Alongside iOS5, Apple has rolled-out its new cloud service, iCloud. Its previous offering, MobileMe, never really took off, partly because of a rough start, but mostly because it was too expensive and it didn’t offer everything the ordinary consumer needed. Now, it seems Apple might have gotten sync done the right way. Let’s take a look.
To start, iCloud is a way of getting all your content on all your devices. It automatically syncs to the cloud your photos, music, apps, documents, e-mail, contacts, calendars, to-do lists, etc. Starting now, it comes enabled in all Apple devices — you will need iOS5 installed on your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, the latest Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 update on your Mac and the latest iCloud Control Panel update on your Windows PC.
If you own an Apple device, you probably already have an Apple ID, which you use to log in and make purchases on iTunes. So, just log in at www.icloud.com to get started, or use the iCloud option in the Settings app on your iOS device. If you had just bought a new iThing with iOS5, no worries. In the initial setup, you will be prompted to create a new Apple ID so you can enjoy this as well. All users get 5GB of free storage in iCloud upon signing up.
MobileMe users will have to migrate their accounts to iCloud in order to start using it. You keep your e-mail, contacts and calendar from the old service, but iDisk, Photo Gallery, iWeb publishing and some sync options (keychains, Dashboard widgets, Smart Mailboxes, Signatures and others) are gone. So if you use any of these services, please think a bit before moving, as there is no way back. Migration is painless, just a few mouse clicks and it’s done. And as a bonus, Apple gives a nice 25GB storage to all former MobileMe members for one year ($40/year renewal).
Once you are in, you will have the option of activating each one of the new services:
- Mail & Notes: existing MobileMe members keep their me.com address. The rest will be able to create one.
- Contacts: sync your contacts wirelessly across all devices.
- Calendars: the same for calendar events.
- Bookmarks: likewise. But it only works with Safari.
- Photostream: push photos from one device to all the others.
- Documents & Data: start working on a document in one device and edit it in any other one. This requires app support, and for now, only iWork for iOS has it.
- Back To My Mac: an old MobileMe friend. This allows easy remote access to your Mac from anywhere in the world.
- Find My (device): once limited to iOS devices, the location service is now available on Macs as well.
Let’s talk about each one of these.
iCloud Mail, Notes, Contacts, Calendars and Bookmarks
These are old friends of MobileMe users and they are now available for free to everyone. The idea is simple: just keep everything synchronized wirelessly and seamlessly. MobileMe did it, Google does it, and iCloud doesn’t stay behind. Activating these requires no configuration at all, apart from ticking the buttons in the control panel — no setting up servers, ports or other technical nonsense that users shouldn’t worry about.
For bookmarks, it only works for Safari on the Mac. On Windows, you may choose between Internet Explorer or Safari, but not Chrome. That limits the usefulness of this feature for a lot of users.
Within the Apple ecosystem, it works brilliantly. If there is a Windows PC in the middle, well, Outlook might bork some fields in the contacts. But other than that, it works as well.
iCloud Photostream
This is by far the best feature IMHO. I take a picture, and within seconds it’s available in Photostream, and thus, in all of my devices. No more connecting to iPhoto to import pictures. The reverse is true as well — I import some photos from my DSLR into iPhoto, drag some to the Photostream and they are almost instantly available on all my iPad for viewing. Having all the photos I want everywhere is very convenient.
iCloud Documents & Data
This is only working on iWork for now, but that gives an idea of the potential if all app developers adopt this. The concept is simple: you are editing a document on Pages at the office on your Mac and save it to iCloud. Then you go to a meeting carrying your iPad, open Pages and continue from where you stopped. Any changes done on the iPad are saved on iCloud, so when you are back to the office, the document is already updated again on your Mac. Here is an illustration using the iPad and iPhone — I edited the document on the iPad, saved it and almost immediately it starts updating the copy on the iPhone. Neat, huh?
iCloud and Back To My Mac
Another old friend of MobileMe users, but it seems to be working better now. Back To My Mac allows you to connect to your Mac from wherever you may be (over the internet). I use it when I am on the road to remotely get files from my workstation in my office. Now, with iCloud, it features a handy Apple ID login option.
iCloud and Find My <device>
Originally a MobileMe-only feature for finding stolen/lost iPhones, it evolved and can track your Macs as well. As usual, you may lock, wipe and send messages to your lost device as long as it is online.
Other iCloud features
Besides that, there are some features that were already available at the iTunes Store and the App Store, which allows us to download our previous purchases on any of our devices sharing the same Apple ID, plus the Automatic Downloading option, which automatically pushes to all devices an item you have purchased in one of them. This is good for music, books, videos and apps bought from Apple. The obvious consequence is that this acts as an automatic backup of your digital media and this does not count towards your storage quota.
Another feature is backup of your iOS devices. You may either chose to backup via iTunes, as always, or have it done wirelessly on iCloud. This is as easy as tapping a button on iOS.
You can also choose what to backup as well, app by app. Of course, if you have too much content to backup (say, a nearly full 64GB iPad), you will need a fast connection to do this.
Managing the storage can be done directly from iOS devices, no PC needed. You can even buy more storage directly from your iThing. Alternatively, this can also be done from the iCloud panel in System Preferences on the Mac, or from the iCloud option in Control Panel on Windows.
iTunes Match
There is one more thing… Apple also announced a feature called iTunes Match, which will roll out in late October. For $25/year, iTunes will scan your libraries for all songs, including your ripped CDs, and automatically add them to iCloud (as if you bought them via iTunes Store). The ones it doesn’t find will get uploaded to the cloud. All matched songs are also updated to 256kbps AAC, DRM-free files if you wish, for free. Once all your music is in iCloud, you get the same benefits from it as if they were bought via the iTunes Store. This is probably the coolest feature of iCloud and I’m looking forward to get it working here.
And that is iCloud — seamlessly, wireless access to all your content everywhere, with very minimum setup required. To be perfect, it is only missing video support, IMO.