As for backup, why is Time Machine still not integrated with iCloud?
Generally speaking, iCloud has specific folders for specific steps still…which is why Apple doesn’t call it a backup I believe.
Because no one can prevent people from being stupid idiots. Time Machine works very well on autopilot, but only if you turn it on. Only if the Time Machine backup drive stays connected.
Totally agree. Constant updates delivering endless new features is purely a marketing strategy imho. The MacOS is a perfect example. Apple’s slavish adherence to yearly upgrades practically guarantees that MacOS is always in beta, never as good as it could have been. “Think different” morphed into “Good enough for the people” a long time agoi.
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Two forms of data which are not recoverable from iCloud.com are Notes and the new Freeform app which are both databases apps. Restoring iCloud Notes from backups requires a quite different process which I have tested and reported in this thread
this thread. AFAIK this not documented anywhere, but happy to be corrected.
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It’s actually a rhetorical question. Apple SHOULD link up Time Machine with iCloud, IMO.
Pretty much why I don’t store most things in the cloud. My photos are on a hard drive that are backed up. I use reference pointers in Photos. My emails are imap, which admitted is cloud except I drag stuff off onto my hard drive where I archive it (and back it up). If it’s in the cloud, it might go missing.
It’s not so much about preventing people from being idiots as it is not making vulnerability to idiotic mistakes the default. Yes, you have to turn on Time Machine, but macOS prompts you to do so during setup, and if you don’t have it turned on, the OS will ask you whenever you connect a new disk if you want to set up Time Machine on it. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about: not forcing the user to remember to do the right thing.
That sort of thing is why I’m glad macOS periodically reminds me if there are updates I haven’t installed. I don’t want to do them automatically, because of both the disruption to my workflow caused by the interruption (I’m looking at you, Windows Update) and the risk of an update having a catastrophic bug. But having a notification pop up every day or two keeps me from forgetting that there are updates.
You’ll never be able to prevent idiocy—there’s too many ways it can manifest (“Idiots are too clever”). But you can greatly reduce the catastrophic effects of idiocy if you design your system to expect that people will be idiots if that’s easier than being smart. And not leaving it up to users to remember to do the right thing is one way to do that.
I agree that Time Machine is a great backup method and is part of my backup triumvirate of TM/SuperDuper/BackBlaze, but as a retiree it’s easy for me because my laptop almost never leaves its stand.
But high school and college students and/or their parents are a large segment of Apple’s first-time buyers, are by definition continuously mobile, and are notorious for failing to backup. Are you suggesting that iCloud be expanded to do complete cloud backups ala TM in lieu of an external drive?
Either way, adding the cost of a mandatory external drive -or- continuous cloud backup and storage would certainly disadvantage Apple in competition with Windows machines, especially among first-time buyers, would it not?
And the competition is unlikely to follow suit, lacking a moral imperative.
Apple already does a full device backup of iOS devices to iCloud, and certainly has the resources to create the same for Macs. Instead of disadvantaging Apple in the marketplace, having a built-in Cloud backup option would give it a leg up against its competition, as long as, like with iOS, “it just works.”
Of course, it would be optional, and one would need to pay for enough iCloud storage space for the Mac’s backup. It would hopefully come with the option to include/exclude folders to be backed up (just like Time Machine). Call it iCloud Time Machine. Catchy.
My two cents.
It might be interesting to contrast this against the way Microsoft OneDrive works for corporate accounts.
My work PC (Windows 10) runs OneDrive and is configured to sync its Desktop and Documents folders with the remote server.
Like iCloud, if I delete a file from my computer, it gets deleted from the OneDrive server.
Unlike iCloud, the server-side is configured for our corporate document retention policy. If I delete a document, it doesn’t completely go away, but goes into a server-side Trash folder. And even when it expires from Trash, it remains accessible by our IT department until its retention period expires (which I believe is 2-3 years for most kinds of documents).
This is a mandatory feature for corporate use because there can be legal consequences for deleting project files, especially if you’re working on a project for a government agency (whether domestic or foreign).
I assume my employer is paying for the extra storage needed to make all this happen, but the system works and seems to work well.
I wonder if Apple offers some equivalent (business-tier iCloud storage). If they don’t, then they should. It would have solved Koingo’s problem and I think even many individuals would want to subscribe to it.
The problem is that if you do everything you can to anticipate users’ idiotic behavior, you’ll make the operating system a royal pain in the neck for the rest of us. We already get what many consider far too many reminders to update or upgrade, confirm our Apple ID settings, etc. Despite all these reminders, I encounter many people who almost never upgrade, never write down even the most important passwords, never back up their data, etc. What can you do? Personally, I would really like to see Apple do more to warn users about the potentially catastrophic headaches that can be caused by storing too much content in iCloud. As things stand, Apple not only doesn’t do that—they actively encourage users to store their data (including their Desktop and Documents folders!) in iCloud. There are undoubtedly more steps Apple could take to help safeguard the data of complete idiots; but personally, I would not welcome the additional inconvenience of having to deal with what some of those safeguards might look like. If people insist on being clueless, let them lose their data. Then they’ll learn… or maybe not.
Koingo posted an update that the photo library was restored by Apple, and it has more details: iCloud Disaster Update — Resolved. There was a triggering event to the data loss — they created a new Photo Library and set it as the System Photo Library. Not exactly regular usage undone by a fatal beta OS bug.
On the other hand, the Apple Support article about designating System Photo Libraries, says that photos in a new library will merge with those already in your iCloud Photos. So it’s not unreasonable for Koingo to do whatever they did with photo libraries.
But Koingo also says:
We are well-trained from experience to keep backups of any files not stored in the cloud
and, well, shouldn’t they know better? A regular Time Machine user using the defaults would have been better off.
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Im glad that worked out for him. Though I’d say the rest of us, who can’t make a problem like this elevate attention, would probably not have received this special service from Apple.
I’d like to believe Apple would do the same for any of us on their platform, not just developers like us. We are in safe hands.
Like I said, I don’t think so.
This part makes no sense to me
The photos were then systematically deleted in iCloud via Safari,
What does Safari have to do with iCloud sync?
Also important:
As it turns out, the “feature” is unlikely related to the beta at all after talking with Apple.
Which is what I figured. But, I agree: creating a new local system library should merge with the cloud, not delete cloud contents. I’ve rebuilt my Mac a few times from scratch and haven’t restored the photo library, just turned on iCloud Photos and let it sync down, and it’s always worked.
I wonder if he had turned off iCloud Photos, then created the library, made it system, and turned iCloud Photos back on, if that would have worked?
I cry foul (or another NSFW epithet) when I hear this statement. They are not “well trained” - there’s a unspoken statement that they consider data stored in the cloud to be protected adequately. Cloud storage is resilient. It’s not protected in any other way. Modify a file in the cloud, wait until the “trashcan” in the cloud is emptied and tell me you can recover the data.
All I hear from Koingo is excuses. (Yes this is harsh, but I’ve been in IT far too long to accept technologically poor decisions from those who should have known better).
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On reading their follow up, it sounds like it did what I would have expected.
If I created a new, empty photo library and then committed it to be my new system library, I would have expected it to be empty. The question isn’t over this process, it’s what happens with the previous system library. The issue appears to be you can only have a single ‘system’ library so the original library goes missing, or more correctly, become inaccessible via Photos.
I just had a look at the docs and it does say they should merge. It make me wonder if they actually turned iCloud Photos back on?
Important: If you switch to another library, Photos automatically turns off iCloud Photos and Shared Albums. You can turn them on again in the iCloud pane of Photos settings. When you turn on iCloud Photos after designating a new System Photo Library, the photos stored in iCloud are merged with those in the new System Photo Library.
I’m glad they have their data back but I agree with some of the previous posters. I very much doubt your average user is going to get the elevated support required to retrieve there data in a similar situation.
I don’t think it’s really users being irrational. It’s that people are generally lazy. If users had been given the choice of backing up their data or not backing up their data and all they had to do was flip a switch, I think the vast majority of users would rationally choose to back up their data. The problem in the past was that setting up a backup system was fairly complicated. When given a choice between going to the effort to figure out what they needed to do vs. hoping nothing bad happens, most people will choose the latter. Time Machine went a long way toward realizing the “flip the switch” ideal.
Part of the problem is reflected in some of the attitudes exhibited in this thread. I think most here will agree Josh made poor choices. But I sense that many here feel it’s enough to blame Josh for his own problems and there’s nothing that Apple needs to change.
I’m not saying that Apple doesn’t need to change things. But all this discussion about “the system should handle security/backup/etc for you” is shaded in gray.
Let’s say a device takes care of everything for you. Almost immediately people would complain “you took away control from me” because they don’t like the way it’s done for them. One only has to look at the complaints about “the iOS-ification of macOS” and “I don’t use Time Machine because it sucks” to see that “taking care of things for you” doesn’t sit well with a lot of people.
And are you willing to trade off whatever resources it takes to get this protection (nothing’s a free lunch)? Example: Doing what it takes to enhance security on users’ systems has shown us that users hate security measures because they perceive it “slows them down” or “makes their jobs more complicated”.
Also consider: some times the best remedy is not a technological one. We haven’t found a way to stop social engineering for phishing attacks through technological means.
There’s a big difference between presenting easy solutions as the default and “taking away control”. Complaints about taking away options are valid, but you don’t have to take options away when making easy defaults. Time Machine is a good example: Apple does not force anyone to use Time Machine. If you don’t like it, you can easily turn it off completely. The default is to use it, but you still have the option to not do so. Even something as intrusive to some functionality as SIP can be turned off if you really need to.
Calling on tech companies to do better doesn’t necessarily mean they have to provide a technological remedy. Sometimes it’s a matter of changing business practices to serve something nobler than profit margins (I’m looking at you, Google/Amazon/Meta). Social responsibility, and businesses’ continued repudiation of it, is a major factor in all of these problems.
Which falls under “irrationality” in many cases. Knowing what one should do and yet not doing it solely because it takes effort is not rational. It is, however, very human.
It’s sort of like the old Randian/Objectivist concept of “enlightened self-interest”. It’s a noble thought, but even those self-aware enough to be “enlightened” about their own self-interest frequently, routinely, and habitually act against that self-interest. That’s not rational, and it’s the biggest flaw in the Objectivist philosophy. (Far from the only flaw, but it’s great enough to be a fatal flaw all by itself.)
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Yep…and to peripherally connect this with the other ongoing discussion that emphasizes the point…that’s the big objection to no local backup/restore of 1Password vaults because they say their cloud is adequate protection…which we all know is just a bunch of BEP (bovine end product) as we say. However…in 1PW’s defense…they did explain a bit better and the local copy of your vault is fully encrypted and we now know where it is so doing your own backup to wherever is do-able.
I agree with you…and others…cloud is a great and required part of your backup strategy but depending on it alone is…well…choosing poorly…as the aged Templar Knight said in the Indiana Jones movie.
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