iCloud for Snow Leopard

According to the information here > http://www.apple.com/icloud/

"iCloud requires iOS 5 on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), iPad, or iPad 2; a Mac computer with OS X Lion; or a PC with Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Outlook 2007 or 2010 required for accessing contacts and calendars). Some features require a Wi-Fi connection. Some features are not available in all countries. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices."

As users we have no more knowledge about Apple's intentions about iCloud than do you. It is possible that Apple Store employees have received additional information about iCloud but were that the case they'd also have been told not to disclose that information until it was officially released by Apple headquarters.

It is possible the employee you talked to did know something more and has talked when s/he shouldn't have. It is more likely, however, that the employee was referring to specific features of iCloud which should be usable by anyone regardless of platform or operating system. Everyone will be able to use a web browser to log into an iCloud account so strictly speaking, the employee is correct - SL users can use iCloud. iCloud's email and calendar server will use standard interfaces so while Lion users will only need to enter their username and password, others should be able to manually edit the information to sync calendars and email. Other services, such as Documents, and iTunes matching, at least as far as we know now, will be Lion specific.

Frankly, I'd be a bit surprised to see iCloud access for Snow Leopard. Apple has never been afraid to draw lines in the sand to drop support of old hardware and software. It is entirely possible that Apple will use iCloud as an enticement (or stick if you prefer) to get more people using Lion and/or buying new computers. But in the end, I know no more than you.

It's somewhat ironic that Apple appear to be offering better backwards compatibility for Windows users than they are for OS X users. So the only way to get iCloud support on my wife's Core 2 MacBook will be via Bootcamp?

At the last keynote where Apple showed the iphone4s and iOS5, they said iCloud will go live on October 12 together with iOS.

They also pointed out how fast Lion has been adopted by Apple Users and that iCloud is free for Lion and iOS5 users.

Maybe it will be a subscribtion for Snow users ..

On the other hand : just to have iCloud access and the .me.com suffix all one needs is a ipod touch 3g/4g, a iphone3gs/4 or any ipad. They all run ios5 and you are automatically entitled to use icloud .

From what I hear from people that have the GM builds running now, the iCloud service is already being used and all is working on Apples side with no problems .

So.. 2 days only to have the curtain lifted for us.

NightFox wrote:

It's somewhat ironic that Apple appear to be offering better backwards compatibility for Windows users than they are for OS X users.

Vista with SP2 and Win 7 are by all means from the technical side under the UI identical OS. Snow and Lion are not.

And again... I'll have to work aound the manual way until I buy a new Mac or Apple device (iPad, iPhone). It really tizzes me off sometimes. and NOW... No auto-sync services!!!

I just get used to having all access to Mobile me with my Mac Pro (2009, Leopard) and now I have to wait until I get a new device to get all access either via iOS5 or Lion. BUT! I can use my husband's old Windows computer??? Double U tea Eff?

I must keep an older Mac aound to run some of my older, but more reliable software (Adobe still hasn't fixed Dreamweaver enough to run right on Leopard and FreeHand needs Rosetta to run on Leopard and Snow Leopard).

I even bought Snow Leopard last January to upgrade my Mac Pro, but I have been MUCH too busy to install it.

I believe I am going to look for ALTERNATES for iCloud storage -- Amazon has 5 GB free with Prime membership, Google has Cloud services... maybe it's time.

If you go to icloud.com and sign in using your apple ID, there is a tab at the top that says, "To use mail, contacts, calandar and iWork, upgrade your account by updating to iOS 5 or OSX Lion." Key work being OR. That makes it sound like you can use snow leopard as long as you have iOS 5. Who knows?

Hard to believe that Apple would support iCloud on Vista/Win7 (nearly a 5 year old competitors operating system) and not provide support for Snow Leopard ;~(

I too would love to know the answer to this! I have ios5, but if I move to icloud will it mean Mail won't work with .me on my SnowLeopard Mac?

Google iCloud and Snow Leopard and you'll find a couple articles that explain how to set up Mail to use iCloud's mail server. Of course you can also always using Safari and go to the website.

looks like there will be support for snow leapord according to this article in allmacnews.com http://bit.ly/nfn2YG

need to update to 10.6.9

my MacBook Pro Core Duo runs perfectly well on Snow and cannot be upgraded to Lion. If I could upgade the OS the I WOULD, but I can't. But it still feels odd that the Windows OSs can have an iCloud app to integrate with the web services , yet Snow and older OSs are in the cold.

So I followed the discussions closely and attempted to use www.icloud.com to migrate - when you reach the final screen it clearly asks you if ALL of your devices, IOS, Macs, PCs meet the OS level required for iCloud.

Seems like we're out of luck.

Just as my PowerMac G5 2Ghz 8G RAM machine (£2500 of kit) only 5 years old - mother board packed in...!!!

we've hit the buffers on the "latest and greatest" again.

Not happy.

:-(

To those having trouble can you update to the latest version of Safari?

I have Lion on my MacPro and Snow Leopard on my laptop. It is on that fine line of being compatible (core2 duo from 2007) but first it will require more memory at the very least. So I have both worlds, plus an iPad 2 and iPod touch 2. A mix of old and new. My iPod touch is out of luck since I pretty much upgraded to iCloud immediately and no longer have the benefits of MobileMe for syncing calendars etc. that device. Sacrifice and compromise is what life is about. However my laptop was able to upgrade to the latest Safari (remember, still Snow Leopard, old laptop) I can go to iCloud.com (on the latest version of Safari and I could log in as well using the latest version of Firefox) and have my calendars and other iCloud stuff available to me. So while it isn't in the Calendar app itself that I can post new events on the website from that laptop, it still works. And pretty much looks just the same as the Lion apps. The bottomline is that I can do updates, just not where I was used to doing it and I can share the online calender and subscribe to it in my old Calendar app and it all updates anyway.

I do agree that MobileMe worked just fine for me and I personally was very happy with it. The new iCloud and Lion have their issues, but I have pretty much been able to find work arounds, but still some things will not work as they did. However I find that to be true of most things in the modern world on a constant basis.

Also it does seem Apple is working on providing iCloud for Snow Leopard (checked out the link posted up thread) so my suggestions are a stop gap until then. And I did it using a computer running Snow Leopard, however it is an core2 duo processor, not sure if anything running a PowerPC chip would work, would depend on if it could run the latest browsers.