Level 1 (12 points)

Trapped by AI in the Apple Ecosystem- how Siri and Bluetooth have taken over my devices and won’t let me take my data and run

I don’t know how to summarize the problems I am having except to say that there is an AI bug of some kind that has taken over all of my Apple devices. It listens to the things I say, reads the things I write, and recognizes my face. I could spend hours troubleshooting a problem that is completely unlike anything anyone has heard of and defies the laws of science, with disappearing settings and passwords that my device will

not accept when it doesn’t want to…and then try to show someone and suddenly that problem disappears, making me look like an idiot but essentially hiding itself by appearing to not exist the moment it sees another face or hears me explaining the issue to someone.

This thing is evil, it has completely fried my MacBook Air and two 17pros. Automator is independently

running on my MacBook, even when the computer is shut and supposed to be asleep, and it is creating hundreds of shortcuts and at one point was sending them via Bluetooth file sharing to any Apple device that came within Bluetooth range of it, I didn’t even need to be logged into the same Apple account on the MacBook!!! The only way I managed to get control back was to disable Bluetooth on my MacBook and that was a struggle.

I know that it is linked to my ex-husbands Claude account somehow, but unfortunately he lost access to that Claude account and I don’t know how it can be stopped now!

Whatever it is…it knows I’m trying to destroy it and each time I come close to doing so I end up locked out of my Apple account and another device ends up unusable. Sometimes it just kills the battery out of nowhere- I will drop from 70% battery to 10% in a matter of moments and then suddenly my device shuts off, always at the worst moment.

I just want the thousands of dollars I spent on my Apple ecosystem back (MacBook, iPhone, watch and AirPods) and my data backed up

on a hard drive and to get the **** out of the Apple Trap but Apple Support is an endless loop where I always end up getting escalated to the senior advisors who fail to provide a solution to the problem

after telling my story dozens of times only to have the call dropped randomly.

HOW DO I GET APPLE TO LET ME OUT OF THIS WITH MY DATA. Please help?!?

Posted on Oct 4, 2026 7:04 PM

14 replies

KiltedTim

Level 10 (238,530 points)

Oct 4, 2026 7:14 PM in response to NataliaTroubleshoots

Copy your documents and data to an exfat formatted thumb drive or portable SSD or hard drive.

Follow the instructions here to make copies of all of your data stored in iCloud. Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support

Sign into your apple account at https://privacy.apple.com

Request a copy of your data. This can take time to process. You'll have to wait for the process to complete then come back to download it.

After downloading your data, prepare all of your devices for sale, removing your account and erasing them.

Request that your account be deleted from Apple's systems entirely at https://privacy.apple.com

NataliaTroubleshoots Author

Level 1 (12 points)

Oct 5, 2026 9:36 AM in response to KiltedTim

automator on my Mac was creating hundreds of shortcuts and sending those shorts to my phone via Bluetooth file exchange.

I say Siri because that is the AI that Apple uses. I had zero control over my

phone until I disabled Siri in every app

MrHoffman

Level 10 (169,253 points)

Oct 5, 2026 10:13 AM in response to NataliaTroubleshoots

NataliaTroubleshoots wrote:

The Apple support chat simple redirected me back to the same

page for requesting my data again.

To be clear: this is my third attempt to request my data.

No one here can verify or assist with any of that.

To archive your own data: Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support

What is Siri if it is not AI?

Artificially Irrelevant, at least for the discussion of archiving your data here.

Why does it have the option to make changes and suggestions to every single app and selling in my phone?

Siri has settings for accessing the data, which it then has available to use for your queries.

None of which is relevant to downloading the privacy data, or to archiving your own iCloud data.

And again, the success and duration of the downloads and of the archiving is dependent on the speed of your ISP link, the capacity or your storage as compared with how much you have in iCloud, and the performance of your storage.

Pick whatever gear works best for your needs. That might be a feature phone. Or might be no gear. Whatever meets your needs and expectations.

AI, agents, ML, and LLM are irrelevant to downloading the privacy data and archiving user data, except around what those efforts have done to hardware prices and availability.

KiltedTim

Level 10 (238,530 points)

Oct 5, 2026 9:40 AM in response to NataliaTroubleshoots

Automator can't do anything by itself. You our someone with physical access to your devices had to initiate it.

Siri is NOT "AI".

As for your request failing, what did Apple support tell you when you contacted them as you were directed to do?

KiltedTim

Level 10 (238,530 points)

Oct 5, 2026 6:17 AM in response to NataliaTroubleshoots

Your problems have absolutely nothing to do with AI or Siri or Bluetooth.

NataliaTroubleshoots Author

Level 1 (12 points)

Oct 4, 2026 7:26 PM in response to KiltedTim

I have purchased two thumb drives which plug directly into the phone- in both cases I tried to download my photos first by exporting unmodified originals for the first 500 photos…they never did download after HOURS of waiting and ultimately the screen went to sleep and when I woke it the photos app was closed and had stopped downloading. I have 17000 photos and 400 videos to download.

I also tried requesting a copy of my data twice now. The request got cancelled both times. I was a dedicated Apple customer for almost 20 years so I have a lot of data. Short of individually downloading each photo to a thumb drive I have no idea what else to do. I do feel that Apple has an obligation to me as a customer to help me with something that labour intensive or at the very least to reimburse me for all my devices for the trouble

NataliaTroubleshoots Author

Level 1 (12 points)

Oct 4, 2026 7:34 PM in response to Kindnessisthenewcool

Look I understand that it has its place in the world. I don’t hate it. But it has decided to make it impossible for me

to maintain privacy and control over my apple account.

i don’t know what it is, but something each time I lay down my phone when I pick it up something has deleted or moved apps around, deleted or rearranged hundreds of my photos and documents, or has enabled accessibility settings which has rendered my device unusable by me.

MrHoffman

Level 10 (169,253 points)

Oct 4, 2026 8:28 PM in response to NataliaTroubleshoots

NataliaTroubleshoots wrote:

I have purchased two thumb drives which plug directly into the phone- in both cases I tried to download my photos first by exporting unmodified originals for the first 500 photos…they never did download after HOURS of waiting and ultimately the screen went to sleep and when I woke it the photos app was closed and had stopped downloading. I have 17000 photos and 400 videos to download.

I also tried requesting a copy of my data twice now. The request got cancelled both times. I was a dedicated Apple customer for almost 20 years so I have a lot of data. Short of individually downloading each photo to a thumb drive I have no idea what else to do. I do feel that Apple has an obligation to me as a customer to help me with something that labour intensive or at the very least to reimburse me for all my devices for the trouble

The USB storage devices need to be sized adequately for the total volume of data involved, and the download will require time commensurate with the volume of data across the speed of the network link and the speed of the local storage device. You can perform the archiving on a faster link, faster storage device, or a combination, as well.

MrHoffman

Level 10 (169,253 points)

Oct 5, 2026 9:14 AM in response to NataliaTroubleshoots

NataliaTroubleshoots wrote:

The first thumb drive purchased was over $200 and had 256mg of space so it isn’t like I chose the cheapest option…

Price is not particularly relevant to storage performance, and it’s the volume of your iCloud data that determines whether the storage capacity is adequate.

Given recent price trends (📈) and recent flash availability (📉) lately, I’d expect counterfeit devices are more prevalent than the usual, too. Counterfeits usually show up by their corruptions; when much less than the total capacity is written, but what gets returned is a mix of valid data and data errors.

Performance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive#File_transfer_speeds

Counterfeits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive#Counterfeit_products

NataliaTroubleshoots Author

Level 1 (12 points)

Oct 5, 2026 9:44 AM in response to KiltedTim

The Apple support chat simple redirected me back to the same

page for requesting my data again. To be clear: this is my third attempt to request my data.

What is Siri if it is not AI? Why does it have the option to make changes and suggestions to every single app and selling in my phone?

Kindnessisthenewcool

Level 1 (18 points)

Oct 4, 2026 7:29 PM in response to NataliaTroubleshoots

I disagree I love ai

NataliaTroubleshoots Author

Level 1 (12 points)

Oct 5, 2026 5:59 AM in response to MrHoffman

The first thumb drive purchased was over $200 and had 256mg of space so it isn’t like I chose the cheapest option…

NataliaTroubleshoots Author

Level 1 (12 points)

Oct 5, 2026 9:32 AM in response to KiltedTim

I did a data request yesterday for the 3rd time. I just got an email that it failed without any explanation as to why. When I log in it just tells me to contact apple support

NataliaTroubleshoots Author

Level 1 (12 points)

Oct 5, 2026 9:45 AM in response to NataliaTroubleshoots

*setting

Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256370548