iCloud backup vs Itunes backup

I was so excited about iCloud and backing up my iTunes account - and so I bought iCloud and copied my iTunes to it and it was a huge, HUGE, MISTAKE!!!!!

Here is what happened to me. I have a little over a thousand albums - many rare of theater soundtracks and concept albmus. I had them carefully organized (highlights from Les Mis, Les Mis original broaday cast, Les Mis original london cast, etc.). I spent days finding all of the correct album artwork and made sure they were loaded with the song information in the correct order, merged two discs onto one album. I had invested thousands of hours and iCloud backing up iTunes wiped it all out. It deleted "duplicate" songs and albums, lost album artwork, on CDs that were uploaded it changed to he quality so there are some that aren't very loud and others that blast your ears.

I have now spent many months rebuilding my library - and am about halfway done.

It was heartbreaking! If you use iTunes - do not use iCloud. Save your time and effort and use Amazon's more expensive cloud service that works and won't delete or re-order your music library. I tried Amazon's service with about 20 albums and it was flawless. It didn't change a thing!

Apple does so many things right, I never considered that they could have a dog of a product, but they do and it is the combination of iCloud and iTunes.

USE iCLOUD WITH iTUNES WITH EXTREME CAUTION AND IF YOU LOSE YOUR MUSIC - YOU WERE FOREWARNED!!!!!!!!!

The iPhone's backup wirelessly via iCloud or direct with iTunes and stored locally on your computer is the same, and you can do both if you prefer.

The reason for backing up via iCloud is to be "PC" free in regards to getting a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Beginning with iOS 5 pre-installed on an iOS device, you can take the new device out of the box, power it on, transfer a backup on iCloud to the device wirelessly, and sync wirelessly with iTunes on your computer. This also allows restoring an iOS device without having a wired connection to iTunes on your computer.

The iCloud backup for iPhone works nice. I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 5. You can do both backups (iTunes, iCloud). At least that's what I've been doing

I actually took it a step further and tested out the restore function of the iCloud backup. It's a little nerve racking because you have to do an erase/reset to factory settings on the iPhone. And it took a little longer than I expected to get my Verizon service to show up. But, it turned it perfect! I was able to restore from the iCloud backup and got most everything back including settings. I only had to reinstall the apps I had on it which was painless since I have very few.

I had to try it. How else is one going to know it works? 🙂

I did the same with the iTunes backup after I bought my iPhone 4.

I backed up my phone before upgrading to iOS5 and iTunes 10.5. I transfered my mobile me account to the iCloud. After upgrades, I lost all music not purchased in iTunes, all PDF files on my book shelf and now my calendar in the cloud does not reflect all of the appointments on my calendar. I am unable to restore the lost items from my backup! After hours of troubleshooting, I gave up. If my calendar does not show up in the cloud, how can i share it?

Proceed with caution!

You're welcome.

This link provides the data that is included with the iPhone's backup, which does not include any iTunes content, or photos on the device that were transferred from your computer.

This is different from your past purchase history with the iTunes store for music, apps, etc. which you can download if not currently on your device, or re-download if accidentally or purposely removed previously.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766

The following link explains icloud and what icloud does not back up.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4859

My main reservation with iCloud is that in the event that your phone is somehow bricked and cannot connect wirelessly how are you going to restore it? For this reason I think its not unwise to at least have one back-up on iTunes. I guess you can also restore as a new phone and then after that restore from iCloud to your most current state.

I agree, I'd like the facility to save an iTunes backup to iCloud for safe keeping and then being able to download a backup saved on iCloud back to iTunes. This would be a good alternative for people with large backups.

how do I stop the contacts sync ? It is syncronizing wireless at the moment when you change something in your device but if you delete something from mistake or you delete all the contacts also from mistake , because it keeps sincronizing , it will be deleted also from icloud so what's the point of sincronizing ?! I thing the sincronizing with icloud should be done only when you want and i didn't find such an option in the settings. (PS sorry for my miss-spelling)

Just a question. So I just got my iPhone 4S and I had set up iCloud in the Apple Store. Now, I have a PC and I updated my iTunes and now my iPhone is not being recognized for backup. What should I do? My computer recognizes it, but it doesn't show up in my iTunes. Please help.

Thanks

Just a comment, from someone still self-training and no doubt failing so far. The "duplicate issues" you mention "seem" to be possible. During our recent vacation, we downloaded many pics to one of our iPads. These, of course, went to "Photo Stream". Later, we imported the "Photo Stream" into an album on iPhoto on one of our laptops. We diddled some of those photos in external editors, and deleted others.

Next time we Wi-Fi synced that laptop with that iPad, we found that there were duplicates of some of the pix, and some of the deleted pix were "resurrected". (I suspect iCloud copies?) The extra stuff in turn got plopped back onto the laptop...sort of a mess. Yes, it may sound weird as all getout, but we managed to make all this happen.

We'll read the instructions again, carefully. That always helps. :)

I sync my iPhone up to iCloud however I am confused about one thing if anyone can explain it.

When I go to iCloud Settings/Storage & Backup/Manage and I don't have an App turned on to backup it just doens't back up the data associated with it?

For example if it's off and I have to reset my device the app WILL reappear AFTER the reset just not the data assosicate with it?

Am I understanding that right?

Thank you