” iCloud is a catchall phrase that covers Apple’s entire suite of wireless sync and backup services, which aim to keep your devices — both iOS, and desktop computers running OS X Lion, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 — on the same page, no matter which one you’re using at any given moment, Serenity Caldwell reports for Macworld.com. “Broken down, those services cover four areas: document and data sync, mobile backup, location awareness, and purchase management.”
“Any customer can create a free iCloud account, which provides 5GB of storage for document sync and mobile backup; additional space can be purchased for a yearly fee. (Your purchased content from the iTunes and App Stores do not count toward this storage limit),” Caldwell explains. “Unlike certain third-party services, iCloud isn’t focused on preserving your individual files, or providing a central folder where you can upload documents to access across platforms—Apple wants you to stop worrying about where specific files save to, and instead focus on the information itself.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Spark” for the heads up.]
I think i still prefer dropbox.
You haven’t even given iCloud a try
“I think…”, I not sure you can say that. Really, it’s been out for a couple hours now. Get over yourself, just a bit.
You probably prefer keys on a phone to touch too 😉
Has anyone passed a law says you can’t use Dropbox? Didn’t think so. I *think* you might find there’s a use for both. Just use the couple of spare brain cells that aren’t thinking about porn for a minute.
That’s right, even more so, now that certain functionality seems missing in the current implementation of iCloud.
If what Apple will be doing is concentrate on “the document” itself, I will probably learn how to live with that, but I am so afrain it will turn out that they’ll be concentrating on “the App that created the document”. What if additional apps deal with the same document format?
Users have 3 needs:
1. Sharing across their private-business devices
2. Independent hard copy backups & archives
3. Sharing specific files with other users.
Different needs = different solutions.
I wish our emails would change to @iCloud.com
J o s h = tool.
If it covers 4 area when broken down, imagine how many areas would be covered when its fully operational!
Where is the iOS 5 iPhone Messenger Service? Wasn’t’ this to be released with iOS 5, and put a hurting on BBM?
It’s on my iPad2 after the update. Its called messages, green icon.
So I no longer have SMS/MMS, just iOS Messenger? I don’t see two options. Or is it automatic based on whether the other other user is using iOS 5?
Exactly
Makes perfect sense. Why should I have to know their platform and OS when txt’ing.? Duh. Thanks for clarification!
Anyone successfully move their MobileMe account to iCloud?
Having difficulty right now. Servers must be slammed.
I did. Appears to be all good. Now I have to move my website hosting before 6/30/12
Yea, if you can get your shit move from Mobile Me to iCloud maybe it will be nice.
I think this is all pretty cool. I’ve got things all sync’d up nicely between my new 13″ MacBook Air (with the Thunderbolt Display) and the iPad 2. The last piece of the puzzle is the iPhone 4S I’ll be picking up next week. I’m setting things up for my wife’s iMac and her iPad 2 as well. It’s all about getting things done and not worrying about technology.
Douche.
Ok, I know everyone here finds apple unassailable, but so far I don’t think this has the same “it just works” effect that was mentioned by Steve Jobs.
Difficulties:
Only syncing iWork documents
Removing the ability to sync with google at the same time
Limiting mail to only @me.com accounts/aliases
Not having a clear and simple strategy to separate users who have made purchases on the same itunes apple id.
I know there are work arounds to all of these (dropbox, using different iCloud accounts, email forwarding, etc.) but I think they are overestimating the amount of people who will want to jump through these hoops to use all of these features. Hell I am even reconsidering setting it up.
here is the big problem….if you routinely use any third party apps they no longer work with iOS 5…. That’s right NONE of them….so until they update every sing third party app, you’re screwed if you update…so updated my phone, but will have to wait to update my iPads to iOS 5….so moving to iCloud will mean no sync between my devices…however sticking with Mobile Me for now means basic emails an calendars stay synced…..they didn’t merkin that “little” problem did they.
All 3rd party apps work. What are you talking about?
Well, it took damn near five hours to totally download and set up and back up and restore and reinstall my iPhone. Finished the process this morning after it all put me to sleep. However, iCloud is not working- “there was a problem enabling iCloud backup” is the only thing I’ve so far seen.
iCloud backup set up fine on my iPad, but then I got the same error message you got when I tried to endable iCloud backup on my iPod touch. Not sure if it is a username issue or what. My head is spinning with all the different variables….
You have to set-up iCloud from within iTunes. I updated iTunes to 5, then did the iPhone iOS5 update, then updated OSX Lion. On reboot and relaunch of iTunes it prompted me to set-up iCloud. After set-up , re-sync your device and iCloud will work just fine.
I find iCloud for documents maddening. I can’t figure out how it works without running it.
The idea of getting rid of the file system, storing files in the application (in other words, storing files by file type), a flat file system, and manually dragging files on top of each other as is done on the iPad terrifies me. I need a hierarchical file system so I can make sense of what I’ve got, and I need to store files related files of different types together.
I use Pages, so what happens to my documents now? If iCloud works like the iPad does, I’m in deep do-do. I have 2,500 Pages files. I’ll never be able to find anything.
So far the only thing I can find out about iCloud Documents is that it is allegedly wonderful and that I can use templates to make beautiful documents and that files here are files everywhere. In other words, only marketing blather. How does this thing work? How does it handle existing files? If Pages only stores files in itself and not in a file hierarchy, then I can’t use Pages any more. I spent a long time converting all my Word document to Pages, am I going to have to convert them back?
It doesn’t seem to be a replacement for SugarSync. I wish it were. In SugarSync I just tell it to synchronize folder A on computer A with folder B on computer B. It monitors the folders and keeps them and their subfolders in sync. I don’t have to think about it, it just works. The marketing crap for iCloud sounds like it’s going to make a big mess of everything unless I only have a dozen files. Old files there, new files here, or maybe a lot of manual dragging and dropping. iCloud Documents is okay if I don’t have to use it and if iWork retains its behavior of letting me save things were I want them to be.
I’ve heard that Apple wants to obscure the file system, but that amounts to a flat filing system with files stored by type. It means I can’t choose to store things in a way that is sensible to me. Worse, other applications are going to do this too? That is a terrifying post-apocalyptic vision of a file chaos to come.
I cannot find out how this works or what the marketing blather means in practical terms. Apple is scaring me.
Can someone explain iCloud backup in relation to wireless sync? If I enable iCloud backup on my iPad, will my iPad also wirelessly sync to my iMac AND backup to iCloud when I plug my iPad into a power source?
Tried to backup my 64GB IPAD2 to iCloud last night, told me there was not enough space available. Seems like 5GB is hardly adequate. I’m cheap, and don’t want to pay for the extra space, so I guess its still backup to iTunes.
It appears that Google and/or MS got a set of moles into Apple to screw up iCloud and everything about this update. Since my appel ID has the @mac.com it it I cannot establish an iCloud e-mail account. Then, just to make things much worse the bobp2005 AppleID was also issued. Separating the two accounts is pretty impossible. The new Apple slogan: “It’s just FUBAR”.
“Apple wants you to stop worrying about where specific files save to, and instead focus on the information itself.”
Excuse me, Apple, but I WANT to know where my files are!
“iCloud isn’t focused on … providing a central folder where you can upload documents to access across platforms”
Which is why I’m not interested in iCloud.
Haven’t updated yet but all these posts are worrying to say the least. With the amount of time Apple took in getting this out and the MobileMe debacle I was hoping for something easy, seamless and near perfect.