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I'm still not entirely sure what iCloud actually is. It syncs ~/Library/Preferences? And it lets you redownload music? And I can remotely wipe my laptop I guess
by natesm 15y ago
I'm still not entirely sure what iCloud actually is. It syncs ~/Library/Preferences? And it lets you redownload music? And I can remotely wipe my laptop I guess?
But, what is the actual service here? I switched in on in System Preferences and it didn't really tell me anything, nor did I notice anything changing.
I do only have one Mac and zero iPhones though, so maybe it would be more obvious if I had more devices?
- shadowfiend 15y agoYes, it isn't useful if you only have one device. It is mostly a sync service. So it transparently synchronizes: - iWork documents - Contacts - Calendar - Music - Photos (the most recent 1000, I believe) - A few other things (don't recall everything) A few things worth mentioning: - Other app data can be synchronized if those apps make use of the newer Lion/iOS 5 APIs. I don't know if anyone does that yet. - Music is “synced” by re-downloading from the iTunes Store. You can sync non-iTMS music using iTunes Match, which will upload any music it fails to match with an equivalent song in the iTunes Store. This means you do not use iCloud storage space for songs that are on iTMS. These things are synced between iPhones, iPads, and Macs, with some support for the Apple TV (specifically, Photo Stream is also on the Apple TV). In addition, yes, you do have find my mac and find my iPhone as part of it, and there are web apps for your calendar and contacts.
- rdl 15y agoYeah, my problem with it is that no third-party apps make use of the APIs yet. I'd like 1Password using iCloud for sync, etc. (I have multiple OSX machines, an iOS iPhone 4, and an iOS iPad 1). Right now, dropbox API is the best alternative.