Need clarification/help with iCloud

[Long Johnson]

Hello, I am a mac newbie trying to fully understand how iCloud works under certain situations.

My Scenario:
1 iPad - Signed into my apple ID
1 iPhone - Signed into my apple ID
1 Windows PC - installed iCloud

When I back up my iPad or iPhone, does everything get transferred into the Windows PC? Ring tones? SMS? etc? How can I retrieve it?

I noticed there's a folder for photostream in my "My pictures" folder do pictures from my iPad and iPhone automatically download there?

I was backing up my iPhone (8 gigs of data) and it keeps on failing or getting stuck during the back up, I read up online on possible solutions and It said to delete the iCloud backup and re-backup the iPhone

Is there a guide that fully explains indepth the basic functionality of iCloud?

 

[Julien]

Hello, I am a mac newbie trying to fully understand how iCloud works under certain situations.

My Scenario:
1 iPad - Signed into my apple ID
1 iPhone - Signed into my apple ID
1 Windows PC - installed iCloud

When I back up my iPad or iPhone, does everything get transferred into the Windows PC? Ring tones? SMS? etc? How can I retrieve it?...

Depends if you are backing up to iTunes or iCloud.

Here is an iCloud guide that should have most answers.

 

[impaler]

Not everything gets backed up to iTunes, but most things do. I recommend enabling encrypted backups as well, which will also sync your saved passwords so you don't have to re-enter them all if you restore your phone.

For Photo Stream, yes, if you take shots on your iOS devices, normally they populate in that folder, but only when you're on WiFi with the iOS device - they don't push up to Photo Stream over cellular.