A ~20 y.o. account with perhaps hundreds of devices in history across different continents and countries along with family sharing.
Every time I need to purchase something via Apple, it becomes a quest. Enter password, validate card, welcome to endless login loop. Reboot. Click purchase, enter password, confirm OTP on another device, then nothing happens, purchase button is active, clicks ignored. Reboot. Click "Get", program begins downloading, wait 30s, app cannot be download, go to Settings to verify account. Sure. Account is perfectly fine in Settings. Reboot. Click "Get". Finally program installed. Click in-app purchase. Enter password again. Choose Apple Pay. Proceed with purchase. You need to verify your account. Account is fine in Settings. Reboot. Click purchase. Cannot be completed at this time. Wait couple of hours, try again. Purchase successful.
All. The. Time. For years. On almost all of the devices which I upgrade annually.
Oh, I was agreeing with you. My 2015 iMac died two weeks ago. Pretty sure it's the SSD I installed when I first got it. And while most of my files are in cloud storage, I also had a series of chained external drives running Time Machine. Guess what? I can't use any apple tools to grab any files because different file system type between that machine and my M1 MB Pro (permissions issues).
I'm going to have to clone the drive, then use terminal to chmod the /usr dirs to extract the files I want (mostly personal music production).
I immediately ordered a Mac mini, but since I didn't want a 256GB drive and 16GB RAM, I'm still waiting for it to arrive from China.
Also, the M1 MB Pro was the most expensive* and worst computer I have ever owned. I wish I had just bought an air. No tactile volume controls. As a musician that is the worst.
(*company I worked for a while in school paid $12k for a Mac 2 FX. Lol.)
I would never dismiss such a complaint with a glib "works for me". And yet, your experience is so utterly, completely different from mine that I have to think something's busted in your account somewhere. I've had an account for about as long, with family sharing and all the rest. I never, ever, have anywhere near that level of difficulty. For me it works as documented: I click "Get", it asks for Face ID to confirm it's really me, then a few seconds later I have the app installed and ready to use.
Again, I don't think you're doing anything wrong, and I don't doubt your experience. But I really think something's fundamentally wrong somewhere, because what you're dealing with is not normal. It's not the common experience others are tolerating.
Oh yes, it's pretty clear to me that something is wrong on Apple's side specifically with my account. Obviously people are having close to zero friction with Apple's stuff.
I can't complain though because I have this account for like couple decades and loosing that account would be painful. Apple did ban my account twice on the grounds that it's a US account while I'm not physically located there. I was able to revert the ban by explaining that I've got a US legal entity (account, banking card, etc) and thus I beg to continue using it. Not taking chances for the third time, so I silently endure.
> Obviously people are having close to zero friction with Apple's stuff.
I don't believe that to be true, I have been having issues with Apple bugs for the last 7-8 years. Totally unnecessary friction due to features I do not want and do not use.
Edit: Let’s be real here, Tim Cook is keeping the lights on. He isn’t a product guy. They lack leadership and vision at present and are committed to a foolish release cycle based on calendar year not quality of product. These wouldn’t have come to pass had Steve lived till today. Yes its opinion but I doubt its an unpopular one.
So I’ll say it again succinctly, to answer “what happened?”
