Can Word documents be stored in iCloud?

It is not normal "storage". There is currently no way for you to upload a document, except for Pages, Numbers, Keynote. There are also no sharing options, as there were with MobileMe.

Apps can be made to use iCloud to share data among your devices, contingent on the programmers adding that functionality.

TBH, I find the whole thing a huge letdown, coming from years of MobileMe use where I could store what I wanted, and share it with whom I wished.

It goes further:

even iWork except from a mobile device can add documents to the cloud. For now you can only use iWork.com as a "sharepoint". As far as i see you have to use iWork for a mobile device.

Extremly dissapointing. And by now it is some kind of a really bad joke that apple expands cloudspace for former mobileme users for there is no use for it.

Regards

A. Wolff

CRAP!!!

So the big bonus about MobleMe was being able to upload documents and store them there, then be able to access them from anywhere. That is what I want from iCoud.

Why is Apple can never seem to get the business side of computing set up correctly?

You cannot upload any document using macbook Lion, even there is an option to select "documents and data" in Icloud system preference. Very frustrating.

@mcbently

That is definteily one of the major features of MobileMe, and it's totally missing from iCloud right now, as are Galleries, which was the other big feature, for me. Right now iCloud is a step backward, as MM did all the same stuff, plus a few things. The only benefit to iCloud is it's free-ness.

I do expect that sometime before MobileMe goes offline next year, we'll see that functionality brought back in some form. My feeling is that iCloud is a limited rollout with a greater planned featureset that they'll introduce next year to generate buzz, once they've got all the other parts in place.

In the meantime, don't forget that you still have access to MobileMe iDisk and Galleries, until next year. I'm still using mine, rather than migrating to a whole different solution, while I wait and see how iCloud evolves over the next 6-8 months.

@kumarfromia

That's not entirely true, you CAN upload from Lion to iCloud, you just need to do it via your web browser at icloud.com.

Right now, the Documents and Data feature apparently just allows applicatiions to access iCloud, even though very few, if any of them, really do yet. That'll change though, it just takes time for software to get updated to use new features.

I'd expect to see an update to the iWork suite soon, to let it access iCloud documents directly, just like the iOS versions can. I'm rather surprised it wasn't ready at iCloud launch, but it'll come. If Apple wants developers to care about this technology, they'll have to show they care about it first, and integrating iWork(mac) with it is a first step in that direction.

@kumarfromia

That's not entirely true, you CAN upload from Lion to iCloud, you just need to do it via your web browser at icloud.com.

To avoid confusion or answers like "I only see a advertise" .. :

this upload / drag and drop feature to the Safari web-portal icloud.com is only active if the user owns a iOS5device that has at least one of the mobile iwork apps installed..

I have the whole suite, and I owned it even before icloud, and I never thought the web-apps could be "dongled" to that. But in fact it is so : I learned that people without iDevices or without one of the apps only see "get iwork for icloud now" advertising. . they have not even the "upload" button, nothing.

A bad move from apple. The apps are relative expensive; although worth the money and of high quality, it surely is not worth a "experiment" for those users that just want the upload from Mac/PC option and never intend to use mobile office apps, but are forced into purchasing them in order to unlock that simple storage feature.

That's a good point. I was assuming the poster had an iOS device, since iCloud is clearly not useful at this point for syncing between Mac or PC computers.

To your second point though:

I don't think that Apple intends non-iOS users to be using iCloud for documents. It has almost zero desktop sync functionality. So I'd be awfully surprised to find people buying the mobile apps just to access iCloud, if they never intend to use them. Apple isn't trying to force you into buying mobile apps to use iCloud - if you dont need mobile iWork, you dont need iCloud documents either.

Rather, they are saying "if you already use iWork on your iOS device, here's an Apple-branded way of syncing documents".

jah, surely you are right. I see it similar and I have not been forced into buying it. In fact as soon as I had my iPod touch, pages and numbers and imovie were the very first purchases because I just was blown away with the fact that I could use my OSX apps now on the road . Icloud was not available at that time, so it was not my purchasing reason. Only to spice up my pocket computer with awesome apps like that.

When the v1.5 updates came out I played with icloud, with the safri thing and just say "it works", but OSX is the "ugly brother" in the game. I expected nothing, so I am not depressed . I use sugarsync already, so icloud is only one more feature. But i limit icloud to mail and ical. for documents I prefer local storage first.

I wrote the comment only to point out that there *might* be people *being tricked* into the assumption of thinking iwork OSX would "magically grow cloud-features" once they have the mobile cousins..

;-)

@Stephen.Bradley;

Thank you for the feedback.

stephen.bradley wrote:

To your second point though:

I don't think that Apple intends non-iOS users to be using iCloud for documents. It has almost zero desktop sync functionality. So I'd be awfully surprised to find people buying the mobile apps just to access iCloud, if they never intend to use them. Apple isn't trying to force you into buying mobile apps to use iCloud - if you dont need mobile iWork, you dont need iCloud documents either.

Rather, they are saying "if you already use iWork on your iOS device, here's an Apple-branded way of syncing documents".

So...........what I liked about MobileMe is that I could work on a document at home in MS Word, and then go to my office, download it form MobileMe to my Dell at work and work on the document in MS Word at work. When I was done, I would upload it to MM, and have it when I needed it.

I was hoping that iCloud allowed me to do the same thing. But, from what I gleaned from you posting, and other postings, is that in order for me to use iCloud, I need to purchase one of the IOS5 mobile apps (e.g.. Pages) in order to use iCloud.

Do I have this correctly?

Thanks for the help

Matt

. from what I gleaned from you posting, and other postings, is that in order for me to use iCloud, I need to purchase one of the IOS5 mobile apps (e.g.. Pages) in order to use iCloud.

Do I have this correctly?

yes.

@Matt

I'd like to clarify the "Yes" you got from Sjazbec a little.

If you buy an iWork app for iOS, you'll get access to iCloud, true. But yoiu still won't be able to do what you're doing with MobileMe. iCloud will let you upload an iWork document, edit it on your iOS device, or download it to another computer. It will let you create a new document on your iOS device, and download it to a computer to work on it further.

But it won't handle Word documents at all, currently.

The advice I'm giving my users is this: if you're a MobileMe subscriber, go ahead and migrate your email, calendar, contacts to iCloud. But continue to use MobileMe if you need the iDisk functionality. MobileMe will remain functional until June 30, 2012, by then I expect it's features to be part of iCloud. For the next 8 months, there's no need to do anything differently that what you've been doing.

You can still access your iDisk from Finder, and still get to the web file manager at MobileMe.com, even after you've migrated to iCloud.

Or you can use a cross-platform syncing solution like Dropbox or SugarSync. I prefer SugarSync for it's better control of which files and folders get synced. Both offer free 5GB starter accounts, with reasoable upgrade costs if you need more space.

@ Stephen.Bradley

Thank you for the information.

I have iDisk on my desktop, but I can no longer find it in my finder.

I understand what you are saying. I only use my Macbook and my iPhone, and I am not editing documents on my iPhone. One day I may have a need for an iPad, but not now.

I will keep using iDisk like I did before, and wait to see how iCloud evolves.

Thank you again for the information.

Matt

Matt, if you can't find iDisk in the Finder, you need to turn it on.

Go into Finder, Preferences..., Sidebar and at the very bottom of that list you'll see iDisk. Put a check in the box and it should show up like it used to.

it doesn't work for me. Tried uploadinf a document from my computer to iCloud using all kinds of browsers. Nothing works.