ICloud allegedly blocked a user from accessing her last name

ICloud has had occasional problems with the service, but its most recent problem appears to be highly … specific. Actor and author Rachel True claims ICloud has effectively blocked your account access due to the way your surname was written. Allegedly, his Mac thought the “real” lower case was a Boolean flag (true or false), causing the iCloud software on the computer to crash. The problem persisted for more than six months, she said.

True said he spent hours talking to customer service and that Apple had not stopped charging for the service. It could switch to the free level, although it would also lose most of its online storage if it did.

We asked Apple for a comment.

This is a rare failure if it works as described. Even if you share the surname True (or False, in this case), you will have to type it in a specific way to reproduce the problem. Still, it raises the question of how MacOS can mistake a name for a software flag in the first place. At least he doesn’t seem to respond to direct commands – although you might want a name change if your last name is “rm rf”, just to be on the safe side.