Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17

I just finally updated to iOS 17.2 from iOS 16. And now I remember why I usually hesitate with updates:

After the update, iCloud Passwords and Keychain Sync turned on by itself. So all passwords and keychain info (I don't know what keychain info encompasses) is in the Cloud now. Apparently it's E2E encrypted, but in some closed source way which I didn't choose.

This is a known issue apparently (https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/27/icloud-keychain-issues/) but not many people seemed to care.

Also it's not clear if that data can be deleted from the Cloud at all (https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/419116/are-there-any-solid-way-to-view-delete-online-icloud-keychain). The Apple Docs text has changed.

Then, today iCloud Calendar Sync turned on by itself, too, which isn't E2E by default. I don't know what's next.

I remember, in the past, iCloud Photo Sync turned on by itself too on some old version.

Also "Live Voicemail" turned itself on. But that's not iCloud? I don't know.

There were similar posts in the past (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28285567).

Apple, why do you keep doing this? I use iCloud for Find My iPhone and Wallet only, but it seems like you don't care and just enable other stuff as well, which I explicitly turned off before.

I liked iOS because I thought Apple respects that kind of stuff, but now I'm not sure what phone to buy next.

Perhaps this info is interesting for other folks here.

Given the sensitivity and value of the info disclosure, lack of documentation doesn't necessarily refute experimentally reported results.

This happened to me with iPadOS 17 beta 4 back in July. https://appdot.net/@lapcatsoftware/110776034855270972

I've also been getting a "Verify Your Recovery Key" warning in Settings on both iPad and Mac ever since beta 4 of iPadOS 17 and Sonoma (and that continues to this day). Settings app was crashing too in beta 4. It was a really bad beta for iCloud stuff.

Also worth noting: iOS and macOS re-enable Bluetooth after every update. https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/bluetooth.html

Thanks for telling me about this. It's definitely not acceptable to appropriate such sensitive data without consent.

Thank for the warning. I use Bitwarden exclusively. It didn't happen on iPhone 13 Pro 17.1.2 -> 17.2. Currently upgrading iPad Pro 4th gen as it took until today to get iPadOS 17.2.