Is iCloud totally worthless?

KingSalmon misses my point. This thread is a place for the baleful and dispossesed. There's still a pining for what could have been... Yet it does point out the challenges Apple faces in promising file-ubiquity and delivering an enemic walled garden. iCloud is an act of ecosystem-design hubris. We may ultimately have "files-everywhere" functionality, but I think Apple brass will have to get off-campus to truly deliver a beautifully compelling solution when everyone gets a functional service now with free, lightweight apps.

prphillips wrote:

KingSalmon misses my point.

Nope. I get your point and simply disagree with it. You state the huge amount of complaints and problems users are documenting with iCloud are due to ignorant users who do not understand what Apple is providing.

One only need look at and be a user of true cloud virtual disks like iDisk or DropBox to understand the failure of iCloud. It fails as cloud virtual disk storage. Combined with the Lion, iWorks, Calendar, Contacts integration with iCloud, iCloud, besides its extremely cludgy multistep users process is actually dangerous for user data such as email records, contacts, calendars and documents.

One can understand Apple's stark commercial decision to try and herd Apple users to Apple's proprietary system where Apple can charge them for being hostages to iCloud, the current "free" is an introductory offer from Apple. But it is remeniscennt of Microsoft's similar "herding" schemes which failed and helped Apple succeed. Apple now being run by a committee is showing its MS corporate committee management wings and looking none too good.

iCloud is very dysfunctional product is the problem. It is the exact opposite of Apple's "just works" motto and products that lead me to switch to iMac and Apple in 2009. Everything was peachy until Lion and iCloud cost me my email history and many hours disentangling my data from iCloud. Now I'm wary of Apple as I was of MS. My next device will Android or possibly even MS tablet based as that would be ideal as I have programs such as Quicken that only run on Windows. A Window or Android tablet. I'm over my Mac fever. That's a bad result for iCloud.

I am frustrated enough with icloud to close my account. I loved the way I could preiously sync my calendar and contacts to my iphone and Macbook Pro but since upgrading to LION OS X and moving my me.com to the icloud, nothing works. THere is no support for ither of my devices: iphone 3G OR for my 3 year old macbook pro.

I don't NEED support on the devices, I need support for Lion and icloud but the serial numbers on my deices exclude me from support! That's not the customer support I have coe to expect from Apple.

After i installed Lion I had to buy new Microsoft Office software because Lion won't talk to my older version. That was bad enough but now that I'm in the icloud by contacts are GONE from my phone and the calendar is not reliable.

My son bought the new iphone and loves it but when he turned it on to activste it, all contacts and notes stord on his original iphone were lost. His macbook pro is 4 years old and Lion will not run on it. He was told by Apple that he needed to buy a new laptop! Really???

I realize I could just upgrade my iphone but there is nothing wrong with my 3G iphone! All of these forced changes and upgrades have me wonder what direction Apple is headed.

" His macbook pro is 4 years old and Lion will not run on it. "

My MBP is from 2006 and it runs Lion just fine. (not as fast as my 1 yr. old iMac, but it runs fine)

JKN1 wrote:

" His macbook pro is 4 years old and Lion will not run on it. "

My MBP is from 2006 and it runs Lion just fine. (not as fast as my 1 yr. old iMac, but it runs fine)

The Lion installer has a impressive list included with Macintosh Logic Board Serialnumbers that are blocked to install the OS. Most 2006 Intels are blocked but even some later ones.

I've installed it on a pair of 2006 MBP's, with additional Ram it ran acceptably.

My son was on the phone with Apple support for over 2 hours and they could not get Lion OS X to work with his MBP. Not sure why but they told him it was time for a new computer!

The requirements for Lion is Core 2 Duo processors or better. The reason for this is that Lion is a 64-bit system and thus it requires 64-bit processors. This should imply that any Mac newer than 2007 should be OK. I don't know about 2006, but perhaps some of those models also would support a 64-bit system...

Of course, it also says it requires 2 GB of RAM but if the machine has less than that, it is easy to buy and install more. If your son's computer is within these requirements and he has been told that he must buy a new one, that is wrong.

I think this is a key observation. I won't belabor the details, but we even had a MobileMe account hijacked by iCloud. These all or nothing decisions are being presented to folks just trying to set up unfamiliar devices or configure new OS installations. They are not sure how to respond; there is no second chance if they make the wrong decision; lots of red, modal, dialogue boxes; immediate data loss. Very unlike the Apple we knew. I think that our logical response at this point is to avoid all Apple cloud related services even as we are pelted with "Click Here" paths to unknown destinations. It just doesn't work right now unless your expectations are set very low and you are a loyal follower, I suppose.

UKenGB wrote:

...iCloud OTOH is entirely server-centric, like IMAP for mail. By this I mean that the data is based in the Cloud (i.e. on a server). That is the primary copy and the clients just sync to that and maintain a local CACHE of the data. This process is easier to control than that used by MM, as evidenced by the basically troublefree use of IMAP by many users over many years.

This is a very real reason why iCloud is likely to provide a far more robust service than MobileMe ever could.

So, no matter how many backups we have, the data are not secure. Consider: If you lose your data on your machine then you can restore from a backup in minutes. If Apple loses it or something else happens, then you will be at the mercy of someone at the other end of the conversation who does not care one bit and who is backed by an adhesion contract based on your having clicked a box possibly years ago. That's just iPerfect, I guess.

I call BS. Jobs *clearly* presented the vision of files of any type that would be put in the cloud and avaialable for any app, anywhere, as long as you were using one of their devices. Of course other services are not device specific, but I don't care because I like the Apple devices.

However, currently iCloud is useless, completely useless, to me. I even have 15 PDFs that I annotated for my students in Goodreader on the iPad. They are in the iCloud. They mock me. The system preferences for iCloud show me that they are there taking up space. But there is, as far as I can tell, no simple way to get them onto my Mac where I can effortlessly email them to my students. So I guess I'll just email them to myself, or upload them to dropbox.

I fail to see how anyone can even BEGIN to defend the iCloud implementation.

Look. Here's the thing: iCloud, iOS, and many changes that were made from Snow Leopard to Lion are based on the assumptions that all users are idiots and aren't smart enough to manage their Macs, their apps, and their files. Clearly some people fit that definition and they are being attracted to Apple products.

However, there are a lots of really smart, productive people (like many who have commented in this thread) who manage hundreds or thousands of files and know what they need from their hardware and software. Those peoples' needs are not being met by many aspects of Lion and by iCloud in particular.

Right now, iCloud is completely lame and apart from the syncing of contacts and calendar entries, just isn't what MobileMe was. And Mobile me wasn't all that great.

I need Mac-centric cloud-based storage that I can use how I want--something like Dropbox but made to work seamlessly with Mac OS X. Based on comments in this thread, many others want that as well. It doesn't have to be either-or. Let serious users manage their own cloud storage space and let others select to have Apple manage it for them. It's not that hard.

And, while I'm at it, this same philosophy should be applied to certain aspects of Lion. Why does scrolling on a mouse AND on a trackpack have to be "natural" or unnatural on both types of devices. Yeah...real hard...having two preferences instead of one. Because Apple did it their way and apparently won't change, it's basically saying *U to users who may know more than Apple.

I've been a hard-core Mac user since the first 128K Mac in 1984. And...I'm really ****ed off.

One thing I'm confused about: The iCloud Help http://help.apple.com/icloud/#mm9d23dae8 shows an icon fo an "Action pop-up menu" which, if it existed, might provide somewhat of a benefit. But I've tried iCloud in Chrome and Safari, and I don't see this icon. All I see is adverts trying to get me to buy Pages, Keynote, or Numbers.

Anyone know how to access this magical icon?

Greatly disappointed by iCloud. Back to Dropbox which just synchronise all my docs (PDF, Pics, Pages, Numbers) on all my Apple devices just by saving (or using the document from the dropbox, desktop based folder). So simple, no fiddling.

Ok to be fair I like the itunes/icloud function but that's about it.

😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠

Hope Apple hasn't peaked as I like what I have had so far but wonder about some of the later released products.

Will be watching with interest.

Hope Apple hasn't peaked as I like what I have had so far but wonder about some of the later released products.

iCloud is such a dysfunctional disaster, so non-Apple, you wonder if Jobs passing means this kind of crap by committee is what Apple will fall victim to in the future.