Do I need iCloud?

Demapples · Oct 15, 2011

I've got iCloud running on my iMac and iPad, and will soon have an iPhone, but do I need iCloud, or is a Mac-centric approach better for me?

Advantages of iCloud:
Making a change in one calendar, address book or reminders list reflects immediately in the others, without having to wait until I get home to sync up via the iMac.
Can use my calendar, address book and email on any computer away from home by signing into my iCloud account, but I rarely need that.
Can take a photo on one mobile device and it appears on the other, but I could just email them to myself.
Wifi backups - but unlike wired backups to my iMac through iTunes and manually, not everything gets backed up.
If I go on a trip with only my mobile device and the device bricks, I could get up and running with again by restoring through iCloud, presumably.
The iCloud Webmail interface is light years ahead of my service provider's, and being imap allows me to set up mail folders.

Disadvantages:
Seems more complicated than a Mac-centric approach, but maybe I need to get further up the learning curve.
Backing up my data is more complicated: see Apple - Support - iCloud - Backup
My stuff is in the cloud, not at home.
Still have to hook up to iTunes on the iMac for some sync chores, like photo albums and my music.
Still finding options I need to adjust to smooth out wrinkles.

CrimsonRequiem · Oct 15, 2011

It's an option. You can choose to use it or not.

Demapples · Oct 15, 2011

CrimsonRequiem said:
It's an option. You can choose to use it or not.

That's why I posted this -- trying to get options clear to make the chioce.

baggss · Oct 15, 2011

Demapples said:
I've got iCloud running on my iMac and iPad, and will soon have an iPhone, but do I need iCloud, or is a Mac-centric approach better for me?

Advantages of iCloud:
Making a change in one calendar, address book or reminders list reflects immediately in the others, without having to wait until I get home to sync up via the iMac.
Can use my calendar, address book and email on any computer away from home by signing into my iCloud account, but I rarely need that.
Can take a photo on one mobile device and it appears on the other, but I could just email them to myself.
Wifi backups - but unlike wired backups to my iMac through iTunes and manually, not everything gets backed up.
If I go on a trip with only my mobile device and the device bricks, I could get up and running with again by restoring through iCloud, presumably.
The iCloud Webmail interface is light years ahead of my service provider's, and being imap allows me to set up mail folders.

Disadvantages:
Seems more complicated than a Mac-centric approach, but maybe I need to get further up the learning curve.
Backing up my data is more complicated: see Apple - Support - iCloud - Backup
My stuff is in the cloud, not at home.
Still have to hook up to iTunes on the iMac for some sync chores, like photo albums and my music.
Still finding options I need to adjust to smooth out wrinkles.

It's not nearly as complicated as it sounds but there is a bit of a learning curve. You can use the cloud and still keep a copy of the cloud on your Mac at home as a backup. I do. The advantages far outweigh the the disadvantages (if they really are that even) IMO.

Slydude · Oct 15, 2011

I am making the switch from MobileMe to iCloud. If Apple had not introduced iCloud I would have kept paying for MobileMe even though I did not use all of the features.

Yes, I know I could have cobbled something together for less probably but it just never seemed to be with the time.

mknightretke · Oct 15, 2011

If, like me, you just have a Mac and an iDevice, then I don't think there's much point to iCloud. I set it up anyway on my iPad, but it's not even compatible with Snow Leopard, so I turned off pretty much everything and have been doing wi-fi syncs instead. That's a feature I really love.

If you have an iPad and an iPhone or something, then iCloud would start to become really useful. Getting content from device to device has always been a huge pain. I guess it would be useful if you had a Mac with Lion too, but from what I've heard, the desktop integration of iCloud isn't much even then.

chas_m · Oct 15, 2011

I think what mknightretke was trying to say there is that if you are already running Lion and have more than one Apple device, iCloud is useful. If so, he's correct.

iCloud does INSTANT push syncing of calendars, contacts and email (and bookmarks, but they don't mention it much). That's HUGE. It's the number one reason people paid for MobileMe but now they don't have to pay anything, PLUS you get an ***AD-FREE*** email address that people can actually remember. I personally think that's a BIG selling point right there.

On top of this, all my iTunes purchases are backed up and can be re-downloaded if I ever lose them for free?? Yes, please and thanks!

The new Photo Stream may not be the same as MM Gallery (which I'll miss when it goes offline in June), but OTOH photo stream allows me to "store" up to 1,000 of my most recent pictures on all my devices without me having to do anything. That too is pretty nice.

Basically what I'm saying here is, presuming you have more than one Apple product and are running Lion/iOS 5, why *wouldn't* you use iCloud??

osxx · Oct 16, 2011

As the others pointed out more advantages than disadvantages .

mknightretke · Oct 16, 2011

Thanks chas, and sorry if my post was confusing - I'm going on 40 hours awake! iCloud is great for someone with 2 or more iDevices and/or a Mac with Lion. And it's free, so there's really no reason not to get it.

Mini_mi · Oct 16, 2011

I switch over from Mobile Me. Took only a few minutes and now I have all the features and don't have to do anything more. A few minutes effort

Demapples · Oct 19, 2011

Update: not sure I need iCloud, but it sure is growing on me as I get used to its ways.

bobtomay · Oct 19, 2011

Question for those that have made the switch from Mobileme - do you still have all 5 of your .mac/.me email addresses and the ability to manage them. Or do you lose all of them except the primary login address?

newscribe · Oct 19, 2011

Hi,

As has been said definatly a very useful addition and free. Just your time and a few clicks, but really not a complicated as it seems.

chas_m · Oct 19, 2011

bobtomay said:
Question for those that have made the switch from Mobileme - do you still have all 5 of your .mac/.me email addresses and the ability to manage them. Or do you lose all of them except the primary login address?

Bob: good question. I have five of them but I only ever really used three of them. My email inbox (quick check) tells me that at least two of them are still in use, so I'm going to say yes, you keep all five of them.

bobtomay · Oct 19, 2011

Thanks chas:

I've sort of been holding off until I understand how the changeover addresses this as I have at least one there that I use strictly for signing up to places where I can delete it and set up a new one when the spam gets to be too much.

And have a couple of others I really don't want to lose - at least not yet.

baggss · Oct 19, 2011

bobtomay said:
Question for those that have made the switch from Mobileme - do you still have all 5 of your .mac/.me email addresses and the ability to manage them. Or do you lose all of them except the primary login address?

If there is a way to manage them, I have not found it on iCloud yet...

I can still manage them through MobilMe though.
EDIT: Actually, I can't control it thru MM. Can't enable/create the 2 remaining addresses I had on my pack and can't edit the existing ones. I can manage my Apple ID is all, can't manage the other 2 existing ones.

Steppy · Oct 19, 2011

iCloud confusion

Hi

First poster here

Following on from the original posters question, I too am a little confused about iCloud.

I turned off iCloud backups quite soon after i upgraded to IOS 5 because I nearly used my 5GB FREE space, plus it took a long time.

Currently I sync/backup wirelessley to my iMac which is great, but I have just found out this afternoon by accident, that although I have iCloud backup turned off, my contacts are still being stored in iCloud.

I am not using my @me address yet, just my Gmail, so that is taken care off by Gmail

How can this be?

Thanks

baggss · Oct 19, 2011

Make sure that having your contacts on iCloud isn't enabled on your iMac. The backup isn't all that is shared and you can control a lot of it from your Mac. I don't use iCloud backup but I share my contacts, e-mails, bookmarks and documents via the cloud, none of which are part of iCloud backup.

Since the iCloud backup of your iPhone is going to backup every thing on your iPhone it could potentially take up an equal amount of space as the drive in your iPhone. If you don't want to use the space, keep it synced to the machine vice the cloud.

Steppy · Oct 20, 2011

baggss said:
Make sure that having your contacts on iCloud isn't enabled on your iMac. The backup isn't all that is shared and you can control a lot of it from your Mac. I don't use iCloud backup but I share my contacts, e-mails, bookmarks and documents via the cloud, none of which are part of iCloud backup.

Since the iCloud backup of your iPhone is going to backup every thing on your iPhone it could potentially take up an equal amount of space as the drive in your iPhone. If you don't want to use the space, keep it synced to the machine vice the cloud.

I thought that if I turned off iCloud backup then that was it.. everything was handled by my iMac, but it appears that contacts, bookmarks & docs (in my case) are still looked after by iCloud. I will have a look tonight as the settings on my iMac as I think I would rather have everything backed up in one place.

The current settings I have explain why if I make changes to contacts on my iPad they dont appear on my iMac, but if I makes changes on my iMac, they appear on my iPad.... then go up to iCloud from my iPad... very complicated :Oops:

I did look at the settings in iTunes for contacts back up, but when I ticked for them to be taken care of by iTunes I got a warning that they were currently taken care of by iCloud and I could end up with duplicates, so I decided to leave well alone. The last thing I want to do is loose all my contacts. Unfortuantley I still have a Blackberry and I am keeping that out of the loop to avoid further complications..... iPhone 4S soon (I hopes

)

Thank you for the tips.

Do I need iCloud?

Demapples

CrimsonRequiem

Demapples

baggss

Slydude

Well-known member

mknightretke

chas_m

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osxx

mknightretke

Mini_mi

Demapples

bobtomay

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newscribe

chas_m

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bobtomay

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baggss

Steppy

baggss

Steppy

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