Clearing up some iCloud and Photos Questions
iCloud, iCloud, iCloud....
iCloud: Used by most everybody to sync their Notes, Calendars, Messages, Contacts, etc.between devices
iCloud Drive: Used by many to sync their documents between devices
iCloud Photo Library: Used by those who like to keep a single Photo library in the Cloud that can be accessed by any device signed into the Library
iTunes in the Cloud: This particular name has confused folks over the years, but what it means is that all of your music, movies, tv shows, and other media, when not physically residing on your computer or iOS devcie, are out there in iTunes in the Cloud. You see these an item with a little cloud next to it, indicating to you that you can download it. And you are downloading it, from the actual Apple iTunes Store itself. In essence, iTunes in the Cloud simply means that we each have a little "Index" of purchased media that we still have rights to, so when we want to download it, it looks into our "iTunes in the Cloud" "Index" and locates the song (or other media) in the Apple iTunes Store to download for us. That is why we always tell everyone to keep a Time Machine or othter full backup of their computer. Because although our " index" has all of our purchases that were done in the iTunes Store, sometimes those purchases are pulled from the store for various reasons. If a purchased item is pulled from the store, and we try to re-download it, it is not going to find it anywhere. So, when that happens, if we have a backup, or if that item remains permanently in our own iTunes Library on our computer, and we don't relegate it to iTunes in the Cloud, we will continue to be able to enjoy that item, even if it is no longer available in the iTunes Store.
Photos: Mac and iOS app that can be used in the following ways:
THINGS YOU CAN DO WITHOUT ICLOUD PHOTO LIBARY
- They can sync just to eachother using Photo Stream
- They can sync to other devices and locations using Shared Photo Stream
- Photo on your devices can be imported at will to your Mac, giving you the opportunity to remove those photos from your phone and freeing up space
- Photo albums, and other groupings you have set up in the Photos App can be selectively sync'd back to your device as you wish
THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH ICLOUD PHOTO LIBRARY
- All photos taken on any iOS device and your Mac are automatically uploaded to the iCloud Photo Library
- This means that all photo are available to be viewed on all devices and Macs as soon as they are uploaded to the libray
- You can still opt to use Photo Stream, and you can still use the Shared Photo Stream function to share with others
- Any change you make to a photo from any device will immediately be reflected on all other devices via the ICloud Libraray
- Importing is no longer required when using the iCloud Photo Library
- All photos in your iCloud Photo Library are shown on all devices. You can optomize photos to take up less room, and the logic is supposed to dynamically remove the least viewed photos if the device is running low on memory. This is done dynamically according to the specs