What Does iCloud Mean for You?

On Friday October 14th Apple will launch its new iCloud service. iCloud will revolutionize the way we think about what we have and what we share with the world. Lets look at some of the ways that iCloud will affect our lives.

It's free and it's optional

If you own an iOS device, iCloud will be a free service once you upgrade to iOS 5 (a free upgrade that will also be available on Friday October 14th). If you own a Mac that is running Max OS Loin, you can  use the iCloud service as well. There are some rumors out there that Mac computers running Snow Leopard will also be able to use the iCloud service via a free update to Mac OS 10.6.9 but there has not been an official annoouncement about that yet. There is no obligation to sign up for the free service. The iCloud service will also work with Windows Vista/7.

You can synchronize everything, some things or no things.

Maybe you don't want all your pictures on all your devices. Maybe you don't want all your music on your iPhone. Maybe your not comfortable putting anything in the cloud.

There are a few things to remember:

• The iCloud service does not make any of your information available to any one except you and your devices (unless of course you opt to share your stuff with family and friends). Apple devices have great security that run the entire gamut from device to data to network and back to the other device. You don't have to worry about the security of your data. Apple has excellent security protocols. Unless of course the FBI has a subpoena for your information (but that is a whole different issue).
• The service is optional. You don't have to use it at all if you don't want to
• You can choose to use some things and not others. Maybe you want to sync your music but not your photos, or maybe you only want your contacts and e-mails synced; iCloud will do that

How your Contacts, E-mail, and Calendars will work

This is the most incredible and useful feature of iCloud in my opinion. How many times have you tried to contact someone and realized that his or her address or e-mail is saved at home, or at work, or on your phone, or anywhere that you are NOT at that time !?!

• with iCloud enabled, any new contact or updated contact will be automatically uploaded to the cloud and wirelessly pushed to all of your devices. So if you update contact information on your iphone, it will be automatically updated on your iPad, iPod Touch, your MacBook Pro, and your home computer. And here is the cool thing; if you are using iOS devices with your PC, your contacts will be updated in Outlook!
• The same goes for your e-mails but only if you are checking the same mail accounts on all or your devices. Some people check their work e-mail account with their iPhone and home account with their desktop at home. Incidentally, your iOS devices and your home PC or Mac can be set up to check multiple mail accounts. You just need to make sure that they are set to leave messages on the server so nothing gets automatically deleted from your mail server.
• Your calendar events will also be automatically pushed to all of your devices.

Many of us have been doing this kind of synchronization manually for a while so it might take some getting used to. But in the end it will be an enormous time saver.

How your music will work

Here's the easy part. Any new song you purchase on iTunes will be downloaded to all your iOS devices over Wi-Fi or 3G. That's really cool. but what about your current music collection? Well, if you purchased your music from iTunes, it will be available for free download for all of your devices now. If you want to upload all of your music collection to the cloud so it will be available to all of your devices whether you purchased them from iTunes or not, then you will need to subscribe to the iTunes Match service which costs $24.99 per year and has a 25,000 song limit. But here is the good news; if one of your songs matches a song available on iTunes, it will not count against your storage limit.

How your pictures will work

Again, here is the easy part. Any new picture you take with your iOS device will automatically be pushed to all of your other devices via the iCloud service. This includes the Apple TV. This means if you take a photo with your iPhone at the ball park, you will be able to watch it on your HD TV with Apple TV the moment you walk through the door without syncing. iCloud will hold up to 1000 pictures for 30 days to give you time to sync them to all of your devices (i.e. turn them on or access a wireless hot-spot for you Wi-Fi only people). If it is on an iOS device you can put it in an album to save it permanently; if it is a Mac or PC computer, they will all be stored permanently in the "Pictures" or "My Pictures" folder respectively. So far this only applies to photos that you take or import from this day forward; no word yet on photos that are already in your library.

How you documents will work

The iCloud service will sync your documents to all of your devices too, but only those documents that you create or edit in iWorks (such as Pages, Keynote, or Numbers). The iCloud service is available for use by third-party developers so we will soon be seeing this functionality with other programs too. (We will keep our fingers crossed for use in Microsoft Office soon)

How Books and Apps will work

All of the iBooks and Apps that you buy from now on will be synced across all of your devices. iCloud will even remember which page of the book you were on when you left off reading the last time. Previous purchases will now be available to all of your devices as well.

Some extra cool stuff

There are new features in iCloud that utilize the GPS capabilities of iOS devices such as "Find my Friends" and "Find my iPhone"

• Find my Friends allows you to share location data with your friends. This is great for use at theme-parks or ski resorts when you want to coordinate with each other. This service can be turned on and off at your leisure. It is also a good way to track your kids if the have iOS devices. Parental controls will allow you to restrict the use of this feature for your kids.
• Find my iPhone works for all iOS devices with Wi-Fi or 3G. It allows you to locate a lost or stolen device. You can  lock a device or remotely wipe it if necessary. It also works for lost or stolen Macs running OS Lion.

Tips, Tweeks and Things to keep in mind

• This might be a good way to share photos with close family members that live far away. Apple allows you to authorize up to 5 devices on the same iTunes account, so you could let Grandma log into you iTunes account and she will automatically get all the photos you take.
• If you are going to be shuffling devices and computers around, keep in mind that Apple will only allow you to associate a computer or device to a particular iTunes account every 90 days. So if you associate a device with a particular iTunes account, it will be 90 days before you can assign that computer or device to a different iTunes account.
• If you and a family member are already sharing an iTunes account, Your future purchases are going to be merged. In other words, if your wife buys a new hip-hop album on iTunes, it's going to show up in your iTunes library even though you are a strait Jazz fan.

All in all this is going to change the way we use our computers. It will also change the way we think about files and data so weather you're ready or not, it's time to jump on the bandwagon.