Random Thoughts – Randocity!

I’ve been recently trying to solve a problem with T-Mobile which ended up a bust because of the absolute sheer uselessness of T-Mobile staff about the iPhone and Apple Watch features. I will write a separate rant about that entire disaster, but let me lead with this rant that’s a little more critical. Let’s explore.

Apple’s iCloud

What is this thing? It’s a way to store settings and various data in Apple’s network cloud storage. This seems like a great idea until you realize what Apple keeps ganging up into this storage area. Then, you might actually think twice about using this feature.

While you might realize that Apple iCloud service will backup your photos and other data stored on your iPhone, it also stores other things you might not realize, like your WiFi network passwords, your Safari logins and passwords and various other sensitive data. What that means is that if Apple’s iCloud is ever compromised, your passwords could be completely captured by a hacker. Depending on whether Apple has stored this data encrypted strongly or not (probably not), you may end up having to change every password you have ever typed and stored on your iPhone.

Now, while that is a security problem, that’s not the problem that this article is intended to address. Let’s continue.

Apple Geniuses Are Anything But

I was recently talking to an AppleCare staffer who, when trying to solve my T-Mobile problem, requested that I wipe my network settings on my iPhone. I explicitly asked this staffer if it would also wipe my iCloud passwords. She, of anyone on this planet, should have known the answer to this question working for Apple. Unfortunately, I have very quickly learned that Apple is now hiring the lowest grunts of the grunts who simply don’t give a shit nor do they even understand the technology they are hawking. Apple, train your staff. Which leads to …

Never, Ever EVER wipe your network settings on any iOS iCloud device

No matter how much anyone begs or pleads you to do this, tell them, “NO”. And, if anyone ever tries to do this to one of your devices sharing a single iCloud login, you need to grab the device back from them PRONTO and stop them.

The answer to my question I asked Apple is that wiping network settings on your phone does, in fact, indeed wipe all of your network settings in iCloud! Why is this important? If you have multiple devices sharing your iCloud ID and settings, after wiping a single device, all of your WiFi passwords are also wiped for ALL other iCloud devices. This means that every single iCloud device suddenly and explicitly drops its WiFi connection.

This also means you will need to go back to each device and manually re-type your WiFi password into each and every device. This is the only way for the device to log back into iCloud and relearn all of its knowledge of all newly recreated settings.

This is an absolute PAIN IN THE ASS, Apple! So, if anyone ever asks you to wipe your network settings on your iPhone or iPad participating in iCloud, don’t do it! Note that even signing out of iCloud and wiping may cause the same problem once you log it back in. So, I wouldn’t even try this knowing Apple’s crappy network designs. Simply tell the person asking, “Not only no, but hell no” and have them figure out another way to resolve whatever the problem is.

So, there you have it.