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xxmarkc

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 17, 2011
65
13
... treat the cloud like a file system (i.e. hierachical folders) and can only access it through native apps? What happens it I want to store a .zip file on the cloud, a text file, an excel spreadsheet, a powerpoint presentation etc etc.

Currently I am a happy camper with all my content stored locally and backed up to USB drives. However I would like:

i) an offsite backup
ii) syning accross devices
iii) ability to access a very small subset of my data form anywhere

I am trying to get my head around what iCloud really gives me. I think it really only gives me ii), and iii). I don't think the iCloud helps with i) at all.

My conclusion is that nothing for now will give you all three, i.e. you need to combine iCloud with either iDisk (for a year) or DropBox to get all three.

Have I missed something?
 

SirithX

macrumors 6502
Feb 21, 2007
434
135
San Francisco
It does automatic mobile device backups if you choose, for your iPhone and iPad. But yeah, as far as I know it doesn't sync with Time Machine or anything like that quite yet.
 

PNutts

macrumors 601
Jul 24, 2008
4,874
357
Pacific Northwest, US
Yeah, everyone is trying to get their head around this. I'm backing up in both iTunes and iCloud until I get more comfortable with it. http://www.apple.com/icloud has a ton of information. So much that it's a bit overwhelming.

iCloud gives you:

i): Your iDevice is backed up to the cloud and you can perform a complete restore (reimage not selective).

ii). Your documents and more sync across your iDevices.

I'm not aware of any way to do iii) and others have posted it isn't possible. I assume you mean grab a certain document from a pc/mac browser. It's a synchronization tool as opposed to a file cabinet.
 
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