Has iCloud Performance Degraded over Time?

Question

For me, changes in photos and iMessage don't sync from my laptop to my phone. Other files like Ulysses update at a fraction of the rate I get with Dropbox. Old computers that have been factory reset and removed from my account show up as ghost entries in menus. What gives?

night-rider · Accepted Answer

I configured iOS in such a way that nothing gets passed into iCloud. If I want to store photos etc, I routinely shuttle any data from my device into both a local copy, and a cloud storage provider where I encrypt it with Cryptomator[0] for safe-keeping. I don't trust Apple to keep my iCloud safe from prying eyes. I have 2FA turned on on my Apple ID, but still there is that chance that the data could be gleaned. Then there is the issue of iCloud data being unencrypted which sucks.[0] https://cryptomator.org/

Nextgrid · Answer

iCloud has always been a barely-working pile of shit in my experience, inline with Apple's general degradation when it comes to UX.
Right now my iCloud account claims that my storage is fully used up by messages, except this is after deleting all my messages and confirming they are deleted by resyncing a new phone and making sure the conversations are indeed deleted (as they aren't coming back on the new phone).
For a long time (might still be the case), deleting entries or search history in Maps wouldn't actually delete them on anything but the current machine - logging into a brand new machine would bring back entries that were supposedly deleted years ago.