What is the point of iCloud?

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Level 1

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What is the point of iCloud?

I was about to upload my photos to iCloud and then found out if you delete them off your phone then they will also be deleted from the cloud. I don't understand what the benefit of using the cloud is. i wanted to use it initially for the purpose of having extra storage on my phone, but that won't happen if i still have to keep the same picture that i have in iCloud on my phone as well. There is the optimize selection where there is a original on the iCloud and a lesser version of the picture kept on your phone, but i wonder how much less space it occupies on your iPhone. So i'm not sure what benefits there are of using the iCloud.

would love to hear anyone say what they may or may not like about this. pros and cons

iPhone 6s, iOS 9.1

Posted on Nov 26, 2015 1:17 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 26, 2015 1:28 PM in response to luke8h

Welcome to the Apple community.

There are plenty of cloud based storage solutions if all you want to do is use the cloud as an external drive. iCloud's purpose though is to keep all your devices in sync.

Optimisation is dynamic, it reduces the resolution of your photos as and when needed, so you may not notice it occurring at first. However when it is needed, it is very effective and users have reported libraries being optimised to much less than 10% of their original size in some cases. My own library is about 9% of its original size on my phone.

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