Apple Says iCloud Folder Sharing in macOS Catalina Coming 'This Spring'

[MacRumors]

Apple has delayed the introduction of iCloud Folder Sharing in macOS Catalina until spring 2020, according to its website.

The key cloud storage feature has spent months in development and would have allowed users to share folders in their iCloud Drive with other Apple users via a private link.

It first appeared in early beta versions of iOS 13, before it was pulled prior to the official release for iPhones and iPads last month after problems arose during testing. As expected, iCloud Folder Sharing hasn't made it to the Mac either. macOS Catalina was launched on Monday.

In early beta versions of macOS Catalina, right-clicking a folder in iCloud Drive revealed a submenu that allowed you to generate a private link to the folder and share it via AirDrop, Messages, Mail, or with people in your contacts.

Anyone who received the link was able to access the folder in iCloud Drive, add new files, and stay up-to-date with the latest file versions.

On its macOS Catalina features page, Apple says iCloud Drive folder sharing is now "Coming this spring." In contrast, on its iOS 13 features page, Apple says the feature is coming to iPhones and iPads "later this fall," although it's still unclear whether Apple just hasn't updated the page to reflect the extended delay. Either way, the latest iOS 13.2 beta 1 still does not appear to support the function.

As it stands, it's only possible to share individual files in iCloud Drive, which puts it at a significant disadvantage when compared to rival cloud-storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox, which have provided folder-sharing capabilities for years.

If you still want to use iCloud to share multiple files, you could try sharing a compressed zip containing several files, or creating a sparseimage file using Disk Utility and putting files in that for sharing over icloud. Otherwise, an alternative cloud service is suggested for now.

Article Link: Apple Says iCloud Folder Sharing in macOS Catalina Coming 'This Spring'

 

[Spectrum]

How hard can this be...?

 

[itsmilo]

Cuz it’s so hard to do and never done before by any cloud service ever!

 

[SaucyWeeTart]

I still have hopes for an 'odrive' style smart sync functionality built into iCloud. Will cream my pants if it arrives. Pleeeeaaaase Apple, I beg you.

 

[orbital~debris]

Maybe macOS will start getting feature-addition ‘midi’ releases, similar to the ones iOS periodically gets?

Then this feature could be an element of one such update.

 

[insomniac86]

Wait what... just to confirm for someone down under ithe land of Oz.

Coming this spring in the US means we won’t see this until March to June 2020!? That’s a serious delay the next operating system will be announced shortly after.

 

[AeroZ]

I mean why is Apple doing the one release per year cycle if they’re not able to deliver? They’re not able to even deliver stable new macOS version not to mention the highly promoted new features that they then postpone every year now. The stability and reliability of their software suffers greatly and it seems that it’s getting worse year after year.
The release cycle is more like:
July-sept/oct - alpha test
Sept/oct-jun - beta test

If lucky the 10.1x.6 might be stable enough until the cycle starts again.

 

[AeroZ]

Wait what... just to confirm for someone down under ithe land of Oz.

Coming this spring in the US means we won’t see this until March to June 2020!? That’s a serious delay the next operating system will be announced shortly after.

Messages in iCloud vol 2

 

[XXPP]

"The stability and reliability of their software suffers greatly and it seems that it’s getting worse year after year.

This is not true.

 

[newyorksole]

"The stability and reliability of their software suffers greatly and it seems that it’s getting worse year after year.

This is not true.

At this point I’m convinced people just come on this forum and come online in general and just say whatever they want even if it is completely incorrect lmao.

 

[profets]

Also don’t forget pinned items in iCloud Drive (ability to keep certain files saved locally on iOS).

early in the betas it seemed like there was some major change under the hood for iCloud Drive that these features were based on which they had to roll back.

 

[canadianreader]

I mean why is Apple doing the one release per year cycle if they’re not able to deliver? They’re not able to even deliver stable new macOS version not to mention the highly promoted new features that they then postpone every year now. The stability and reliability of their software suffers greatly and it seems that it’s getting worse year after year.
The release cycle is more like:
July-sept/oct - alpha test
Sept/oct-jun - beta test

If lucky the 10.1x.6 might be stable enough until the cycle starts again.

Just updated to Catalina it was rough ride. I'm not used to this level of quality from Apple.

 

[AeroZ]

"The stability and reliability of their software suffers greatly and it seems that it’s getting worse year after year.

This is not true.

You’re right. It’s not getting worse. It’s been bad for years.

 

[snowboarder]

How hard can this be...?

everything seems to be hard for Apple these days...

 

[itsmilo]

At this point I’m convinced people just come on this forum and come online in general and just say whatever they want even if it is completely incorrect lmao.

well iOS 13 has been an embarrassing cluster F thus far

 

[Donnation]

Software has become nothing short of an embarrassment for Apple.

 

[Glockworkorange]

They really need to get the (rhymes with "spit" together). Embarrassing.

 

[djcerla]

You’re right. It’s not getting worse. It’s been bad for years.

This is inexplicable.

Back in the "good old days" I had many system crashes a day. We currently live in a kind of heaven compared to that; my system is rock solid.

 

[chfilm]

No doubt it might launch sooner than that.

Hopefully it won’t suffer AirPower‘s fate

 

[rforno]

Is it me or are more and more 'basic' functions/features of IOS and OSX being tacked on after the fact? I mean, sharing a cloud folder is not rocket science and as others have said, it's been done by other companies for decades. To put it another way, it's like if Apple released iTunes and said "the ability to change volume levels when listening to music is coming next spring" or something.

I know there are other examples but I am drawing a blank @ the moment.....

 

[newyorksole]

well iOS 13 has been an embarrassing cluster F thus far

From your personal experience? Or the fact that there’s been 3 releases after the initial 13.0? Because I don’t have any issues with iOS 13, but our experiences may differ.

That still doesn’t equate to “every software release gets worse and worse and less reliable/stable every year.”

 

[itsmilo]

From your personal experience? Or the fact that there’s been 3 releases after the initial 13.0? Because I don’t have any issues with iOS 13, but our experiences may differ.

That still doesn’t equate to “every software release gets worse and worse and less reliable/stable every year.”

Two really annoying things still happening on the iOS 13.2 beta since beta 1 of 13.0

iPhone locking up with control center on Lockscreen

Not able to delete random photos from Messages

 

[BarredOwl]

one word: Dropbox

 

[Jim Lahey]

How hard can this be...?

I would imagine it's incredibly complex. Particularly from a security standpoint. I don't have an opinion one way or the other as to whether or not this should be available now, but let's not pretend this kind of stuff is easy peasy. Entitlement culture in full effect.

And yes I concede that others have been doing similar for some time, but we have no idea of the complexity Apple faces in implementing this securely within macOS and iOS.

 

[newyorksole]

Two really annoying things still happening on the iOS 13.2 beta since beta 1 of 13.0

iPhone locking up with control center on Lockscreen

Not able to delete random photos from Messages

Damn those things are both annoying. I’m glad I don’t have those issues, but it definitely should be fixed ASAP.