannot. I feel naseous.
THIS CASE HAD ALREADY GONE TOO FAR. BUT NOW I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!!!!!!
How can i escalate further? There must be a way. This is not acceptable! Apple are messing with my life!!!!! I'm losing too much time and money- it's just not fair at all. Something MUST be done by way of compensatiing for this series of errors!!!!

There's nothing anyone here can do for you, and I'm afraid I have little sympathy.
2000 hours of "irreplaceable work" and at no point during those 8 months did you think "Gee, I really should back up all these hugely important files just in case my iPad gets stolen, lost, breaks or some other disaster occurs"?
As soon as you noticed something was amiss, or even at the point when you still had access to 60% of your documents, why did you not take the opportunity to download a copy of them via iCloud.com (on any computer) and save them safely on a memory stick or other backup device?
Having just one copy of any file is asking for trouble. Backing up regularly is the No.1 rule of computing. Apple is not responsible for your lack of any backup routine. Apple advise you to backup regularly. Being able to backup your iPad should've been your motivation for spending an hour or two of those 2000 getting the MacBook up and running.

ICloud is a Disaster

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