No PDFs, No Co-editing On Underwhelming Apple iCloud

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's iCloud service has been a little overlooked in the bunfight for the iPhone 4S. When it was first announced some predicted it would wipe out companies like Box.net, DropBox and so on. As the NYTimes put it, "Maybe Apple will kill them all.' Box.net's CEO disagreed and it looks like he was right. You can't store PDFs and images on iCloud except with PhotoStream, there's no co-editing, and the document management interface is a shambles."

Comments

It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[OS24Ever]

Never in any presentation did apple commit to any of those features.

It's a personal sync service, backup service.

That's it. It's storage somewhere, it's a sync service for your photographs between devices, and in a bit it'll be a music service for yourself.

Never did they say they'd let you directly access it like DropBox. Nothing would stop someone from making a PDF reader that saved and wrote to the iCloud but this last round of Apple products & software updates has created this bizarre 'oh they're doing THIS' line of crap from these analysts and they make up some of the craziest crap.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Sprouticus]

Perhaps the reason analysts thought that is because there would be no point whatsoever of having a service that JUSt stores pictures and music when other out there do everything already.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Hatta]

A back up service that doesn't back up your PDFs? That's stupid, no matter what way you try to spin it. The RDF won't help you now.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Sockatume]

It's a blog post by a company trying to sell a cloud document editing and management product. What did you expect them to do when Apple started giving away the 10% of their product that 90% of their potential customers would actually use, for free?

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Lou3000]

The iCloud is underwhelming for users like myself (and I would imagine everyone reading Slashdot). But I also think you're right, it isn't DropBox. It is really just a back end service for your iPhone's native photo, video, and document apps. It isn't so that you can share a document to be edited by a group, it is so that you can store a document and then edit it later on your Mac or iPad without e-mailing it or syncing. On the other hand, I sort of understand where this article is coming from. Apple separated iCloud as its own product. They didn't simply turn on "cloud saves," they set up a website for the services and have been playing up its features as a major selling point. DropBox and the like now need to convince users that they still have a spot on the iOS device and the iCloud isn't like their "cloud." And in truth, iCloud will push DropBox off of my iOS device, because iCloud is all I need and it is seemlessly integrated.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[cgenman]

Yes. How could analysts possibly compare iCloud to other cloud services. What cloud they possibly have in common? And Apple's talk of "automatic daily backups" should have been taken in the context of the iPhone, which as everyone who has one knows the iPhone "backup" is a skeletal husk of a thing.

I never really expected iCloud to amount to much (it is replacing 2 failed Apple cloud services, after all). And it is a first rollout. But even I was hoping for a little more in the way of integrated sync out the gate. Maybe just a cross-device Safari sync? No? Ok.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[smash]

Quite sure the story is bunk. It has documents sync, nowhere in the docco does it mention limitations on file type. You pay for your storage and you store your shit... unless there's documentation or some shred of evidence that PDFs in particular are excluded, this statement, as per the rest of the bs story, is bunk.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[DrgnDancer]

There's plenty of point for people who have more than one Apple device, or who want to manage their single devices without the need for a sync computer. I never got the impression that this was intended as a Dropbox killer. It's a remote sync and and device backup utility for iDevices and to a lesser extent music and media from iTunes on your computer. It's a useful way to seamlessly maintain certain devices and software, not a backup system for your computer.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Lumpy]

IT backed up the PDF files that goodreader had in it's data file area. so it DOES back up PDF files. I'm guessing the idiot that wrote the article is whining about some app that is poorly written, and everyone is simply joining in on the whining without any facts.

I havent checked in iBooks, but I am betting they havent released an update to that app to take advantage of iCloud yet. While Goodreader had a new version ready to go.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Shawn Parr]

If you use iCloud for backup it backs up whatever you tell it to. Whether your whole device, or just specific apps and their data. If you have an app that works with PDF files they will get backed up to iCloud.

GoodReader has an update to work with iCloud. I can upload PDF documents with it into iCloud. Yes, I just did it with an iPad, and it worked just fine.

I could then use GoodReader on any other iOS device to get access to those PDFs.

From what I've seen it is app specific, or at least company specific. So as an example Drop Box can't access your GoodReader files in iCloud, even though both can work with PDF files. But AutoDesk makes two different versions of Sketchbook, one for iPad, one for iPhone/iPod, and they see each other's files just fine.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[jo_ham]

Of course it backs up PDF files.

What, you think the story is telling the truth? Come on! It's a classic Apple bash story from a site looking for page hits and the slashdot trolls will fall for it hook, line and sinker and report this as "fact" from now on.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[znu]

Yeah, this article badly misunderstands what iCloud is for.

First, it's a backup service for iOS devices that eliminates the need to sync them with with a computer, effectively untethering iOS devices. And yes, if an app stores PDFs, images, movies, whatever, within its data store, iCloud will back them up. Once your iOS device is backed up to iCloud, if you happen to drop it in the ocean, you can go buy a new one, sync it to iCloud, and all of your stuff (with the exception of non-iTunes music if you don't have the $25/year iTunes Match) will simply come back.

Geeks like us have trouble understanding the value of a service like this to average end users, but it's huge. Most consumers, to this day, still don't have backups of any kind, and virtually none have off-site backups. Apple reportedly had lots of people coming into Apple stores who hadn't synced their iOS devices since first setting them up, and would therefore lose considerable amounts of data if device replacement was required. iCloud simply makes these problems go away for people. It makes off-site backups simply happen by default, rather than requiring the user to understand the importance of them and go out of his/her way to make them happen.

Secondly, iCloud a seamless sync service designed to be integrated into apps. With an iCloud-enabled version of Pages or another iWork apps, you can be working on a document on your Mac, grab your iPad and run out the door, and keep working on that document there -- even if you didn't explicitly save your most recent changes. You can add a reminder in the new Reminders app on your iPad, and seconds later it will also show up in the equivalent app on your iPhone. You can start playing a game on your iPhone, and your progress can be seamlessly synced to your iPad, so you can keep playing there from exactly where you left off. Third-party developers can add features like this to their apps using a trivially simple API, with no need to own/rent their own cloud infrastructure or write a single line of server-side code.

Comparing iCloud to Dropbox doesn't really make a ton of sense. The services are designed to do very different things. The only real overlap is in the instance of things like syncing iWork documents... but even there, the approach is conceptually different. Dropbox is "a folder that syncs" iCloud is a data sync service intended to be integrated by developers.

Describing iCloud as "underwhelming" is effectively a compliment to Apple. It's supposed to be invisible. A decade from now, non-savvy users will simply take it for granted that their data is magically propagated between their devices, and it won't even occur to them to think about the mechanism through which this occurs.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Duradin]

Why buy a good fillet knife when there are 100 blade swiss army knives that do everything?

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Perhaps the reason analysts thought that is because there would be no point whatsoever of having a service that JUSt stores pictures and music when other out there do everything already.

You're right. No sense creating a new mp3 player since Creative, Sansa and Sony had products on the market. No sense creating a smart phone since Handspring and Windows CE were already in the market. No sense working on Linux since Unix already existed. /sarcasm

Technology progresses in an evolutionary fashion. Marketing wants us to believe that all advances are revolutionary. Occasionally some evolutionary advances warrant the "revolutionary" tag. I'm not saying iCloud is revolutionary. What I am saying is iCloud is an evolutionary advance from mac.com and MobileMe. Remember those? They existed before DropBox and other "cloud" services. Marketing will always spin it as revolutionary. The Apple ecosystem may be revolutionary but each individual part is mostly evolutionary.

Anyway, Apple saw a need to make it easier for their customers to keep all their Apple devices synced. Apple added services to their web offerings to solve this problem. The change of methodology used with this advance warranted the iCloud name change since MobileMe doesn't necessarily apply in all use cases (not to mention the word "cloud" is hot atm ).

I think the real reasons "analysts" got it wrong were because:

1. They are pundits and are just giving us glorified personal opinions.

2. The more sensational they make their predictions, the more eyeballs they attract to their sites.

Now I'm surprised about the article saying no PDF storage, because I thought iBook would take care of that. No to mention I have a "Documents & Data" option in my iCloud preferences. I have PDFs as books and I have it on both my iTunes and mobile devices... I'll have to test to see if it really works.

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[timeOday]

Fair enough. It sucks, but they never said it wouldn't, so they aren't liars. You win.

Disclaimer: I have a long history of predicting Apple's products will fail, and they keep proving me wrong. I still don't "get" the iPad. So, who knows?

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[m.ducharme]

Well I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but iCloud (with the upcoming music service, if it comes) is exactly what I need. I don't need to store specific documents or edit them, I use Google Docs for that when I need it. Mozy handles my document backup/restore needs.

Just because you (or some analysts) don't see a use for it, doesn't mean that nobody can find a use for it. And further, although I like the idea of cloud services, I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. Having choices is good, right? And not just choices in product, but in the way different products envision your usage, right?*

*Totally awkward sentence, written specifically to avoid using the word "paradigm.". Success? Failure? You decide!

Re:It just proves analyst are complete idiots

[Kirijini]

...So you're achieving synergistic use of multiplatform solutions?

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

iCloud was not meant to address collaborative cloud document working. That functionality was never mentioned or even hinted at. Stupidest article ever.

I don't get Apple

[mark_reh]

The interface to the iPhone is via iTunes. I tried to put a pdf on my wife's iPhone for her because she couldn't figure out how and I couldn't figure out how to do it via iTunes either. Finally, a friend with an iPhone told me the easiest way to do it is to email it and use the phone to grab the emailed file. Doesn't Apple think that people use their phones for anything but listening to music and looking at photos? Oh yeah, there are all sorts of apps, but how does anyone who works for a living get business related stuff on and off the phone?

The software is still called iTunes ferschissakes. If you're in anything but the music business why would software called iTunes seem to be the right choice? It sounds like something you'd sell to college kids so they could load their phone with pirated music.

Re:I don't get Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, I dunno what you were doing wrong, but PDF's show up as Books in iTunes, its a simple drag and drop, and then view them in iBooks on your phone.

Re:I don't get Apple

[keytoe]

Err, I dunno what you were doing wrong, but PDF's show up as Books in iTunes, its a simple drag and drop, and then view them in iBooks on your phone.

To be fair, while this is easy, it isn't exactly obvious. It requires you to understand that the document conduit that iTunes provides is segregated by application.

Obligatory

[ArrowBay]

No co-editing. Less space than Amazon EC2. Lame.

Competitor

[mu51c10rd]

While I own no Apple products and use none of their services, I find this article to have no content. Why would a competitor praise their service? As a CEO of Box.net, it is his job to say why his service is better than Apple's. We can argue amongst ourselves whether those omissions noted are important for a cloud service or not, but this article has no point.

I Think I've Heard This Story Before

[American AC in Paris]

Apple: We're coming out with a new product. It's a pill that'll give you surprisingly good night vision.
Apple Zealots and various talking heads: Oh. My. God. The iPill will CURE CANCER.
The Other Zealots and various talking heads: Pssh. Will it make my headaches go away? Will it stop indigestion? I just can't see how anyone would want this where there are so many better pills already on the market.

months pass

Apple: Here it is: The iPill. Take one, and you can have 20/20 vision in the dark for an entire month.
Apple Zealots: Oh. My. God. This is soooo disappointing! And it doesn't even cure cancer! We thought it was going to cure cancer!
Other Zealots: Hah! Oh, Apple's really screwed themselves this time. All this stupid pill does is give you night vision! Big deal--you can get night-vision goggles that can be turned off, are half the price and don't need to be swallowed! You idiots really missed big time on this one!

months pass

Apple: The iPill has sold over ten bajillion units, and we've made more money on it than god raised to the god power. Night vision goggles are now considered obsolete. Soon, we'll release the iPill 2, which will add the ability to see into the ultraviolet spectrum.
Apple Zealots: Yaaaaaay! Finally, a cure for CANCER!
Other Zealots: ARRRGEGHRHRHGA People are such fucking stupid SHEEP

Re:I Think I've Heard This Story Before

[orphiuchus]

Well, if you replace revolutionary medical breakthroughs with stupidly easy to use interfaces and streamlined packaging for features we've already seen, you've nailed it!

Re:Bwahahah

[jhoegl]

You guys have no idea how badly CEOs and Boards want their technology to host your crap.
They see "the cloud" as a "Web 2.0".. (or 2.5 depending on who you ask) short term money maker.
They see Amazons success and want to invest in their own cloud, but not by much. So it is outsourced to people who have no idea or concept of what it actually entails. Of course, neither do the bosses who want it.
So this is no surprise and it wont be the only company that fails this badly at launch. I know of a few that are worse than this.

proves slashdot readers include complete idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

It has documents sync, nowhere in the docco does it mention limitations on file type. You pay for your storage and you store your shit...

Nope. You pay for your applications' storage and your applications store their stuff.

Apple made it *very* clear after the iCloud announcement that iDisk was going away and iCloud wasn't going to provide a comparable interface to let a user store files. While someone could undoubtedly use the iCloud APIs to write an application that lets you store files of your own choosing (i.e. an iDisk-replacement), it's a good bet Apple would refuse to approve the app precisely because it would be an iDisk replacement.

Re:proves slashdot readers include complete idiots

[tlhIngan]

Apple made it *very* clear after the iCloud announcement that iDisk was going away and iCloud wasn't going to provide a comparable interface to let a user store files. While someone could undoubtedly use the iCloud APIs to write an application that lets you store files of your own choosing (i.e. an iDisk-replacement), it's a good bet Apple would refuse to approve the app precisely because it would be an iDisk replacement.

There are apps that turn your iDevice into a "thumb drive" - files accessible via iTunes, WebDAV, FTP, HTTP, and maybe even SMB. Oh, there's also a TFTP server too. If iCloud backs up that app's files, it's effectively an iDisk, and there's tons of those apps in the App Store.

And many more have that capability (HTTP and WebDAV servers are the most popular), and can often hold arbitrary files since iTunes nor the app does any checking unless you try to open it. Many office apps support that as well.

/. Moderators

[dhermann]

Even a light reading of the article reveals that iCloud is an impressive service but not targeted at business or enterprise users (shocking), a fact which the OP (who clearly does not like iCloud and/or Apple, in general) noticeably neglects to mention. If Slashdot is a news site, and news should objectively divulge facts, then I have to wonder why such a blatantly slanted article summary has once again been allowed to be posted. If you want me to not like iCloud, just draw attention to the shortcomings of the product, don't paraphrase a reasonable review into "is a shambles".