Apple are investing $billions in their new data centre in Oregan, to supplement the one they already have in North Carolina. They want us to store all our media - music, videos, documents and even our holiday photos - in the massive iCloud.
iCloud was launched amidst great fanfare in October 2011, replacing the little-lamented MobileMe service, which itself replaced dot Mac, which itself replaced iTools.
Each of those services proved a failure - and, if Apple don't do something very quickly, then iCloud will go the same way.
While I fully accept that what follows is simply one user's experience, a quick search of the web will confirm that I am far from unique.
It is confusing
iCloud is (partly) integrated into Apple's iLife and iWorks apps. Sadly that integration is patchy and inconsistent. So, for example, in iPhoto some - but not all - of my photos can be stored in Photostream. Only 1000 photos can be stored and they are only stored for 30 days. In iMovie, however, there is no option to store any movies in iCloud. In iTunes, everything I have ever purchased is available to re-download. In the iWork apps, I can choose what I want to store up to the capacity limit of my storage.
And it is SLOW!!!
On the adverts (with a tiny disclaimer that the sequence has been shortened) - and in Tim Cook's keynotes, photos sync across devices instantly. In my experience, it can actually be several hours before they sync - if they ever do. On my iPhone, it says I have 1000 pictures in my PhotoStream. There are, for example, five which I took at Manchester Cathedral last Friday. Only two of those have synced across to iPhoto on our family iMac.
And it is BUGGY!!!
I have just opened Pages to edit a document which is stored in iCloud. I navigated to the document which I could see clearly in the Open sheet. I clicked on the document and nothing happened. I repeated the process three times before giving up and going into iCloud through Safari, downloading the document, editing it locally and printing it.
And it is COMPLICATED!!!
If I create a document in Pages on the iMac and save it to iCloud, if I try to open it on the iPad or iPhone, I get a warning that it will be changed, with a suggestion that I should open a copy. So I end up with two versions of the same document. If I create a document on the iPad, it seems to depend on the weather as to whether the document will open on the iMac or not. More often than than not, despite the promise of integration, I end up having to open it by downloading it in Safari.
And iTunes Match DOESN'T!!!
For those who don't know, iTunes Match is a brilliant idea - especially for someone like me, who has lots of Vinyl, cassettes and cds which I have digitised myself. iTunes match examines your iTunes library and matches songs to those already stored by Apple in iCloud. Only those which it does not already have are uploaded to the iCloud servers.
All your music is then available across all your iDevices - and where it is Apple's high quality version, you can replace all your old scratchy vinyl with shiny new high quality versions.
Except that it doesn't work. After three attempts to examine my library - and eventually tying up our iMac for four days - it did produce results. Which made absolutely no sense. Albums which are fully available in the iTunes Store were uploaded. Some albums were matched - apart from a single track. Others have matched side one, but uploaded side two. Some perfectly legitimate tracks were labelled as "ineligible" while others which I fear my daughter may have 'obtained' have been matched or uploaded perfectly.
There is no option to re-scan your library - or manually to correct errors.
And when you turn on iTunes match on your various devices, it seems entirely random as to whether it works or not.
Deborah's iPhone 4S actually worked perfectly. All our music is visible - and will stream or download as required. My iPhone 4 worked at first, but since 'upgrading' to iOS 6.1.2 it simply refuses to sync with iTunes match. I am going to have to restore it - failing which it means a trip to the Apple Store. The original iPad worked first time, whereas the iPad 3 took four or five attempts to get it working.
And I am NOT an ISLAND!!!
When I create a document, there is a good chance I will want to share it with someone in one form or another. Oh, I know I can email it - but if it is a Keynote presentation, it is probably too big to email. In Dropbox (there, I've said it), I right click on the file and choose share - and send a nice little email to anyone I want to share the file with. They click on a link and it takes them to the file. Or I can make it public.
In Google Drive (which, I admit, is getting worse with every upgrade), I can even share a document so that we can work on it collaboratively.
In iCloud, if I create a document - say a JPEG - in a compatible app, I cannot then edit that document in a different app.
And did I mention how SLOW iCloud is?
We sometimes wish to show videos in church. Sadly, I no longer have a laptop, so I usually prepare these on the iMac. Paste it into a Keynote, save to iCloud and open it on the iPad connected to the projector and Bob, as they say, is your mother's brother.
Just don't try doing that in a hurry.
If the file is bigger than a few megabytes, it will probably fail anyway, but even if it works, it will take hours - or even days.
The same file will upload to Dropbox in a couple of minutes - and can then be downloaded in the same couple of minutes.
So, does anything work?
Well, Calendar and Contact syncing - the main reason I had MobileMe - is considerably less buggy than it was with MobileMe. Of course, I cannot share my diary with a non-iCloud user as I used to be able to via Google Calendar - and I still get the odd missing or duplicate item, but on balance this is an improvement.
Interestingly, although I've never had to use it 'in anger' Find my iPhone works pretty well - as does Find my Friends
And, given the total inability of my iPhone to play any music at the moment, it looks as though I am going to find out whether the iCloud backup and restore service works.
