[RANT] iCloud sucks

[haruhiko]

iCloud doesn't do nothing for me that Gmail doesn't do when used on Exchange.

Try to use Google Sync (Exchange!) with your contacts.

See how much information can you sync with Google?

Most of them will be GONE. This is the limitation of Exchange (not Google).

I'm very pleased with Google Sync's Mail and Calendar

but I am greatly disappointed with the incapability of contacts syncing through Exchange. For example, you are not able to make a custom label to a phone number of your contacts.

 

[Night Spring]

Well, I think iCloud is more complicated for technical people than it is for "lay-people".

By that I mean:

A "techie" person has a business address book on exchange, a personal address book in gmail, and maybe a local address book on a computer or in a phone. The iCloud service only syncs one address book.

I totally agree about iCloud's being more complicated for techie folks.

However, I've found that I can sync multiple address books to my iPad -- just not through iCloud. For instance, I have an address book in iCloud, and another one on google. I set up iCloud on my iPad, make sure address book sync is set to on, and my iCloud address book shows up on my iPad. I then add my google account in Mail, Contacts, Calendar, turn on address book sync, and bam! My google address book is also on my iPad. You can even add multiple iCloud accounts this way. You can then link contacts together from different address books, and see them in a unified view, and if tou want, you can edit them at once. So if my friend Bill is in both my iCloud and gmail address books, I can quickly combine and unify the entries so they are the same in both places. Or if I want, I can leave them different, but see info from both at once. It's confusing at first, but once you get used to it, it's very powerful. But it sure isn't for the "lay" person, lol!

 

[Breckenridge]

iCloud does not work as it should when syncing images. For some odd reason I have to turn iCloud syncing off and then on periodically to get photos synced. Larger iPhone videos never make it to iPhoto unless I plug in. I've been using dropbox for years now and it just works like an apple products should. iCloud has been a disappointment for me so far when syncing photos and videos. Everything else is working like it should. I'm a huge apple fan but iCloud does suck for the time being and I say that just because of the fact that apple claimed that I would never have to plug into my computer ever again!!!

 

[baddj]

The only issues I am having with iCloud is the dam outgoing mail server p08-smtp.mail.me.com keeps failing.

And iOS will not let me add a secondry server has it just locked up setting.app and I have to kill it off in the multitasking bar.

 

[Obscurelight]

simple. Don't use it if you don't like it. I don't know how you have so many problems but I'm not much of a techie and I am very satisfied with what it does. Maybe iCloud isn't for your needs.

 

[silver8ack]

I was using Google Sync for a while. But I always had issue when adding/updating contacts that didn't contain an email address. Not sure if it was ever fixed but there was a limitation with google contacts with no email address when they were created/edited in iOS. so I ditched it and just synced to the iMac.

ICloud works great for contacts now. I can set relationships, custom fields. It's freakin awesome.

Calendars work great in iCloud for me. I'm not on lion yet but everything works great on all my iOS devices.

I do get a little annoyed with having to use iPhoto to use photo stream on the Mac. So I agree with OP there. But it's not a big deal. Setup iPhoto to use photo stream and export the dang album to a folder.

 

[austinguy23]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

If you have only one Apple product, iCloud doesn't provide much value as you can still perform auto-backups each night without using the other iCloud services. You may as well stick with your Google/Live/Yahoo services and just enable your nightly backups

 

[Brucewl]

I should to say that I have waste a lot of date on it.

 

[marksman]

Of course, everything I stated is user error...

Takes a big man to admit that in their own thread. Good for you!

 

[TLewis]

Contacts is the one good feature of iCloud. Not only does iCloud contacts allow you to have multiple contact groups, but you should really use iCloud contacts if you use or ever plan on using Siri.

Gmail is better than iCloud email:

• Gmail's search abilities are much more powerful than iCloud.
• Gmail filtering is a lot more powerful than iCloud's. Try writing an iCloud filter rule that causes your iOS device to not make a sound when email is pushed, yet still leave the message in your inbox (hint: you can't, although you can do this with gmail). This is really useful, as you can set things up such that "unimportant" email does not makes a sound when pushed. It's great for minimizing interruptions.
• The gmail web interface is pretty responsive. The iCloud web email interface can often appear slow and clunky.

On the other hand, google calendar and icloud calendar are fairly comparable, for most users. However, advanced users will find it easier to backup google calendar. You can also configure google calendar to have multiple reminders (via the web -- the iOS interface restricts you to only one ).

 

[Faux Carnival]

I don't like it either and I'm not using it, that's it. Still syncing contacts and calendar through Google Sync. It is at least compatible with all platforms, if I ever want to switch to Windows Phone 7 or Android...

 

[ERIC8585]

Apple faboys need to admit the truth that iCloud sucks. It is worse than MobileMe. You can't even store what you want on it. You have to store what Apple wants you to store. I've also noticed the photo syncing is screwed up. It syncs old photos that I deleted and not the new ones. Also you can't delete photos without resetting the whole thing. Oh and it isn't compatible with any other online calendars such as gmail's. You can't sync gmail calendar events from your iOS devices to iCloud.

 

[austinguy23]

Apple faboys need to admit the truth that iCloud sucks. It is worse than MobileMe. You can't even store what you want on it. You have to store what Apple wants you to store. I've also noticed the photo syncing is screwed up. It syncs old photos that I deleted and not the new ones. Also you can't delete photos without resetting the whole thing. Oh and it isn't compatible with any other online calendars such as gmail's. You can't sync gmail calendar events from your iOS devices to iCloud.

Well, it does suck that we cannot simply store pics on their servers indefinitely (even if we pay). I want my locker in the sky, damnit.

As for your remark about iCloud not working with Google Calendar, I don't get what you're saying. Just sync with Google Calendar on all your devices...

 

[ERIC8585]

Well, it does suck that we cannot simply store pics on their servers indefinitely (even if we pay). I want my locker in the sky, damnit.

As for your remark about iCloud not working with Google Calendar, I don't get what you're saying. Just sync with Google Calendar on all your devices...

Because I haven't figured out a way to sync google contacts with Outlook 2010.

 

[austinguy23]

Because I haven't figured out a way to sync google contacts with Outlook 2010.

Then the blame for that should be aimed at Google, not Apple.

 

[ERIC8585]

Then the blame for that should be aimed at Google, not Apple.

Maybe so but iCloud is still garbage.

 

[MythicFrost]

I use iCloud and it's brilliant. All my bookmarks, contacts, calendars, etc., are all sync'd across my devices. My 4S backs up to the cloud and PhotoStream keeps my photos on all my devices (a month for iDevices).

I don't really know what anyone doesn't like about it. It hasn't advertised anything it can't do and what it does offer for FREE is pretty great, such as what I wrote above: bookmarks, contracts, and calendar syncing, backing up, etc.

 

[saving107]

I don't really know what anyone doesn't like about it. It hasn't advertised anything it can't do and what it does offer for FREE is pretty great,

I think you need to visit http://www.nooneiseversatisfied.com

(not a real site, just trying to be funny)

 

[MythicFrost]

I think you need to visit http://www.nooneiseversatisfied.com

(not a real site, just trying to be funny)

Haha, I only realised what you meant by that after it wouldn't load. I thought you meant a joke/troll site, rofl.

 

[saving107]

Haha, I only realised what you meant by that after it wouldn't load. I thought you meant a joke/troll site, rofl.

Even at FREE, no one is ever satisfied.

Same as people complaining about Facebook changes, its a free service that no one is required to use but everyone does and complain when they implement new changes/features, yet they continue to use the FREE service.

 

[vitzr]

It's far too early to judge iCloud. If one takes into consideration the significant amount of work involved in transitioning users from MobileMe to iCloud, I think Apples done an admirable job. Any new product or service is going to have some bugs, iCloud has been quite good thus far. Give Apple a reasonable amount of time to sort it out and suddenly iCloud will look good.

 

[The Phazer]

It's far too early to judge iCloud. If one takes into consideration the significant amount of work involved in transitioning users from MobileMe to iCloud, I think Apples done an admirable job. Any new product or service is going to have some bugs, iCloud has been quite good thus far. Give Apple a reasonable amount of time to sort it out and suddenly iCloud will look good.

Most of the work involved in the transition seems to have been rebranding and then removing features.

I don't think they've done a very good job at all, especially given they broke out of the standard release cycle for iOS5 as they were obviously running late.

Phazer

 

[drsox]

IMO these are all issues with iCloud 1.0. Wait till iCloud 3.0 is done and I'm confident all will be a lot clearer and easier.
We users will be smarter and Apple will have had more time for tweaks etc.

 

[VulchR]

Well, I wish Apple had built on MobileMe rather than introducing a whole new service that has fewer features than the old one. Also, there is the complication that Apple hasn't yet completely sorted the problem when an AppleID is not the ID for a given user's iTunes account.

Yes, iCloud works (for most people anyway). However, it is far from an elegant solution. Call me a fanboy, but I do expect that Apple will refine both iCloud and Siri to the point most users will find them useful and transparent. I just don't understand in the first place why Apple took so long to release a new phone with software that is essential in beta form. I'll be patient, and see what Apple comes up with, but I won't be amused if they fail to make progress on Siri (like, a UK version...) and iTunes (allowing us to combine our ApplieID with our iTunes ID so there is only one ID).

 

[The Phazer]

IMO these are all issues with iCloud 1.0. Wait till iCloud 3.0 is done and I'm confident all will be a lot clearer and easier.
We users will be smarter and Apple will have had more time for tweaks etc.

Isn't the whole point of using Apple kit that you don't have to wait two versions for it not to be a badly documented, opaque user experience?

Phazer