How Can I Disable iCloud

Executed them very well - nonsense!!! You cannot, for example, exclude specific contacts groups from syncing. I have an alumni association list of 500 names. I do not need this on my phone, but with goo old iCloud it's all or nothing. If you then turn off the syncing, it totally trashes the contacts on your phone. You have to go back and add every stinking one of them field-by-field.

And how about iTunes? If I buy a movie and download it, Apple decides that I must have the iCloud version as well, whether I want it or not - I have to waste tons of bandwidth downloading a movie I already have and then delete the first copy. Also I have a ton of supposedly "undownloaded" movies that I can't remove from the list.

I hate iCloud. It is yet another of an endless series of half=baked items from Apple that they put out there, then never, ever bother fixing. This double download thing has had people complaining for _five_years_ yet Apple has done nothing about it. I loathe what has become of Apple. Every upgrade removes something great and introduces new bugs. I hate this. I do not need the hassle.

You can simply not use it.

What is your issue?

Just do not use icloud, if you do not want to.

@roaminggnome, you completely miss the point. Not everyone has succumbed to the 1984/Facebook mentality...

If you're *lucky* and its like GameCenter, just don't sign-up for an account or use it.

However, some or all of iCloud may be on by default - just like Location Services.

My advice to the original question is to check iTunes preferences for any way to disable it.

Also, hopefully just like clearing Location Services, after its own faux pas, there'll be a slider to disable iCloud and/or its services (sharing/untethered sync, whatever) on the iPhone/iPad/etc.

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<BLEEP!> the cloud!

It's MY stuff and I want it HERE (not on your servers to disappear when you go under, change your business model (like start charging me monthly to access what I already own), be harvested by hackers/crackers/bots or by the thought police).

If I ever get too lazy or incapacitated to manage or plug-in a device and its content, please also untether the feeding tube and let me die already!!!

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I agree. Apple should not enforce a service I did not ask for, and they should not store, for any reason, any personal information without user's possibility to modify or delete it. I'm astonished that they did that. I'm still hoping that I'm missing something, and disabling the iCloud is possible.

OK, meant to post sooner, but...

iCloud has various components, and Apple executed them all very well (although, @davebehnk, I also did not read the new ToS yet).

The first seems to be an opening of what is already stored on the iTunes Store servers, but now with actual media access provided for customers via iTunes, beyond just copies of receipts, which is not so bad. If you go to the iTunes Store, there is a new "Purchases" link and when I clicked mine, I found a bunch of stuff I had lost on an old Mac (back when the iTunes' logo was still purple). I'm not sure why the old "Check for Available Downloads" option in the iTunes Store menu didn't find these in the past, but now you can get at them (along with any horrible apps you made the mistake of buying and have long since deleted).

Additionally, and I assume they came with v10.5 w/ iCloud, iTunes itself has "Store" preferences off by default for "Automatic Downloads" of apps, music and books and the ability to keep checking for same and get pre-orders as soon as they are available. I like having my different sets of media on different computers/devices, not all of it on all of them (especially on 8GB iPod Touches and such!), so this being off by default is a bonus! This is even more true now that I can optionally see/download *any/all* of my purchases via the same link in the iTunes Store.

Finally, iOS 5 does the same for iOS devices, but can be set via Settings-->Store as well. Until I get my 4S (my 3GS went in the drink and I've been stuck with a crummy used Samsung since August!), I can't say if this is on or off by default, but I would assume the latter - just like iTunes.

So, all in all, iCloud is not anywhere near as obnoxious as most other "cloud" trash services where they expect you to run software and store documents in same. THOSE are the cloud apps that can go scratch! Thin clients made no sense in the 80's and 90's (sorry, Larry E.) and still don't, no matter how much these companies market it as the next best thing...

If I missed anything, let me know.

Oh yeah, <BLEEP!> the cloud!

You can install iOS 5 without activating iCloud . . During the installation it asks you do you want to you use it so its easy enough to do but if you already set it up by accident you can just go into settings>icloud and then there's a nice big red button saying delete account ;) well thats how it is on the iPad . . Should be the same for the iPhone

So, there is more to it, but it sounds like it's setup similar to GameCenter, where you have to accept and register...that's good!

So, what else does it do, besides the things I mentioned, above. Does it take all of your media OFF of local storage and put it up in the cloud, so that if you have no network connection (WiFi or 3G) then you can't play your music or watch your videos (or use your apps)? If everything is already up in the iTunes Store servers (in the "cloud") then I'm not sure what the point is unless iCloud frees-up space on your iOS device by pulling it off locally and relying on it being in the cloud...

If so, no thanks!

No all your music and videos etc are still on your local storage. . Basically all it does is back up your iOS device to the cloud so you don't need the pc to do so . . Also it syncs any of your photos takin on your camera with your other devices and any calendar dates and reminders you might have . . Personally I'd only use it for the back up on the fly if I'm away from home because I don't have any other iOS devices to sync calendars and reminders to etc

A complete novice trying to juggle syncing the Google calendar, Outlook calendar and iPad Calendar with iCloud, a PC, iPad and android phone. Impossible with iCloud as it takes it upon itself to create it's own calendars from the original ones and then deletes the information off of them. So of course all the other calendars synced to Outlook and either lose their events or won't update anymore. I had to save the icloud calendar versions and reimport them back into the default calendar.

Then I wanted to remove the iCloud calendars. I eventually worked out that I had to sign out of sign out of icloud on each device Before trying to delete iClouds components. The calendars and contacts deleted themselves automatically (with reminders to check if I wanted to keep them first). So essentially I am back to pre-iCloud. Rather than wirelessly backing up/ downloading through my devices i would much rather invest in a remote desktop application and keep syncing wired. 🙂

I made the mistake of trying out iCloud and after having problems syncing my calendars I decided to disable it from my iPhone and iPad. However, even though I have disabled it on my Mac it still shows up as the names of calendars to sync with on iTunes.

I want to get rid of iCloud altogether but I can't see why it still lists them iCloud calendars in iTunes. I may have to remove the plist 😟 ... any other ideas are welcome.

Some of us live outside urban centers. Internet usage is metered and broadband is not universally available. Apple stores dont exist in my area. If Apple is going to force us to use the app store for updates and iCloud for general use, then they should bear some of the financial burden for laying infrastructure to support the usage. I put Lion on two machines this month and my bandwidth usage more an doubled. I had to bump it up from 25GB per month to 70GB. Thanks for the huge phone bill, Apple. Who do I send the bill to? Oh yeah, I forgot. That part is my responsibility.

I don't understand why you blame Apple for your bandwidth consumption.

1) it is not necessary to use iCloud

2) if you are storing lots of data in iCloud then you will use up lots of bandwidth, but you don't need to store anything in iCloud

3) unless you are downloading lots of huge applications from the app store you ought not to be doubling your bandwidth. Our household uses an average of 100GB even though there are several users and we download a lot of video materials etc. I can't see how you could be using 70GB unless you are viewing lots of videos (for example using a service such as NetFlix)

1. I already disabled iCloud.

2. I store nothing on the cloud.

3. You have to get Lion from the app store. It is something like 3.5 GB. Then the software update for it is another huge download. It won't let me update both computers from one download. No, I have to download them individually. I went around and around with them over this. I used to order a CD or a DVD to do my system installations, and now I am forced to download all this crap via the internet. Our normal usage for the family, including my kid's internet based school, is below 25GB total. The 70GB was from having to update all our system software, pages, numbers, etc from the internet on two computers. We don't watch netflix or use online music services (duh!).

So yeah, I'm a little put out with apple right now.

You would need to download about 15 copies of Lion to get to 70GB but even if you had to I doubt you do this monthly as you implied. But you mentioned iCloud as one of your complaints - that was what I was responding to. This discussion is about iCloud.