Thursday, November 10, 2011
iCloud: Not worth any more of my time
I'm simply going to ignore iCloud as another inadequate calendar-sharing solution for now -- even between iPhones. My results have been inconsistent and frustrating. If any iCloud fans out there wish to defend it, contact me directly or comment here. For now, I don't recommend it. And I'm not alone.
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4 comments:
I wouldn't exactly call it a defense, but I think you expected too much of iCloud. It's clearly not a cross-platform product. It syncs Apple calendars between iOS devices and OSX 10.7 devices, that's all.
I say this as a happy, devoted Mac user from way back; I currently have iCal calendars that sync between iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iMac, MacBook, and iCloud seamlessly. But there's one golden rule you have to understand if you want to play in Apple's yard:
You Do Things the Apple Way, or You Don't Do Them At All.
What other service do you use? Google Calendar?
I recommend checking out Skedi Family Calendar in the App Store, even for personal use. It combines my Google Calendar events with my wife’s Microsoft Exchange events, so we always know each other’s availability. My wife can also assign tasks and activities to me, which she loves. I can’t do without it now.
I am cross platform (windows 7, iPhone, iPad) and I must say I am thrilled with iCloud. I run 3 businesses, go to school and manage a household schedule using it. The key to being successful with iCloud is to understand how each device interacts with it. The idevices (fortunately) won't let you do things you shouldn't be able to do. Windows, however, doesn't "check for duplicates" the same way so if you create a subgroup (in your contacts folder for example) you can't just drag and drop contacts to add them to other subgroups or they will get deleted. I log into the iCloud webapp directly if I have to manage anything like that. The only other thing to note is that iCloud manages reminders completely separately from the tasks or calendar items. If you need to be reminded of something, you set it up under reminders, which in Outlook comes up under tasks. Other than that I have had resounding success with all of my iCloud products including calendars (a total of 5), contacts (managed using 3 subgroups), tasks (which even set off reminders properly), reminders and even online backups.
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