In the week from December 16 to 22, 2024, numerous disruptions and irregularities occurred around Apple devices and various third-party services. Once again, it became evident that even in a highly digitalized world, supposedly mature features can fail or behave unpredictably.
Apple Ecosystem Under Pressure
Right at the beginning of the week, a user reported problems with Vehicle Motion Cues—that is, the automatic motion detection on the iPhone. Although everything worked smoothly on the iPhone 14 Pro, the iPhone 15 Pro refused to provide the desired service in Auto Mode. Siri also caused discontent: The voice assistant sometimes sent messages “as if by magic” without a sufficient pause, leading to inadvertently incomplete or prematurely sent messages.
Other Apple services also came into focus: FaceTime unexpectedly initiated a call for some users without a deliberate command. On the Apple Watch, manually disabling the “Automatically switch” function (between iMessage and SMS) caused a significant delay before the first SMS was finally sent. Some older WhatsApp group messages disappeared in the iMessage chat, and location sharing via iMessage ended for no apparent reason.
Service Problems with Third Parties
Not only Apple’s ecosystem drew complaints. The Magenta App from the Telekom was temporarily unavailable due to maintenance, causing issues with prepaid top-ups. Users relying on Grover found that, after a recent delivery, the app no longer functioned properly and essential information regarding payment or current delivery status was nowhere to be found.
Another digital letdown was reported by a traveler at the Frankfurt Airport: The FreeNow app completely failed, making it impossible to get a taxi despite multiple attempts—while Uber worked immediately. This underlines how dependent we’ve become on stable booking and service apps.
Unexpected Incidents and User Experience
Everyday processes also went awry. There were unintentional calls from the iPhone Favorites list whose cause remained unclear. SharePlay users noticed that music playback stopped abruptly when another person joined. Meanwhile, the AirPods Pro integration with Siri was overshadowed by odd call behavior: Even though Siri asked for confirmation to accept an incoming call, it ended up rejecting the call—similarly, manually pressing the left earbud resulted in a refusal.
