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To be fair, people can get phones and install a FOSS OS on it, that's pretty easy, it's sad that Apple does this, but I would expect the same thing on Windows or practically any commercial provider, nothing is really surprising here.
It actually surprise me how many Linux users that do care about their security & privacy just seem to apply poor judgement when it's about their mobile devices, sure, you might not get the LATEST phone but who cares? Why are people trading their values and expertise the moment they touch the latest Samsung or iPhone? What's so special about them anyway, there is literally alternatives (or just vibe code it) for most softwares on it.
This is the dark pattern of "upload everything and delete the local copies" laid bare.
This is possible to override, of course. But it's not the default, so only the most tech-savvy users make use of the settings that keep your videos and photos local.
All in service of getting you to pay for iCloud storage when your phone starts to contain more data than they offer for free (5GB, which is laughable in 2026).
We hit this at home — turned off "Optimize iPhone Storage" and set iCloud Photos to upload only, not remove originals. Settings > Photos, it's buried but there. Still annoying that "optimize" defaults on; it's really just "we'll delete your local copies when space gets tight."
Wow my timing for buying a NAS and strong-arming my family to upload all of their stuff there was perfect it seems! I literally bought it a couple months ago, exactly because I was expecting to get locked out of either my account or my photos at some point
>They upload the pictures to iCloud even though I didn’t sign up.
Many a celeb has been bitten by this one, Apple is 100% evil for doing it. I guess they just do it for lulz? Odd for one of the richest companies on earth
Also anecdotal, but I’ve had iCloud Photos explicitly disabled for nearly a decade and it has never toggled on accidentally. (Even through getting several new devices.)
Maybe the issue is that it gets enabled by default if you haven’t had an account before?
[<$] I have no official connection with them, but have been a very happy customer of <http://eshop.macsales.com> (et.al.) for decades – they sell this model for a few hundred dollars, with a short-term warranty (to determine stability) – don't get the D700s, they reputation is flakeyAF – if I hadn't been gifted this phenomenal & "obsolete" machine, I would now purchase one
[0] e.g. native USB3 support (via Thunderbolt2/3 adapter); no OCLP hackintoshing (neat_but_cobbled.gif)
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Of course having spinning HDDs isn't possible inside of this "trashcan" MacPro, but adding an external 4-bay Terramaster (hotswappable) has given me the 24TB fileserver I've always dreamed of... which allowed me to finally retire my MacPro5,1 [•] entirely from the macintosh ecosystem (now a Linux cryptominer/node, only when heating is otherwise on).
[•] The MacPro6,1 with an external hard disk is infinitely more usable than a MacPro5,1 – doesn't require any OCLP and is very very stable/interactive. In my usagecase, I have used four networked spinning platters to replace eight (and removed two other machines entirely from network). This is approximately a 250W continuous load removed from a residential environment, equivalent to your refrigerator running (all the time)
I moved my photos to self hosting so I’m in control. I’ve seen enough stories to worry about losing them with Apple. Google and Amazon are using them however they please.
Worth separating Google and Amazon here -- their photo policies are actually pretty different. Also if you're using Immich, background sync should handle uploads automatically without needing to keep the app open. Though I could be wrong about how reliably that works in practice.
Apple has a fix for that. Background uploads from apps like Immich are tied to how often you open the app. So if you’re not constantly opening the app you rely on for sync, it’ll silently fail and you won’t notice. So 3rd party apps feel unreliable when compared to Apple’s solution.
Apple, Google, and Microsoft act like ransomware gangs when it comes to photos. I hope we see the day where all 3 get split into a thousand different companies.
Edit: I just checked and my photos stopped syncing 14 days ago. Thanks for the garbage Apple!!
Conversion sounds too soft and they probably have an army of lawyers to argue that it's not somehow not technically Conversion in $jurisdiction. "Theft by extortion" is probably better since they are saying agree to the terms or your computer isn't yours, your files aren't yours.
accept all cookies. Yesss! download the app! I would love to hear about your new feature. Yes, I'd love to ask your new AI assistant <weird-unique-name> for help!
> I never paid for Apple’s iCloud service so I am a little surprised that not only were my pictures uploaded, the local copy was deleted.
Legally murky. Courts have split on "coerced acceptance" in contract law. Doesn't matter though — you clicked something and now you're bound. Welcome to modern ToS.
There's this nice config option that you enabled that stores originals in iCloud, and removes them from your device to save storage space. I think it is called something like 'Optimize Storage'.
So, you enable an option to not eat up all your storage and have the originals stored in iCloud, iCloud gets a new TOS, and you complain your originals are 'held hostage'? riiiiiight. I mean, it's doing what you told it to do.
This is an embarrassing take. You put money in the bank to save the trouble of keeping it under your mattress, now you go to a branch and they say you need to sign a new contract before you can take back your money. Fair?
accepting the update TOS is not the same as signing a new contract.
But yeah, a lot of stuff is constantly blocked behind: accept the new terms before continuing.
You can just read the TOS if it is that big of a deal to you. They aren’t that long. Probably twenty minutes of reading.
People don’t do that because the terms basically say “you can use the service if you act normal. In the context of providing the service we may do any number of things a normal person would expect us to do.”
Reading them isn’t a good use of tim because most people using the service were going to act normal. But we collectively forced them to make the terms this long by suing companies when the terms weren’t clear and by deciding that the letter of the law matters more than what’s sensible. Accepting long terms of service is just the consequence of our collective decisions.
AOL did this in 2000 with AIM photo albums. Microsoft did it with SkyDrive in 2013. Same pattern: sync everything up, make local deletion the "advanced" option, then negotiate from strength. Hostage is the right word. Nothing new under the sun.
