For six weeks, I have been completely locked out of the Apple ecosystem. I'm writing this post in the (probably vain) hope that I can get someone's attention at Apple enough to have my issue paid enough attention if I distribute it around. I know it's a long shot, but I'm desperate at this point. Let me describe the issue.
Starting in early November, I started having login issues with my iCloud account (account id [REDACTED]). Initially, this was limited to the web interface at icloud.com only. I wasn't able to log in at all through the web; all I would see was the spinning loading icon (though I could go into the account setting pages, just nowhere else). I could log onto the AppleID management page at appleid.apple.com and change things around, it was just the icloud.com suite of services that wasn't working.
I rang Apple Support, and they indicated that it looked like the log in wasn't completing, it never actually finished logging on, which is why I saw the spinning icon. They suggested I try on different devices and different network, none of which made any difference. They then suggested I change my password, which I did (again, to no success). Then the problem started getting worse.
The first escalation in the issue I had was that my iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) would periodically make me sign back in. That was annoying, but the sign in worked. Then all of a sudden, on the 8th of November, nothing worked. I couldn't log in. Not on my iMac, my iPhone, my iPad, or my work PC running Windows. I was locked out. I rang Apple support again. By this time, I had been bumped to senior support, who weren't able to diagnose the problem beyond the fact that there was something odd where it seemed to be trying to use two-factor authentication (TFA), which didn't have enabled (I'd turned it off after a different issue that prevented me logging in back in June, but which was resolved in a day or two).
That was six weeks ago. I am still unable to log into any iCloud/AppleID services, other than appleid.apple.com and the account settings page on icloud.com. That's it. I've been completely cut off, not only from my primary email, but from my entire Apple-based digital ecosystem. If I try my newly-updated password, I get an incorrect password error; if I try the old one, I simply get "An unknown error occurred" (on iOS I get a message about verification that senior support said I should only ever see if I had TFA turned on, which I don't. I can access appleid.apple.com without issue using the new password.
Now, those of you who know me, know that I'm a long-standing Apple guy. My family's first Mac was a 512K in 1987; my own personal first brand-new Mac was an LC475 a few years later. I have spent about £5000 this year on Apple gear: a 5K i7 iMac, an iPhone X 256GB and an AppleTV 4th gen (not counting the iPad Air 2 I got a year or two ago). Every one of these devices is connected to the rest-I stream video back and forth, link my iMessages, share photos between devices, use AirDrop and Continuity, etc. I am wholly embedded in Apple's ecosystem to an extent that I currently find alarming given the circumstances.
It is bad enough to lose access to my primary email, an address I have had for over fifteen years. It's worse to lose access to it at a time when I was job searching and that address was on dozens of CVs. It's worse to lose it when I'm contacting architects about major building work and they all have that address. It's worse when that address is the login email for hundreds or thousands of website. That's all horrible and incredibly frustrating. But it doesn't stop there. Being locked out of my iCloud account means I also can't do the following:
- Update any of the apps, including paid ones, on my iMac
- Update some of the apps on my iPhone or iPad (most were bought with [REDACTED-different account] but not all)
- Call my parents, who live overseas, via FaceTime on my iPad or iMac
- Log into my AppleTV to access shows, account info, etc.
- Restore my iPhone to default (I restored my iPhone X from an iTunes backup of my 5s, so it’s semi-logged in but can’t authenticate, but now can’t be erased unless I enter the password)
- Use ApplePay on my brand new iPhone X
- Retrieve my photos stored on iCloud
- Retrieve my documents stored on iCloud (including my latest CV which I built in Pages)
- Sync my iMessages between devices, or send ANY iMessages at all from my iMac or iPad
- Add iBooks to my iPad (or iMac or iPhone)
- Download my old emails onto my iPhone (they’re stored locally on my iMac but not on the new iPhone)
- Upgrade to High Sierra (who knows if it’ll go over OK if I can’t sign into my iCloud account?)
- Just generally use any of the Apple services
Right now, I am seriously considering whether having this many eggs in one basket is a sound strategy. If I were locked out of my Facebook account, it would be a pain, but I could setup a new account if needs be. I'd inevitably miss some people off my friends list and I'd lose my account history for a few apps/sites that I use Facebook for as a login (e.g. Strava), but it wouldn't be the end of the world. My Amazon or Google accounts would similarly be seriously annoying to lose access to, but not catastrophic. But not being able to get into my Apple account is truly crippling my digital life.
So I now have to think quite seriously about whether I'd be better off with an Android phone and an Amazon TV device. Would I better to spread the risk across multiple ecosystems and live with the frustrations around interoperability while decreasing the chance that I'd ever be locked out of everything. I'm not saying Google, Amazon or Facebook are more or less likely to have this same issue, but spreading my digital life across these different ecosystems would reduce my dependency on any one of them.
I don't want to do that. I really, genuinely like my Apple gear and think it's best-in-class, and I'm happy to pay the premium for what I consider to be a premium experience. But six weeks is a frankly unacceptable amount of time to be so fundamentally constrained from digital services, many aspects of which I have paid good money for, and on devices for which I have paid very good money. Apple's ethos is that "it just works" and that takes an amazing orchestration of hardware, software, services and support, and normally, it does just work. But when it doesn't, it is incredibly limiting and incredibly frustrating.
As I say, I'm writing this in the hope that someone can help me escalate this at Apple. It's currently with the engineering team, but I think maybe it needs to be moved to a more senior engineering team. I worry with the holidays approaching that any focus that is there will be lost. I was getting daily updates from a lovely senior support engineer at Apple named Katerina, but she went on vacation for a week or so, and I've not heard back from her in the three days since she's been back. I really need to be kept in the loop about what's going on, and I really need this to be escalated to someone that can solve the problem. Six weeks is far too long-if this doesn't get resolved by the holidays, it will end up passing the two month mark, and I will be looking for a refund on my iPhone X purchase at least, as it cannot perform without access to my iCloud account. Setting up a new one isn't an option as it would require me to update everyone with a new email address and I would lose all my app and media purchases. Apple provides this service, and they need to make this work.
If you are reading this and have any ability to help it get prioritised with Apple's engineers, I'm begging you to please help! The case ID is [REDACTED]. Please someone, anyone, help me get this fixed! If you can help me achieve this in any way, big or small, please do. Thank you for reading.
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