“Once you understand how it works — and know the right sequence of steps to go through — then file sharing with iCloud Drive is tremendous when it’s working,” William Gallagher reports for AppleInsider. “It’s just that setting it up is surprisingly confusing, so let’s walk through it.”
“This should be easier than it is,” Gallagher reports. “Yet if Apple makes it slightly awkward to share documents or files with other people — and still won’t let you share a folder — it is at least possible. Once it’s set up, it’s even smooth and both you and your collaborators will not have to think about where the file is or who has most recently updated it, either.”
“If you’re chiefly an iOS user and so is the rest of your team, you’re all using iCloud Drive already whether you know or think about it. If you’re a Mac user wanting to do this, things get slightly more complicated in that you have to make sure you put the document into your iCloud Drive,” Gallagher reports. “And if you’re working with a bunch of PC users, you have to look to alternatives such as Dropbox.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iCloud Drive really does work well for collaboration and keeping collaborators current, once it’s set up properly.
The question is, of course, is WHY it’s so complicated to set up, when Dropbox makes it so damn easy.
Step 1: Create a folder.
Step 2: Link to your Dropbox account.
Step 3: [Laughter] There’s no step 3. There’s no step 3.
With apologies to Jeff Goldblum
Easy answer: Apple simply has ignored iCloud and it’s potential for other priorities. (stupidity!)
Dropbox over rated crap, only a life time Windows only users would think it good.
I love DropBox. It’s how I manage all my files on my Mac, PC, with iOS devices and Android phones. And if I lived in an all Apple environment and didn’t have to share outside of it, I’d stick with it, because….
…my stuff is all just there. I know where it is. If Apple doesn’t give me a laptop keyboard I can live with soon, I may feel forced to buy a premium Win machine, so no fear of lock-in. And, certainly not least, I understand it.
I’ve been using Apple’s iCloud since it was released but never have used it to its potential. Mainly because of the difficulties mentioned above. Can’t understand why Apple, supposedly so adept at making things so easy, has to have somebody explain what should be drop-dead simple. I clicked on this to be eduated but after reading the first few sentences I stopped. Still sounds overly complicated. I love Apple but they aren’t as easy as they think they are.
Spot on Apple tried to buy Dropbox under the threat of destroying them with their own version ie iCloud. Well it has never truly competed with Dropbox even though I would jump in a moment if they truly did and it is indctave of how Apple has become lazy, self obsessed, tepid and glacial in developing much of its own technology now. It’s like watching Microsoft circa 1995, perceived expansion on a massive scale on the back of product improvements that arrived as and when profit validated bothering to update.
I was honestly thinking of writing this document precisely because iCloud Drive is so clumsy and primitive. In conjunction with the iPad it does kind of create a file system. You can, as someone last we requested, create a client folder and put all your client related documents there, instead of documents spread across application folders. The process is anything but elegant though.
There are times when I would like to bet Tim Cook half a million dollars that I can hand him an iPad and ask him to do something and he wouldn’t be able to.
i guess i’m thinking apple has so much stuff going and i really doubt that their best software guys are in the icloud division. on the other hand, ALL the software guys at dropbox focus on one thing…and that one thing is heavily copyrighted…
Sounds kinda like what you are saying…
https://www.cultofmac.com/304144/icloud-apples-worst-product/
This is a GOLDEN opportunity for Apple. Dropbox now limits free access to just 3 devices, so with some strategic and quick thinking from Apple, they could hive off a significant proportion of Dropbox users like me who refuse to pay for Dropbox.
Wake up Apple!
This is just another example of a feature Apple releases then lets it die on the vine. It’s almost as if they expect someone else to nurture these features for them. They have the App Store for that same purpose, IMHO. When an app becomes successful Apple sometimes buys it and sometimes poaches it and rolls it into iOS and/or Mac OS. However, nobody seems to be tending to the garden that is Apple’s vine of features. This has been going on since at least Lion, maybe before. I guess there are more internal rewards for new ideas than maturing those into great “it just works” experiences.
Isn’t this easier from inside the app? The document does have to be on iCloud. Then from Pages or Numbers you open the document and choose the share option. Not hard.
It’s all Tim Cook’s fault! It’s all Tim Cook’s fault! Woe is Me, Woe is B. I do love my iPhone SE Xciting times though. Mmm.