“I’ve written recently about iCloud; about how it’s a black hole that swallows up your data and documents, and how Apple is stingy with storage,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Kirkville.
“But when you think about it, iCloud is many different services, all wrapped into one,” McElhearn writes. “Perhaps there are too many. ”
McElhearn writes, “You often hear people complain that certain apps are bloated; perhaps iCloud is bloated too, and this bloat makes it hard to manage and use.”
Read more in the full article here.
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There’s not a damn thing wrong with how iCloud actually functions. I think what we think of when we think, “cloud”, makes me wonder if iCloud might be a misnomer. iCloud is a personal, virtual workspace, not storage – yes of course, it stores stuff, but it’s a virtual workspace that in turn creates a virtual, highly and easily accessible work flow.
The constant yammering about how hard it is to file manage with iCloud tells me that some expect it to be like using Drop Box, or Zip Cloud. This is not data back up, it’s a workflow – get it?
Bloated? How so? Your apps and email do not count against your free space.
Is iCloud perfect? Probably not. Is it mis-named? Probably. Did Apple make a mistake killing scripting in Pages? Yes. So let’s critique iCloud for what it is, not what it’s not.
Great points. These tech pundits are morons.
Yet another rant by a blogger. You may or may not agree. But rants are just that. Without facts or details, publishing and republishing an angry rant of any kind is but the sounds of an echo chamber. We can do better than that.
I can echo those sentiments.
Nice rant, Brian.
It’s not a matter of “thinking about it.” iCloud IS a suite of services. The problem is that they are implemented rather clumsily, in particular iCloud Documents and Data, which continues to make Dropbox much easier to work with in comparison.
I’ve found combining Dropbox with OS X Server creates an ideal office and mobile environment. OS X shares the docs and storage internally, and while mobile people use Dropbox to access the same documents. Using just the web interface keeps people from duplicating the files across multiple computers.
Dropbox just took on Condie Rice as a board member so I dumped them without thinking twice.
She’s batshit crazy and I have proof.
“…combining Dropbox with OS X Server…”
That’s a really smart way to do it. Currently, I’m rolling my own cloud (see OwnCloud.org) because I have a lot of
pornlarge work related files, and it’s nice being able to have my cloud measured in TBs, while also being free.However, I’ve been thinking about biting the bullet and paying for Dropbox because it’s so much easier for others and then using OS X Server as a bridge.
I do wish Apple would release Dropbox like functionality though.
McElhearn is a complainer, always has a issue and pushes himself off as the “iTunes Guy” a name he gave himself.
The problem is he thinks he knows everything about Apple, but if anyone has listened to him on podcasts, it’s very clear he has limited knowledge and just scrapes by & very often falls flat.
It’s always nice to know I have fans.
Hi Kirk!
iCloud certainly is clumsy in many respects. We also recently figured out that the encryption method used for ‘Keychain In The Cloud’ is total crap, NSA crackable in a heartbeat. Isn’t that heartening to know!
iCloud needs:
1) An overhaul for user function simplification.
2) Expansion to work exactly like DropBox, WITH full and reliable encryption.
3) Me to boss people around over at Apple. (I’m grumpy today).
Just clicked the five star button Derek for this bit of insight. Why do you have such a difficult time recognizing the rest of the failures being led by those languishing in the Tim Cook era?
JUST KILL ME!
I hope things improve for you. As they say, “Tomorrow is another day.”
Or, tomorrow is another week! 😉
Trilled by a troll. The ignominy, the shame, the horror! In sympathetic solidarity, I shall neglect to paint my nails this week.
On the other hand, it may well have been the final thrashing from a very thrash filled week for me. In that sense, thank you Mr. Morrison.
Derek, you’d probably be a good boss at Apple. 🙂
I say make Derek Currie the new Executive VP at Apple. iCloud like most of the things Apple has attempted with web services is like they don’t get it. Others SORT of got it when they built phones after the iPhone…they came close and in some respects went past Apple in that area..but Apple just doesn’t do web services well. E-World, and iCloud, and whatever that stupid music based social media abortion was called…they don’t get it. I have nothing BUT Apple gear in my home and business…I have used the gear since 1985..but web services are just not something they have done well with. iCloud is essentially useless.
The jews ordered Jesus crucified. whats so good about that?
And here we are, 2000 years later and an uninformed populace is still sending Republicans to Congress.
yea, we’ll be much better off with hillary running everything LOL
I was actually hoping for Elizabeth Warren.
Agree with you on sending Repubs to Washington.
But disagree that their voters are uninformed. Quite the contrary.
Not that I agree with them, but Christians insist Jesus died willingly so that everyone can be saved in the afterlife. That belief not only makes the killing of Jesus a good thing, it makes it the best thing to ever happen to mankind. Seems like true believers should be thankful for everyone responsible for fulfilling that particular prophesy and saving mankind.
Dropbox has always been my preferred solution. With the iWork apps it’s like wack-a-mole to suppress attempts to use iCloud storage. Plus they hired Condi Rice.
For the most part, I like iCloud a lot. I’m a paid member, and have been since the old days of Mobile Me. iCloud synchs my contacts between my two Macs, and my iOS devices faster than I’ve seen other services synch. I recently abandoned Microsoft Office. iCloud works great with synching all of my iWork documents, and it works great with PDFs in Preview. I love how it synchs my account data from Mail, and I really love iCloud Keychain. I wish Apple would bring back the iDisk. If they did, I would totally ditch Google Drive. This is really the only problem that I have with iCloud. It doesn’t provide a cloud storage drive where we an store anything we want from any app. Google Drive works pretty well, but it has some annoying quirks, and their support staff don’t respond in a decent amount of time, even though I’m a paid customer.