Why all this resistance to updating/upgrading ?

pm-r · Jan 29, 2019

MacInWin said:
When you log in, the pane changes to show this: View attachment 29213 As you can see, first item is "iCloud Drive." And it is selectable or de-selectable.

Ahhemm... as far as I understood, that "iCloud Drive" is just one part of iCloud, Apple's online storage service. So I imagine that iCloud would have to be enabled and working to even see the option. No???

BTW: "iCloud Drive" isn't even listed as an option in Mavericks. Hmmm... It still works for the small bit I use it though.

- Patrick
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krs · Jan 29, 2019

IWT said:
It's not asking much to sign in and refuse all the features that go with it.

I still find it strange that one has to hasve an Apple ID and first sign in just to disable the feature.

It would have made much more sense, to me at least, to have an enable/disable option in the pane that comes up for iCloud in System Preferences.
Seems I can enable and disable pretty much everything else in System Preferences without an Apple ID.

MacInWin · Jan 29, 2019

pm-r said:
Ahhemm... as far as I understood, that "iCloud Drive" is just one part of iCloud, Apple's online storage service. So I imagine that iCloud would have to be enabled and working to even see the option. No???

BTW: "iCloud Drive" isn't even listed as an option in Mavericks. Hmmm... It still works for the small bit I use it though.

- Patrick
======

Yes, Patrick, iCloud is that entire assembly of options. And if a user were to un-check all of them (or not check them as I think they default to un-checked), then other than the AppleID login, there would be zero use of iCloud for that user on that machine. I was addressing krs in the post just above, #71.

MacInWin · Jan 29, 2019

krs said:
I still find it strange that one has to hasve an Apple ID and first sign in just to disable the feature.

It would have made much more sense, to me at least, to have an enable/disable option in the pane that comes up for iCloud in System Preferences.
Seems I can enable and disable pretty much everything else in System Preferences without an Apple ID.

Well, I suspect that Apple expected a very high percentage of users to like the iCloud services so they defaulted to having them there. And, since it takes an AppleID to use the Mac App Store, and before Mojave, to get updates to the OS, the requirement for an AppleID also seems reasonable. But, as is typical of Apple, they do have options for a user to opt out of using any of the services, but to do that you need to log in to get to the opt out pane. As for the rest of System Preferences and AppleID, you are correct. It's only iCloud and now maybe Mojave updates that uses the AppleID. I suspect that Apple put the iCloud options in the System Preferences to have it in one place. There is not an iCloud application, so I suspect they decided to put it in System Preferences instead of creating an app, or burying it somewhere more hidden. Is it different there? I don't know that it's that odd, as it is a system setup pane just like the rest. Only this one requires your AppleID to connect to the mothership. After all, if you use the System Preferences pane to setup Internet Accounts for mail/calendar/etc, you have to provide login passwords for those areas, too. And under Network you have to provide a login to your network if you use WiFi.

usagora · Jan 29, 2019

MacInWin said:
Well, I suspect that Apple expected a very high percentage of users to like the iCloud services so they defaulted to having them there.

This was exactly my point in post 73.

pm-r · Jan 29, 2019

But, as is typical of Apple, they do have options for a user to opt out of using any of the services, but to do that you need to log in to get to the opt out pane.

And wasn't that the main reason for the OP's objection that Apple almost dictates that the user has to do it Apple's way for things to work???

I'd say that's a bit of a pigheaded generalized attitude with little of few if any options they could and should have thought of. Even if those type users are in the minority.

And how would they opt out if their Macs are never even connected to the Internet? Some do use their computers that way.

- Patrick
======

usagora · Jan 29, 2019

pm-r said:
And wasn't that the main reason for the OP's objection that Apple almost dictates that the user has to do it Apple's way for things to work???

Well, it is their OS

Nobody's forced to use Apple computers. But it's quite an easy solution in this case, and at worst an extremely minor "nuisance" to have to take a couple minutes at one point in time to create an Apple ID (that you'll probably eventually need for something else down the road anyway).

As to computers not connected to the Internet, kys seemed to indicate in post 76 that the "nag" didn't occur on those computers.

krs · Jan 29, 2019

usagora said:
Well, it is their OS Nobody's forced to use Apple computers. But it's quite an easy solution in this case, and at worst an extremely minor "nuisance" to have to take a couple minutes at one point in time to create an Apple ID (that you'll probably eventually need for something else down the road anyway).

You are working very hard to defend Apple;D

But if I hadn't posted this "annoyance" initially, and it was just a recent example, I would have never thought of having to log into iCloud before being able to disable it especially since I have never used iCloud.
Yes, the solution is easy once you know about it - just not as obvious as it should be.

usagora · Jan 29, 2019

krs said:
You are working very hard to defend Apple;D

I just call it as I see it. I've done the same with Microsoft.

I don't work for either company nor own any shares of their stock.

Rod · Jan 30, 2019

Randy B. Singer said:
For a while there Apple was in the news constantly with regard to their on again/off again cooperation with the government. They HAVE, at times, given the government access to the information that they hold for users.

And news about break-ins to cloud-based services has been rampant. Heck, even Yahoo and Facebook have been hacked.

And...have you heard about "The Red Gorilla Effect?"

Of course, the biggest problem with backing up to the cloud isn't even security, it's that access to the Internet itself is a huge bottleneck. (It's okay as a lower-tier solution in a multi-tiered backup plan, but not a great idea as a primary or secondary backup solution.) Here's the deal. Most broadband ISPs have monthly data caps in the 300 GB to 1,000 GB range. Also most ISPs provide much lower upload speeds than download speeds. Typical Comcast 50 megabit/sec service is about 10 megabit/sec upload. So it might take many days to back up a modern medium-range desktop system. To back up a 3TB iMac 27" would take about a month.

When a failure happens and you must recover, time is often of the essence (at least it is if you are running a business). You want to get back to work ASAP. Assuming you patiently waited a month to back up your 3TB Mac 27" to the cloud, if your hard drive crashed it it would take six days to recover your data from the cloud over a 50 megabit/sec connection.

Backing up to an inexpensive rotating disk hard drive that you purchase from someplace like Other World Computing, using something like SuperDuper! or CarbonCopyCloner, will be way faster, more flexible, recovering your data will be instantaneous, and will provide a much higher level of security.

Cloud-based backup, as I said, is fine as part of a multi-tiered backup plan where your data is very important to you and you want to provide a fail-safe. However, I wouldn't choose it as the first or second tier of a backup plan.

Worried about your data in the event of a natural disaster? For users with a need for an off-site fail-safe backup (in addition to a regular backup), I instead suggest a limited backup of just their data (e.g. your Documents folder and anything else that absolutely can't be replaced) to a portable backup medium (e.g. a large capacity flash drive or one of the new pocket-able SSD's that look sort of like a flash drive but have a huge capacity) that they always keep with them in their pocket. If your office or home suffers a fire, flood, or theft, your invaluable data will be with you and if you survive it will survive. That's about all that you need from a fail-safe off-site backup.

I have spoken about multi-tiered backup plans here before, haven't I?

You may want to check out:

Backing Up Your Mac: A Joe On Tech Guide
(Take Control Books)
https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/jot-backing-up

What do you mean EVEN Facebook and Yahoo? They would have to be the easiest and most popular targets on the block. And isn't a Time Machine backup, CCC clone, iMazing and iTunes local and off site cloud based iPhone and iPad backup multi tiered enough?

Sent from my ageing iPad Mini iOS 9.3.5 Mac-Forums

Randy B. Singer · Jan 30, 2019

Rod Sprague said:
What do you mean EVEN Facebook and Yahoo? They would have to be the easiest and most popular targets on the block.

Yes, but they are both huge companies with practically unlimited funds and a large staff of very talented programmers. You would think that they have the means and desire to have the best security possible.

Rod Sprague said:
And isn't a Time Machine backup, CCC clone, iMazing and iTunes local and off site cloud based iPhone and iPad backup multi tiered enough?

Sure, depending on what your goals for your backup plan are and how important your data is.

For most of the professionals in my user group I recommend a backup plan with a first tier that is a clone, so that they can get back to work instantly in the event of a loss of their main hard drive, a second tier that is a versioned backup, so that they can recover incremental versions of documents that they worked on and also to be able to recover if their clone backup becomes infected by malware (of a sort that probably doesn't exist right now), and a third tier that's just a backup of their invaluable/irreplaceable work product that they can carry in their pocket 24/7 to avoid losing all of their data to natural disasters. I don't really recommend cloud-based backup...there are too many potential problems associated with it, but it would be fine as a fourth tier fail-safe.

Of course, there are some folks who would probably be fine with a single-tier backup. Like hobbyists.

IWT · Jan 30, 2019

And Randy; you must know already that there are myriad folks out there with no backup strategy at all. A lot of them post here.

Ian

Randy B. Singer · Jan 30, 2019

krs said:
You are working very hard to defend Apple

I think that Apple takes a lot of criticism from folks who are wearing tinfoil hats. People today are too enamored with conspiracy theories.

I don't think that Apple is evil, and I don't think that Apple is unreasonable or unusually greedy for a corporation.

For instance everyone jumped all over Apple when they started to solder RAM to motherboards. But I think that the reason that they started doing that was because tons of folks started having Macs that were unstable and that looked really bad for Apple. But the problem wasn't Apple's fault, and it was out of Apple's control. In fact, those folks had unstable Macs because they did their own RAM upgrades and they didn't seat the RAM properly or they didn't ground themselves properly when doing the upgrade and they fried their third party RAM. Soldering-in RAM avoids the problem entirely. It also avoids a ton of expensive warranty repair requests that Apple denies because the problem has nothing to do with anything Apple did.

By the same token, I don't think that Apple wants to "force" you to use iCloud for some nefarious purpose. What Apple sees is that a lot of people bought Macs with SSD's (for speed) but because SSD's were expensive, they bought Macs with SSD's that were really too small for their needs. Apple knows (and long-time Mac users know) that once a Mac's hard drive becomes too full (and that comes at around 80% full), a Mac starts to get flaky. (Macs use hard drive space for caches, scratch space, databases, virtual memory, etc.) Eventually a Mac with way too little free hard drive space will start to suffer data loss. Apple knew that such an outcome would look really bad for Apple and enrage users. So they put automatic features in the macOS to offload some storage to iCloud so that a too small SSD wouldn't cause folks huge problems. It's actually a very elegant and thoughtful solution. Why are the controls for this so obscure? Because ordinary users shouldn't be screwing with them. Users expect Macs to "just work", and Apple has made sure that they do. Power users will figure out where the controls are and how to use them if they need to.

I think that much of what some folks criticize Apple for is simply Apple making sure that Macs are stable and trouble-free. But folks can't see that because they are too busy getting worked up about some perceived conspiracy against them. Apple isn't perfect...go back and read what I said about the defunct Archive and Install feature. But I think that most of the time they are doing the right thing.

Randy B. Singer · Jan 30, 2019

IWT said:
And Randy; you must know already that there are myriad folks out there with no backup strategy at all. A lot of them post here.

I know that, but I don't know what more can be done about it. We've told them over and over that hard drives can fail AT ANY TIME and that hard drives over three years old are significantly statistically prone to failure.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-long-do-disk-drives-last/
(Scroll down to the graphic: "Drives have three distinct failure rates.")

And if anyone is still under the impression that SSD's are more reliable than rotating disk hard drives (RDHD's)....they AREN'T. They are less effected by jostling (so they are ideal for use in a laptop), but in the real world SSD's are no more reliable than RDHD's

Investigation: Is Your SSD More Reliable Than A Hard Drive?
Investigation: Is Your SSD More Reliable Than A Hard Drive?

Solid State Drives No Better Than Others, Survey Says
Solid State Drives No Better Than Others, Survey Says | PCWorld

SSD's No More Reliable Than Hard Drives
SSDs no more reliable than hard drives | ZDNet

usagora · Jan 30, 2019

Randy B. Singer said:
I think that Apple takes a lot of criticism from folks who are wearing tinfoil hats. People today are too enamored with conspiracy theories.

I don't think that Apple is evil, and I don't think that Apple is unreasonable or unusually greedy for a corporation.

For instance everyone jumped all over Apple when they started to solder RAM to motherboards. But I think that the reason that they started doing that was because tons of folks started having Macs that were unstable and that looked really bad for Apple. But the problem wasn't Apple's fault, and it was out of Apple's control. In fact, those folks had unstable Macs because they did their own RAM upgrades and they didn't seat the RAM properly or they didn't ground themselves properly when doing the upgrade and they fried their third party RAM. Soldering-in RAM avoids the problem entirely. It also avoids a ton of expensive warranty repair requests that Apple denies because the problem has nothing to do with anything Apple did.

By the same token, I don't think that Apple wants to "force" you to use iCloud for some nefarious purpose. What Apple sees is that a lot of people bought Macs with SSD's (for speed) but because SSD's were expensive, they bought Macs with SSD's that were really too small for their needs. Apple knows (and long-time Mac users know) that once a Mac's hard drive becomes too full (and that comes at around 80% full), a Mac starts to get flaky. (Macs use hard drive space for caches, scratch space, databases, virtual memory, etc.) Eventually a Mac with way too little free hard drive space will start to suffer data loss. Apple knew that such an outcome would look really bad for Apple and enrage users. So they put automatic features in the macOS to offload some storage to iCloud so that a too small SSD wouldn't cause folks huge problems. It's actually a very elegant and thoughtful solution. Why are the controls for this so obscure? Because ordinary users shouldn't be screwing with them. Users expect Macs to "just work", and Apple has made sure that they do. Power users will figure out where the controls are and how to use them if they need to.

I think that much of what some folks criticize Apple for is simply Apple making sure that Macs are stable and trouble-free. But folks can't see that because they are too busy getting worked up about some perceived conspiracy against them. Apple isn't perfect...go back and read what I said about the defunct Archive and Install feature. But I think that most of the time they are doing the right thing.

Agree 100% And this goes for a lot of tech companies and developers.

Rod · Jan 30, 2019

Like you said Randy it depends what you call valuable. For me a portable SSD could not carry a lifetimes collection of memories and valuable documents. From the poem I wrote for my wife when we were married 40 years ago to the Jazz CD my late father in law gave me to the pictures of my first child being born. My constant vagabond lifestyle has led to a portable form of archive. There is nothing on my MBP that I would want to loose and much of it is irreplaceable.

Sent from my ageing iPad Mini iOS 9.3.5 Mac-Forums

krs · Jan 30, 2019

I don't know if I'm lucky or what, but I have never had a hard drive inside a Mac fail and I have used Macs since OS 6, when ever that was.
Even really old Macs I still have boot up happily - just got rid of my two old G4's last year.

Two externals failed in the last ten years or so, but it turned out the part that failed was actually the bridge, not the kard drive itself.
I installed the hard drive into another enclosure and everything was fine.

However, I still do regular clone backups, lately to 2.5 inch portable drives rather than the 3.5 inch drives (wonder if the 2.5" reliability is as good as the 3.5" one).

Oe backup is on site, an older one with reasonably value data on it with a friend in Europe.

usagora · Jan 30, 2019

krs said:
I don't know if I'm lucky or what, but I have never had a hard drive inside a Mac fail and I have used Macs since OS 6, when ever that was.
Even really old Macs I still have boot up happily - just got rid of my two old G4's last year.

Two externals failed in the last ten years or so, but it turned out the part that failed was actually the bridge, not the kard drive itself.
I installed the hard drive into another enclosure and everything was fine.

However, I still do regular clone backups, lately to 2.5 inch portable drives rather than the 3.5 inch drives (wonder if the 2.5" reliability is as good as the 3.5" one).

Oe backup is on site, an older one with reasonably value data on it with a friend in Europe.

Same here - never an internal drive but so far 1 external drive. But backups are like fire insurance. You never expect to have to use it, but it would be foolish not to have it because of what's at stake.

MacInWin · Jan 30, 2019

I have had an internal drive fail and, sadly, at the same time an external drive with the backup on it fail. Lost everything, including many irreplaceable pictures. Now I have three backup drives (one on a raid system), backup online, backup offsite and copy my photos separately to a different raid array. Yes, paranoid, but then I've been there, done that, not going to do it again.

pm-r · Jan 30, 2019

For instance everyone jumped all over Apple when they started to solder RAM to motherboards.
...
Soldering-in RAM avoids the problem entirely.

Methinks you missed the main more logical reason — money. It's a fair bit cheaper to solder in the components during manufacturing production.
But definitely a good Apple PR explanation you provided. :Smirk:

- Patrick
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