Cash received hundreds of messages Wednesday night, between the two days in which she's hosting a "trunk" show for a clothing-designer friend at her house. Some of those who planned to come had emailed her about bringing friends, who she couldn't reply "yes" to. Likewise, many of my friends and colleagues were scrambling to figure out which balls had dropped by Wednesday night, and hoping to recover lost time, missed appointments, and business deals that were going astray.

It's not uncommon for large services to have outages, although 30 hours and an additional six to 18 hours to clear a mail queue is unusual, and nearly unprecedented for firms of Apple's scales. What remains problematic is that, despite a promise by the firm during the debacle of to communicate more frequently and fully, it has failed to provide guidance or insight into what's happened, nor why users should trust it to prevent such problems in the future or limit their duration.

"It's shocking how dependent I am on it," writes Cash, as she sorts through the detritus of two days' messages. She speaks for many. iCloud is a free service and one should always be dubious about the value of receiving something for free. Like others, Cash is looking into an alternative email provider--one she pays for.