Windows XP Users Will Finally Need To Upgrade To Enter The iCloud

Windows XP Users Will Finally Need To Upgrade To Enter The iCloud

This got a bit lost amid all the WWDC 2011 hubbub earlier this week, but Apple quietly delivered a bit of bad news to steadfast Windows XP users with its iCloud announcement.

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Some of the comments are ridiculously flawed and a bit hilarious.

No one I know uses Windows XP and iTunes. They've upgraded to Vista or 7. Or a Mac.

Thought process of someone who wants to use iCloud, but only has a Windows XP PC:

1. Really like the sound of iCloud...
2. Blast! It won't work on my PC!
3. But, Windows 7 wouldn't run on this old beast...
4. Not that I'm totally convinced it's not just basically Vista with a new skin, anyway...
5. But I really want iCloud, it looks so good!
6. So do the rest of those Apple programs, actually...
7. In fact, that whole "Lion" operating system looks pretty amazing!
8. And, I have been meaning to get a new, more powerful computer...
9. I'm gonna buy a Mac!
X: *Customer Satisfaction*

I'm disappointed to hear that iCloud wont work on Windows XP as a large proportion of businesses are still using XP so I wont be able to access things at Work. I assumed that the iCloud would be on the Internet and wouldn't be restricted by a computers operating system - or am I missing something?

HelpdeskRules said:

I assumed that the iCloud would be on the Internet and wouldn't be restricted by a computers operating system - or am I missing something?

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Yes and no...

The service is, obviously, hosted entirely online - and so, in that regard, only reliant on your internet connection - but, you still need the appropriate Apps on your PC/Mac to access it, and those have only been made compatible with the most "contemporary" OSs - i.e. only Windows editions with the NT6.x version kernel, which limits it to Vista or 7, and Mac OS X back to the last major kernel refresh at 10.5 Leopard.

And, I actually honestly think this isn't just some petty trick to force users of old Macs to upgrade (& tempt users of older PCs to switch to Mac) - I think it's necessary because of how interconnected the computers & the iCloud service will be. PCs & Macs were always fundamentally just end-point terminals in the "old" WWW, but with the advent of cloud computing they're becoming an integral part of the Web, and I can see why Apple would want to optimise this new service by not letting it get bogged down by the slower data-transfer capacities (& generally older hardware) of Macs running 10.4 Tiger or earlier / PCs running XP or earlier.

I would be willing to bet if Microsoft was going to maintain full support so would everyone else but since they are pushing for upgrades and who can really blame them
and so will everyone else.

Why would a business want music delivered to it's computers? Right now iCloud is mostly to sync your iTunes songs and app store stuff with all your Registered computers.

I use a Wondows XP computer at work. If I can access the web client portions of iCloud with Google Chrome, I'll be fine. I don't need the other features on my work computer.

dtravis7 said:

Why would a business want music delivered to it's computers? Right now iCloud is mostly to sync your iTunes songs and app store stuff with all your Registered computers.

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Yes, for now...

But the real idea is that eventually everything should be shared & synced through iCloud; Music, Documents, iOS Apps, Mac Apps, even personal settings...

Much of that functionality would be very useful to a business.

iHarrison said:

Yes, for now...

But the real idea is that eventually everything should be shared & synced through iCloud; Music, Documents, iOS Apps, Mac Apps, even personal settings...

Much of that functionality would be very useful to a business.

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I don't think businesses want their most personal documents in the cloud. I really don't.

J.Fo said:

I use a Wondows XP computer at work.

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wow, is that the knock off version?

in all seriousness, I find it quite strange that businesses are still running XP. In fact, my workplace recently installed an entirely new POS system last month, and i was there seeing it being installed. Turns out they all run XP, and "Windows Embedded", whatever that is.

I even asked the engineer why, and he just said "dunno, we just do. Its the way it is."

I just find it a bit crazy that an OS as old as that is still used today, and probably relied on much more than the other two.

It also seems that MS have obviously messed up down the line...

Really things are advancing so fast, business's should upgrade. XP is getting older and older and many up coming apps are not going to support it. Windows 7 is a very solid OS so I think it would be good to upgrade. Vista freaked a lot of people out. Glad 7 came out when it did.

Plenty of businesses are still in a recession. Beside the fact there really isn't the money to upgrade everyone, the old XP machines still do everything that is required for the vast majority of them.

iHarrison said:

Yes, for now...

But the real idea is that eventually everything should be shared & synced through iCloud; Music, Documents, iOS Apps, Mac Apps, even personal settings...

Much of that functionality would be very useful to a business.

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While that sounds nice the reality is that companies are increasingly securing their networks behind multiple layers of firewalls, encryption and smart card or other smart technology log ins for the their employees. They don't want their employees "sharing with the cloud" unless it's their cloud and they control the contents. On top of all of that they don;t want them utilizing their bandwidth on their network and internet drops, no matter how speedy they may be, to swap song, pictures or anything else that is unrelated to the workplace environment.

Since Apples market push has yet to include one into the business market the reality is this won't impact most businesses. Sure, it might annoy their employees, but they can do what they want on their own time, not the companies. Keep in mind, the whole world doesn't revolve around social networking and sharing your feelings with the world. Business is business and while there ARE legitimate uses for this technology most companies would rather create their own or contract this out and Apple isn't high on their list of people to talk to.

robduckyworth said:

in all seriousness, I find it quite strange that businesses are still running XP. In fact, my workplace recently installed an entirely new POS system last month, and i was there seeing it being installed. Turns out they all run XP, and "Windows Embedded", whatever that is.

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It runs devices like bar code scanners etc.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/windows-embedded.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded

robduckyworth said:

I even asked the engineer why, and he just said "dunno, we just do. Its the way it is."

I just find it a bit crazy that an OS as old as that is still used today, and probably relied on much more than the other two.

It also seems that MS have obviously messed up down the line...

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They save money. Buy cheap hardware and move the licensed seats to them for next to nothing. This is pretty common and many businesses do this as long as they can. The real departure that will force this issue is when MS no longer makes Office compatible with XP. THAT is when everyone will finally start to upgrade en-mass. Until then, why spend the money when the single most used product still works just fine on XP SP3....?

bobtomay said:

Plenty of businesses are still in a recession. Beside the fact there really isn't the money to upgrade everyone, the old XP machines still do everything that is required for the vast majority of them.

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I agree but some seem to think Apple should support XP forever. They are moving on and it's not Apples fault that iTunes runs on Vista or above if you know what I mean.

dtravis7 said:

Really things are advancing so fast, business's should upgrade. XP is getting older and older and many up coming apps are not going to support it. Windows 7 is a very solid OS so I think it would be good to upgrade. Vista freaked a lot of people out. Glad 7 came out when it did.

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There is, in addition, a potentially huge cost to migrate an enterprise to a new operating system. Especially when moving from a 32bit OS to a 64bit. This may well require a ton of time rewriting custom programs to function in the new environment. This sort of change, especially in larger organizations, tends to be rather glacial. Many times you'll see businesses move to a new OS as the standard desktop OS (servers will go first) shortly prior to EOL. After all, prior to EOL there is still support in regards to security updates etc.

Now, third party vendors? Yea, I'd ditch support as soon as I could on a deprecated OS.

In case anyone's wondering, we've already passed end of mainstream support for XP (April 14, 2009 ), but yet to hit end of extended support (April 8, 2014)... why is this important in this discussion? Simple, extended support is only available to commercial customers.

Chris H. said:

I don't think businesses want their most personal documents in the cloud. I really don't.

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Well, it is all something like 256-bit encrypted; so, unless you're willing to wait around a few million years to brute-force decode the data, or drop a couple of billion on a quantum computer, just to crack a company's sales figures, it's pretty secure...

robduckyworth said:

I just find it a bit crazy that an OS as old as that is still used today, and probably relied on much more than the other two.

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You think it's bad that offices still use XP? Some airlines still use Windows 3.11 on their in-flight entertainment centres!

Gotta love monolithic legacy systems...

robduckyworth said:

It also seems that MS have obviously messed up down the line...

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Apparently, the sky's blue too... ;P

dtravis7 said:

Really things are advancing so fast, business's should upgrade. XP is getting older and older and many up coming apps are not going to support it. Windows 7 is a very solid OS so I think it would be good to upgrade. Vista freaked a lot of people out. Glad 7 came out when it did.

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Why stop at Windows 7? OS X has some pretty nifty business networking & POS systems for it these days ;D

iHarrison said:

Well, it is all something like 256-bit encrypted; so, unless you're willing to wait around a few million years to brute-force decode the data, or drop a couple of billion on a quantum computer, just to crack a company's sales figures, it's pretty secure...

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Yes, but considering past hacks into Apple's servers...while minimal...

baggss said:

While that sounds nice the reality is that companies are increasingly securing their networks behind multiple layers of firewalls, encryption and smart card or other smart technology log ins for the their employees. They don't want their employees "sharing with the cloud" unless it's their cloud and they control the contents.

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I agree with you on this one. Corporations aren't going to use third party "cloud solutions" when they can maintain their own and have total control over how it is administered and how it is accessed.

As for consumers who likely don't need to stay with XP (as opposed to businesses), I can't sympathize with complaints that support won't be extended to them. XP is almost 10 years old and at some point, one can not justifiably complain that their consumer OS is no longer supported. An OS can't be supported forever and for consumers, who have relatively simplistic needs compared to corporations, that time is up.

vansmith said:

I agree with you on this one. Corporations aren't going to use third party "cloud solutions" when they can maintain their own and have total control over how it is administered and how it is accessed.

As for consumers who likely don't need to stay with XP (as opposed to businesses), I can't sympathize with complaints that support won't be extended to them. XP is almost 10 years old and at some point, one can not justifiably complain that their consumer OS is no longer supported. An OS can't be supported forever and for consumers, who have relatively simplistic needs compared to corporations, that time is up.

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Agreed 100000%! VERY well said.