iCloud. What is it and what can you eat it with?

On October 12, Apple launched the long-awaited iCloud service. I propose to understand in detail what's what.

So, iCloud is a cloud service from Apple that allows you to synchronize various types of information between devices (PC, Mac, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad). It requires iOS 5, Windows Vista SP2/7, OS X 10.7.2. There is also a web version at , but more on that later.

Possibilities

— iTunes in the cloud. Allows you to automatically download purchased music, applications or books to any of your devices. There will probably be a video in the future.
— iTunes Match. If you have a large amount of music and do not want to buy it from iTunes, then this function will come in handy. iTunes Match scans songs from your library, if it finds a match, it uploads a song from the iTunes Store to the virtual library. If it doesn’t find it, it copies the song from your computer. In total, you can save up to 25,000 songs. The cost is $25/year, and this is the only paid option in iCloud, besides purchasing additional space.
— Photostream. Taking photos with your iPhone is actually easier than carrying a camera with you all the time. And since the camera allows you to take good quality photographs, many people take photographs with it. But what if you need to transfer photos to your computer/iPad/Apple TV? This is where Photo Stream comes in handy - after a photo is taken, it is automatically uploaded to Photo Stream and transferred to other devices. Storage of up to 1000 photos is available, new ones are overwritten in place of old ones. All photos are stored on the computer, not just 1000. And absolutely nothing needs to be connected anywhere, you only need the Internet.
— Documents in the cloud. Imagine this situation: you have a working file (document/presentation/spreadsheet) that needs to be uploaded to an iOS device, but you don’t have iTunes at hand. And this is where iCloud comes to the rescue. We go to the iWork section of the website, upload the file to the required application, go to this application on iOS and after a couple of seconds the document is on your device. And you don’t need any more quickoffice and crutches for it in the form of dropbox. Everything is convenient and simple. When you edit a document on iOS, its “version” is automatically updated on all iOS devices and in the iCloud web version. So no changes to the document will be lost.
— Backups. For me personally, this is the most important and necessary thing in iCloud (besides the previous point). You no longer need to connect your phone to iTunes every time in order to make a backup copy and not lose all your data. Thanks to iCloud, backups are created automatically when connected to a charger and Wi-Fi connection is turned on. What is included in the iCloud backup: device settings, location of icons on the screen, messages (iMessage, SMS, MMS), application data, photos and videos taken on the device’s camera, ringtones, purchased music, programs, books and TV shows.
— Mail, calendars, reminders, contacts, notes, bookmarks. When creating an account in iCloud, you can create a mailbox like What is its charm? The fact is that iCloud email accounts are the only ones that have instant push notifications when a message arrives on the server. Synchronizing calendars, reminders, contacts, notes and bookmarks will allow you to keep all your information up to date on any device.
— Find Friends and Find iPhone. The Find Friends service allows you to see your friends' locations on the map (if they have allowed it) and get directions from your location to them. And “Find iPhone” shows the location of the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch or Mac on the map. If you lose your device, you can remotely block it or display a message on the screen asking you to contact you.

Migrate from MobileMe to iCloud

When moving from MobileMe to iCloud, a small part of the former's capabilities will be lost. These features are: iDisk, gallery, publishing sites to iWeb, synchronizing Dashboard widgets, keychain, Dock items and system settings. I don’t know the statistics, but synchronizing the keychain, settings and iDisk was quite useful.

During migration, these options disappear, so if you need them, but you don’t have analogues, don’t rush to migrate. MobileMe accounts are valid until June 30, 2012. After this period, the service will cease to exist.

It is worth noting that when migrating from MobileMe to iCloud, you are given an additional 20GB of space for 1 year for your data.

Setup and use

Let's start with the web version. Its interface is almost identical to the interface of these applications on iOS.

There are 5 main points here:

Mail. Your email account on me.com. You can call it a web version of the Mail client on iPad.

Contacts.

Calendar.

Find iPhone (in my opinion, it’s time to rename the service to find device).

iWork. You can upload your iWork, MS Office documents and they will automatically appear on iOS devices. Documents can be edited on a computer only after downloading and opening in an office suite. On iOS, documents are edited and loaded back automatically as you work with them.

When you make changes to the web versions of the calendar, contacts, mail, all changes instantly appear on the iOS device. And vice versa.

You can also delete photo stream data in the web version. To do this, you need to click on your account in the main menu, click Advanced, then Reset Photo Stream.

Setup on OS X and Windows very simple - we turn on the necessary services and the service itself starts working and synchronizes everything.

For OS X, as I said at the very beginning, you just need to update the system to version 10.7.2. But with Windows it’s a little more complicated.

Firstly, there is no support for Windows XP. Secondly, you need Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7 with MS Office 2007/2010 installed. Earlier versions are not supported.

Setting up on iOS no less simple - we update the device to iOS 5, go to Settings - iCloud, set the slider in the necessary services to the “On” position and agree to the enable request.

A backup can be created in two ways: either automatically, while on a Wi-Fi network and connecting the device to charge, or manually.

It is possible to select applications for which you need to copy data.

If the standard 5GB of space is not enough for you, you can purchase additional space. My backup copy of 1 device takes up 170-200 MB on average, so I don’t see any need for additional space.

Tariff plans are as follows:

$20/year – 10GB;

$40/year – 20GB;

$100/year – 50GB.

If you want a refund, you have 15 days to contact Apple.