Neil Hughes
Days after an error led to false iCloud cancellation emails sent to subscribers, Apple has followed up with another note apologizing for the bug, and reassuring them that their plan remains in good standing.
On Wednesday of this week, a number of iCloud users received messages saying their subscription had been discontinued. The bug appeared to mostly affect 50-gigabyte tier subscribers.
On Saturday, Apple followed up with those same users to issue a formal apology, in an email entitled "Your iCloud storage plan renewal."
"You recently received an email incorrectly stating that your iCloud storage plan has been discontinued," the note reads. "Your 50 GB iCloud storage plan is not affected and will continue to renew automatically.
"We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any questions, please contact us."
While some users were mistakenly told their iCloud plan was canceled, others on Wednesday found errors if they tried to change their plan or manage their iCloud data. Some subscribers also received messages asking them to update their payment information, leading to speculation that the bug may have been associated with credit card authorization servers.
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Wesley Hilliard
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
23 Comments
Hopefully just a bug/mistake and not some sort sort of attack. In a slightly related story, I got the iCloud sign-in alert on all my devices one night this week - this was around a 1am Wednesday and surprised me. I had not signed out or in on any devices that I was aware of. I suppose the Mini could have done an automatic update that triggered this, but I wonder if the alert was related to the snafu?
So is every mistake going to be called a "bug" now?
This is not good enough Apple. I thought the original message was rather abrupt. When I spoke with AppleCare about it they informed me that Apple would never send such rude message and that this is one of the ways of detecting a scam. I then explain that I had been asked to rein-put my bank card details at about the same time. The AppleCare representative's comments made me worried that i had been tricked into providing my bank details to a third party so i cancelled the bank card. So I have been inconvenienced, worried and without a bank card for 5 days until a replacement arrived. It has really dented my faith in Apple. At least I can take comfort that it was not a trick after all but I am still left unhappy and unsure.
Based on the variety of messages reported in AI's original article, I'm not convinced there weren't
some similar-looking phishing exploits initiated by opportunists at that same time.