Well, hoping that maybe a day of rest and reconsideration would clarify the mysteries of the new Macintosh OS and its wondrous new iCloud. Instead, it’s just brought on more iFog.
Yesterday two different One-on-One tutors at the Apple store led me to believe that you could transmit your photos, which are collected curiously as “events” over which you have little organizational control in a program called iPhoto, to iCloud. Apple’s answer to cloud computing, iCloud supposedly allows you to “sync” your devices. I specifically asked if I understood correctly: that if I organized my photos in X manner on, say, the iMac, they would show up the same way on the iPad and the MacBook Pro. Yes, I was told; and if I add a photo to iPhoto on the MacBook or snap a picture with the iPad’s camera, it will be visible on the other two devices.
Well. Not even remotely what I thought I was getting, but kind of kewl.
So it would seem. Not.
Today I wasted the entire day organizing photos in the Mac’s infuriatingly illogical iPhoto system (which gives you “events” that correspond roughly with analog film rolls and which can be manipulated, added to, subtracted from, and renamed, but which can NOT be made to appear in any order that makes logical sense to the human mind except through time-consuming, painstaking manual dragging and dropping. Tested the theory that this activity would be reflected in iCloud, which is connected and operating with all three devices, and hence on the other two gadgets.
No. It is not true that any such “sync” occurs. Nor does it appear that this is just little me: far more hard-core Apple Fanpersons express similar frustration.
Nor is it true that, as Apple states on its Website touting the iCloud’s features, “you can access your mail, contacts, calendar, and documents — ad-free — from any computer at icloud.com.” This is false because you cannot back up documents to iCloud unless they were produced in an Apple program. Most of us who use our computers for business purposes create and use MS Word and MS Excel documents, Microsoft Office being the lingua franca of the business world.
IMHO, if iCloud has any utility, it’s for Apple hobbyists. For the rest of us, it’s a waste of time and money. What exactly the point is escapes me, when we have services like DropBox that will run seamlessly with iPhoto.
As for the documents that iCloud refuses to store, I’m signing up for Carbonite. If we’re going to pay for a cloud utility, might as well pay for one that works.
That notwithstanding, it must be said that a shiny new 27-inch iMac is a gorgeous piece of furniture.
😀
Yes, I am having similar issues with the iCloud. I do have a little advantage as my son-in-law is an Apple Genius. Actually the head genius at his store. But since he lives in a different state and I don’t like to impose, I still try to work through this stuff on my own. And then if I throw up my hands in defeat he asks “why didn’t you just call me?”
well. You do hafta admit that the Apple Geniuses themselves are extremely cool. Even kewl. It’s not their fault the corporation they’re working for has sold out to capitalism. 😉