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I say this as an Apple fan who uses almost exclusively their devices: iCloud is hot garbage. It mostly works if you stick to the default settings and use it for

I say this as an Apple fan who uses almost exclusively their devices: iCloud is hot garbage. It mostly works if you stick to the default settings and use it for nothing but passive device-backup and photo-backup for a single iPhone. Anything outside of that is a mine-field of login errors, sync issues, totally unconsidered use-cases, functionality that's simply broken (not just under special conditions; flatly broken), etc.

Frost1x 6y ago
General purpose automated storage solutions are in general hot garbage. There is so much context around what to store and what not to store, how long to store it, and how important information is for a user willing to expend and prioritize resources that it's highly variable and subjective on a per person basis. "Cloud" storage services have taken the "save everything, worry about it later" approach since context is an issue and people are paying for this lack of data storage understanding with service agreements for never ending storage demands. It's one thing to setup backend infrastructure and manage the storage transparently to the user for your application needs--you're the developer, you understand the context of what is and isn't important in the frame of the application. Here's a case of even that shooting developers in the foot.
- brundolf 6y ago
  I've never had a problem with Dropbox. In fact I'm extra glad to have it with my iPhone, because it backs up my photos in a way that I actually have confidence in. Unfortunately it can only do so while the app is open, because iOS doesn't expose a third-party API for doing photo backups in the background.
  - tokamak-teapot 6y ago
    If you give it Location access it wakes up as you move around and does a little backing up until the OS puts it back to sleep. I hardly ever open the Dropbox app manually but I see my photos from my phone appearing in Dropbox when I check on other devices. Slightly delayed (a day maybe) but that’s fine. It’s just for backup. You can check that Dropbox is trying to do this by looking for the ‘Improve Background Uploading’ setting in the app’s settings page, and enable Location access in the OS settings for the app, if that makes sense!
tracer4201 6y ago
I use iCloud for the passive device backup and never had any issues. Occasionally I might log in from another non Mac machine to pull down PDFs or other files. What specifically are your use cases? I imagine the majority of Apple customers are probably doing what I’m doing. I wonder if your use cases are what Apple is trying to solve for.
- matwood 6y ago
  iCloud is a lot like Maps (and in some cases Siri). It was rough, but has gotten much better.

Frost1x 6y ago

General purpose automated storage solutions are in general hot garbage. There is so much context around what to store and what not to store, how long to store it, and how important information is for a user willing to expend and prioritize resources that it's highly variable and subjective on a per person basis. "Cloud" storage services have taken the "save everything, worry about it later" approach since context is an issue and people are paying for this lack of data storage understanding with service agreements for never ending storage demands. It's one thing to setup backend infrastructure and manage the storage transparently to the user for your application needs--you're the developer, you understand the context of what is and isn't important in the frame of the application. Here's a case of even that shooting developers in the foot.

brundolf 6y ago
I've never had a problem with Dropbox. In fact I'm extra glad to have it with my iPhone, because it backs up my photos in a way that I actually have confidence in. Unfortunately it can only do so while the app is open, because iOS doesn't expose a third-party API for doing photo backups in the background.
- tokamak-teapot 6y ago
  If you give it Location access it wakes up as you move around and does a little backing up until the OS puts it back to sleep. I hardly ever open the Dropbox app manually but I see my photos from my phone appearing in Dropbox when I check on other devices. Slightly delayed (a day maybe) but that’s fine. It’s just for backup. You can check that Dropbox is trying to do this by looking for the ‘Improve Background Uploading’ setting in the app’s settings page, and enable Location access in the OS settings for the app, if that makes sense!

tracer4201 6y ago

I use iCloud for the passive device backup and never had any issues. Occasionally I might log in from another non Mac machine to pull down PDFs or other files. What specifically are your use cases? I imagine the majority of Apple customers are probably doing what I’m doing. I wonder if your use cases are what Apple is trying to solve for.

matwood 6y ago
iCloud is a lot like Maps (and in some cases Siri). It was rough, but has gotten much better.