How do I tell Pages to save/retrieve to/from iCloud?

Pres Nevins wrote:

SO THE BIG QUESTION IS.... what is the 'Documents and Data' checkbox in the iCloud prefs window actually do?

...uh... Hm, that's actually an excellent question. What does it do, if not this?

Nobody for sure knows this.

But I have figured out another method to upload from OSX to icloud :

notice the settings icon in the upper right corner of the icloud.com website. Once you click it there is "upload document", then a file dialog browser pops out :

I guess I am getting in the disappointment line with everyone else. Truly, a real bummer! I have to assume that most of us primarly work on our documents using a MBP or iMac, and then would love to be able to view, edit and share those documents via our iPhone or iPad. The major benefit can only be realized if no matter which device you used the most current edited copy would be available for retrieval. Anything short of this is just too cumbersome and awkward when working with multiple or numerous documents on a regular basis. I hope the new iWorks resolves this issue - MBPs and iMacs must connect to iCloud just like iOS devices.

The good news is that the documents ARE synched on your Mac in the

/Users/username/Library/Mobile Documents/ folder.

The bad news is they are in a format that iWorks on Mac cannot read.

I suspect that the problem is that the Mac iWorks programs really need to be updated to provide better compatibility with the iOS versions. It's kinda silly that this wasn't worked, but I see no promise this would be available. The slide Steve was talking about above was referring to the fact that developers could create programs to coordinate info between iOS devices and Macs, which is true.

Apple needs to update iWorks to make this work.

Gary

I hope everyone books on over to http://www.apple.com/feedback/ and let's Apple know we want to be able to update iWorks files via icloud across all platforms, imcluding our macs and pcs.

So much easier to simply save it Drop Box or even iDisk.

It all worked so well, so why did Apple have to make it so much more difficult? If you've got MobileMe at least iDisk will work for a while, but then there's no way to access iDisk from inside iOS unless you use Safari.

Ridiculous.

This is completely maddening. I don't even own an IOS device, but was hopting ot have the ability to sync documents from my mac at home to my pc at work. No such luck if you need ios to use iWork in iCloud. Can it really be the case that you can not use documents in the cloud at all without owning an IOS device??

I found that at first, some documents I migrated to icloud from mobileme also had the download option greyed out in safari. If I opened them and then closed them on my ipad, this updated the files on icloud and the download option then became functional.

I ended up staying with "Dropbox." It is easy to move folders and/or files (on my iMac and MBP) to the Dropbox easily by just dragging them to the folder in Finder - even as a group of files in a folder. They are up to date with the latest version because this overwrites the older version. Because you can run Dropbox on your iOS devices you can easily have access to them from any device. With the introduction of iOS pages, numbers and keynote, I can now open these documents in Dropbox on my iOS device and edit them in their native application. You can also view Office docs and PDFs this way. After working on an iWorks doc in its native application it then puts it in my icloud. "The catch" is you then have to download the file onto your iMac or MBP and copy it back into your Dropbox for later retieval of the latest version on one of your iOS devices. A slight hickup but overall I think this is better than using iCloud for everything - which for some reason you cannot upload an entire folder or maintain it as a separate folder within iCloud, you can only upload one file at a time.....what a POA. AND....dropbox is free for the first 2 GB. I have 800 items in my dropbox and it only takes up 1.45 GB. It works fast and has been seemless for me. Hope this helps.

It seems as if there are a few differing answers here.

I have an IOS device but I simply want to be able to sync iwork docs between my iMac and my MBP. The documents section of icloud seems preoccupied with selling me iwork for my iphone which I have no interest in. Do I really need to buy that app for my iphone to sync between the two other mac products?

Furthermore, how is it that I (and others) see no "wheel" at the top right? Is it only those who have shelled out for iwork for IOS that see that? If We could up/download then, at least, we could use icloud as a sort of dropbox.

Thanks

Alex

This is REALLY a disappointment, even an embarrassment. This is not "synch" at all, but a clunky process that is much more awkward than Dropbox.

Fix this Apple!

I too was dissapointed after having purchased both the OSX and IOS verisons of iWork only to find that a lot of manual work was required to sync in the cloud.

I did find that you can make a Favorite in Finder to the User/Library/Mobile Documents Folder where you can Save Desktop OSX versions of iWork files and they will be automatically synced to iCloud/iWork and accessible to iOS devices from their.

But it is a one way relationship because iOS iWork saves in a format that cannot be accessed by OSX iWork applications without going thru a conversion process, which appears to be only available via a download or share from the iOS version. (I welcome thoughts as to another way around this in this scenario)

Alas, as with numerous mistakes plauguing Apple lately in prematurly released/incomplete products, I'm sure it will just be a matter of time before they make the process seemless between the OSX and iOS iWork and iCloud which all seem to be as much in Beta as Lion and FCXP...

My only real question at this point is this: from iOS, when you share an iWork document via a Copy to: iTunes... Where does the copy go?

I can find it nowhere... niether on the iOS device iTunes nor the OSX iTunes... "I'm sure I'm just not looking in the right place" LOL.

"I still like my Mac better than I ever liked Windows though..."

My only real question at this point is this: from iOS, when you share an iWork document via a Copy to: iTunes... Where does the copy go?

into iOS pages/numbers/keynote.app's shared documents folder.

If you connect the iOS device with iTunes , per wifi or cable, you have access to those folders. Before icloud this was the only way to import and export documents , it works still - for all apps that have sharing options.

I think this time Apple have really got it wrong. We now know that they don't consult with users because they know that Apple know best. In the past they've often been right and introduced some brilliant and creative concepts we hadn't thought of. This time though I think they've simply proved that Apple Developers don't live and work in the real world and have misunderstood how things need to work to be useful. I for one love my iphone, but I don't use it in preference to my desktop iMac when it comes to word processing; I don't want a simple Mobile Me solution turned into a clunky half baked icloud concept; I don't want some things on icloud and some on iwork.com; I want to be able to edit my Photostream; and I don't trust the iCloud sufficiently for it to be my only backup of my devices - I'll stick with a piece of cable and iTunes - that way I know exactly where it is and I can't be held hostage to my own data when the storage charges start going up..... Sorry Apple, a troublesome Lion, flaky OS5, partial implementations, things not quite ready, things not working properly, slower systems, unreliablility, etc - this isn't the Apple that attracted me away from Windoze.