How well do you guys like iCloud?

gc15 · Apr 8, 2013

Im just curious, to me some features are nice, such as my contacts, calendar events, and notes being available on specific devices; however, compared to other cloud services for documentation and other tasks, I see icloud lacking in that department. Im still fairly new to the cloud, but i tend to like google drive with google docs due to the ease of use IMO. Im just wondering what everyone else's outtake is. Another reason i suppose i like google drive better is, i use gmail as my primary email address.

hexonxonx · Apr 8, 2013

I don't use much on Apples cloud anymore other than for downloading past music and TV purchases.

I gave up using iCloud for my contacts and calendar when I bought a Nexus 4. My contacts were already on Googles contacts so it was easy to sync the Nexus 4. I then switched my two iPhones over to sync the contacts so they all stay in sync. Same with Calendar.

blueroom · Apr 8, 2013

Since I'm all Apple gear the iCloud is great for keeping my data in sync.

andyx3x · Apr 8, 2013

I can do with it or without it. I'm just as happy syncing on iTunes just like the old days.

siurpeeman · Apr 8, 2013

my favorite aspect of icloud is backups. whenever i plug in my phone or ipad at home, it just automatically backs up. if i ever lose, break, or upgrade my idevice, i can be back up and running in no time.

maxosx · Apr 8, 2013

I really want to like it.

But I can't lie, my experience with it since its release, was no better than the problematic MobileMe I paid for & used for two years.

I just pulled my files out of iCloud & put them in my Evernote, Dropbox, Drive & Catch accounts.

Now I'll sit back, waiting & watching how Apple handles the issues that are well known & reported on.

iClouds not bad, just not up to the reliability & usefulness as others. I'm hoping Apple will do the right thing & bring it up to the standards set by others.

Mrbobb · Apr 9, 2013

I only use it for reminders and calendar OK for those 2 purpose, but the rest I find it kludgy.

I believe once I tried to sync my contacts and I couldn't sign on directly to iCloud.com and delete bad entries directly, I had to clean my Mac first, then mirror that "emptiness" to the cloud to clear it, THEN reload my good contacts from backup and sync again. Whadda pain.

Michael CM1 · Apr 9, 2013

If Google's stuff allows your email to sync across all your devices, then you know why email syncing is one of my favorite iCloud features. It doesn't work quite as perfectly as I wish -- the badge still appears on Mail on my iPad, but the emails are marked as read once I open Mail. But it's such a nice feature and makes me hate not having it for my work email that I get on my phone.

The calendar stuff is nice as well, although most of the changes I make there are on my phone and viewed on my phone. Many times I will use Photostream to show off photos I took with my phone on my iPad since it's much bigger.

I would like to see iCloud opened up to more apps kind of like Dropbox is. I have an auto maintenance/fuel app I use to track stuff for my car. I bought it because the old one I had did not have any backup sync that was worth a darn. The new one uses Dropbox. I already had an account, so that's fine. But I'd rather it use iCloud since I don't use Dropbox for much else.

coffeemadmanUK · Apr 9, 2013

I barely use it. It's a useful concept but I don't believe Apple have fully utilised it or made it user friendly. It's clunky, but UI and not very... modern looking.

Murgatroyd · Apr 9, 2013

I drive a taxi. After tallying receipts for the day I place the resulting income for that day into iPhone's Numbers spreadsheet. Closing the spreadsheet has Numbers uploading the changed spreadsheet to iCloud. Quite convenient on a day to day basis Sometimes I wonder if having one physical copy of such an important document stored in one place is good or bad. Wouldn't it be prudent if for each days change of the spreadsheet on the iPhone I somehow also cause a change to a physical copy on the iPhone, AND another physical copy on my MacBook at my residence AND DropBox, perhaps? And have each days change to the spreadsheet cause changes to physical copies on other devices, too, if I want. Having only one physical copy on iCloud for all my devices to access sometimes worries me. But then I squelch the worries by thinking, 'What actually could happen to this important document of mine that's stored on iCloud?' I don't have an answer which justifies the fear to any great extent. An Automator app or AppleScript comes to mind but, I suppose I'm simply not that worried about iCloud alone I suppose.

tmanto02 · Apr 9, 2013

It does what it is supposed to do but it has so many other great potential uses and frankly I think is a bit behind the times!

takeshi74 · Apr 9, 2013

gc15 said:
Im just wondering what everyone else's outtake is. Another reason i suppose i like google drive better is, i use gmail as my primary email address.

I use it alongside Google Drive & Dropbox. No single solution does it all for me.

psac · Apr 9, 2013

I wish more games would implement it for more playing across devices(iphone/ipad), and for keeping the save game info when deleting a game off a device. With the games that have implemented it works fantastically, but it's a very low percentage of adoption.

ZombiePete · Apr 9, 2013

I use it for everything except documents, which I use Google Docs for (I have 100GB free for two years). I don't particularly care for Pages and use Office for Mac so Google Drive is more convenient for storing said documents; other than that, for mail, calendar, contacts, and the like switching from Google to iCloud was a piece of cake. I might not have been so eager to switch had Google not gotten rid of their EAS option, but since they did I didn't have much heartburn about moving my services to iCloud, especially after I bought a MacBook.

R.Stoychev · Apr 9, 2013

I use iCloud daily, and it saves me a lot of time

charlesdayton · Apr 9, 2013

gc15 said:
Im just curious, to me some features are nice, such as my contacts, calendar events, and notes being available on specific devices; however, compared to other cloud services for documentation and other tasks, I see icloud lacking in that department. Im still fairly new to the cloud, but i tend to like google drive with google docs due to the ease of use IMO. Im just wondering what everyone else's outtake is. Another reason i suppose i like google drive better is, i use gmail as my primary email address.

iCloud is very different from Google Drive/Dropbox. GDrive and Dropbox are online storage service aka cloud drives. iCloud is a set of iOS specific online services.

Apple used to have a cloud drive called iDisk that worked in a similar way to Google Drive, but it was discontinued. It allowed syncing of files and folders between iOS and computers.

I absolutely love iCloud. My favorite features are the synced PIM data (calendar, tasks, etc.), find my iPhone, and the automatic backups. For online drive I am using Skydrive.

Jessica Lares · Apr 9, 2013

I save everything to either iCloud or my Adobe Creative Cloud folder, so yeah, it's very beneficial for me. If it had a web version of iWork, I probably would dump Google Drive altogether. Which is my only reason for using Google Drive, because a web based document editor is easier to use since I use multiple printers that are not on the same network or even place and use different versions of Mac OS.

zorinlynx · Apr 9, 2013

I back up my iPhone and iPad to iCloud because it's automatic and if my device eats it while on a trip, it's trivial to replace it and restore everything without having to use my computer.

However, I still run occasional backups of my devices to my computer as well; I like having control of my information.

I also use iCloud for some apps that share information between devices. However, I don't use it for storing important data exclusively. I still like to be a custodian of my own data.

TyPod · Apr 9, 2013

andyx3x said:
I can do with it or without it. I'm just as happy syncing on iTunes just like the old days.

This is what I do. I don't use iCloud, even though I have pondered the thought of using it again.

Ajones330 · Apr 9, 2013

TyPod said:
This is what I do. I don't use iCloud, even though I have pondered the thought of using it again.

Same here, I hate how it makes my contact pics full screen using iCloud.

lordofthereef · Apr 9, 2013

My gripe about an iCloud backup is that I cannot set icloud to backup every night AND ake a backup to my computer every so often over wifi without having to mess with settings within iTunes each and every time I do it.

Calendars, contacts, etc. are all Google and probably always will be. It's the only service that syncs seamlessly with every mobile OS out there.

djransom · Apr 9, 2013

It was good until I've recently been spammed and I'm contemplating creating an entirely new account now because it's pretty bad. Apple's way of handling spam leaves alot to be desired.

steve knight · Apr 9, 2013

siurpeeman said:
my favorite aspect of icloud is backups. whenever i plug in my phone or ipad at home, it just automatically backs up. if i ever lose, break, or upgrade my idevice, i can be back up and running in no time.

well not in no time. I have the restore take up to 2 hours before I could get all my apps going so 2 to 3 hours.

adam044 · Apr 9, 2013

If you have more than one apple device I'm not sure why you wouldn't use it.

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steve knight said:
well not in no time. I have the restore take up to 2 hours before I could get all my apps going so 2 to 3 hours.

Depends what you have sir

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I wish more apps would use iCloud like angry birds for example.

Nolander07 · Apr 9, 2013

I use it to sync between all my devices and for backup. It works great for that.

How well do you guys like iCloud?

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