Apple hit with £3 billion claim of ripping off 40 million UK iCloud users UK consumer group Which? has filed a £3 billion action against Apple over alleged competition law breaches related to its iCloud service. The legal claim alleges the iPhone maker locked customers into iCloud and charged them handsomely for the privilege. Which? claims that around 40 million Apple customers in the UK who have …
Apple? Locking customers in to their ecosystem? Shurely shome mishtake?
The demands on El Reg reader's fainting couches will surely be huge this morning! ;-)
On a more serious note although my on-call phone is an iPhone I've never really bothered doing anything about backups.
On my personal Android phone it's a doddle to use other storage systems for backing up photos, videos etc - in fact it's felt at times like every other app wants to do it. I think I currently have both Google Photos and Flickr backing up my photos. I recall OneDrive, Dropbox (when I used it) and others also offering.
Is this a permissions thing where Apple make it difficult - if not impossible - to do? Or is it a guidelines & policy thing where Apple discourage apps from offering the service, like they don't want alternative payment options?
Because I'm actually a little surprised that this could be a genuine complaint. As I said, on Android backing up such things to somewhere else has been the norm for almost as long as I've been using Android. So I'm genuinely curious to hear iOS user's opinions and experiences...
My experience dates from iOS 7 so maybe things have changed.
Anyway, I'm used to flinging files around between my devices using Bluetooth. The iPad resolutely refused to play. AirDrop? No problem. Bluetooth files? Nope.
There are a few other things, but it's been a while so my memory is fuzzy, suffice to say that I think Apple plays very nicely within an Apple ecosystem. Not so much with non-Apple stuff.
An IOS app can request access to photos and then back up those photos. There are probably quite a few that do. However, they are not really able to back up anything else. Android is not a lot better. While there is a storage location for general files which could conceivably contain app data you care about and be easy to back up, Android has been designed to lock up most app data in unreadable directories. Of course, system apps can read those at will, so Google's backup system can fully back up your app data, but using another app to do it won't work. You used to be able to back up some of that over ADB, but that has been deprecated. So now, if you have root, you can back up all of that, and if you don't, you can only back up what your app developers have bothered to make readable to you. It's just your phone and your data, why should you have access to it?
Personally I am very comfortable in Cook’s walled garden. I knew when I moved all my own IT systems to Apple that my options would be slightly limited but I trade that for security and privacy (perceived or not). My IPhone, IPad and Mac all talk to each other, everything just works and iCloud for £2.50 per month is not expensive. Because of work I have to have Excel and Word on the system and they really know how to charge!
Basically who would I rather have looking after my data? Cook, Bezos, Zuckerberg or Nadella?
Personally I am very comfortable in Cook’s walled garden.
Somehow reminds me of:
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Trust Apple? In one of the recent MacOS updates the keychain was magically synched with I-Cloud even if this had previously been disabled.
As for "just works" – seems quite difficult to use if you're not a member in comparison with, say, Dropbox or Google Drive. It's your money and should be your choice, but whether £2.50 a month is a lot depends very much on how much you earn. The strong-arm freemium tactics shouldn't be required.
used to be onedrive was sold as a backup system that could be use to sync files on multiple computers. your laptop, home desktop, and your work computer would all appear the same and have the same files in the same places. the current version of onedrive by default moves files off your computer to the cloud and leave a pointer on your computer. when you go to the document folder where you left all your documents, you get redirected to the onedrive folder when you may find what your looking for. if for some reason you're not connected to the internet, the file might not be available. you can turn this off or simply not login to onedrive, but that's not the default, and since there is now only one copy of many of your documents which have been moved to the cloud, you no longer have a backup, you have an archive. not the same thing. i'll do my own backups, thank you just the same. if you're not careful you can end up doing the same thing with apples icloud.
I don't trust any of the modern day slingers, all my devices backup to a portable 4tb usb drive and then will get backup to my server sitting in my living room.
I will not pay any of the internet creeps a dead penny for anything, Fuck'em ALL.
I trust my personal NAS far more than any Cloud service. Well, you guys never heard of businesses going broke or spontaneously changing terms and ending service.
You've never heard of game companies shutting down game servers out of the blue, "what, you expect us to run this forever?"
We had electronic stores aggressively selling layaway plans right up until the eve of shutdown, which funds are exempt once bankruptcy starts.
I have a NAS with full-blown Apple Time Machine backup facility, it has 20TB of HDDs that I assembled myself for $200, can I put my iPhotos on there instead of iCloud?
NO!
NEVER put any data on the Cloud under somebody else's control, especially an aggressively criminal organization like Apple Computer.
"Can you think of more useless government body than CMA?"
Yes - Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman. So useless that it may as well not exist. I assume that it only does exist because governments like to pretend that there is a body which will hold them and the sainted NHS to account.
This a completely bogus filing.
There are multiple ways to back up your data from an iPhone.
However backup/restore is a service not just simple data transfer.
If Which’s understanding of what Apple’s cloud service is this shallow, I look forward to them being laughed out of court.
Will their next law suit be that a car manufacturer has to be able to backup the details/config of your vehicle to Google instead of BMW?
Idiotic!
Agreed totally bogus and there are plenty of other ways to backup your data.
In the same way MS Office prefers you to integrate into OneDrive/SharePoint to offer features like Auto-save, it doesn't stop you from using local storage or any other cloud storage connected to your PC.
Nobody forces you to use Apple's hardware/software or services. You choose to do so.
Surely Which must have done it for the publicity rather than hoping to actually win this thing?
The basic level of iCloud is free and I used it for years so when I needed to back up and share some larger files I subscribed to the next level, 50GB for 99p a month.
Not a huge amount to pay and I’ll keep it running even though I don’t always need that much storage. Easy enough to cancel.
There is a caveat though. Some images and some audio might get a dropout or two but that’s a problem with every hosting and storage site I’ve ever used probably caused during the upload or download.
As stated above. Which creepy uncles lap are you going to choose to sit on?
> Which creepy uncles lap are you going to choose to sit on?
Love that comment. The answer is Cook. Because he makes his money from nice hardware and user security - and he was smart enough to realise we'll pay for security / privacy. As soon as he betrays our trust apple lose half their customers.
The others... I doubt we'd even get to sit down before they "slipped in the shower".
I ran out of 50Gb years ago, next level is 2Tb which was £6.99 until they put it up to £8.99/ month.
I wasn’t happy, but pay for the convenience.
£70? Yippee - the lawyers will be the only ones making money while tying up the legal system on a case which will almost certainly fail. I’m not holding my breath.
Yes, there are many ways to back up your photos / videos / whatnot from your iDevices. I use Synology's private cloud solutions as primary and the photos app on my Mac as secondary, and there are plenty of other options.
Where Apple loses me is that when your iDevice starts running low on storage it will push you hard towards iCloud and if you're not careful in your clicks then iCloud it is. I agree that Tim Cook is the least creepy uncle in the cloud, but since I choose no creepy uncle I wish he'd fsck off as well.
And what happens when you accidentally choose the iCloud that Apple is constantly trying to ram down your throat? Turning it off deletes the files (and / or calendar / contact entries / notes / etc) from your device. What? Why? Who knows? Who cares? Yes, you can download them and then replace them, but this is a stupid amount of work.
It's not that Apple very aggressively pushes iCloud. This is annoying, but no worse than any of the other horrible vendors out there. Trapping customers like this is unethical and just being a bunch of petulant assholes. Apple used to be above that sort of thing, but the company has been running downhill since Cook took over.
"And what happens when you accidentally choose the iCloud that Apple is constantly trying to ram down your throat? Turning it off deletes the files (and / or calendar / contact entries / notes / etc) from your device."
Nonsense. When you disable iCloud it asks you whether local data shall be retained or deleted.
"Nonsense. When you disable iCloud it asks you whether local data shall be retained or deleted."
User: please turn off iCloud.
Apple: you mean, delete all of your data?
User: uhhhh, what?
Apple: Look, it's not like this is some kind of threat or anything. We are just trying to figure out your intention. Now: reset your device and delete all your data, are you sure that's what you said?
User: um what's going on here?
Apple: We think this is perfectly clear what's going to happen when you disable iCloud. Now again: proceed with deletion of all your data?
..etc.
Let's assume your laughable suit goes through and you get 3 billion. How much are you and your solicitors going to take?
Or are you just thinking more publicity will equal more subs?
Oh, and anyone who takes backing up even remotely seriously does not trust any cloud with a backup.
Don't buy a mobile device if it does not have a slot for a memory card upon which you can store all of your content. Then, if it has an issue, you can remove your content before returning it to be fixed. It is also easy to back up your data as many times as you like to whatever storage media you want.
> memory card upon which you can store all of your content
well yes and no
When I lost my iPhone it that not have helped rebuilding the replacement to the state where it was not possible to see it had been lost on the first place
It just worked - and that is what we (sometimes) pay for. I am still within the 5GB but exclude the music as that is on my NAS at home if needed
I've no qualms with paying for extra storage per se, and as a family of x3 who all use apple products, its nice to keep everything nicely backed up.
(hey those endless iMessage meme's need to be backed up somewhere for posterity)
A slightly off topic irk was about a year or so ago when my misses got a new 1tb iPhone for Christmas.
She likes to keep her photos on device and backed up, so purchased a respectable 2tb storage plan from Google. (google photos is just awesome)
So far so good I hear you say? Well yeah, albeit for the fact that after she got the phone and despite multi and subtle prompts to disable 'save to iCloud Photos' were ignored, all of a sudden the reasonable 200gb (£2.99 a month) family shared plan I had in place, was gobbled up despite my insistence to turn off the bloody iCloud backup slider!
No problem, just grab her phone and turn off the iCloud backup right, after all everything backed up to google photos (it was I checked)
But there was mind f**k in the way... disabling iCloud photo backup prompts "Do you want to download a copy of your iCloud photos to this iPhone"? and says "Photos and videos that have been used to save space will be removed from this iPhone."
However she was worried that photos may be lost and manual removal of iCloud Photos was a logistical nightmare. I insisted that everything was backed up to google photos and she should delete all of the photos from her phone and thus iCloud backup. Noooo came the reply, I don't want to delete photos from my phone, and am scared that turning off the iCloud backup would result in lost stuff.
Ugggggh, I had no option but to upgrade the family iCloud account to the next step up... 2tb (£8.99) a month!
So now, her photos and videos are religiously backed up to iCloud and google photos... yay!
Someone is for the high jump at Apple! Replying to El Reg? That's the job of a non-conformist rule breaker, not a properly indoctrinated wage slave and is not to be tolerated. Off to the re-education camp and squeeze them till their Apple pips squeak!.
I bought an iPhone SE and stupidly accepted the Apple "iCloud" freebie offer, they would hold up to 5GB of photos that I could then access from any other connected Apple device. What followed was DAILY harrassment demanding that I start paying for the free service because I had taken more than 5GB of photos. More than daily: all you need to do is take a photo and Apple is telling me to start paying, sometimes $80 per month. Then I'm like "ok I will turn off stupid iCloud then," Apple says not so fast: you are going to be losing 5GB of photos. Which photos? Supposedly you could log into iCloud and surf through 5GB of photos and figure it out. What you need to do is buy an Apple Mac computer, log it into iCloud, and it will "sync" all of these photos. Except no, it won't. First thing you get if you dare try this is "Volume Hash Mismatch," Apple is telling me I need to reinstall MacOS onto the hard drive. I just installed it? Nope, format it clean and start all over. Once you get past that one comes the "fake import," where it syncs about 2500 iCloud photos, you turn off the iCloud and it says now it's going to delete several hundred of them because you didn't give it enough time to sync and the Mac only downloaded low-res versions. This is after several days left online while it does this "sync" in the background, with zero feedback to you except to warn you never turn off iCloud. There are 2000 more photos on the iPhone itself that were not able to be synced. You go to import these 2000, it takes THREE DAYS before it finishes. You go into the Photos app, where are my 2000 photos? Well the fact is it never imported even ONE of them, you still have 2000 to go! What you need to do is press Command-Control on the keyboard while you open Photos so that it can run a Repair database routine and make the import function work again. People are saying, at most, you can import a handful of photos at a time before you have to Repair. Once you're done they are liable to hit you with Volume Hash Mismatch and cause everything on your computer to be wiped out, they can do this at any second.
Apple is AGGRESSIVELY broken, they are doing absolutely EVERYTHING THEY CAN to threaten to destroy your kidnapped photos if you don't pay the ransom.
Apple is a CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION.
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