One of the things that keeps me so firmly embedded in the Apple ecosystem is that everything works together. You don't have to do anything special, they just work.
Except when they don't. Like HomeKit HomeShit, which is so fucking flakey as to be useless based on unreliability. Sometimes things work. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes things which worked forever randomly stop working (Currently the automation which turns the garage light on when the pass-door is opened has stopped working. The door sensor is fine. The switch is fine. They are both connected to HomeShit. But the automation fails even when deleted and re-added).
But the thing which really fucking enrages me is iCloud.
It's not that your computer will stop working with iCloud and you can just log out and log back in to get things working again... it's that individual services will randomly stop working and then never fucking work again no matter how many fucking times you log in and out.
All everybody ever says is "Make sure Bluetooth is on, make sure WiFi is on the same network, make sure syncing is enabled, then log out of iCloud and log back in." Except that has NEVER worked for me. Not once.
Just look at this idiotic shit...
| iMac M1 | MacBook Pro M2 | Mac Studio M1 Ultra | |
| iPhoto Sync | X | X | |
| iMessage Sync | X | X | |
| AirDrop | X | X | |
| Keychain Sync | X | X | X |
Syncing iPhoto libraries doesn't work on my iMac. But everywhere else is fine (including on my iPhone and iPad) even though syncing is slow as shit. And since there's no manual SYNC NOW command, there's no way of telling iPhoto to sync things you know are there. Even quitting the app and restarting doesn't force a sync. It just sits there like a stupid pile of shit until you either reboot your machine or it randomly decides to sync things.
Syncing iMessage doesn't work on my MacBook. Well, it will sync if the message was sent/received from Apple devices... but if you send to a non-Apple device via SMS, then tough crap... absolutely NOTHING will get those to sync. Ever. Logging out and logging back in. Quitting and restarting. Rebooting. Turning off sync and turning it back on. NOTHING!!!
Airdrop is ridiculously finicky. None of my computers work perfectly every time. But my Mac Studio at the office will never successfully receive a fucking thing. You'll see an alert saying that the file is been received. The download folder in my dock will bounce like the file is there. BUT THE FILE IS NEVER, EVER FUCKING THERE! Th only way to receive a file from my laptop or iPhone is via iMessage, since that is mysteriously working.
Keychain Sync always seems to work. But sometimes it takes a fucking eternity to sync depending on which device made the change.
It's maddening how much time I have wasted trying to get this idiotic shit working. Scouring the internet. Leaving messages in forums. Reading every technical document I can find. And it's all for nothing.
And of course Apple doesn't give a fuck. Big companies never do if it's not threatening their profit margins.
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I long ago gave up on relying on iCloud for anything. Well firstly I filled the space because it won’t let you sync only your most recent photos, oh no, it’s all or nothing. I have 40000 photos on my phone. Good luck with that on the free 5GB. So I turned off photo synching. I mean I backup my phone manually every week anyway. But my contacts and calendar stopped working about three phones ago. I mean contacts… seriously simple thing you’d think it could sync to the cloud. Nope. Nothing. Absolutely hopeless.
It’s just frustrating because Apple builds their entire identity around how things “just work” and their ecosystem makes them superior to everybody… but it’s just not true. At least not any more. But what’s worse is that they don’t seem to care about fixing things.
I feel your pain. It’s why even though it’s certainly not perfect, I use Google to backup my phone’s photos. I still think iOS is a better experience than Android, but the syncing stuff is crazy.
I also noticed that if I access my iCloud Notes from a browser on my Windows machine it treats the text like they’re image files, so I cannot copy and paste from them into another application. When I highlight text and right-click, it asks if I want to copy the image. Why would they do such a thing? I do not understand some of the stuff Apple does at all.
Also, don’t get me started on iTunes because that program is a big pile of shit. The only way it’s even remotely usable is if I manually manage my own music with it, which means I have to drag and drop new files into it myself because if I let it watch a folder, it will convert all the MP3 file names into garbage. Infuriating!