OK, I'm not going to hold my breath, but Apple needs to do something cool for those of us who have gone without email for so long this time.
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 2.4 gHz model
Yes, asking for a free phone for poor service on a "free" service is outlandish, but nothing is free. We pay for iCloud when we by Apple hardware. The suggestion was being punitive, and provocative. I figured the moderators would spike it frankly. Happy to see they didn't. Apple should pay for extended outages without any explanation or better information than "1% affected, check back for updates". Hooray for the other 99% that weren't affected, but when it is your email address you have relied on for many years that is positioned as the ideal address to have with Apple hardware then the company has taken on a responsibility to its users that wasn't upheld. A little more information would have gone a long way.
I wouldn't mind an iPhone 5 but I'm not going to hold my breath over it. It's a free albeit crucial service so I do think it's more of a PR issue than anything.
My guess is they will send out an apology letter to all those affected, possibly a $5 iTunes code but that will be the absolute most I can imagine.
Gmail has gone down a lot more than iCloud this year--not that it makes a difference but just putting in perspective that no one provider is perfect. MobileMe circa July '08 during the transition from .Mac > MobileMe was about the closest thing to a perfect disaster as I can imagine--it lasted nearly weeks and people lost e-mail (including me) so I think this iCloud issue is a drop in the bucket.
The reason I continue to use iCloud is because it is otherwise pretty reliable and there are no ads. My .edu address goes through Google so I have a Gmail and a Yahoo account, both of which have been down at times--I don't remember for much longer than a few hours but certainly the Gmail account has gone down before.
I think people need to take a step back and breathe.... I would like to see Apple be more transparent about what issues are affecting the service but I fail to see how they could've handled this any differently.
Well my silly but provocative (and timely) subject line stired up some comments. Not holding my breath either for a free phone, or that Apple will actually change to provide more transparency into problems (or an infrastructure that prevents this from happening again). Maybe add a way to identify a back up address and roll messages over if their system goes down. Of course they would risk people not coming back, but what is there to lose from offloading some freeloading customers? Plenty I suspect so this will never happen.
Being without email for a few days is tough. Surprisingly so considering it is a relatively recent addition to our means of communication. If email uptime is of critical importance to someone, they should either have an alternate email service to use and from which they can inform their most important contacts that their primary email is not working and/or they should purchase a paid email service that has strong guarantees and a strong track record on uptime. iCloud is a free service (not counting the extra storage that can be purchased) and Apple makes no guarantees on uptime. The iCloud Terms and Conditions that we all agreed to can be read in their entirety at http://www.apple.com/legal/icloud/en/terms.html . Below is an exerpt. The bold is from the actual document, I did not make it bold. I suppose they felt it was important so they made it stand out:
APPLE DOES NOT GUARANTEE, REPRESENT, OR WARRANT THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, AND YOU AGREE THAT FROM TIME TO TIME APPLE MAY REMOVE THE SERVICE FOR INDEFINITE PERIODS OF TIME, OR CANCEL THE SERVICE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT.
YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. APPLE AND ITS AFFILIATES, SUBSIDIARIES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, PARTNERS AND LICENSORS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN PARTICULAR, APPLE AND ITS AFFILIATES, SUBSIDIARIES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, PARTNERS AND LICENSORS MAKE NO WARRANTY THAT (I) THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; (II) YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE WILL BE TIMELY, UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE OR ERROR-FREE; (III) ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED BY YOU AS A RESULT OF THE SERVICE WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE; AND (IV) ANY DEFECTS OR ERRORS IN THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED TO YOU AS PART OF THE SERVICE WILL BE CORRECTED.
APPLE DOES NOT REPRESENT OR GUARANTEE THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE FREE FROM LOSS, CORRUPTION, ATTACK, VIRUSES, INTERFERENCE, HACKING, OR OTHER SECURITY INTRUSION, AND APPLE DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY RELATING THERETO.
Of course they covered their tails. I'm sure they all do.
Now to Think Different.
If the system goes down there is no practical way to change your address on the fly, and if you could why would anyone switch back? This time around I was able to send mail, but not receive it. Could I have used something like gmail to grab the mail, effectively mirroring my content in multiple inboxes? I doubt it.
How much of the problem is related to the multiple imap servers they are using (I had to change mine to a numbered server recently)? Were all the problems with p02? Do all of the big systems use specific servers, or do they route things dynamically behind a single inbound server setting? Does that risk taking everyone down if there is a problem?
How about better error messages to avoid all the confusion. Mixed into all the jiberish were a variety of hints, but how many were red herrings?
OK, if I accept that (which I don't) what about these terms (bearing in mind that you have already agreed to these terms when you signed up)
APPLE DOES NOT GUARANTEE, REPRESENT, OR WARRANT THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, AND YOU AGREE THAT FROM TIME TO TIME APPLE MAY REMOVE THE SERVICE FOR INDEFINITE PERIODS OF TIME, OR CANCEL THE SERVICE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT.
All free systems have the same terminology in their agreement so .....
I hope your email comes back up soon. After that happens, or even before, you can make the choice of whether or not to keep iCloud or to get your mail service from elsewhere. You can ease the transition by setting up a rule that forwards all received iCloud email to the new address. If guaranteed uptime is a priority for you, I recommend you do some research and carefully read the terms of service before signing up.
So, an iPhone 5 costs about $600. That suggests you value access to your email at approximately $300 per day, if you feel you're entitled to one for a two day outage.
If that is the case, why are you choosing to use an email service that you actually pay $0 for? It doesn't add up.
Why not pay for a guaranteed email service that provides a level of service appropriate to your $300 a day value for guaranteed access to your email?
Clearly my attempt at levity has been lost in the translation to typed text, but Apple should be accountable, despite the escape clause the lawyers wrote.
There is no service that can guarantee 100% uptime, and none that offer as tight an integration into the MacOS.
So back to my original message, time for Apple to do something cool and innovative. Let us know they are not going to hide behind the pat answer of "you're on your own sucker". Tell us what happened and why it won't happen again. Find a clever solution, perhaps like the ones I mentioned a few posts ago. Send me the new iPhone5 since everyone else sounds like they would reject the gesture. Just do something other than remain silent.
Got this say nothing note from Apple yesterday...
We apologize for the mail service interruption you recently experienced. Your mail service has been restored and all emails sent during this service interruption have been delivered to your account.
Our customers are very important to us and we are working hard to ensure you have the best experience with iCloud.
We appreciate your patience.
-iCloud Team
If we're so important, what are you doing to keep this from happening again?
G. Ewald wrote:
Got this say nothing note from Apple yesterday...
We apologize for the mail service interruption you recently experienced. Your mail service has been restored and all emails sent during this service interruption have been delivered to your account.
Our customers are very important to us and we are working hard to ensure you have the best experience with iCloud.
We appreciate your patience.
-iCloud Team
If we're so important, what are you doing to keep this from happening again?
If your mail is so crucial (even though you yourself only value it at $0) why don't you host it yourself, this will allow you to set whatever standards you require. Unfortunately there will be no-one to whine and rant at except yourself if it goes down, and again, no free iPhone.
Apple should give us a free iPhone 5 for those affected by this crazy outage!
