Bugs Apple loves

2026-01-232:241122537www.bugsappleloves.com

Every bug is different. But the math is always real.Think our numbers are wrong? Edit them yourself. Users Affected × Frequency × Time Per Incident How many Apple users hit this bug, how often, and…

Every bug is different. But the math is always real.
Think our numbers are wrong? Edit them yourself.

Users Affected × Frequency × Time Per Incident

How many Apple users hit this bug, how often, and how long they suffer each time.

Σ (Workaround Time × Participation Rate)

The extra time spent by people who try to fix what Apple won't.

Years Unfixed × Pressure Factor

How long Apple has known about this and how urgent the task usually is.

Human Hours Wasted ÷ Engineering Hours to Fix

How many times over Apple could have fixed it with the productivity they've destroyed.


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Comments

  • By InMice 2026-01-238:336 reply

    Clicking on folders that you have put in Finders sidebar - It will not display the folder with the view settings set for that folder, but instead the last folder you clicked in the sidebar. It seems to happen clicking from top to bottom vs bottom to top. You just cant make this sh*t up it's so bad.

    Example sidebar:

    Applications - Always shows as icons

    Documents - Shows as icons if you last clicked on Applications. Shows as details if last you clicked on Downloads

    Downloads - Always shows as details

    Finder is the absolute worst we could write a book about it. Once a year or so all my sidebar folders randomly vanish and I have to re-add them.

    Also The most annoying "it's a feature, not a bug" - That instant drop down of the title bar in full screen if the mouse cursor hits the top edge of the screen. So obnoxious with remote desktop sessions. No delay, no way to disable it, no way to change anything about it.

    • By lloeki 2026-01-239:582 reply

      Finder has stopped being a spatial file manager for a long time, but still mistakenly tries to behave like one in too many places, probably because of lingering legacy code more than a particular intent.

      IMHO they should simply rip the spatial bits out entirely and it would immediately become a better file manager purely from the restored consistency.

      • By pluralmonad 2026-01-243:27

        I was just today complaining that Finder seems to want to be a file browser, but it makes it nearly impossible to actually browse the file system. Ridiculous dropping down to ls in a terminal on a supposedly polished OS.

      • By coryfklein 2026-01-2315:313 reply

        What the heck is a spatial file manager

        • By crazygringo 2026-01-2315:391 reply

          Each folder has a remembered display state. If in large icon mode, you can drag icons around into the positions you want and they'll stay that way the next time you visit the folder.

          The idea is that it's not directories that are just bags of files, but files occupy spatial locations in folder windows.

          • By lobsterthief 2026-01-2316:103 reply

            Ah, this makes sense. Am I hallucinating that columns widths used to be remembered many years back? In other words, in column view, if you resized a column for a given folder, close Finder, and reopen to that folder—it would remain the same width.

            Finder is mostly unusable for any directory containing long filenames since it doesn’t remember this. But I swear it used to. Am I misremembering?

            • By FabHK 2026-01-275:41

              FWIW, there is a hidden option to automatically resize columns to accommodate the longest (up to a point) visible file name:

              https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/01/26/hidden-pref-col...

            • By LoganDark 2026-01-243:491 reply

              I just tested and for me they seem to be remembered for my Downloads folder. Weirdly, at first it didn't seem to be remembered, but then I pressed ⌘+J to look at the view settings, and now when I change a column width it seems to be remembered...

        • By pjmlp 2026-01-2412:25

          Besides the sibling comments, it is how Finder used to work in Mac OS Classic.

        • By xp84 2026-01-2320:42

          Essentially John Siracusa's preferred file browsing environment

    • By Kovah 2026-01-238:581 reply

      I really wish Apple would allow us to swap out the Finder with something else, so files open in that other app instead of the Finder. This works reasonable well on Windows, where I "replaced" the Explorer with Directory Opus.

      • By Cockbrand 2026-01-2310:472 reply

        This used to be possible, I remember that I replaced Finder with some other app many years ago. I strongly assume that this doesn't work any more, though.

        • By xp84 2026-01-2320:442 reply

          Yeah. Path Finder was a common power user tool.

          I recall you used to be able to flip some bit somewhere to allow you to Quit the Finder, but I assume that's disappeared inside the encrypted and signed partition where Apple keeps all the things us stupid users shouldn't be allowed to touch.

          But even then, you'd want more than just that, as when you tell the OS to "Reveal" a file or open a folder, that's the association I'd want to be able to change.

          Honestly I'd really prefer the Windows XP File Explorer to the pile of crap the Finder has turned into.

          • By andrekandre 2026-01-241:421 reply

              > I recall you used to be able to flip some bit somewhere to allow you to Quit the Finder
            
            you can still do this with a hidden preference using command line:

              defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool true; killall Finder
            
            [0] https://www.defaults-write.com/adding-quit-option-to-os-x-fi...

              > But even then, you'd want more than just that, as when you tell the OS to "Reveal" a file or open a folder, that's the association I'd want to be able to change.
            
            yep, that should just be a normal setting like default browser (one thing i like about linux nowadays)

          • By Cockbrand 2026-01-2411:121 reply

            Ah yes, thank you for reminding me - of course, it was Path Finder! You could even have it respond to "Reveal". Not sure any more if it was by renaming Path Finder to /Applications/Finder, or by changing its Bundle id to com.apple.finder, or some other trick.

            • By f30e3dfed1c9 2026-01-256:04

              "of course, it was Path Finder! You could even have it respond to 'Reveal'"

              This still works. I have been using macs since 1985 and have always hated the Finder. In the days of classic Mac OS, my go to for file management was a desk accessory called DiskTop, which was great. Super fast and easy to operate from the keyboard.

              When I switched to OSX, I needed something better than the Finder, chose Path Finder, and have been using it ever since. I have my complaints about it but have not been able to find anything I like better.

    • By Perz1val 2026-01-239:022 reply

      Ooooh, I always though it just doesn't remember any view settings at all

      • By xp84 2026-01-2320:48

        The confusing part is that it sometimes remembers things when you open a folder directly, like from an alias you open on your desktop, or typing `open ~/Documents`... But when Finder gets confused seems to be that when you shift between folders using the "browser-like" tools (back, forward, double-clicking a folder from the current folder), there's a disconnect: Should it act like a browser and use the current view, details columns, etc? or should it totally transform the view into what you had open at some point in the past?

        I tend to try to hammer the Finder into always using "list view" with command-J, Always open in list view → Use as Defaults, but random folders can have their own settings attached, probably, so nothing works.

      • By InMice 2026-01-239:16

        I cant quite figure it out exactly either. Seemingly random, then sometimes there's partial order. I honestly have to close my eyes and take deep breaths in thru the nose out the mouth while sitting at my desk while trying to get stuff done LOL. Im just so sick of decades of these stupid bugs.

    • By SwtCyber 2026-01-249:34

      Finder really is a museum of unresolved UX decisions layered over decades

    • By mlrtime 2026-01-2311:212 reply

      Switched from Windows to Macos years ago after work gave me a macbook pro. As life long ThinkPad red nipple guy, I love it.

      The finder is the one thing I think Windows does marginally better with Explorer.

      • By pjmlp 2026-01-2412:28

        If only Explorer had a better extension mechanism than dealing with inproc COM in C++.

        It would be about time to have better IPC mechanisms out of process.

      • By Melatonic 2026-01-2319:01

        Trackpoint is also pretty nice once you get used to it. No hands off keyboard !

        MacBooks do seem to have by far the best trackpads however

    • By seanwessmith 2026-01-2317:231 reply

      that's not how it works for me in MacOS Tahoe, the sidebar works as it should now.

      • By Linkd 2026-01-2318:02

        Just tested on Tahoe 26.1 and it's still happening as he described.

  • By magnio 2026-01-232:4510 reply

    Had the pleasure of making an Apple account to join our company's developer team. I filled out the form on the website 7 times: Edge on Windows, Edge on macOS, Safari on macOS, using 2 different phone numbers. No matter what, Apple just refused to send the verification code to me. It only worked after I remember Apple is a dick to the web platform, then I managed to create one from the popup in the App Store.

    • By postalcoder 2026-01-233:026 reply

      Apple also makes it a biznatch to make a developer account separate from your personal account. In Apple's ideal world, multiple accounts should in no circumstance ever exist. I, in an ideal world, would agree with this. But we live in this world, where Apple bans accounts for redeeming legitimate gift cards.

      • By VerifiedReports 2026-01-235:286 reply

        And yet Apple CREATED the multiple-accounts problem for millions of people by implementing their idiotic "Apple ID must be an E-mail address" policy.

        So of course people thought that when they changed jobs, cable companies, or whatever... they needed to create a new Apple ID with their new E-mail address. This was reinforced when Apple further stupidified their policy by requiring your ID to be a WORKING E-mail address (originally it didn't actually have to work).

        After the outcry over people's App Store and other purchases being scattered across multiple IDs, Apple finally publicly and huffily declared that they weren't going to fix the problem they created by letting people consolidate accounts.

        The moral: Don't force people to use E-mail addresses as user IDs. It's stupid on several levels.

        • By Someone 2026-01-237:343 reply

          > Apple finally publicly and huffily declared that they weren't going to fix the problem they created by letting people consolidate accounts.

          They somewhat changed that. It now is possible to move purchases between accounts. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/117294. Looks quite cumbersome to do, and will not apply to everybody (“If an Apple Account is only used for making purchases, those purchases can be migrated to a primary Apple Account to consolidate them.”, “This feature isn’t available to users in India.”)

          • By jajuuka 2026-01-2321:49

            It's not super difficult if you have an Apple ID from many years ago that you bought media with and then have a different Apple ID that you use for everything. Which isn't that uncommon for anyone who used iTunes and bought music or media and then forgot their ID and just made a new one when they got a iPhone or Macbook. Was able to transfer all my purchases to my main account pretty easily.

            The real downside is if you have two fully active Apple IDs. Then things like calendars, photos, email, etc are still stuck on the other account until you export it. Which can be a pain since you have to sign out of your main account, sign into the old account and export, then sign back into the main account.

          • By d0lphin 2026-01-238:23

            What's weird, and I'm not sure if it's a documented or undocumented feature, but the account I am logged into on the App Store differs from the one logged into on the system. The system Apple ID is setup with Family Sharing, and the users are able to use apps purchased with the secondary Apple ID.

            I haven't transferred the purchases or anything either. The two Apple IDs have different purchases on them, and those on Family Sharing are able to access both.

          • By VerifiedReports 2026-01-237:431 reply

            Interesting. But WTF is a "primary" Apple account? My original Apple ID isn't an E-mail address, so they forced me (and others in that situation) to create another one for iCloud because that one inexplicably has to be an E-mail address.

            I use both for quite a few things. Which one is "primary?"

            • By Someone 2026-01-2310:501 reply

              That text is badly written. They define that after mentioning it:

              “At the time of migration, the Apple Account signed in for use with iCloud and most features on your iPhone or iPad will be referred to as the primary Apple Account.

              At the time of migration, the Apple Account signed in just for use with Media & Purchases will be referred to as the secondary Apple Account.”

              ⇒ apparently you can be signed into multiple accounts at the same time ¿but I guess with only one account per feature?

              But as I said, that page is badly written. So, maybe I’m understanding it wrong.

              • By VerifiedReports 2026-01-2319:27

                Thanks for the clarification.

                Yes... because of the mess Apple made, I am always signed into two accounts. My non-E-mail one for all purchases, and the E-mail one for iCloud.

        • By xp84 2026-01-2320:551 reply

          > of course people thought that when they changed jobs, cable companies, or whatever... they needed to create a new Apple ID with their new E-mail address.

          This belief is rampant amongst 90% of the general public. I had to spend an hour helping a friend last week who had created a new Cash App account to do their taxes, because they didn't prefer the old email address that was on their longstanding Cash App account. So now they have to keep 2 Cash App accounts forever. And to make things more fun, they're obsessed with phone numbers there, so adding the phone to the second account pulls it off the other account.

          Oh, and digression but I have to vent: their login process on the web is, in some order: an SMS to your phone, another numeric to your email, and your password. All in succession, on every login.

          • By VerifiedReports 2026-01-264:39

            Thanks for the anecdote backing up my longstanding suspicion on that.

            This is also why using E-mail addresses as user IDs is monumentally stupid: People will think that they need to use their E-mail password, too. So now any entity with this ID policy becomes a gatekeeper not only to their own site or service, but the user's E-mail account.

            One poor security regime or disgruntled employee at one obscure Web site can now enable identity theft on a grand scale, by exposing E-mail addresses and passwords.

            There's a reason that banks and brokerages don't employ this ignorant policy. It's disappointing that Apple set such a poor example by implementing it. Then they had to run around trying to mitigate the harm with 2FA and other measures, after high-profile "hacking" attacks on journalists and celebs.

        • By throw4r533233 2026-01-2415:502 reply

          It’s also a huge pain for those of us who might regularly visit or live part of the year in another country.

          I basically need two Apple IDs because switching the region for your App Store is very inconvenient if you have any subscriptions.

          In the end, I have separate Apple IDs for each country.

          • By FabHK 2026-01-275:46

            And Apple won't let you add all your "trusted phone numbers" to all those accounts. So, if you are in country A and your country B phone can't receive SMSs, and you get a new device, you can't log into country B account because 2FA via SMS does not work. (And no, you can't just make multiple accounts on a MacBook or other device that supports multiple accounts for non-SMS 2FA; login fails.)

          • By VerifiedReports 2026-01-264:42

            Pff, Apple can't even keep your contacts intact if you go abroad.

            I traveled to Australia and got a local SIM. Suddenly every incoming call was from an unknown caller, even though every one was in my address book. Apple is too stupid to handle international calling in the 2020s. I mean... WTF?

            Then again, this is the same company that "helpfully" changes all your calendar appointment times when you travel to a different time zone... with NO WAY TO PREVENT IT. So if you go east, you're going to miss any events you set up in advance... including flights home.

        • By deaux 2026-01-2312:31

          > And yet Apple CREATED the multiple-accounts problem for millions of people by implementing their idiotic "Apple ID must be an E-mail address" policy.

          Ironically they then relented only for India and China because market share too sweet, so all auth developers now need to update the assumption that Apple auth users have an email address. Worst of both worlds :)

        • By iqandjoke 2026-01-285:11

          I help someone to setup Apple ID. His email address is already taken by someone else and user ID with that email cannot be created.

        • By fragmede 2026-01-2313:092 reply

          Maybe in the 90's before Gmail came about so everyone still used their university or ISP email accounts.

          • By netsharc 2026-01-2314:06

            Hotmail came in the mid 90s, Yahoo Mail followed soon, I don't think Apple was cloudy at all back then.

            I suppose those mail services were "cloud"...

          • By VerifiedReports 2026-01-2319:281 reply

            Not sure what this is replying to...

            • By fragmede 2026-01-2618:50

              > So of course people thought that when they changed jobs, cable companies, or whatever... they needed to create a new Apple ID with their new E-mail address.

      • By malshe 2026-01-233:542 reply

        I am facing this issue right now. I need to create a separate developer account because I am risk averse. Do I need a new phone number for this? Online some people say yes, others say no. I tried creating the account several times but it just doesn't work. At this point I am planning to just get a prepaid SIM card from US Mobile for the phone number.

        • By xp84 2026-01-2320:591 reply

          Apple will allow you to have multiple Apple IDs tied to the same phone number -- my kids' ones have my number on them. So for some purposes it seems fine to just reuse the phone number for a second account -- like for your kids, or for a "sandbox" account to use testing your app so that you don't have to use your real iCloud account.

          However, for your purpose of avoiding Apple's capricious BS, I probably wouldn't go that route since if their braindead fraud systems or braindead employees decide you're a threat actor they could definitely default to "Ban account. Find all their evil backup accounts that have the same phone numbers or contact emails and ban them too."

          • By malshe 2026-01-2323:23

            Thanks for highlighting this. I did not think about Apple/employee potentially linking phone numbers of different accounts and banning all of them.

        • By jakejohnson 2026-01-237:011 reply

          I set up a couple developer accounts recently for my clients. Just use a new Google Voice number for 2FA. I had to live chat with Apple support to get past initial verification both times and after that setup went fine.

          • By malshe 2026-01-2317:19

            Thanks, that's great to know! I will take this route.

      • By realusername 2026-01-238:18

        If you create your developer account in another country (or with a card from another country, who knows), the whole thing just crashes and the sign-in on the phone loops.

        When encountering this, I updated the device which bricked the appstore, the device has to be fully reset if that happens.

      • By charcircuit 2026-01-236:564 reply

        >where Apple bans accounts for redeeming legitimate gift cards.

        Is there any evidence of this happening with an actual legitimate gift card and bot one which was stolen or originally purchased via credit card fund.

        • By nake89 2026-01-237:521 reply

          Slightly off-topic, but stuff like this does not just happen at Apple.

          When Cyberpunk 2077 came out, my wife bought it with her credit card and gifted the game to me. It was fine at first. I even managed to play through the game. However when coming back to the game a few months later (to see all the bugfixes), it was gone. I contacted the (gog) and they said it was removed due to automatic fraud detection and that the balance had been paid back to the original credit card (my wife's card, she had obviously not noticed this in her bank statement).

          Point being automatic fraud detection systems can wipe out stuff you purchased even months after the fact (or in some cases lock your account)... It feels kafkaesque.

          • By direwolf20 2026-01-2311:382 reply

            Since it's gog at least you could download the game and save it somewhere.

            • By charcircuit 2026-01-2318:032 reply

              Using it would be copyright infringement since the license is revoked since it was refunded.

              • By pixl97 2026-01-2318:061 reply

                I, along with every AI company, give exactly zero fucks about copyright infringement.

              • By TurkTurkleton 2026-01-2321:171 reply

                Let me guess, you think GOG was perfectly justified in unilaterally taking away nake89's copy of--excuse me, I meant unilaterally revoking nake89's license to play Cyberpunk 2077--when they judged the gift transaction to be fraudulent, just because it could have been a conspiracy between nake89 and their wife to defraud GOG of the princely sum of eighty United States dollars[0]?

                I don't dispute that GOG has the right, from a strictly legal standpoint, to revoke a license for any reason their terms of service allow, and that someone continuing to play a game after their license was revoked would be in breach of contract. What I do dispute is that this is a correct, fair, or desirable state of affairs, especially when the license in question was received as a gift and believed in good faith by the recipient to have been acquired non-fraudulently.

                And in particular, if GOG wants the absolute and irrevocable right to prevent consumers from using products for which GOG has decided to revoke the licenses, they shouldn't advertise themselves as a DRM-free platform, nor claim that "Here, you won't be locked out of titles you paid for, or constantly asked to prove you own them - this is DRM-free gaming." -- advertising copy may not have the force of law, but courts tend to take a dim view of ad claims that are provably false.

                [0]: the list price of the Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition on GOG as of this writing (though it is currently on sale for 38% off)

            • By wolvoleo 2026-01-2411:55

              True but if you never did then you're SOL

        • By avhon1 2026-01-237:121 reply

          https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/

          > The card was purchased from a major brick-and-mortar retailer (Australians, think Woolworths scale; Americans, think Walmart scale)

          • By charcircuit 2026-01-238:042 reply

            >was already redeemed in some way

            This is the important quote showing that the gift card was not legitimate.

            • By twelvedogs 2026-01-238:511 reply

              do you think that makes it ok? they walked into a store, tried to pay money to apple and as a result they had their stuff locked forever

              apple recommended they only buy gift cards from apple, but they still sell them in stores...

              obviously money is more important to them than the consumers but pretending apple have zero responsibility is silly

              • By charcircuit 2026-01-239:505 reply

                >they had their stuff locked forever

                It was locked for less than a week.

                >but they still sell them in stores

                Unfortunately there are sketchy resellers that exist too.

            • By wat10000 2026-01-2314:491 reply

              What matters is that the purchaser had every reason to think that it was legitimate and they were not the malefactor in this scenario, but they still got banned.

              • By charcircuit 2026-01-2317:553 reply

                If you buy stolen property without knowing you still get punished by having the stolen property taken away. Just because you don't know, it doesn't mean you have not done anything wrong.

        • By twelvedogs 2026-01-238:46

          this kind of stuff happens all the time across major companies with minimised support. sure your google account is likely to be there tomorrow but it's only a very good chance that it's not locked forever.

          i would be surprised if there's any company with millions of users where .01 or .001 (still a LOT of users) just get screwed with zero recourse

      • By sk7 2026-01-238:251 reply

        For Apple Business Manager, Apple forces you to create a separate new account.

        • By angulardragon03 2026-01-238:45

          Yes - all ABM accounts are Managed Apple Accounts, not Personal ones. You can’t mix and match (they each have different features).

      • By direwolf20 2026-01-2311:37

        The two are related. Apple doesn't want you having multiple accounts, because it wants to ban you for redeeming legitimate gift cards, not just one of your personas.

    • By MrJohz 2026-01-234:29

      I had a similar issue trying to create an Apple TV account. I already had an Apple account that I was using on my work laptop (first mistake - I should have created a work account there instead), and for 2FA, I needed to wait for a code to pop up on that laptop. It never came. There was an email alternative, but that also didn't work properly (maybe only on certain devices, IIRC?). Apparently in the settings you can request a 2FA code, though, so I did that... but that only had five digits, whereas I needed to give six for the code to work. Eventually I figured out that Apple had just forgotten to zero-pad the 2FA code out to six digits, so I needed to add a leading zero to make things work.

      The worst part of this is that now my Apple TV account is linked to a laptop that I don't always have on me. And even if I did have it on me, I don't want to get a laptop out and turn it on just to do 2FA. I already have a TOTP app on my phone, just let me put everything in there and leave me be.

      My experience with MacOS is generally that it's about as buggy as my home Linux setup. That's partly a testament to how solid Linux can be these days, but at the same time, it feels pretty damning considering only one of these operating systems is free (in any sense of the word). And that's not including stuff like the configurability of the whole thing.

    • By HexDecOctBin 2026-01-232:513 reply

      I had a similar issue when I first brought my iPad. Turns out, Apple doesn't like custom domains for emails. So, I had to make an Apple account with a Gmail account, then remove the Gmail account and add my email address with the custom domain.

      Why? Who knows. Still remember my first experience after buying an iPad.

      • By cosmic_cheese 2026-01-232:581 reply

        Might've had something to do with the state of the various email security measures on the domain. I have an Apple account on a custom domain with Fastmail and it's never been a problem.

        • By HexDecOctBin 2026-01-235:16

          Mine was also managed by Fastmail. And no one else has ever had a problem with it (including Apple when I added it after signing up).

      • By mmmlinux 2026-01-2321:41

        I couldn't make an account on the website Digikey outsourced all their 3d models to with my work email. signed up with my personal gmail account in less than 30 seconds.

        This is not some Apple specific problem.

        Also this was yesterday. Never did I get any of the 3 confirmation emails they claim they sent to my work mail.

      • By k12sosse 2026-01-236:181 reply

        You have to reach a human to make a Flickr account in 2025 if you use a custom domain. It wasn't too difficult, they gave me some reason about abuse. Whatever.

        • By afandian 2026-01-236:211 reply

          What does custom domain mean? Just an email provider other than the mainstream ones?

          • By gortok 2026-01-2314:111 reply

            You purchase your own domain name and use that domain name as your email address. For instance, if I had an email address that was me@afandian.com; the afandian.com would be a custom domain. It's not routed to @gmail.com, it's routed to @afandian.com. Now in practice you can have a custom domain and still have it managed by Google's Mail servers; but it's the domain name itself that sends up the flags.

            • By afandian 2026-01-2315:37

              Yeah that's what I thought GP meant.

              It just seems like it should be so commonplace. It just seems ridiculous that it means

              > You have to reach a human

    • By cvhc 2026-01-233:361 reply

      I and a friend (both are not Apple users) had the same issue about 2 years ago. I gave up after trying different (non-Apple) platforms, IPs and phone numbers. He was applying to Apple internship and ended up borrowing a Macbook to set up his account.

      And talking about why I wanted a new Apple account... My old account was created with stupid security questions (like, What is your favorite dish) as a second factor, which I believe Apple has long deprecated. I forgot my answers and that blocked certain functionalities. Resetting the security questions requires answering the questions...

      • By happymellon 2026-01-238:05

        I have a typo in my iCloud phone number.

        I can't access anything without knowing exactly what I did wrong, presumably Apple never verified it when I created the account decades ago, but it's now part of the critical flow to log in.

    • By epolanski 2026-01-239:57

      I kid you not, I was locked out of my apple account for 2 months because they kept not sending me verification emails.

      Needless to say, I have not bought a single Apple device since 2020, the M3 max I have is from my employer and I only use it when out of home.

    • By SkiFire13 2026-01-238:04

      The opposite happened to me: I got a new Mac and had to fill out my Apple account billing details to download apps from the App Store, but somehow the form on both the App Store and the web page didn't work. In the end I managed to do it through the Apple Music app on my Android (!) phone.

    • By nielsbot 2026-01-235:11

      I seem to remember this happening to me, and I finally called them and they said something about a waiting period for new accounts? It might help to try calling their tech support for this as painful as that is.

    • By pjmlp 2026-01-2316:18

      Unfortunely Apple skills to write server software is inversely proportional to the fame they enjoyed thus far on client systems, as anyone using their Web APIs or backends can attest for.

    • By SwtCyber 2026-01-249:35

      The people Apple most wants inside their ecosystem are forced through a web experience that clearly isn't a priority

    • By stratosmacker 2026-01-234:05

      Yep same thing happened to me

  • By PieUser 2026-01-233:096 reply

    BY FAR #3 is the most annoying UX on iOS 26 - I fall for it every single time when trying to change payment method. Not only does it undo years of muscle memory, it's so unbelievably unintuitive to have the first button change address instead of payment method

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1mb4lod/is_anyone_else...

    • By 8n4vidtmkvmk 2026-01-233:302 reply

      Why would you need to change your address at all? That's part of the card details. No other payment system does that!

      • By eddythompson80 2026-01-233:37

        Not the address, but the phone number has a bug I run into it occasionally. Some merchants support the +1 country code, some are local US only and don’t expect it. Safari’s auto-fill figures this out when filling the form. But then I go to Apple Pay, an it replaces the phone number with a 1 at the beginning and drops the last number, then I get an error that something is wrong. Initially took me a while to realize what was happening and that you can edit the number in the Apple Pay overlay before it applies it to the order. Just a bit annoying

      • By wrs 2026-01-234:24

        It changes the shipping address, not the billing address.

        And yeah, I do tap it to change what card to use. "Every single time."

    • By gruez 2026-01-234:041 reply

      I don't get it. The screenshot on reddit appears to show that tapping on the card changes the billing info, and under that there's a separate button to change the card. So far as I can tell that's the same on iOS 18? The only difference is that tapping on the card doesn't do anything. What's the "muscle memory"?

      • By duomo 2026-01-235:021 reply

        iOS 18 is what introduced this. In iOS 17 you could tap the button with the card to change the payment method.

        • By PieUser 2026-01-235:16

          You're right my bad, iOS 18 introduced it and I'm still mistapping 2 years later.

    • By hannahstrawbrry 2026-01-2317:09

      I'm so tired of looking like a boomer that doesn't know how to use their phone when I'm paying with Apple Pay irl and I need to change the card, now a classic iOS user humiliation ritual :,)

    • By throwerxyz 2026-01-234:021 reply

      [flagged]

      • By bigstrat2003 2026-01-234:372 reply

        > This is the objective logical UX.

        There is no such thing as "objective" in this arena. It's all subjective, the best you can hope is to find an approach that the majority of your users subjectively prefer.

        • By throwerxyz 2026-01-235:181 reply

          No there is objective logical UX.

          If you click a button that says "Change payment method" it'll change the payment method.

          If you press the card on a "which payment" window, it'll use that card.

          Unfortunately objective truths are very boring.

          • By jjj123 2026-01-236:11

            It’s not a “which payment” window though, it’s a “confirm payment information” window.

            In that type of window you’d expect clicking on any of the existing form fields would allow you to change that field. It would be wild if clicking on a credit card icon in the middle of a form submitted that form.

            Oh, look at that! Turns out this is subjective.

        • By vachina 2026-01-236:29

          I don’t know how much more clearer the UI needs to be when the button literally says “Change Payment Method”.

          I guess Apple should consider these user dissonances when designing UI (when users don’t read or ignore button labels)

    • By vachina 2026-01-236:261 reply

      I didn’t even know this is an issue. It’s written right there, “Change Payment Method”.

      • By elaus 2026-01-238:05

        Not an iOS user but I can totally see why this is an issue: Users read from top to bottom and once they think they found what they search they click it without analyzing the remainder of the screen.

        So in this case you find a button that looks like it changes the payment method (because in earlier versions it did and it's a common UI pattern) and don't even see the button below that acually does this.

    • By tosti 2026-01-2312:21

      Sounds like a luxury problem to me. You have an iPhone and a credit card, probably also a mobile data plan to make it work.

      I guess taxing the rich is a pretty good way to get superrich.

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