4 ms·

Coolest news for developers, there are APIs for this for use with third party apps.

ben1040 15y ago
This actually may solve some problems I had been trying to wrap my head around in an app I'm designing. The existing method of introducing documents into apps (using iTunes) really sucks, I wonder what the iCloud API will look like.
- jonhohle 15y ago
  If you are an iOS developer, the docs are up.
  - ben1040 15y ago
    Cool, I'll get a look. I got sidetracked by installing iOS 5 and then discovering something changed that is causing my existing apps to crash.
spitfire 15y ago
There was for mobileme too. Transmit would sync your settings across computers using mobileme. This seems to me like a very large relaunch of mobileme. Awesome, yes, but still just a relaunch.
- ugh 15y ago
  But you had to convince your users to sign up for something that costs $100 per year. Now it’s free and comes by default with any device running iOS. That’s a rather significant change. (Oh, and that functionality is now open to iOS developers which are a much bigger deal than Mac developers.)
mortenjorck 15y ago
This is massive news for any developers that were considering adding a sync feature to their apps. Even just local sync is a headache to implement from scratch, to say nothing of cloud sync – and what Apple just announced is a complete, unified solution from system-level APIs to servers, all ready-made and awaiting some Cocoa calls. (And not to gloat, but I pretty much called this a week ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2603921 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2603921 )
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Who wasn't calling it? Android has had this feature for over a year. Shocking, right? This is what Diaspora should have been at the base. (Note, Camlistore might be interesting for those interested in these sorts of things)
rsuttongee 15y ago
I agree that this is really cool, but I'm a little confused about the details. Surely they must charge the app developers for the space they use up in their new fancy (and expensive looking) data center? Steve said that app files didn't count to your personal 5GB storage, so where does apple recoup the costs?
- erikpukinskis 15y ago
  30%
- Someone 15y ago
  I do not know what Steve said, but the way you state it, "app files" could be the files in the application itself, not user files made by an app. For performance and robustness, they will have more, but they need only one copy of those on their servers, and it could be the one in the App Store. The costs of storing those are a) peanuts, if you are Apple, and b) possibly recouped by the $99 developer fee.
  - rsuttongee 15y ago
    You're probably right that "app files" they way steve mentioned is does refer to the data of the apps themselves which isn't a lot of data. I was more curious about data files that are used by an app (I'm assuming we can use the iCloud API to synch those between devices) - how is that paid for? does that count towards the 5GB limit? If so, can you get more space? at what cost? For example, right now GoodReader uses the dropbox API to allow cloud access to whatever documents you have, and I have several gigs of various .pdfs that I store there. With the iCloud API, can Goodreader abandon dropbox and let apple host them?
- jbrennan 15y ago
  They recoup the costs when you buy the highly marked up hardware. I know I've certainly bought enough of it over the years. Apple has incredibly high margins on these devices, and this service is to sell more of them. It's a brilliant plan and everybody more or less wins.

This actually may solve some problems I had been trying to wrap my head around in an app I'm designing. The existing method of introducing documents into apps (using iTunes) really sucks, I wonder what the iCloud API will look like.

jonhohle 15y ago
If you are an iOS developer, the docs are up.
- ben1040 15y ago
  Cool, I'll get a look. I got sidetracked by installing iOS 5 and then discovering something changed that is causing my existing apps to crash.

spitfire 15y ago

There was for mobileme too. Transmit would sync your settings across computers using mobileme. This seems to me like a very large relaunch of mobileme. Awesome, yes, but still just a relaunch.

ugh 15y ago
But you had to convince your users to sign up for something that costs $100 per year. Now it’s free and comes by default with any device running iOS. That’s a rather significant change. (Oh, and that functionality is now open to iOS developers which are a much bigger deal than Mac developers.)

mortenjorck 15y ago

This is massive news for any developers that were considering adding a sync feature to their apps. Even just local sync is a headache to implement from scratch, to say nothing of cloud sync – and what Apple just announced is a complete, unified solution from system-level APIs to servers, all ready-made and awaiting some Cocoa calls. (And not to gloat, but I pretty much called this a week ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2603921 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2603921 )

drivebyacct2 15y ago
Who wasn't calling it? Android has had this feature for over a year. Shocking, right? This is what Diaspora should have been at the base. (Note, Camlistore might be interesting for those interested in these sorts of things)

rsuttongee 15y ago

I agree that this is really cool, but I'm a little confused about the details. Surely they must charge the app developers for the space they use up in their new fancy (and expensive looking) data center? Steve said that app files didn't count to your personal 5GB storage, so where does apple recoup the costs?

erikpukinskis 15y ago
30%
Someone 15y ago
I do not know what Steve said, but the way you state it, "app files" could be the files in the application itself, not user files made by an app. For performance and robustness, they will have more, but they need only one copy of those on their servers, and it could be the one in the App Store. The costs of storing those are a) peanuts, if you are Apple, and b) possibly recouped by the $99 developer fee.
- rsuttongee 15y ago
  You're probably right that "app files" they way steve mentioned is does refer to the data of the apps themselves which isn't a lot of data. I was more curious about data files that are used by an app (I'm assuming we can use the iCloud API to synch those between devices) - how is that paid for? does that count towards the 5GB limit? If so, can you get more space? at what cost? For example, right now GoodReader uses the dropbox API to allow cloud access to whatever documents you have, and I have several gigs of various .pdfs that I store there. With the iCloud API, can Goodreader abandon dropbox and let apple host them?
jbrennan 15y ago
They recoup the costs when you buy the highly marked up hardware. I know I've certainly bought enough of it over the years. Apple has incredibly high margins on these devices, and this service is to sell more of them. It's a brilliant plan and everybody more or less wins.