Ipad and icloud backup question

Let me propose a question to you. Why turn off iCloud? There is no need to do so. If you are concerned about battery power, recharge the iPad with the power adapter and plug it into a wall socket.

I use my iPad all day long at work and I have iCloud, locations services, and WiFi turned on all day long as well. I easily get 10 hours and sometimes even a little more than that out of a full charge every day. I charge the battery every night when I get home. You can safely charge the iPad battery every day. I have always charged the iPad every single day and I did the same thing with my iPad 1st generation - and it is still going strong.

Even if I lose WiFi - going from home to my office (my iPads are WiFi only) or put the iPad in Airplane mode on a flight - I have never lost anything and never turned iCloud off either.

Your premise has a giant flaw --

You say "When I went to turn off iCloud to save battery power ..."

But iCloud does not use battery power!

Look at Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup. Under "Enable Backup" it says:

"Automatically back up your camera roll, accounts, documents, when this iPad is plugged in, locked, and connected to WiFi."

sberman wrote:

But iCloud does not use battery power!

Look at Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup. Under "Enable Backup" it says:

"Automatically back up your camera roll, accounts, documents, when this iPad is plugged in, locked, and connected to WiFi."

iCloud does not use battery power directly but when you sync documents to iCloud over WiFi, the iPad is using a little bit of battery power for the use of the WiFi.

Not only that, not everyone uses the automatic backup feature. I have never,ever used auto syncing or auto backup. When I backup with iCloud, I initiate the backup from the settings - and I often do it when I am at work - and I am only using battery power. I would never leave my iPad connected to iTunes overnight or leave it to backup automatically over WiFi with iCloud. I always want to watch the sync or backup take place. Thats just who I am and how I like to do things.

So while iCloud and iTunes can backup and sync automatically when plugged into power, a user can also initiate the process on one's own when the iPad is just running on battery power.

Demo, I understand and acknowledge your points.

Fabrique, as Demo acknowledges above, iCloud is not a significant drain on your iPad's battery. Here's some good advice from Apple on how to conserve your iPad's battery: http://www.apple.com/batteries/ipad.html

There are several things you've said that I don't understand. Maybe clearing them up will help one or both of us understand the solution better.

1. "If I turn off iCloud, the message says that my iPad will be wiped."

Yes, that will happen, because your iPad is simply a subscriber to your iCloud's data. iCloud, if you will, holds the "Master" set of your data. If you detach the connection between iCloud and your iPad, then your iPad simply does not subscribe to iCloud's data, and there is no data left on your iPad. That makes perfect sense to me. I hope it makes sense to you as well.

2. "After an iCloud backup of my Checkbook app ..."

I think this means you are talking about a third party iPad app that you got from the App Store. I am guessing you meant that something went amiss with your iPad, and you restored the Checkbook application from iCloud. It sounds like you expected iCloud to retain the app's data as well as the app itself.

Check out the screen shot about halfway down in this article:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4859

It looks like you have to specify whether the app's data is to be backed up. (That's the meaning of the "On" buttons next to, say, Yelp.)

I hope this all helps clarify things for you!

To clear up a misconception from your next-to-last post:

You said: "Yes, Checkbook is an app I got from the app store, and when I backed up that data, the data poofed from the iPad until I restored from the iCloud."

It was not the act of backing up the data that "poofed" it from your iPad. The poofing act was turning off iCloud on your iPad.

Again, from your next-to-last post, backing up to iCloud does indeed leave your data intact on your iPad. What does not leave the data intact is turning off iCloud.

Regarding your last post, what you're missing is that iCloud is your "Master copy" of your data. If you accept that for the moment, what else could it possibly mean to sever the connection between your iPad and iCloud? That's why severing that connection removes the data from your iPad (but the "master copy" on iCloud remains intact).

OK, then to get to your desired state, there are two steps:

1. Get the iCloud backup going, and

2. Somehow enstantiate the iCloud's data on your iPad while severing any further recurring connection to iCloud, other than step 1's backup.

Before proceeding, a cautionary note about the iCloud backup: To avoid disappointment down the road, please read and understand this article, paying particular attention to two points:

1. What is not backed up

2. What prerequisites exist for a backup to occur (top three bullets)

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4859

As I'm sure you know, you get the iCloud backups going by

Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup > iCloud Backup

Now for step 2. This will have two parts. Do not do part 1 until you are confident part 2 will work:

1. Sever your recurring dependence on iCloud by turning off all items under Settings > iCloud except the Storage & Backup settings.

2. As the previous step will delete information from your iPad, make sure you have a way to recover it. The way I would recommend is an iTunes synch -- if you're sure sure iTunes has everything you need to replenish your iPad's data upon synching, then you could do the previous step, synch your iPad, and be done!

Exactly. And the part 2 of step 2 implies an iTunes sync a second fallback for the short term.