Reply in general, not just to worm:
We all need to stop chasing our tails. Let me re-add this to the discussion -- My problem with shortcuts/replacements is affecting/infecting my iPhone, iPad and my Macbook Air. It's not just the iOS.
Here's what we know, collectively (and of my own experience):
1. It's not just the iOS;
2. It's not independent of the iOS;
3. It predates Yosemite and 10.8;
4. This is only happening to those who run an Apple ID on their device(s) (it would be nearly impossible to run without one);
5. It's only affecting people who have diddled with their SHORTCUTS;
6. It is related to your Apple ID;
7. It's native to Apple; and
8. Apple should be able to fix this -- and only they can, because it's all back-office.
How do I know all of the above? Been there, done that. I've started clean on every device. They come back. I've tinkered with iCloud connectivity. They come back. I've deleted the zombies individually, collectively, and across devices. They come back. I've dinked around with keyboards selections. They come back.
Here's something simple (but incredibly inconvenient) that we can each try as a litmus test:
- Use the same phone or iPad or Macbook that you've been using all along.
- BE SURE YOU ARE SIGNED IN UNDER YOUR ORIGINAL APPLE ID -- AND BACKUP FIRST (either to cloud or to iTunes on your computer).
- Backup now safely in the sky or wherever? OK, then sign out of your Apple ID (in SETTINGS - iCLOUD, at the bottom; on a Macbook sign out and back in as your GUEST user) on the device.
- Do not change anything about settings, or jailbreak anything, or hack anything.
- When (in iOS) it asks about removing all data from the device, allow it to do so, because you've saved all that crap somewhere anyway.
- Now, you're no one on that device. Persona non grata. The device will still work, but you will no longer have access to iTunes accounts (because they connect to the Apple ID) and other such.
- If your email is through Mac, that will also go away from the device (part of the inconvenience), but it too is still in the cloud. (Unless you save emails locally to your Macbook, in which case you have other problems.)
- If you were running with an alternative native keyboard selection through the iOS (not 3rd party), that selection is native to the device, so it won't have changed when you signed out of the ID; that selection will remain.
- BUT now check your keyboard SHORTCUTS.
- Ah-ha! Zombies annihilated.
- Now, play the tape through to the end by signing back IN on the device with your usual Apple ID.
- Data and settings will reload from the cloud or from your local iTunes backup.
- Go check your SHORTCUTS -- and they'll still be clean. No zombies. No shortcuts at all, in fact, not even Apple's natives.
- Huh?
- Yes, eventually however, the zombies will come back -- again -- if you stay logged in under that Apple ID.
- Why?...
Yes, I've done this, and guess what? The zombies do eventually reappear as long as you are back to your original Apple ID. But, signing in and out supports the theory that it's the Apple ID hosting the zombies.
I'm a PC-to-Mac shifter, first breaking clean of Bill Gates back in 2000, but even now I navigate between, as required. Part of what was great to leave behind was all the nonsense that seems to be going on in background ALL THE TIME on Windows devices. Cluttered and tiring, maybe even sneaky. And we Apple folk get lulled into thinking that all the speed and flexibility and agility that we experience results from none of that Windows-esque background crap going on at all. But is that true? Of course not. That's what makes these devices run. Apple just does it better, more seamlessly, more quietly. As with many things Apple.
You know how when you get a new phone, do an erase and reinstall, or restore from backup, how it seems to take quite a bit of time for things to return to normal? Apps will be reloading for days, it seems. And that's only what you can "see." Lots going on in background. It's as if basic functionality is prioritized, and everything else lines up behind to be pulled down and rebuilt, which makes sense in a way. Well, this, too, suggests that there are all manner of back-office reloads going on in/from some repository in the South Pole, or whatever, happening continually, constantly, restoring and replacing different levels of data, shallower and deeper. That's why it sometimes take days or weeks for all the zombies to come back. All of that old data is being pulled from lots of levels, lots of places, over time. We might think it's all happening instantaneously, but it's not, and the fact that we get core functionality back so "quickly" is both good and bad.
Now, end users can't get into these cloud (or cellular) backups. These are out of our control and we have no access. There's a set we can access, but not these. That's the only explanation, because many of us have tried hard erasing iCloud backups, and that doesn't stick. These backups must be archived somewhere else. But why Apple can't or won't clean these out for a given user, or for all users collectively, I have no idea.
I do know, however, that Apple tech knows about this connection to the Apple ID, because my own personal senior tech (yeah, right) went down that road when my case was escalated to engineering. The engineers (who are these people anyway? the Eloi?) placed my Apple ID into what they called "test mode," which required my approval and release of password to Apple. It remained in that status for weeks. What they work looking for, I have no idea, but they didn't find it and didn't fix it, and I was eventually released from "test mode" with no solution offered.
I'm running on and about to start sounding like a conspiracy theorist (I am not), but it makes sense. Have you ever had to work with Apple to reclaim an email that you really really really trashed? I did. That mail is out of your IN box, out of the ARCHIVE, out of the TRASH. Toast. Well, from a user standpoint, that email is gone gone gone -- but Apple can reclaim it from the server somewhere. Naturally. Perhaps as a matter of legal compliance or whatever, Apple is certainly keeping histories on every Apple ID as well. Regarding this keyboard shortcuts harangue, the question then is: Why can't won't Apple really really really clear out that old data, or at least delink it? And why won't Apple 'fess up about the source of the problem?
How in **** this can be related to the Apple ID in such a way that obliterating user-accessible backups doesn't solve the problem, I have no idea, but I would be willing to bet that everyone here, everyone experiencing this problem, can run this experiment and will have a similar result.
Report back, even if it's to tell me I'm wrong, which will just mean we've found yet another new wrinkle in this issue.
