What is the purpose of iCloud?

Good read here > iCloud: What you need to know | Macworld

Yesterday, an Apple support person told me in no uncertain terms that iCloud is not a cloud back up service and that is not for storing data in the cloud

That's interesting. iCloud not only syncs your Mac with iOS devices such as iPads, iPhones, and the iPod touch, but despite what you were told, does offer storage so you have a backup. Apple gives you 5GB of free storage but you can purchase more if neceessary.

iCloud: Managing your iCloud storage

Apple - iCloud - Learn how to set up iCloud on all your devices

iCloud backs up your ...

• Purchased music, TV shows, apps, and books
• Photos and video in the Camera Roll
• Device settings
• App data
• Home screen and app organization
• Messages (iMessage, SMS, and MMS)
• Ringtones

From here > Apple - iCloud - Store and back up your content in iCloud.

iCloud: How to back up iCloud data

It seems silly that I would pay Apple to store and stream my content in the cloud and then also have to pay some other company to do a complete back up into the cloud.

You don't have to 🙂

The links provided above say nothing about truly using ICloud to provide additional space to the device, which is what I think the other person was asking. If I have the 15G additional space, why do I run out of space to add new apps? The only thing that shows in my storage area is Pages. On the IClund main page the 'documents and data' is 'on' but I still run out of space. ICloud was a waste of money.

iCloud is not a viable backup system, not for your Mac anyhow. It will store IOS device backups and files from TextEdit, Preview and iWorks applications. That's it as far as backup goes. As a simple online storage system it is not much better and (on a $ per GB) very expensive.

You should use a real backup system, Time Machine or some other.

iCloud is not a general file storage service for files from your Mac. This Apple document presents an overview of what can be backed up: iCloud: Backup and restore overview

OT