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I don't understand iCloud?

K

kart

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 16, 2011
202
96
AU
:confused::confused:

Ok, I do feel kind of silly asking this, but I have never really thought about how iCloud actually works. With the new iPhone 4S due to come out next week, I am wondering, can I purchase the 16gb 4S and save a bit of coin. I have only ever had 32gb iPhone’s due to having 30gb of audio, apps, and movies on my iTunes. So here’s the bit I don’t really get….If I purchase a 16gb iPhone 4S, will I be able to have all of my 30gb of iTunes data continuously on the 16gb? Or do I have to keep singing in to my iTunes account to access the Cloud? Does the cloud use wifi or 3G to sync all the new music, and listen to it, or is it fully wireless? I understand I am going to have to pay the small fee to use iCloud due me having over the 5gb free limit, this doesn’t bother me..
To me, the concept doesn’t really make sense, but that would be because I don’t really understand the fullness the service has to offer…..
 
falconman515

falconman515

macrumors 6502a
Jun 8, 2010
578
36
I'm am wondering the same thing.

I am using a 32 gig and it's not enough so I am thinking of going to the 64gb model but if iCloud can hold most all of my pictures and some music etc. I don't thinkn iw I'll have a need for the 64 and I could just stay with the 322gb model.

Please let us know so we can make a correct educated decision on our next purchase. I will be preordering on Friday so I need to get as much info as possible by then.

Thanks so much.
 
Macsterguy

Macsterguy

macrumors 6502a
Jun 5, 2007
707
25
Texas
I can understand your confusion...

• iCloud will hold, stream and sync your music, both purchased and ripped, to you over wifi and 3G. Not if you have no connection like say on a airplane...

• iCloud will hold, stream and sync your last 1000 pics (as far as we know). Gallery is gone, this to me is the biggest bummer :(

• iCloud will hold your documents (for now, apple type files only). iDisk is gone - bummer #2

For me, Video is key. If you are going to keep lots of video on your phone (like my beautiful grand daughter) go with bigger storage... Having to much storage is never going to be a problem.

I would imagine that the 32GB is going to be the sweet spot.
 
J

Jay0911

macrumors member
Oct 5, 2011
35
11
NYC
Is it really streaming though as was in beta 6, because I'm running the GM and it seems like every time I click a song it looks like it stores to my device because the download icon goes away. Also Apple said in the conference that it will "stream and intelligently store it on your device...and cache the songs we listen to the most." Can someone please explain this?
 
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G

gta50419

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2010
432
0
I don't get it either..
So can you listen to songs on your iCloud without being connected to 3g or wifi?
and put as many songs as you want without taking up space?

If it requires us to use 3G or WIFI it's useless.

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[/COLOR]
Macsterguy said:
• iCloud will hold, stream and sync your music, both purchased and ripped, to you over wifi and 3G. Not if you have no connection like say on a airplane...
Click to expand...


so you have to have access to 3g or wifi at all times to listen to songs on the cloud? That sucks.

well yeah iCloud seems pretty useles unless your always in a wifi area 24/7 or one of the few lucky people who have unlimited data.
 
K

kart

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 16, 2011
202
96
AU
Good to see I'm not the only one that doesn't get the concept.

Does anyone know if once you have somehow gotten the stuff from the cloud to your iPhone, if you have to keep singing in, or it is automatically always there, just like the current iPod app?
Getting say 30gb of data from the cloud, would that seriously mean you have to download (3G/Wifi) to get it all, because, that would be very hefty if you're not on an unlimited data or wifi plan.

Still serious confusion of the iCloud..
 
D

dsq

macrumors newbie
Sep 25, 2011
5
0
i thought icloud is just a storage system like dropbox. whenever you want to access a particular file (song, document, photo etc), you just stream/download it onto your device (either your iphone or your computer).

so if you wanted to play a particular music album on your iphone, you just access the album on icloud and it will stream/download the album into your iphone. and once you are finished listening to it, you can delete it from your iphone or keep it in your iphone so you don't have to stream/download it again.

please correct me if i'm wrong, but that's the assumption i had when i read about icloud.
 
T

thelookingglass

macrumors 68020
Apr 27, 2005
2,203
682
dsq said:
i thought icloud is just a storage system like dropbox. whenever you want to access a particular file (song, document, photo etc), you just stream/download it onto your device (either your iphone or your computer).

so if you wanted to play a particular music album on your iphone, you just access the album on icloud and it will stream/download the album into your iphone. and once you are finished listening to it, you can delete it from your iphone or keep it in your iphone so you don't have to stream/download it again.

please correct me if i'm wrong, but that's the assumption i had when i read about icloud.
Click to expand...

that's basically it, but there's no real streaming unlike Pandora. The music just downloads on to your iDevice.

As for the other stuff, iCloud is a service that syncs your data among your different iDevices and Macs. For example, i'm on iOS 5 GM right now and I've got calendars, contacts, mail and photostream all synced across my devices. Make a change on one device and it automatically appears on another device.

I think things will get a lot more interesting once developers incorporate the iCloud API into their apps. You could theoretically play a game on one device and pick right up where you left off on another, etc.
 
H

hafr

macrumors 68030
Sep 21, 2011
2,743
9
As far as I've understood the whole thing, you download the song you want to listen to, and you can listen to it over and over without having to download it over and over. But if you close the Music app, the "cache" will be cleared and if you want to listen to it again you have to download it again.

Haha, everyone seem to have their own ideas on how this work :)
 
djrod

djrod

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2008
1,012
33
Madrid - Spain
hafr said:
As far as I've understood the whole thing, you download the song you want to listen to, and you can listen to it over and over without having to download it over and over. But if you close the Music app, the "cache" will be cleared and if you want to listen to it again you have to download it again.

Haha, everyone seem to have their own ideas on how this work :)
Click to expand...

Nope, the music stays on your device until you manually delete it
 
G

gta50419

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2010
432
0
eh so basically iCloud is useless :(
I'll try it out when it comes out but i thought the songs would use NO SPACE at all. And would play without using any 3g data.

knew this was too good to be true lol
 
Senseotech

Senseotech

macrumors 6502a
Nov 23, 2009
785
28
NC
gta50419 said:
eh so basically iCloud is useless :(
I'll try it out when it comes out but i thought the songs would use NO SPACE at all. And would play without using any 3g data.

knew this was too good to be true lol
Click to expand...

How is that even technically feasible? If it doesn't use local space, its remote media and requires data. Thats like technology 101, theres no way to magically have all your files with you and yet taking up no space locally. Physics itself would take issue with that.
 
H

hafr

macrumors 68030
Sep 21, 2011
2,743
9
gta50419 said:
eh so basically iCloud is useless :(
I'll try it out when it comes out but i thought the songs would use NO SPACE at all. And would play without using any 3g data.

knew this was too good to be true lol
Click to expand...

Wait, what? Are you serious when you say you thought that iCloud would give you access to remote files without using any data?

Obviously it's not a music streaming service like Spotify, ergo the need to save the songs locally on your iPhone to play them. It would be sweet to be able to have the option to choose (as you do with Spotify). But it's just impossible to access remote files, either for streaming or for saving them locally, without using any data.

If you don't want to use 3G data, just change your content whenever you have access to wifi. Simple solution to that problem :)
 
M

Minicube

macrumors regular
Jun 5, 2011
158
1
From what I gathered, iCloud would also find a girlfriend for you automatically via your iPhone. You can choose hair color, body type, etc. from convient pull down menus. It's a win-win.

But seriously, I haven't a clue about iCloud either; I think Apple sort of dropped the ball on this. They glossed it over with generalities, but no one seems to know the particulars. Let's hope we find out soon; I need to move a companies calendars from MobileMe to iCloud, and have no idea where to start.

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niksimpsons said:
Hey Guys,

I have one great news for you that iCloud is going to launch very soon and as many of us I also wanted to know what exactly iCloud is? So after searching web found some good points about the same and that I want to share with you, may be they help you understand more: http://drive-recovery-mac.blogspot.com/2011/10/mac-os-x-lion-icloud-1072-about-to.html
Click to expand...

Aside from not being written by a native English speaker, this link also is very general in content. Maybe we're all jumping the gun, once iCloud is released (TOMORROW!) all the confusion will vanish.
 
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