Apple’s iCloud service has received mixed reviews from Apple customers who normally unconditionally love all Apple products. Those reviews have ranged from complete adoration to disgust, including one user who lost everything after an iCloud hacker gained access to his account. Its reputation for unreliability has now reached the point where an app developer has elected to use another service, Simperium, to handle its syncing functionality.

App developer Agile Tortoise has released its Drafts 2.0 and Drafts for iPad without iCloud syncing. Instead, syncing will be provided by Simperium, a third-party service originally developed exclusively for Simplenote. Aigle Tortoise’s Greg Pierce says he did not want customers blaming his software for iCloud’s problems. “Drafts is designed around speed and simplicity,” said Pierce, “so I knew the right sync solution would have to be fast and simple.”

Fast and simple are two words that many iCloud users would not use to describe it. For some it is just a speed issue. Apps that normally open immediately sometimes experience prolonged lag. For others the problems may include actual loss of data, something that is unacceptable for any user.

Syncing is tricky business, especially when it involves multiple devices, as iCloud is designed to do. Problems usually arise from duplicate files with differing revisions and how the syncing software handles those conflicts. If the wrong file gets overwritten, the user could lose important information. Therefore, it is a good idea to have backups of all your data when using any cloud service or syncing technology.

iCloud slowdowns are often the result of the service trying to solve syncing conflicts. While the service sorts them out, it prevents users from accessing those applications associated with it. That means loading can often slow to a crawl. For users who are used to Apple products that “just work”, iCloud has been a rude awakening.