Today I received messages from a handful of clients all concerning their Apple email, calendar or contacts. One was having an issue with Apple Music. The symptoms were all different, but the cause was the same, Apple had an outage across some of their servers. When I have or when a client calls with “Apple Issues” that involve their services, the first place I check is Apple’s System Status, https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/.
A green dot means the service is good to go, but you may see where an “outage” has been recently resolved. A red triangle means there is an outage with the service and all you can do is sit back and wait for it to be back online. As you can see from the photo above, Apple had a lot of issues today. Always check here first before you waste a lot of time trying to fix something you can’t do anything about! If all is well with your Apple service, continue troubleshooting and as always, feel free to reach out!
APOLOGIES – this was scheduled to post on Tuesday, June 8th.
On Monday June 7th, Apple held the WWDC and announced 4 new upgrades coming in the Fall of 2021:
iOS 15
iPadOS 15
OS X Monterey
WatchOS 8
The event was 2 hours long and full of exciting updates and incredible new capabilities. So many features were announced that I could not keep up with my note taking! I finally put my pencil down and just listened. While I look forward to trying them all out in the fall, two new features stuck with me. Apple ID Account improvement and Privacy.
Apple ID Account Improvement
Account Recovery has been a major issue for several of my clients. Sure, we all forget our Apple ID password on occasion and usually it is easy to reset. However, glitches in the process have made it almost impossible and painful for some to regain access to their accounts. With iOS 15, Apple is adding a new way to get back into your account. You will be able to add a Recovery Contact. Add a person who you trust to assist you in regaining access to your account. If the recovery contact is needed, simply call them to let them know Apple will be sending a code to their device for you to regain your account. The recovery contact will not have access to any of your account information.
Another key improvement to Apple ID accounts is called Digital Legacy. Though not something we think about often, it is important to be able to pass down important information to family members or designated friends when you pass away. Similar to a Recovery Contact, adding a Legacy Contact allows you to designate someone to have access to the data in your account after your death. The legacy contact will not have access to any of your account information prior to your passing.
Privacy
Privacy was a common theme at the WWDC as new features were introduced. Apple introduced iCloud+ which will be available to users who subscribe to iCloud for additional storage. iCloud+ will offer Private Relay and Hide My Email giving users more insight and control over their data.
Private Relay is Apple’s version of a VPN (virtual private network). In recent months many of my clients have asked me if they should use a VPN. With iOS 15, there is no need to purchase a VPN . . . it’s built right in. A VPN helps your privacy online. You will now be able to browse with Safari in a very secure and private way. The traffic leaving your device is encrypted through 2 relays which means no one can intercept it and no one can see where you are going or coming from. Not Apple, not the network you are connected to or the website you are viewing.
Hide My Email allows users to generate fake email addresses for the many websites that require you to enter your email address to read, view or sign up for accounts in order to make appointments, get discounts, and pay online to mention a few. The emails go to your real inbox, but the website will not know your real email address. Personally, I have set up a “junk” email address that I use for filling out online forms. Hide My Email will eliminate the need for using an alternative email account and help clean up your inbox. Hide My Email is limited to using Safari, Mail app, or an Icloud’s email address.
I’ll keep you posted as I try the public beta of these new releases this summer!
If you have an iPhone with facial recognition, you know how nice it is. Covid and required masking up made facial recognition ineffective. Yup, we got spoiled! The new iOS 14.5 update took care of this inconvenience, but you have to have an Apple Watch to use the workaround.
To setup your watch to unlock your iPhone head to Settings on your iPhone and follow the steps below.
Settings.
Face ID and Passcode.
Enter your iPhone passcode.
Scroll down to Unlock With Apple Watch and turn the feature on.
In order to use this feature, you will be required to have a passcode on your Apple Watch. If you do not, your iPhone will open the Watch App and prompt you to add a passcode. Other requirements are that your iPhone is running iOS 14.5 and your Apple Watch is running watchOS 7.4. It’s as easy as that. Now when you have a mask on and are wearing your watch, your watch can unlock your iPhone!
An Update On My Last Post Concerning App Tracking
Initially, I did not turn off App Tracking when I downloaded iOS 14.5. Instead I decided that I would let Apps ask me if I wanted to allow them to track me after reading their intended use of my data. Hmmmm, nothing happened. Not one single App asked for permission and here’s why.
App developers get to decide when they begin putting up the tracking prompt. So it is likely to be weeks or months before you begin to see the prompts. Apple has not stated if there is a deadline for implementing the prompts. For now it is all or nothing. Turn it off to eliminate App Tracking. If you leave it on, it may be a while before you have control over which apps track you.
I have received many many calls, texts and emails today from clients who use Mac Mail on their computers, iPhones and ipads and have an iCloud email address. They are reporting that they are unable to send email. Misery loves company as I had experienced the same issue. With the numerous reports of being able to receive email, but unable to send email I suspected and confirmed with Apple that it is an iCloud Server issue. There is no known time frame for a fix, but Apple is aware of the issue and working on the issue.
In the meantime, I found a work around that was effective for me. I logged onto www.iCloud.com and was able to send and receive email directly from iCloud. Doesn’t make much sense if the issue is with the Apple server, but it worked for me. If you have a lot of messages sitting in your Outbox in Mac Mail on your computer, just drag the messages from your Outbox to Drafts. Go to www.icloud.com, open your Drafts folder, open the emails and send.
Apple has no plans for a way to update users when the issue is resolved other than for you to keep checking to see if it has been fixed. If it is not up and running in the morning, I will call Apple again for an update and keep you posted.
While this issue is effecting some and not all users, it sure does seem to be effecting my clients with a fury!
Step By Step with Lisa Burlee 