One of my jobs that I enjoy down here in Key West is doing the on-site consultations for customers. This usually involves riding my motorcycle to some beautiful location to visit a customer in their home. I always ask these customers to make a list before I come so that we can take advantage of my time with them. Almost every one of them will have questions about iCloud including the most common question: “Why should I care about iCloud?”
As you know, as an Apple Developer, I use advanced versions of the operating system from time to time. The latest version of Yosemite has the new “Photos” app which I promise I will cover in a future issue but it also triggered iCloud Photo Library. This allows you to keep your entire library, including photos and videos, stored in the cloud and up to date on all your iOS devices and on iCloud.com. So, once I had my photo library in the cloud, of course, I had used up my free 5GB of iCloud storage and had to sign up for more so iCloud was on my mind as I sat down to write this issue of Kibbles & Bytes.
Apple has built and is building huge data storage facilities all over the world to support iCloud. One of the most amazing part of this process, aside from simply the enormous magnitude of the project, is that Apple has committed to power these sites with renewable energy, thus significantly reducing their carbon footprint. iCloud was introduced in 2011 and has hundreds of millions of users now.
iCloud gives you the means to store data such as documents, photos, and music on remote servers to download to iOS devices, your Mac, or your Windows PC. It also allows you to share and send data to other users and supports Find my iPhone, iPad, etc. to locate and manage lost devices. It also allows for wireless backup of iOS devices to iCloud instead of manual backups.
Here’s a run-down of some of the features of iCloud:
- Your stuff everywhere! Access your purchases from iTunes, the App store, or iBooks store on any of your devices and download past purchases anytime.
- iCloud Drive: You can safely store all kinds of documents in iCloud and then access them from any of your devices or by surfing over to iCloud.com.
- Family Sharing: One of Apple’s greatest utilities, Family Sharing allows up to six family members share their iTunes, App Store, or iBooks purchases without sharing Apple IDs. You can pay for family purchases with the same credit card and approve kids’ spending right from an adult’s device. Grace and I love Family Sharing since we always are trying to share music and books.
- Mail, contacts, calendars, notes and reminders are all up to date on all your devices: With iCloud if you set it up on each device and you can access them anywhere through iCloud.com
- Find my iPhone: Well, I talked about this already but let’s say you forgot your iPhone in a cab. Find my iPhone uses iCloud to locate the iPhone and you can do that from iCloud.com or another of your devices. Once found, you can use Activation Lock or remote wipe to secure that iPhone.
- Productivity in the Cloud: With Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iCloud beta, you can create and edit spreadsheets, presentations, or documents right on iCloud.com and then use the same documents with the Pages, Numbers, or Keynote apps on your other devices or your Mac.
- Bookmarks: You can see the web pages you have open on your Mac or iOS devices (your iCloud tabs). You can read articles from your Reading List even when your are offline. And, most usefully, you have the same bookmarks on all your iOS devices or your Mac or Windows PC.
- iCloud Keychain: We talked about this last week. Keep your passwords, credit card information and more up to date on all your devices.
- Backup!: You can never have too many backups. iCloud automatically backs up your iOS device daily over Wi-Fi when it is turned on, locked and connected to a power source. If you ever need that backup you can use your iCloud backup to restore that iOS device or set up a new one.
- Back to My Mac: This is a handy one if you travel and do not want to take your Mac with you. You can securely connect your Mac to the remote Mac over the internet, then share the screen or files of your remote Mac.
With all of these features, it is good to get a basic understanding of iCloud. It is one of those things that you will soon forget about but will wonder how you ever did without it! Think of all the millions of people around the world using iCloud and you will understand why Apple is building these gigantic server farms to handle the data.