“If, as Steve Jobs says, software is the soul of Apple’s products, hardware their brains and sinew, then iCloud is their memory–and soon perhaps one of their biggest selling points as well,” John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD. “Certainly it’s a feature that will differentiate Apple’s already well-differentiated products even further from the competition.”
“iCloud’s ability to automatically and seamlessly integrate not just data, but the applications that use it, across Macs and iOS devices both will likely cement customer loyalty for Apple products in a way we’ve not yet seen–even in Apple monomaniacs,” Paczkowski reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Uhhh… Sell Apple product loyalty someplace else, we’re all stocked up here. (We can’t get more loyal, but, boy, after using iOS 5, iTunes 10.5, and some iCloud features for a very short time now, we’re already at: “How the —- did we live without this?!”
Paczkowski continues, “Once you’ve gotten used to having your apps and media managed through iCloud, it’s going to be awfully tough to leave it–not because it’s difficult to make the switch to a new platform, but because it will undoubtedly be so unpleasant to give up the effortless mobile data ubiquity it provides.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yup. 🙂
Read more in the full article here.
Apple reinvents seamless
Exactly right… iCloud is not important by itself. What is VERY important is how iCloud makes Apple’s hardware products (including products that are already sold) even better, more value-driven, and extremely difficult to copy.
I’ll second that.
And this is still just iCloud 1.0. What would it be iCloud 3.0?
No doubt Apple may some day need to take advantage of those MVNO patents for iCloud 3.0:
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2011/06/02/apple-wants-to-be-its-own-carrier-mvno-patent-application-extended/
How about ISP services? Goodbye, Comcast!
And goodbye, throttling!
breeze & @ken1w
No doubt. What will be interesting are the products and features that will be added to iCloud in the future (hopefully Apple TV services and apps will be a part of it).
Up until iCloud, your Apple product purchases were stitched together with paid offerings from Apple and 3rd parties solutions like Dropbox. iCloud brings everything together seamlessly in a way that anyone can grok. And this is even before developers have a chance to take advantage of the API’s, which will only strengthen Apple’s position.
Now if I could only get a hold of “iTunes 10.5”. I could only update to 10.3. 😉
Grok. Totally
It sounds exciting. But what does concern me and others I know is what will happen to iDisk. My wife uses iWeb every day to update nearly 50 websites of design work that she does for clients (it’s where she posts work-in-progress for her clients – and their clients to see in secure sites). If iDisk goes away, and her ability to use iWeb to easily create and post sites, she will have a nightmare ahead.
So far, Apple has been mum. And many of us are becoming very worried.
Don’t get me wrong. I have been a dedicated and hard-core Apple customer since 1982. I am anxious for any news about this. MDN, do you know anything?
… and share your concern. I have a couple (rather minor) sites out on iDisk that I’d hate to lose to this upgrade. But, there are certainly hosting sites that would be glad for your $50-$150 per year to re-house your wife’s sites. Annoying, sure. But the biggest problem would seem to be getting users to change their bookmarks. You might even find some added advantages to having both. Maybe.
I have wondered this too. But I’m pretty sure Apple will provide an answer closer to the launch of the service.
It’d be a bit strange to say the least if a company launching a cloud service simultaneously cancels a website hosting service.
im concerned as to what happens when me and my wife have the same iTunes account but different MobileMe addresses. We still want to share music and apps but have different synced contacts and calendars. How will this work under iCloud? I don’t want to buy the apps I have again.
we have the same thing: share iTunes account with apps and music, but have different me.com addresses for mail, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, etc.
just got an email from MobileMe announcing iCloud, but saying that I have another year and later this year there will be instructions on how to migrate accounts from MobileMe to iCloud. I don’t know why I wouldn’t be able to migrate both MobileMe accounts we currently use.
However, maybe I guess I share your concern… Is iTunes, “merging” with MobileMe to form iCloud? Right now the MobileMe account is one thing, and our iTunes account is quite another thing. Personal data on one, shared apps and media on the other.
Perhaps we are OK — perhaps each iTunes account will translate into an iCloud account, AND each MobileMe account (even subaccounts under a family pack?) will translate into separate iCloud accounts. If we can continue to register a given Mac (as one of our 5 or 10 allotted devices) to more than one account, as now, then no problem… Both spouses sync apps and media to the same account and use that for purchases, and sync separately to accounts that you each use for personal data. Should work, right?
The only question is if Apple is suddenly going to decide that a Mac, PC or iOS device can be registered to one and only one iCloud (at a time). That has never been the case before, and I don’t know why it would be in the future.
It sounds like you only have one iCloud account which is gonna be a problem – I hope they keep iDisk and Back to My Mac as I use them many times a day..
iCloud is definitly a halo, and a nice one, but the title of ” Mother of all Halos” should go to the new Apple campus being built in Cupertino. Steve Jobs said it is kind of shaped like a flying saucer, but I think Halo would be more suited.
Yes, agree more like a halo. Can we have fun with id’s on the one. I now however wish to be addressed as “Cloud 9” or “Angel Gabriel”. What a heavenly complex this is going to be!
I sure hope that the icloud is going to allow me to tune the syncing. My daughter uses my iTunes account and i sure wouldn’t want all her apps on my iPhone etc.
The lead lining that’s going to sink any cloud is ISP monopolies.
Time Warner just raised our broadband fee another $5.
There’s talk of throttling or capping data usage.
We’re considering cutting back to a cheaper (slower) service.
If Apple wants to do something really big, they should compete with the broadband monopolies.
That and lack of ubiquitous broadband. I’m guessing Apple is aware of the ISP greed issue. All it really takes is for America to decide that the internet is infrastructure and move it from the private, for profit, domain to the public, like utilities or roads, domain. Going to be a lot of resistance from Big Money on that, but it is necessary for our future.
Why I love apple. They aren’t charging me twice when I already bought a song now. They have a reasonable price for matching my cd collection to iTunes. They provide me a loyal customer with all these super rich features for either free or reasonable price. You wonder why they are doing so damn well in a recession.
Does anyone else not really see this as a substitute for DropBox? At least not in its current form.
Does Dropbox store your app data & system settings and allow you to set up a device without a PC?
Does Dropbox automatically populate every one of your devices with content and apps purchased from Apple?
Does Dropbox NOT count your music, movies and up to 1000 photos toward your storage limit?
I misread your query. I thought you were equating the two. My bad.
Me. I use Dropbox to sync with collaborators. I also use it to easily transfer large files to clients. Neither seems to be done by iCloud (unless I missed that). iCloud is all about me and my devices, yes? Which is fantastic. But Dropbox still has other functions.
I just wonder how Apple is going to work with various spy agencies around the world. All of them are going to require Apple to let them access the iMessages and whatever information stored on iCloud for accounts based on their country (as they do for RIM).
Apple needs to allow apps on AppleTV. Thats the real game changer. Once, CNN, FoxNews, NFL, ESPN, Spike, TBS, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox etc… make there own apps to watch real time tv, Cable is out. And think about it, thats all they need, AppleTV apps and DONE!
Yes, I agree this would be great, but Telco’s are putting in place a strategy to cut this off. Almost every broadband provider Cable/Telco is implementing data caps to their service. This would limit the amount of video content you could watch directly online. If you want to cut them out of the picture they will try to get you on the back end with overage charges. They need to be able to bring the revenue in to pay for their infrastructure/share holders/etc. As much as I would like to see this happen I think we would be trading one problem for another.
I think you nailed it on the head. What I’d really like to see is that the cable companies all me to subscribe to only the channels I want, and not get the smorgasbord of channels we get and never watch. I talked a couple of years ago to my cable installer about this and the cable company he works for also would like to do this, but technical issues and network contracts currently prohibit this. The cable HD pictures are MUCH better than anything downloaded or streamed from the net and after spending big bucks for my HD TV, I’m not willing to sacrifice poor picture quality for net delivered TV (and I live in the outer metro area where it’d take a large outdoor antenna for a quality OTA signal).
Meant to type:
What I’d really like to see is that the cable companies allow me to subscribe to only the channels I want…
Seamless Everything Everywhere, iSee. I think I’ll trademark that.
Yeah, it’s groovy and all that, but what happens to iWeb and MobileMe web hosting? There’s not another product out there that makes publishing your own custom-made website easier for non-coders. Is Apple abandoning us iWebbers?
I can’t see any concerns about web hosting. Apple had more ability than ever to continue this. Also they should be able to make it even better by integrating with cloud info.
I believe the cloud is gonna allow Apple to sell mobile iOS with less physical memory (cheaper products) larger battery (which would mean better battery life). The competence is screw… Match this sucker!
I don’t get this comment. iCloud provides you the ability to store and sync files to multiple devices. You are still going to need storage capacity on your iDevice to utilize the files stored on the cloud. iCloud is there to help sync your files needed for your multiple devices.
iCloud is Apple’s giant EFF U to us long time Mac users (since System 7). I can’t afford to buy new versions of Adobe CS, and Microsoft Office and there are dozens of other productivity apps that are essential to my business that won’t work with Lion because of the loss of Rosetta. Now it appears that my iPhone will also be BONED by iCloud. My 3GS won’t run iOS 5 so I’ll lose iDisk access and calendar syncing when MobileMe is shut down 6/30/2012. Note to SJ: This is NOT the improved MobileMe you promised us!
http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html
Scroll to the bottom of the page and it shows the compatible hardware.
Yes, your 3GS WILL run iOS5.
The iPhone 3GS IS supported by iOS 5. And if your business is still running on applications that are older than 5 years old it is time to invest in your business and upgrade. I don’t know a single, profitable, business that doesn’t invest in itself and upgrade at least every other revision of an application.
I have same problem. The pricing of Adobe CS is such, I have no desire to upgrade. I have already given up on MS Office for Mac and run the Windows version under Parallel (I use iWork and fall back to MS Office, when I have to). I think my solution to this problem is going to be running Adobe CS1 under Parallel, until I find a suitable replacement for Illustrator.
Too bad for the lazy media that the “Apple is just playing catchup to Google and Amazon” meme is already dated and dead.
Sorry but I am just not feeling this cloud thing. Don’t get the attraction of having all my stuff on somebody else’s server to get hacked and whacked..