Is iCloud totally worthless?

Scott Newman wrote:

At the same time, many users who have switched from MobileMe to iCloud miss the functionality and open storage service of MobileMe--iDisk.

Apple now charges for iCloud users who want more storage in the cloud.

So why not allow users to PAY FOR additional cloud storage than can be used any way the user wants? Why does it have to the iCloud way or the highway?

The reason is that Apple's business plan is to hide users content in iCloud and basically hold it hostage, charge users for access to the users own content. By hiding iCloud from the user so the user cannnot directly access the files, Apple owns your content. If you try and leave the iCloud "cult" they cheerfully delete all the files on your computer, your email files, your iPhone backup. Any application that is "iCloud enabled" such as Apple's iWorks, Apple mail, iTune.

Apple will no doubt require all applications that run on Mac's to be "iCloud enabled" capturing and holding hostage all the user's files. The $100 a year iCloud fee will seem a small price to pay for access to one's own files.

Avoid the trap, stay out of iBlackHole. When I lost iDisk it installed Dropbox which works even better than iDisk for storing and synchronizing files for all devices, stores any kind of file I want and I can see all the files any time on all my devices. What a concept.

I am not sure that is the reason. If you listened to the PR coming out of Apple over the last few years it is not that they want to lock you into their service it is that they want to get rid of the finder. Like on the iOS devices each program / App will be sandboxed and control its own files. Even if this ever comes true (and I hope it doesn't) I am pretty sure you won't have to use their service to share the files as I am sure some 3rd party services will step in and offer some solutions (for example similar to how 1Password works with dropbox) but using iCloud will probably be the easier (though maybe not better) solution for both the developer and the end user.

The other thing is that even if you choose to use iCloud you are not locked in. iCloud syncs files across your devices but those files stay on your device when you leave iCloud. Even "iTunes in the Cloud" is not streaming - a copy of the file is downloaded to your device before you play it and stays on your device until you erase it. Apple will not (and legally can not) delete your files from your computer if you "try ot leave the iCloud cult".

iCloud syncs files across your devices but those files stay on your device when you leave iCloud.

the three current iwork apps that are cloud enabled ( v.1.5 for each ) delete all created documents if you disable icloud, yes even if you want to only disable only the document sync per iOS device. It even randomly deletes your files if a iCloud error at Apple's side is happenning, because your stuff is in fact not on your iOS but on the Apple side. Because this is a non reliable solution and a catatstrophic flaw in the design of these programs workflow, I no longer use "documents in the cloud" ( which then - and only then - stores the documents on the iOS app's document manager again and can be synced using itunes to the Mac ).

I'm still holding out hope that the great minds at Apple are simply not that stupid. On the one hand, they have broadened the Mac and iOS markets bigtime by incorporating "features" that make the hardware easier to use for people who simply aren't very good at technology.

On the other hand are lots of professionals who spend a great deal of time each day working with scores of scores of complex files--graphics, video, word processing, spreadsheet, music, etc. They know, as I'm hoping Apple knows, that iOS really can't be scaled up large enough to satisfy the needs to those people. I purchased an iPad2 with the expectation that I could use use the iOS versions of Pages and Numbers to do actual, useful work with documents. That clearly wasn't the case and the file management in iOS is far worse than MS-DOS v1.0. I sold my iPad and purchased an 11" MacBook Air to complement my 13" MacBook Air.

What I do think will happen is that there will be option within Mac OSX to either be in full Mac OSX mode or iOS mode. Thus, simple people or people with simple needs would be able to interact with a Mac computer in many of the ways they interact with iOS now.

I've tried to be really charitable in my comments above, but the bottom line is that the tremendous growth in Apple's profits have occurred because Apple has learned how to totally dumb-down human/hardware interaction without completely offending brighter people with more sophisticated needs. However, with Mac OS X Lion, they may have crossed that line. I'm am personnally offended with tons of Lion "features" where Apple has dumbed things down and not offered alternative preferences for people who want more. I'm still hoping that the executives at Apple understand this.

As for the real question in this thread, iCoud is not totally worthless at this point in time, but it's worth SIGNIFICANTLY less than MobileMe. If they will make available cloud storage that users can use any way they want, then I'll be satisfied. I have thousands of personal files of every kind. My needs don't fit it any pre-cut mold. I need blank cloud storage that I can use with backup software like Carbon Copy Cloner, Synchronize Pro X, or GetBackUp Pro to be able to satisfy my needs for cloud backup. Unfortunately, Apple thinks they know ahead of time what everybody needs.

I need blank cloud storage that I can use with backup software like Carbon Copy Cloner, Synchronize Pro X, or GetBackUp Pro to be able to satisfy my needs for cloud backup. Unfortunately, Apple thinks they know ahead of time what everybody needs.

understandable. But this is totally in contrary of what iOS and also icloud do : both hide their filesystem from the user. Users are just using apps, no longer caring where a file is or with what to open. And this will ultimately also shape up in OSX. Just have a look at launchpad in Lion and imagine there was no Finder at all. Just a Desktop full of apps, the data for these apps in the cloud, not on your Mac. This is the way it is going.

• 
  

• On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide,^[5] and was made available for purchase and download from Microsoft's website.^[6] The release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor, Windows XP, the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems. It was succeeded by Windows 7, which was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and for the general public on October 22, 2009.it Vista is supported

  Correct AnswerHelpful Answer

  
  

  • 
    

    Like (0)

    
    

  • Reply

• 
  

Sjazbec wrote:

I need blank cloud storage that I can use with backup software like Carbon Copy Cloner, Synchronize Pro X, or GetBackUp Pro to be able to satisfy my needs for cloud backup. Unfortunately, Apple thinks they know ahead of time what everybody needs.

understandable. But this is totally in contrary of what iOS and also icloud do : both hide their filesystem from the user. Users are just using apps, no longer caring where a file is or with what to open. And this will ultimately also shape up in OSX. Just have a look at launchpad in Lion and imagine there was no Finder at all. Just a Desktop full of apps, the data for these apps in the cloud, not on your Mac. This is the way it is going.

Yeah that is going to work just fantastic for us in media creation with the average file size being hundreds of gigs. Or in the print industry with collections of images and text all from different places being assembled into documents that have to be sent to print houses.

😕

Funny how Vista is older than event Leopard and it works

Actually we were told that we could share documents in the 'Cloud'. It was supposed to make up for the lack of dropability for those of us with Lion using computers too old (?) to use the folder thingy.

I find Cloud to be a total waste of time. It's worse than Me.com. Email is not dependeable or reliable. And the rest of it doesn't apply to me. There's nowhere to store files. I can't share them beteween computers. I don't use an iPad to work on I use a real computer. Cloud seems to be an iPhone, iPad gimmik. I've tried since it was released and will now return to Mail.

Don't know about the latest iPhone but this would seem to be a major gaffe on Apple's part unless I'm missing something.

Cloud seems to be an iPhone, iPad gimmik.

It is. And for these devices it really works and makes somewhat sense.

I confess that I am not bothered by the way iCloud works on my Mac. Yes, I do have to use the iCloud web interface to add documents to iCloud and to retrieve them too, but I have been using Dropbox for a long time and I have not found the iCloud procedures to be more cumbersome. It is easy for me to have the iCloud web interface in Safari open while I am using Pages or Numbers. It just has not been a big deal for me. I admit that my documents are not huge, and maybe that makes a difference.

Jppilot's perspective is useful. In fact it points to the difficulty of this thread. This thread is a polemic — Any question with "Totally" in it requires sides, and jppilot takes a more balanced approach. Even I wrote "I abandoned iCloud after a week" because it failed to meet my expectations and needs. That now seems to brash. iCloud is a service whose "meme" has come, it is understandable that we might want documents everywhere... but, whose technology is still being designed. The process of design is a limit of understanding how to accomplish something. We're ready. Apples not quite. That's okay.

prphillips wrote:

Jppilot's perspective is useful. In fact it points to the difficulty of this thread. This thread is a polemic —

No. Jppilot's perspective and the thread are functional issues. jppilot points out the problem with iCloud. It has to be worked around (Requiring internet access, keeping another progarm Safari open, having to use Safari in order to use iCloud with other programs). That's not an example of "just working" it's an example of just not working for a "seamless" "cloud storage" advertised product. That iDisk, the program it replaces is much more functional, much closer to the bests cloud products to date such as Dropbox, also shows the functionality issues of iCloud. Apple has created a huge marketing opening for Dropbox, Box.net and other more functional and sophisticated cloud products even from Microsoft. That Apple did that by creating grief for Apple users adds insult to their self inflicted marketing problem. My next portable device will not be an iPad or MacAir because of the problems with iCloud and the fact that functionality of cloud storage, needed for portable devices is not available from Apple. Not only not available but Apple products so intergrated with iCloud as to be dangerous if not disabled.

I have 'left' already - what worked for me now does not (aside is a 1 week+ongoing issue with no access to me.com mail) Now have a galaxy s2, box.net and its working pretty well with work/home devices. 50gb free on box so cant see coming back to premium apple devices any time soon - if i could just get my mail I would be on a 4s now and icloud.

I stick with Apple but created a mix of sync options to be protected against the document-desaster :

icloud for Mail,iCal,Bookmarks and contacts from Mac to PC to iPod to cloud and vice versa. this works.

photostream I disabled due to the lack of even the simplest task : deletion of individual pictures or selection of what I share and what not. I can't afford to have nudity pictures streamed to devices where Grandma is watching.

For Photo Sharing and also for Document sync, including my iwork files I found sugarsync a real nice and free solution. On the Mac and PC it integrates with a idisk like folder structure and the app on the ipod mirrors the content. They give 5GB free away and they even give you extra space in 125MB chunks if you go through some howtos or "like" them via twitter and facebook, PR stuff, optionally of course. I now have 7 GB free. They take all filetype, videos,music, midids,zips and so on. Both the desktop app and the iOS app are free.

Whenever icloud is fixed I might drop this solution, but I don't see getting icloud even close to that feature richness I found over there. Like I said, for Adresses and Bookmarks this is nice, but I fear that's about it.

These days must be skyrocketing good for every cloud-storage provider. If they wonder about where all the new customers come from ? ....