Why do so few apps utilize iCloud

[WordMasterRice]

Tweetbot just added iCloud syncing in their latest update. Haven't had a chance to try it out though since I only have an iPhone 4S.

I turned on the iCloud syncing in Tweetbot and a day later turned it off. It just doesn't work as well as tweetmarker. The fact that iCloud does DM's and Mentions is a non-issue since half the time iCloud doesn't even work, or is too slow to be useless.

I had the same experience with Numbers and Pages, a lot of the time it just didn't work like it should have.

Photostream and automatic syncing of apps/music is a good idea but in app iCloud doesn't seem to work out so well.

 

[Menel]

I don't get it - it's been half a year since iCloud was introduced. Why do so few apps still fail to integrate iCloud? It's potentially a huge feature. Of all my apps, only the Apple apps, Goodreader and Infinity Blade 2 use iCloud. What's the deal here?

You can add...
SoundHound
Tapatalk
Batman Arkham Lockdown
Cut the Rope
Sprinkle

...Off the top of my head, maybe more on my device. Developers like Rovio that continue to refuse to support iCloud syncing and Universal app support, I refuse to support with my bank account.

Also some apps don't need iCloud, particularly apps that rely on their own account services like Trulia, Yelp, Pandora, DrawSomething, MapMyRun, etc.

 

[class77]

I actually preferred Mobile Me because it synced the only stuff I cared about being synced(iCal/ Contacts, Keychains/Mail/ Bookmarks) and it didn't demand that you had the latest OS.

I still don't know what I'm going to do after June with one SL iMac and a Lion mini that will be upgraded to ML ASAP

 

[irDigital0l]

Its up to devs.

 

[Xenomorph]

Having all my games save to iCloud would be awesome.

- Save on iPhone, continue on iPad.

- Wipe/restore device, NOT mess with restoring old backup data, STILL have my saved games in-tact!

Right now, jailbreaking is required to share game saves between devices or to selectively back-up game saves. (DataDeposit + Dropbox, both free.)

 

[3bs]

I turned on the iCloud syncing in Tweetbot and a day later turned it off. It just doesn't work as well as tweetmarker. The fact that iCloud does DM's and Mentions is a non-issue since half the time iCloud doesn't even work, or is too slow to be useless.

I had the same experience with Numbers and Pages, a lot of the time it just didn't work like it should have.

Photostream and automatic syncing of apps/music is a good idea but in app iCloud doesn't seem to work out so well.

I've been having the opposite problem. I keep turning off iCloud syncing in Tweetbot but it keeps turning itself back on and I see the ribbon icon in the corner. I even tried turning off syncing for documents and app data in iCloud settings but it kept happening.

 

[WordMasterRice]

That's strange, I haven't had any issues going back to TweetMarker for either the iPad or iPhone versions.

 

[3bs]

That's strange, I haven't had any issues going back to TweetMarker for either the iPad or iPhone versions.

I didn't use TweetMarker even before the update so I set Sync to None in Tweebot but it keeps going back to iCloud after a while.

 

[daiig]

don't know how accurate the info is but a game dev i questioned said if he implemented icloud saves then anything not running ios5 couldn't d/l the game.

 

[throAU]

Well, to put it simply, syncing. I want apps to do what the iWork apps do. I want to play a game on my iPad and pick up where I left off on my iPhone. Stuff like that. I know some apps do already provide iCloud integration, but nowhere near what I was expecting.

Icloud is still relatively new in software development terms, and there are plenty of users out there who don't have icloud support on their iDevice or computer.

Hence: motivation to implement = low. It will come, as more developers get their head around it, and lion / ios 5 gain more users.

 

[MattInOz]

I've read that the documentation for developers is pretty bad and/or nonexistent and so developers have to do extra work to dig around to figure out how to incorporate the service into their code. If this is true, why go through all of that trouble when popular syncing services like Dropbox are available and is already incorporated into your code?

This might be me being a newbie developer. I find there just isn't a clear expectation of how a good Document app should interact with the user. It seems like Apple isn't so sure themselves. There doesn't seem to be a good sample project so I find spending a lot of time doing what feel like re-inventing wheels.

 

[Arelunde]

Giving Apple the benefit of the doubt I'd like to think they'll soon begin to take iCloud seriously and work diligently to provide what they've advertised. Yet their track record of silence, hesitancy to listen to feedback submitted through proper channels, is discouraging.

Hopefully Apple will not fall too far behind, deluded by their own boasting of how many are already using iCloud.

You quoted my comment when you wrote this and I wanted to add I "cured" the problem I was having with email failing to sync between iPad2 and iPhone 4, although I don't know yet exactly what was going on. Here's a link to that thread...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1356462/

 

[ixodes]

You quoted my comment when you wrote this and I wanted to add I "cured" the problem I was having with email failing to sync between iPad2 and iPhone 4, although I don't know yet exactly what was going on. Here's a link to that thread...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1356462/

Thanks for the follow up post.

Glad to hear you're up and running properly

 

[VulchR]

I thought Apple released information that suggested that backing up data for app using iCLoud would not require rewriting apps.... I am not a dev, but it shouldn't be too difficult (unless Apple has made a pig's ear of it).

 

[libertysat]

I would welcome Pages on iCloud
Can not think of a good reason apple wouldn't have built it in from the get go

 

[Merkie]

For us it's really the issue with dropbox being a more popular option with customers, so we use our development time for that. Also, the integration with Mac OSx and iCloud just isn't seamless enough for most people to actually use it. If demand/use goes up and stability of icloud increases, we'll implement it.

iCloud and Dropbox are similar, but entirely different things.

 

[lecturenotes]

iCloud and Dropbox are similar, but entirely different things.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough.

Yep, I'm aware they're different, but we've found the general consensus is that most people intend to use icloud for file storage and wish it was more like a dropbox integration.

That was what we found, at least for the apps that we deal with. I do wish more apps used icloud syncing abilities though.

 

[Egish]

Calendar and Tasks expansion

1) It would be great to see the icloud just store docs, and allow us to have a 3 tier nested organization system at least. Folder 3 inside folder 2 inside folder 1 type of thing, where you can name them anything you want.

Collections, albums and photos does not go far enough nor match folder structures on PC My docs to sync. For photographers it is needed to help organize

2) For business docs... word docs, spreadsheets, presentations, pdfs, or whatever file type... I want to store them in one spot of course. Make it happen

3) for PIM apps like Pocket Informant better database expansion of contacts, tasks and calendar events. Giving us the ability to add tags, icons or categories to tasks and events to sync them from PI to the icloud. More and better APIs are needed to do this. Grow it

4) expand the contacts database to sync more fields. Make it more accesible for other apps to be able to use the contacts as a meta contact. Joe blow uses MSN, Yahoo and Google as instant messengers... Store their service accounts data in accounts and instant messenger stuff in Contacts. Yahoo messenger could use it rather than their additional address book. Same with MSN or GTalk. Universal access to Contacts

Apples messages could then utilize other services IM in their apps

5) store my notes as an AppleID rather than a Me.com email. Centralize and store all our stuff by our Apple ID. That Me.com idea is goofy

6) get itunes to be just music. Not file or app maintenace. That belongs in the icloud control panels or settings. All those decisions need to be removed. Music and tunes are one thing...


I want to standardize it on Apple's cloud. Keep it simple

And for crying out loud make a better itunes on the PC. It is junk and very slow. Store it in the cloud and be done with it