“As it has so often in the past, Apple is now showing the rest of the industry how it’s done with cloud computing. This is interesting, and somewhat amazing, given Apple’s relatively late entry into this market. But by sitting on the sidelines and watching others fumble around with cloud-based storage schemes and other middling services, Apple has been able to plot and plan and create something truly useful and integrated,” Paul Thurrott writes for Supersite for Windows.
“If you use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, iCloud is an absolute no-brainer, and that’s true whether you’re a Windows guy or a Mac user. It works seamlessly and automatically, provides access to most of the content, services, and features real people will really want, and its core features are all absolutely free,” Thurrott writes. “Music lovers should also check out iTunes Match, which at just $25 per year is a bargain in its own right.”
Thurrott writes, “Apple’s iCloud is almost a superset of every other consumer-oriented cloud computing service on the market. It’s pretty impressive… I suspect that the sudden success of iCloud will cause a lot of changes in Redmond and elsewhere. Just like the old days, I guess. But for now, iCloud is the best consumer-oriented cloud computing service I’ve ever seen, and unlike the awfulness of iTunes on Windows, this is an Apple product I’m happy to use going forward.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The most surprising things can happen, even when you least expect them.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike Caine” for the heads up.]
I know when I see the iCloud icon next to a song or movie on my phone, I can download it, but it would be also great to be able to stream it, especially with movies.
I have to say that I agree with Thurrott here. I was a sceptic at first because of all the missteps that Apple made with MobileMe, but I’m glad they swung that ship around. iCloud is the way all cloud services should work, and leapfrogs over anything comparable offered by Microsoft and Google. In fact Google’s cloud service is a pale shadow of the functionality that iCloud brings to the table.
The most important difference between Apple and Google’s philosophy seems to be that you have a choice where you want your data to reside – in your Mac or on the cloud. This is an important distinction as Google forces all your data to live in the cloud exclusively and you’re effectively hosed without a reliable Internet connection.
Apple’s approach is that data lives in your devices until you make a change to it in which case it is propagated across to all participating devices within your cloud network and if you lose Internet connection you can still keep working on your document, contact database or calendar until Internet access is regained.
The propagation is seamless, works in the background and is almost instantaneous. You can’t fault iCloud for working like how the cloud should work which is synchronizing all your data and binding it across all devices, and not making you fetch daa from a centralized cloud server.
I like how your entire email folder system is synced whereas Google mail only syncs your inbox and nothing else. Google still can’t get the cloud right which is shocking in its own right.
agreed
I am a bit surprised at how invisible it quickly becomes. I look for it to check on how it’s working because it’s of interest to me. But I think for a great many regular users may see it only once — when turning it on for the first time — afterwhich it will quickly become invisible and fade into and become part of the “it just works” thing instead of the iCloud thing.
What most people don’t get is that iCloud isn’t a “Great Hard Drive In The Sky” (as Steve Jobs said) but rather it is the conduit through which your media is synced.
He must not have seen many.
Either that’s a fake Thurrott, or MS has bounced one too many checks recently.
So when is iCloud going to offer me an option to back up my TimeCapsule over the internet.
You don’t seem to understand the purpose of the iCloud (hint: it is NOT your backup; it is a means to synchronise your data across all of your devices). TimeCapsule IS your backup. You don’t backup a backup.
iCloud isn’t backup solution, iCloud is your good old file system in the cloud, as simple as that
Perhaps they shouldn’t use the word backup in the configuration and dialogs then.
My iPhone is 32GB, I have the choice to sync AND backup to my mac OR to iCloud, which fails because not enough space is offered.
Still some work to be done here..
“This is interesting, and somewhat amazing, given Apple’s relatively late entry into this market.”
iTools
.mac
mobile me
iCloud
Apple has ben effing around with this for a long time.
Enough said.
But they finally got it right.
In other news: Hell Just froze over Today.
The devil is currently troubleshooting those flames, as they seem to have had all systems blue screen in the control room.
Microsoft has either stopped paying their shills lately, or saving their venom for Google.
Now I get it. ThurROTt is bucking for a raise in his graft payments from MegaloManiaSoft.
@JoeKnows: The reason you can’t stream movies from iCloud has to do with the deal Apple has with the movie studios. They won’t allow it. On the other hand, you can stream any TV program that you’ve bought, including the ones you deleted from iTunes on your computer years ago. Music is numinous for me. I don’t always want to go on an psychodelic-like trip, so I haven’t tried to stream that.
Thurrott gushing about Apple can only mean one thing.
It’s a trick. Get an axe.
Speechles
So who cured ThurROTt of rabies?
Or is he the first successful brain transplant patient?
Or has he had a stick-up-the-rectum extraction?
Feel the SHOCK and AWE. 😉
Oh Noes! If Thurotten likes iCloud, then there must be something deeply dysfunctional about it.
…when it’s up.
It still lacks iDisk features, especially sharing (non-iWork) documents with others.