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iCloud necessary?

J

jcorbin

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 18, 2011
1,135
259
D.C.
I use dropbox in combination with and external HDD for storing and backing up my stuff. Is iCloud really worth it just so I can restore my phone and setting?

Keep in mind I don't have a pc to sync to.

I mean it seems redundant storing in two places. And with Dropbox I can share whole folders and access from any pc. With iCloud you can't actually access pictures and videos. It's just for a restore.
 
jcorbin said:
I use dropbox in combination with and external HDD for storing and backing up my stuff. Is iCloud really worth it just so I can restore my phone and setting?

Keep in mind I don't have a pc to sync to.

I mean it seems redundant storing in two places. And with Dropbox I can share whole folders and access from any pc. With iCloud you can't actually access pictures and videos. It's just for a restore.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by "worth it"? It's free so why not use it in the event that your phone dies and you need to have it replaced. In such an event, you'll be able to recover all of your contacts (not to mention settings, apps, etc.) in a relatively short amount of time.
 
It is not required but it is free. I prefer to keep backing up to my computer and use the cloud.

My company depends on DropBox big time. We like it as it will work with any platform.
 
r2shyyou said:
In such an event, you'll be able to recover all of your contacts (not to mention settings, apps, etc.) in a relatively short amount of time.
Click to expand...
IMO, the "settings, apps, etc" part you mentioned is huge!

I'd guess that for most people, it'd take at least an hour to sit down with a replacement/new iPhone and configure it like their previous one. And even then, going by memory, they'd still have forgotten stuff.
 
It's but one of many choices. While I may change my mind at some point in the future. It won't be until Apple has proved it can actually make this work, and be reliable over the long run.

Currently I'm using (and have been for years) Google's services for syncing my contacts, calendar, and some docs. Rather than have all my eggs in one basket I'm also using Dropbox, Evernote, and Simplenote. However to do so, one has to have good organizational skills so as to not get confused as to what is where etc.

I've been using this combination for quite some time and it's been ideal for me. I was using MobileMe but just when I began to gain confidence in it, there would be a problem crop up leaving me frustrated. No service is perfect, but I have yet to have the current setup suffer the problems I did with MobileMe.

When I read other reports of users and the "press" in general commenting that MobileMe is a very poor service it only reinforces what I personally experienced (and admittedly was aware of when signing up for the service).

So $200 later, and as usual the only gain was on Apple's part. ARGH :eek:


[Edit]
For clarification I do NOT use any cloud for backup. That is handled daily by a very robust system I have at home. I use NAS, a separate server, wifi, and related gear.
 
Used Icloud for the first time last night. My GF Iphone 4s (white) was having flash issues. We planned on heading to the Apple store. So I told her to backup her phone to Icloud. She only has a few apps and about 50 pictures with one or two small vids. Anyhow, when we came back with the replaced phone we started the restore from backup OTA from Icloud and took pretty long (close to two hours). This was on wifi with great connection too. She has zero music files and could only imagine if she had 100's of pictures and 1000's of songs and tons of app how long it would actually take to backup from Icloud. It's a great service to have but doing it directly on Itunes/computer is way faster. Was that a normal wait time? This was our first time using Icloud.
 
VeNoMiZeD said:
Used Icloud for the first time last night. My GF Iphone 4s (white) was having flash issues. We planned on heading to the Apple store. So I told her to backup her phone to Icloud. She only has a few apps and about 50 pictures with one or two small vids. Anyhow, when we came back with the replaced phone we started the restore from backup OTA from Icloud and took pretty long (close to two hours). She has zero music and could only imagine if she had 100's of pictures and 1000's of songs and tons of app how long it would actually take to backup from Icloud. It's a great service to have but doing it directly on Itunes/computer is way faster. Was that a normal wait time? This was our first time using Icloud.
Click to expand...

Were you on a wireless connection or 3G? That sounds very long for the setup you explained your girlfriend has.
 
VeNoMiZeD said:
Used Icloud for the first time last night. My GF Iphone 4s (white) was having flash issues. We planned on heading to the Apple store. So I told her to backup her phone to Icloud. She only has a few apps and about 50 pictures with one or two small vids. Anyhow, when we came back with the replaced phone we started the restore from backup OTA from Icloud and took pretty long (close to two hours). This was on wifi with great connection too. She has zero music files and could only imagine if she had 100's of pictures and 1000's of songs and tons of app how long it would actually take to backup from Icloud. It's a great service to have but doing it directly on Itunes/computer is way faster. Was that a normal wait time? This was our first time using Icloud.
Click to expand...
iCloud does NOT backup your music and it only backups what is on your Camera roll. I have my camera roll turned off from backups because it is to big so I back that up manually to my PC.

OP - If you don't have a PC then you should 100% be using iCloud to do backups. You can control what to sync to iCloud so if you are using google contacts and calendar then turn off syncing for that.

I currently don't view iCloud and Dropbox as redundant apps as for me they serve 2 different purposes. iCloud for backups and syncing of calendar, contacts, notes, reminders and so on and dropbox for syncing any file and sharing files.
 
VeNoMiZeD said:
Anyhow, when we came back with the replaced phone we started the restore from backup OTA from Icloud and took pretty long (close to two hours)
Click to expand...
When I got my iPhone 4s (on launch day), it took about 20 minutes to do an iCloud restore (which also included restoring ~150 iTunes Store purchased songs).
 
I was going to use icloud for my wife's iphone, but my data connection is pretty slow and the backup was going to take an extremely long time to complete. When I can get a faster connection I'm going to try using icloud again.
 
Well I know I'm going to have more than 5gb of stuff to back up. I suppose without the pictures and videos 5gb would be ok. "worth it" meant is it worth buying more space when I already have storage in paying for.

Yes being able to restore the phone is nice. But not worth the money for additional storage. It is free though and from what I'm reading on other threads isn't really contributing to battery drain.

As for contacts and such. I have my contacts backed up through Verizon. My calendar is through google. Documents and such are on Dropbox and notes, tasks and the rest are on springpad.
 
I like the idea of iCloud but it's a pain in the backside when you wanna use it to restore from a backup and want to sync with iTunes.... backup will put everything in folders as per backup.... sync with iTunes tick to sync apps and just to be kind iTunes chucks everything out of the folders grrrr
 
If iCloud Pictures and videos were accessible I'd switch to it completely. Unfortunately that's not the case. I need to be able to pull up pics and videos on pc's.
 
i'm trying to take more pictures and videos now that i have this awesome camera/1080p video capture.

do you think 50gb is enough or should i get 100gb on dropbox
 
jcorbin said:
i'm trying to take more pictures and videos now that i have this awesome camera/1080p video capture.

do you think 50gb is enough or should i get 100gb on dropbox
Click to expand...

100gb is a lot of images and videos. Why not wait and see how it goes.:rolleyes:
 
Stealthipad said:
100gb is a lot of images and videos. Why not wait and see how it goes.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

thats true. i've just heard that a video that is 1.5 minutes long is like 300mb. and with the holidays coming up there will be a lot of pictures and videos.
 
jcorbin said:
thats true. i've just heard that a video that is 1.5 minutes long is like 300mb. and with the holidays coming up there will be a lot of pictures and videos.
Click to expand...

But didn't Steve say, in his last Keynote, that pictures and videos don't count towards that 5GB of storage?
:confused:
 
gloryunited said:
But didn't Steve say, in his last Keynote, that pictures and videos don't count towards that 5GB of storage?
:confused:
Click to expand...

no, when you go to the iCloud settings and go to storage, camera roll goes against your space

music doesn't go against your storage quota
 

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jcorbin said:
I use dropbox in combination with and external HDD for storing and backing up my stuff. Is iCloud really worth it just so I can restore my phone and setting?

Keep in mind I don't have a pc to sync to.

I mean it seems redundant storing in two places. And with Dropbox I can share whole folders and access from any pc. With iCloud you can't actually access pictures and videos. It's just for a restore.
Click to expand...

well if you don't have two apple devices you should go with Dropbox
 
gloryunited said:
I remember Steve saying photos and videos don't count...
http://youtu.be/3lsMFzxtSZ8?t=1h50m20s

Perhaps I misunderstand Photo Stream Vs Camera Roll? :confused:
Click to expand...

photo stream is keeps the last 30 days or 1000 photos you take (whichever comes first) this is so you can download them to your other iDevices.

it is not permanent storage. the 5gb is permanent storage to back up your info to
 
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