What's the point of iCloud

Isn't this an interesting paradox. Apple, having done

its part in establishing, nay popularizing the cloud

idea and the use of it for storage - now finds

itself confusing its own adherents to the point of

misleading them on the purpose of iCloud. I suspect

that this misunderstanding is far more widespread

than just the people who actually utilized iDisk and

that it will take more resources than anticipated to

enlighten the larger population of Lioneers in addition

to the disappointment in the ranks of MMers. To think

that some people are even buying Macs with the

expectation of storing on Apple's new cloud. Not

cool.

iCloud is an optional extra, and a new service at that, and free.

Nobody needs iCloud to use a Mac or an iOS device effectively. Both operate just fine without iCloud, and did so before the release of it. iCloud just offers some optional benefits for those who can and want to use it.

There are also alternative services which offer some of the features that iCloud offers - such as Google sync.

Nobody is being forced to use iCloud to use their Mac or iOS device, therefore no-one is being forced to upgrade or spend money to continue using their Mac or iOS device.

RE: iCloud is an optional extra, and a new service at that, and free.

As always happens when something is presented for free, you get what you pay for. At least .mac and .me have worked well for the $99 yearly fee and did a great job of filtering spam. I see iCloud as a half fast attempt to keep up with imaginary benefits that will attract more customers.

In any business cardinal rule no. 1 is "The customer is always right", and rule no. 2 is "read no. 1 again". This is abosolute and will cost those who think they can ignore it.

I have been a Mac user since 1988 and have continually admired the progress Apple has made since 1997 until iCloud. I will consider converting to gmail unless this mess can be salvaged.

Thank you Julian, that's right, it's an optional extra, you don't need to switch it on if you don't want to use it. E.g. you can sync your iphone with iTunes on your Mac using the recharging cable (as before), through wifi (new) or through icloud (new). icloud sync means however, that the backup of your iphone would be stored on one of Apple's servers.

The trouble is that some of Apple's promises regarding icloud have not been fulfilled yet. Just a couple of examples:

- keeping iwork documents in sync only works between iOS-devices such as iphone and ipad but not between a an iMac and iOS-devices. You can't create a Pages document on your Mac and than expect the document to appear seamlessly on your iphone. It seems there is a "dirty" workaround but these tricks are rather part of the Windows world... During a Keynote prensentation last summer, Steve Jobs announced that the Mac would be transformed from being the digital hub for syncing all devices to just being another devices besides the iOS devices and that the syncing would be done through the cloud... not quite true yet...

- iTunes in the Cloud only works with apps and books in many countries outside the US. My itunes account is in Germany and it doesn't work there. It has to do with the legal situation but I think that Apple promised a bit too much when launching iTunes in the Cloud

- The same is true for iTunes Match (which makes icloud sync work even for songs that the user didn't buy in iTunes). This service only works in the US so far.

Other examples can be found in this support community...

Csound1 wrote:

Mobileme (formerly dotmac, formerly iTools) launched on Jan 5, 2000, 11 years ago.

MobileMe launched on July 10, 2008.

Csound1 wrote:

But I do hate it when someone posts "It wasn't that long ago that MobileMe (which was not free) came into existence"

MobileMe launched on July 10, 2008. Three years, three months and two days is not that long ago in the real world (iCloud launched on October 12, 2011). Businesses expect a product life cycle of at least five years, which makes Apple a producer of popular but expensive consumer toys, but not a particularly reliable company for producing products you can run a business on.

Julian Wright wrote:

Nobody is being forced to use iCloud to use their Mac or iOS device, therefore no-one is being forced to upgrade or spend money to continue using their Mac or iOS device.

You're missing an important point here. Those of us who have been using iDisk, remote access to Time Capsules and personal websites via MobileMe will lose all of those once Apple kills MobileMe for good next June. In fact, those of us who have already migrated our MobileMe accounts to iCloud have lost remote TimeCapsule access. It's inexcusable on Apple's part. There's no technical reason why those services could not be continued in iCloud.

capaho wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

Mobileme (formerly dotmac, formerly iTools) launched on Jan 5, 2000, 11 years ago.

MobileMe launched on July 10, 2008.

So? Apples online service is 11 years old, just changed its name a few times

Seems to me that Apple is doesn't care about the pro market anymore.

Lion has a dumbed down Fisher Price interface that gets in the way instead of being more useful that Snow Leopard.

Finalcut X is nothing more than a pro-consumer version of iMovie.

Apple has killed the Xserve and the server version of Lion is missing many features of the server version of Snow Leopard.

Lack of support of anything but Lion in iCloud plus dropping Rosetta no support for legendary applications.

Glossy screens on everything.

The whole one size fits all mentality of everything coming out of Apple these days is not pro friendly.

TZ wrote:

Seems to me that Apple is doesn't care about the pro market anymore.

Lion has a dumbed down Fisher Price interface that gets in the way instead of being more useful that Snow Leopard.

Finalcut X is nothing more than a pro-consumer version of iMovie.

Apple has killed the Xserve and the server version of Lion is missing many features of the server version of Snow Leopard.

Lack of support of anything but Lion in iCloud plus dropping Rosetta no support for legendary applications.

Glossy screens on everything.

The whole one size fits all mentality of everything coming out of Apple these days is not pro friendly.

You're entitled to that viewpoint, I don't share it though.

dalstott wrote:

In any business cardinal rule no. 1 is "The customer is always right", and rule no. 2 is "read no. 1 again". This is abosolute and will cost those who think they can ignore it.

I agree, and customers spoke. Record amount of iPhone 4s sold, same with iPads, over 6 milion downloads of Lion in the first week or two and similar results with ISO 5 and 5.0.1. The Customers bought what they wanted. And what they wanted was a new direction in compution. They have been given it and seem to be hungry again already for the next update. As you say, the customer is always right (and there are a few hanging around the complaints department screaming blue murder because they can't keep up with things.)

Good Luck

I hate icloud.

karenjk wrote:

I hate icloud.

Then turn it off.

I wish it was possible to go back to Mobile Me. It worked better for me, and now it's too late. I know it's going to expire, but still....

Seems to me that Apple is doesn't care about the pro market anymore.

Still waiting for the next gen Mac Pros.

Lion has a dumbed down Fisher Price interface that gets in the way instead of being more useful that Snow Leopard.

Absolutely a step back from SL!

Finalcut X is nothing more than a pro-consumer version of iMovie.

Yep!

Apple has killed the Xserve and the server version of Lion is missing many features of the server version of Snow Leopard.

Ditto.

Lack of support of anything but Lion in iCloud plus dropping Rosetta no support for legendary applications.

Ridiculous when you look at the percentage of users still on SL who can't use iCloud. And the loss of web hosting REALLY ticks me off, as someone who has had a dotMac/MM subscription since forever. I'd gladly pay. Who cares about synched photos? The facebook generation?

Glossy screens on everything.

I speak praise daily to my 30" ACD. When it goes, it's over to NEC or someone else with a matte screen. I'm a serious photographer and hate the gloss, even with no light reflection.

The whole one size fits all mentality of everything coming out of Apple these days is not pro friendly.

Yep. It's all about social networking now and Apple's conception of how the target consumer group uses computers. They may be right, but it does seem like they are giving up on the power user.