Developers Voice Concerns Over iCloud Issue, Asks Apple for a Fix

Developers have begun voicing their frustrations regarding an iCloud bug. The issue has reached a boiling point as many are now asking for Apple to provide a solution to better help with stability.

On Twitter, a developer of YarnBuddy and Scribblet Beck Hansmeyer created a thread outlining her experiences with iCloud and it not properly syncing. As reported by TechRadar, Hansmeyer asked what the best way of reporting known issues was. She then realized she was not alone and began compiling tweets from other devs experiencing the exact same frustrating issue.

Ok, there’s clearly an issue going on with iCloud sync right now affecting a lot of users across many different apps. What’s the best way to report this? Radar? I haven’t made any changes to my app since October and users have just recently started reporting sync failures.

— Becky Hansmeyer (@bhansmeyer) January 24, 2022

The iCloud issue in question stems from an instability issue, causing a 503 error. Based on user experiences, it appears as though certain files, apps, and other content aren’t syncing properly. This means that media or documents a user may have on an iPhone may not be available on their MacBook. Additionally, the issue does not seem to be consistent across Apple’s user base. Many have experienced iCloud work as intended, while others have begun facing issues as early as September 2021.

So pissed off with Apple’s iCloud today. Wasted almost an entire day to it throwing up 503 errors. My backup Apple ID is fine, so it seems like my main ID has been rate-limited for some reason. Bloody infuriating. So much for “it just works”. *fume*

— Craig Grannell (@CraigGrannell) January 19, 2022

The developers of GoodNotes have also experienced the issue and put together a support document to help those in need. According to the document, the issue eventually gets resolved when automatically retries to connect. Though, it’s certainly not a reliable solution.

A thread on the Apple Developer Forum was also created raising further awareness about the issue. Responses are fairly typical with some stating they have reported the issue with Apple in hopes that a solution is provided.

Currently, Apple has not officially recognized the issue and thus has no estimated timeline on when the iCloud bug will be fixed.