Can someone explain iCloud to me?

[ajgrant]

I got a new iPhone 5S today, and the girl at the store installed iCloud. I've never really used it, so can someone explain how it works exactly?

Since I upgraded from the iPhone 4, are they somehow connected now through iCloud? And can someone just explain how it essentially works?

I have a MacBook also, so how can I utilize that with iCloud?

 

[kingalexthe1st]

Think of iCloud like a small backup drive, owned and run by Apple, with a few tricks up its sleeve.

In its crudest form, it backs up your data so you can either recover it in the event of you needing to wipe your phone, or if you buy a new phone. For example, on your new iPhone did you have to put in all your contacts' information again? If you didn't, and they are already there, that's because the information was sent from your old phone in to iCloud (at Apple) and then sent to your new one. Your phone will continually back up this information, and more, unless you tell it not to for whatever reason.

Some of the more clever features involve your Mac. If you take a photo on your iPhone then it will appear in iPhoto on your Mac moments later, as the photo has been sent to your iCloud account and then pushed to your Mac (you may need to set this up though, I'm not sure if it's set by default). The idea is that you don't need to play with wires or imports anymore, it just sorts itself out for you in the background.

Maybe some people here can elaborate on some more uses of iCloud, but I hope this has given you a general idea.

Alex

 

[dictoresno]

I got a new iPhone 5S today, and the girl at the store installed iCloud. I've never really used it, so can someone explain how it works exactly?

Since I upgraded from the iPhone 4, are they somehow connected now through iCloud? And can someone just explain how it essentially works?

I have a MacBook also, so how can I utilize that with iCloud?

why dont you start here....

http://www.apple.com/icloud/

 

[robgendreau]

I wouldn't bother with it; it's basically a "free" cloud service for sharing, storage, email, calendars and contacts. If you've got that stuff already there probably isn't any advantage to using it. It integrates heavily, and by that I mean heavy-handedly, with many Apple apps. And most of that is useful, maybe, if you own a Mac computer. If you haven't needed it before now you probably don't need it now.

IMHO it's junk compared to services, even free services, that others provide. And as you can see from posts here it may be more trouble than it's worth to you (for example, contrast the nude-photo-of-ex post here to the advice about the merits of iCloud photo sharing). The part of iCloud that allows finding your phone is probably the only really decent feature.

 

[Rossdillon]

Not entirely junk...

I find it really useful in:

• Sharing Safari favorites and bookmarks across devices
• Providing a list of open Safari pages on/across all iCloud-connected devices so they can be immediately accessed on another device
• linking calendars and contacts