Photostream is no apparent replacement for the current Gallery. I can't see any reason why I would automatically want my photos uploaded to the cloud. I prefer to choose, and the current method looks like it takes away choice. Can your photo stream be organized into albums? Can you share photos or albums with someone else?
Unless Apple is withholding more info on this feature, this is a big step back.
I agree, it doesn't replace gallery in any way. It's also not a syncing service like the rest of iCloud apps use because it's only syncing a small subset of what's possible. It appears to be quite a simple service. It'll work great for me and my wife - so that she takes a photo and I see it on my phone, and vice versa. But no albums etc. And of course we will be forced to use the same AppleID to achieve this.
We really use gallery extensively between my parents and us and for other purposes. I need to purchase Flickr now to see how well that replicates that - it looks like it'll be fine, not sure about videos in the gallery though.
I'd very much like to sync albums, faces, and all that. It wouldn't require my whole iPhoto library in the cloud, just a record of the photo organisation, and copies of newest photos (and perhaps altered photos). I don't think we'll see that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scottyo
"Do I trust them?
Just works" is fine when it does.
This is the ultimate question. I have 2 answers
1) Time will tell, nothing else.
2) If I can back it all up to a local disk, and see what I've backed up, I'll be quite happy with that.
iDisk was similar - I never had a problem, but I wanted to be able to back up via Time Machine. Then I'd have a copy on the cloud, a local sync, and a backup on my Time Machine disk... but it didn't allow that (just a backup of the whole iDisk image, so you couldn't browse all files - unless things changed and I missed it). Drop Box folders do of course backup on Time Machine too.
Makes me wonder if there will be an iDisk-like option. One of the reasons I'm averse to the MacBook Airs is the compromise on storage capacity. It would be great if we could have a bulk storage directory in the service where we could access files that we may not otherwise have space for on the local drive. Or rather, we would have space for them but not for a whole folder of audio or video files, for example.
I have only attempted to use it 4 times, 3 different machines. Each time it accepts the files I wish to share, and then promptly deletes them. Since the files where effectively moved rather than copied, the work was lost.
Maybe dropbox is all kinds of wonderful, but it has never worked for me yet, and it didn't look like it needed a lot of setup, so i just don't see how I could have messed it up. You drop a file into it, right? And then it is eaten like the missing socks. Biggest POS since windows ME in my testing...
The stars must been really had it out for you that day. This is the first time that I heard of somebody loosing files with Dropbox. In contrast to that I have heard dozens of times of people not being able to access their iDisk (or just painstakingly slow).
Originally Posted by AppleInsider Daniel Eran Dilger
This isn't just a network-synced iDisk. Instead. each app that opts in to the iCloud Documents & Data feature is accorded a secure storage space of its own, just as iOS apps each live in their own secure sandbox, inaccessible from other apps. Using iCloud-aware apps therefore won't eat up users' free storage on iCloud, just as Photo Stream or iTunes' media, apps and iBooks use won't count against the free 5GB of storage every iCloud user gets.
Huh?
Steve Jobs said pretty explicitly that the data stored by apps in the cloud counts towards the 5GB storage. He said Photo Stream didn't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nagromme
Numbers (and other iCloud-aware apps) on Mac and iOS should all work alike, although I do have questions about file management. (You have your docs in folders on the Mac, and organize them at will... how does that work on iOS? I’m guessing your iPad/iPhone just shows ALL your Numbers documents in one searchable view, and it doesn’t matter where exactly on the Mac they may be?)
Interesting question. It would be cool if every Numbers document on your computer was automatically on the iPad, but I haven't read anything indicating it works with files not being managed by an app. I'd assume at best there'd be that dual role, like we see in iTunes (where it stores the songs in its own way, but it's accessible in a round about way.
As such, whether an app has hierarchical folders etc would be entirely up to the app too.
I'm leery of this documents and data stuff, especially when someone says "it just happens." It sounds like I lose control of my files. Where does the file go? I need things to go where I want them to go. For example, today I conducted a funeral. There are several files necessary for that funeral, all stored in the same folder. I look in "church," then open the folder for the specific church, then there is a folder for liturgies, which has several folders, such as weddings, funerals, baptisms, and look in Funerals. In this case, there are seventeen folders in Funerals, one for each funeral, with a naming convention of year, month, last name, initial. So if John Smith's funeral took place in August 2011, it's in a folder called "2011-08 Smith, J" This file structure is exactly the same on both my MacBook Pro and my iMac. If files get put in the wrong place, I'll never find them. I need to find the files associated with a specific funeral, not the files that are similar to each other in all funerals.
Church:Name of Church:Liturgies:Funerals:2011-08 Smith, J ==contains all the files for that funeral.
Now suppose I create a file for John Smith's funeral on my MacBook Pro and put it in the proper folder. Where is it going to show up on the iMac? And if I edit it on the iPad, will it go to the right place, or is everything going to be thrown into chaos unless I stay with SugarSync?
Should I welcome or dread the advent of Documents and Data? I'm not sure.
Should I welcome or dread the advent of Documents and Data? I'm not sure.
In Apple's iCloud model, I don't think there's any room for storing multiple file types (from different apps) in a single folder. I'm expecting that basically an app saves all it's data in its own Library file, which Lion now hides from us (but can be accessed with a little effort)... but I don't know that!
edit: My biggest concern is related too - how do I share files with other people? How does my iPad pages document interact with my Mac's shared/server folder?
Photostream is no apparent replacement for the current Gallery. I can't see any reason why I would automatically want my photos uploaded to the cloud. I prefer to choose, and the current method looks like it takes away choice. Can your photo stream be organized into albums? Can you share photos or albums with someone else?
Unless Apple is withholding more info on this feature, this is a big step back.
The whole thing is a big step back. Auto-save prohibits the user from making any test version of a contract or document, the Apple way is to save everything, make multiple versions and eat, eat, eat up disk space to sell, sell, sell more via iCloud.
So, you inadvertently make a mistake on a document and iCloud whisks it away, forcing the error-laden doc to all of your instruments.
I've been fighting in Pages with this boneheaded auto-save el crapo rio system for 2 weeks now, and I have to admit, this is the one and only thing Apple has ever done (since my first Mac in 1985) that I truly, truly find distasteful. It has created so much work for me, it's been frigging brutal.
Okay, if a document is created by one app, is managed by that app, and accessible to all version of that app - be they on your Mac or iOS 5 device - this system sounds heavenly & would be tremendously useful. But what if you have files that you want to be able to manipulate from a variety of apps? The value of a filesystem (beyond user defined organization) is that I can decide in what software to open & edit my files. Sometimes a JPG is treated like just a photo, sometimes like a document, and sometimes both ... in different programs with different features sets. Does the sandboxed iCloud make an allowance for these cases? So far I'm not reading anything to lead me to believe that it will.
I guess this is my mental stumbling block based on what is public knowledge so far. Perhaps there is a clearer explanation coming. But lately I feel Apple is sacrificing power user features in order to over-simplify everything. I am all for Apple setting the simplest way as the default behavior within the OS & various apps but they're actually removing some more powerful options because they think the majority find them confusing. As a long time Apple user who caught their vision MANY years ago this is starting to concern me. Make things easy for those that need it, yes absolutely. I welcome the switchers and those in the glow of the halo effect into the fold. But don't start treating all of us like Mac newbies who can't appreciate the value of a filesystem or other somewhat 'complicated' concepts.
Interesting question. It would be cool if every Numbers document on your computer was automatically on the iPad, but I haven't read anything indicating it works with files not being managed by an app.
As such, whether an app has hierarchical folders etc would be entirely up to the app too.
I thought every Numbers document would be 'synced' automatically (or maybe there would be an opt-in, ie, the first time you open a given Numbers document after iCloud goes live it would ask you whether you want to store it in iCloud).
Okay, if a document is created by one app, is managed by that app, and accessible to all version of that app - be they on your Mac or iOS 5 device - this system sounds heavenly & would be tremendously useful. But what if you have files that you want to be able to manipulate from a variety of apps? The value of a filesystem (beyond user defined organization) is that I can decide in what software to open & edit my files. Sometimes a JPG is treated like just a photo, sometimes like a document, and sometimes both ... in different programs with different features sets. Does the sandboxed iCloud make an allowance for these cases? So far I'm not reading anything to lead me to believe that it will.
I do not believe that an application in Lion that will use iCloud is actually bypassing the file system. No iWork application on Lion currently has its own document managing system (the iLife applications do, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, though with the last three is not a document management, more a project management). And I don't believe iWork apps will gain such document management systems. In iTunes and iPhoto, the whole browsing and metadata aspect requires their own infrastructure. To add this to iWork is not a trivial thing. If Apple had any intention of doing so we would have heard about any of the user interface for this by now.
I firmly believe that iCloud (for iWork documents) will simply list all Numbers documents that have been opted in (or not opted out). It will not touch or alter your document location. Naturally synced documents have to be place somewhere on a target Mac and thus there will be a default location but you will be free to move the files around and Numbers will keep track of them.
Of course, synching folders with multiple document types won't work (ie, the folders themselves won't get synced only the files in it, unless Apple adds the enclosing folders name as file metadata). But does this mean no iCloud (ie, status quo) is better than an iCloud that at least syncs your iWork documents, even if syncing your loose jpeg files is still your responsibility?
Quote:
But lately I feel Apple is sacrificing power user features in order to over-simplify everything. I am all for Apple setting the simplest way as the default behavior within the OS & various apps but they're actually removing some more powerful options because they think the majority find them confusing.
You realise that Apple is taking away nothing, zero, zilch of the existing options? It just adds options. What you don't like is that you welcome the idea of iCloud and would like to use it, but it being so seamless just makes it obvious what is (still) missing from it.
The whole thing is a big step back. Auto-save prohibits the user from making any test version of a contract or document, the Apple way is to save everything, make multiple versions and eat, eat, eat up disk space to sell, sell, sell more via iCloud.
So, you inadvertently make a mistake on a document and iCloud whisks it away, forcing the error-laden doc to all of your instruments.
I've been fighting in Pages with this boneheaded auto-save el crapo rio system for 2 weeks now, and I have to admit, this is the one and only thing Apple has ever done (since my first Mac in 1985) that I truly, truly find distasteful. It has created so much work for me, it's been frigging brutal.
Well, if it does not work for you, switch it off, nobody is forcing you to use it (or iCloud).
I don't understand what is so difficult about Dropbox. It is a folder, that. is. the. same. on. all. computers/devices.
Agreed, I find Dropbox wonderfully easy to use. I just don't want to pay them in addition to just recently (before the iCloud announcement) paid for Mobile Me.
The only things it seems missing for me (iCloud) is the gallery, that was a fast way to put previews of photo shoots up for clients and the filesharing aspect (I need to share more than just documents). I can recreate both of those using Wordpress.(installed up on my Godaddy server space which is huge) I decided to go to MobileMe for the mail, I was using Gmail because of the IMAP function, but got really disgusted with the whole system, and feeling like everything I was doing was being watched. Now the iCloud service will give me the email for free, the rest I can work out and there is always Dropbox, just wished they had a level that was below the $99 a year, I use it, but not so much I need another hundred dollar a year service.
The whole thing is a big step back. Auto-save prohibits the user from making any test version of a contract or document, the Apple way is to save everything, make multiple versions and eat, eat, eat up disk space to sell, sell, sell more via iCloud.
So, you inadvertently make a mistake on a document and iCloud whisks it away, forcing the error-laden doc to all of your instruments.
I've been fighting in Pages with this boneheaded auto-save el crapo rio system for 2 weeks now, and I have to admit, this is the one and only thing Apple has ever done (since my first Mac in 1985) that I truly, truly find distasteful. It has created so much work for me, it's been frigging brutal.
First of all, it does not save versions as full documents requiring a massive memory commitment. A version is a virtual document, constructed from change pointers invisible to the user and taking very little extra space. And it does not "whisk away" anything.
The fact that you CAN retrieve any version of your document is of no significance whatever if you do not actually do it--no added work, and little cost in space vs. the benefit of being able to see old versions if you need to.
Well, if it does not work for you, switch it off, nobody is forcing you to use it (or iCloud).
You can't switch off Auto-Save or Versions. Those are the problems. They need work, they need much more thought behind them, and they need a way to OPT OUT.
It's truly bad practice to have multiple saved versions of confidential documents floating around, pinned to some text app. It's plainly ridiculous.
And as it goes forward, multiplying one version upon another, ad infinitum, storage space gets gobbled up at an alarming rate. Oh, wait a minute, isn't there somebody out there who wants to sell me more storage space? Whew! What a relief!!
You can't switch off Auto-Save or Versions. Those are the problems. They need work, they need much more thought behind them, and they need a way to OPT OUT.
It's truly bad practice to have multiple saved versions of confidential documents floating around, pinned to some text app. It's plainly ridiculous.
And as it goes forward, multiplying one version upon another, ad infinitum, storage space gets gobbled up at an alarming rate. Oh, wait a minute, isn't there somebody out there who wants to sell me more storage space? Whew! What a relief!!
I do not understand. Do you object to Time Machine? It reveals multiple saved versions of all your documents.
And Versioning does not gobble storage space at the rate that you imagine. The versions are not saved as full documents, simply the history of the changes. The problems you describe are not in the product itself.
First of all, it does not save versions as full documents requiring a massive memory commitment. A version is a virtual document, constructed from change pointers invisible to the user and taking very little extra space. And it does not "whisk away" anything.
The fact that you CAN retrieve any version of your document is of no significance whatever if you do not actually do it--no added work, and little cost in space vs. the benefit of being able to see old versions if you need to.
I never said it saved versions as full documents. I've watched daily over the past 2 weeks how auto-save eats my storage space. Multiple versions of very large documents (1.2GB or more) take up room, even if they're just layers. It's well optimized I think (except for the constant spinning beachball) ... but it still absolutely requires additional space that previously stayed free. I wish it could be disabled.
In my practice, I work on 60-90 contracts a month, often implementing 30-40 changes per document, per day. That's a lot of conference calls, and a lot of words & terms changing.
Dealing with auto-save & versioning is a nightmare. Try sifting thru 2,400 versions of a contract and figure out which one word changed when. It can't be done, I'm telling you. The system is idiotic. The problem dwells in the OS's new demands that when a window is closed, the document gets saved. Documents that no one wants to be saved - test cases, experiments, temporary template alterations - all get implemented, and data is over-written. The system is destroying data.
I suppose if you're in Eighth Grade, you'll be delighted with auto-save when banging out your book report in between giggling text messages & Justin Bieber tracks. In business, having unwanted versions of confidential documents floating about, saved in some app is just really bad practice.
Photostream is no apparent replacement for the current Gallery. I can't see any reason why I would automatically want my photos uploaded to the cloud. I prefer to choose, and the current method looks like it takes away choice. Can your photo stream be organized into albums? Can you share photos or albums with someone else?
Unless Apple is withholding more info on this feature, this is a big step back.
I think you're misunderstanding the feature. Your most recent 1000 photos are visible on all your devices. Any that you like and want to keep should be moved into albums, and those will also be visible on all your devices (and, I believe, can be shared). The photostream just avoids the step of manually moving the new photos.
I never said it saved versions as full documents. I've watched daily over the past 2 weeks how auto-save eats my storage space. Multiple versions of very large documents (1.2GB or more) take up room, even if they're just layers. It's well optimized I think (except for the constant spinning beachball) ... but it still absolutely requires additional space that previously stayed free. I wish it could be disabled.
In my practice, I work on 60-90 contracts a month, often implementing 30-40 changes per document, per day. That's a lot of conference calls, and a lot of words & terms changing.
Dealing with auto-save & versioning is a nightmare. Try sifting thru 2,400 versions of a contract and figure out which one word changed when. It can't be done, I'm telling you. The system is idiotic. The problem dwells in the OS's new demands that when a window is closed, the document gets saved. Documents that no one wants to be saved - test cases, experiments, temporary template alterations - all get implemented, and data is over-written. The system is destroying data.
Pages '08 seems to work fine for me on Lion and certainly does not save versions, as should any version of Pages '09 except the very latest. If the new version does not work for you, just don't use it (which applies to OS versions as well) in particular if you really need your computer for work.
Daniel - it's the weekend, and this isn't a breaking story. How did these ungrammatic and dys-syntactic monsterpieces of journalism get by you and your presumable copy editor??
Quote:
Once their equipments is all tied to the same iCloud account, Apple automatically pushes new photos up to the cloud when captured, and down to the user's various photo libraries on iOS, Mac and Windows PCs.
Quote:
Apple has demonstrated how to do with with its iWork apps, the first to incorporate support for the new feature.
Comments
Photostream is no apparent replacement for the current Gallery. I can't see any reason why I would automatically want my photos uploaded to the cloud. I prefer to choose, and the current method looks like it takes away choice. Can your photo stream be organized into albums? Can you share photos or albums with someone else?
Unless Apple is withholding more info on this feature, this is a big step back.
I agree, it doesn't replace gallery in any way. It's also not a syncing service like the rest of iCloud apps use because it's only syncing a small subset of what's possible. It appears to be quite a simple service. It'll work great for me and my wife - so that she takes a photo and I see it on my phone, and vice versa. But no albums etc. And of course we will be forced to use the same AppleID to achieve this.
We really use gallery extensively between my parents and us and for other purposes. I need to purchase Flickr now to see how well that replicates that - it looks like it'll be fine, not sure about videos in the gallery though.
I'd very much like to sync albums, faces, and all that. It wouldn't require my whole iPhoto library in the cloud, just a record of the photo organisation, and copies of newest photos (and perhaps altered photos). I don't think we'll see that.
"Do I trust them?
Just works" is fine when it does.
This is the ultimate question. I have 2 answers
1) Time will tell, nothing else.
2) If I can back it all up to a local disk, and see what I've backed up, I'll be quite happy with that.
iDisk was similar - I never had a problem, but I wanted to be able to back up via Time Machine. Then I'd have a copy on the cloud, a local sync, and a backup on my Time Machine disk... but it didn't allow that (just a backup of the whole iDisk image, so you couldn't browse all files - unless things changed and I missed it). Drop Box folders do of course backup on Time Machine too.
"Patheticity"? I call shenanigans.
Seems cromulent to me.
I have only attempted to use it 4 times, 3 different machines. Each time it accepts the files I wish to share, and then promptly deletes them. Since the files where effectively moved rather than copied, the work was lost.
Maybe dropbox is all kinds of wonderful, but it has never worked for me yet, and it didn't look like it needed a lot of setup, so i just don't see how I could have messed it up. You drop a file into it, right? And then it is eaten like the missing socks. Biggest POS since windows ME in my testing...
The stars must been really had it out for you that day. This is the first time that I heard of somebody loosing files with Dropbox. In contrast to that I have heard dozens of times of people not being able to access their iDisk (or just painstakingly slow).
This isn't just a network-synced iDisk. Instead. each app that opts in to the iCloud Documents & Data feature is accorded a secure storage space of its own, just as iOS apps each live in their own secure sandbox, inaccessible from other apps. Using iCloud-aware apps therefore won't eat up users' free storage on iCloud, just as Photo Stream or iTunes' media, apps and iBooks use won't count against the free 5GB of storage every iCloud user gets.
Huh?
Steve Jobs said pretty explicitly that the data stored by apps in the cloud counts towards the 5GB storage. He said Photo Stream didn't.
Numbers (and other iCloud-aware apps) on Mac and iOS should all work alike, although I do have questions about file management. (You have your docs in folders on the Mac, and organize them at will... how does that work on iOS? I’m guessing your iPad/iPhone just shows ALL your Numbers documents in one searchable view, and it doesn’t matter where exactly on the Mac they may be?)
Interesting question. It would be cool if every Numbers document on your computer was automatically on the iPad, but I haven't read anything indicating it works with files not being managed by an app. I'd assume at best there'd be that dual role, like we see in iTunes (where it stores the songs in its own way, but it's accessible in a round about way.
As such, whether an app has hierarchical folders etc would be entirely up to the app too.
Church:Name of Church:Liturgies:Funerals:2011-08 Smith, J ==contains all the files for that funeral.
Now suppose I create a file for John Smith's funeral on my MacBook Pro and put it in the proper folder. Where is it going to show up on the iMac? And if I edit it on the iPad, will it go to the right place, or is everything going to be thrown into chaos unless I stay with SugarSync?
Should I welcome or dread the advent of Documents and Data? I'm not sure.
Should I welcome or dread the advent of Documents and Data? I'm not sure.
In Apple's iCloud model, I don't think there's any room for storing multiple file types (from different apps) in a single folder. I'm expecting that basically an app saves all it's data in its own Library file, which Lion now hides from us (but can be accessed with a little effort)... but I don't know that!
edit: My biggest concern is related too - how do I share files with other people? How does my iPad pages document interact with my Mac's shared/server folder?
Photostream is no apparent replacement for the current Gallery. I can't see any reason why I would automatically want my photos uploaded to the cloud. I prefer to choose, and the current method looks like it takes away choice. Can your photo stream be organized into albums? Can you share photos or albums with someone else?
Unless Apple is withholding more info on this feature, this is a big step back.
The whole thing is a big step back. Auto-save prohibits the user from making any test version of a contract or document, the Apple way is to save everything, make multiple versions and eat, eat, eat up disk space to sell, sell, sell more via iCloud.
So, you inadvertently make a mistake on a document and iCloud whisks it away, forcing the error-laden doc to all of your instruments.
I've been fighting in Pages with this boneheaded auto-save el crapo rio system for 2 weeks now, and I have to admit, this is the one and only thing Apple has ever done (since my first Mac in 1985) that I truly, truly find distasteful. It has created so much work for me, it's been frigging brutal.
I guess this is my mental stumbling block based on what is public knowledge so far. Perhaps there is a clearer explanation coming. But lately I feel Apple is sacrificing power user features in order to over-simplify everything. I am all for Apple setting the simplest way as the default behavior within the OS & various apps but they're actually removing some more powerful options because they think the majority find them confusing. As a long time Apple user who caught their vision MANY years ago this is starting to concern me. Make things easy for those that need it, yes absolutely. I welcome the switchers and those in the glow of the halo effect into the fold. But don't start treating all of us like Mac newbies who can't appreciate the value of a filesystem or other somewhat 'complicated' concepts.
Huh?
Interesting question. It would be cool if every Numbers document on your computer was automatically on the iPad, but I haven't read anything indicating it works with files not being managed by an app.
As such, whether an app has hierarchical folders etc would be entirely up to the app too.
I thought every Numbers document would be 'synced' automatically (or maybe there would be an opt-in, ie, the first time you open a given Numbers document after iCloud goes live it would ask you whether you want to store it in iCloud).
Okay, if a document is created by one app, is managed by that app, and accessible to all version of that app - be they on your Mac or iOS 5 device - this system sounds heavenly & would be tremendously useful. But what if you have files that you want to be able to manipulate from a variety of apps? The value of a filesystem (beyond user defined organization) is that I can decide in what software to open & edit my files. Sometimes a JPG is treated like just a photo, sometimes like a document, and sometimes both ... in different programs with different features sets. Does the sandboxed iCloud make an allowance for these cases? So far I'm not reading anything to lead me to believe that it will.
I do not believe that an application in Lion that will use iCloud is actually bypassing the file system. No iWork application on Lion currently has its own document managing system (the iLife applications do, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, though with the last three is not a document management, more a project management). And I don't believe iWork apps will gain such document management systems. In iTunes and iPhoto, the whole browsing and metadata aspect requires their own infrastructure. To add this to iWork is not a trivial thing. If Apple had any intention of doing so we would have heard about any of the user interface for this by now.
I firmly believe that iCloud (for iWork documents) will simply list all Numbers documents that have been opted in (or not opted out). It will not touch or alter your document location. Naturally synced documents have to be place somewhere on a target Mac and thus there will be a default location but you will be free to move the files around and Numbers will keep track of them.
Of course, synching folders with multiple document types won't work (ie, the folders themselves won't get synced only the files in it, unless Apple adds the enclosing folders name as file metadata). But does this mean no iCloud (ie, status quo) is better than an iCloud that at least syncs your iWork documents, even if syncing your loose jpeg files is still your responsibility?
But lately I feel Apple is sacrificing power user features in order to over-simplify everything. I am all for Apple setting the simplest way as the default behavior within the OS & various apps but they're actually removing some more powerful options because they think the majority find them confusing.
You realise that Apple is taking away nothing, zero, zilch of the existing options? It just adds options. What you don't like is that you welcome the idea of iCloud and would like to use it, but it being so seamless just makes it obvious what is (still) missing from it.
The whole thing is a big step back. Auto-save prohibits the user from making any test version of a contract or document, the Apple way is to save everything, make multiple versions and eat, eat, eat up disk space to sell, sell, sell more via iCloud.
So, you inadvertently make a mistake on a document and iCloud whisks it away, forcing the error-laden doc to all of your instruments.
I've been fighting in Pages with this boneheaded auto-save el crapo rio system for 2 weeks now, and I have to admit, this is the one and only thing Apple has ever done (since my first Mac in 1985) that I truly, truly find distasteful. It has created so much work for me, it's been frigging brutal.
Well, if it does not work for you, switch it off, nobody is forcing you to use it (or iCloud).
I don't understand what is so difficult about Dropbox. It is a folder, that. is. the. same. on. all. computers/devices.
Agreed, I find Dropbox wonderfully easy to use. I just don't want to pay them in addition to just recently (before the iCloud announcement) paid for Mobile Me.
The only things it seems missing for me (iCloud) is the gallery, that was a fast way to put previews of photo shoots up for clients and the filesharing aspect (I need to share more than just documents). I can recreate both of those using Wordpress.(installed up on my Godaddy server space which is huge) I decided to go to MobileMe for the mail, I was using Gmail because of the IMAP function, but got really disgusted with the whole system, and feeling like everything I was doing was being watched. Now the iCloud service will give me the email for free, the rest I can work out and there is always Dropbox, just wished they had a level that was below the $99 a year, I use it, but not so much I need another hundred dollar a year service.
The whole thing is a big step back. Auto-save prohibits the user from making any test version of a contract or document, the Apple way is to save everything, make multiple versions and eat, eat, eat up disk space to sell, sell, sell more via iCloud.
So, you inadvertently make a mistake on a document and iCloud whisks it away, forcing the error-laden doc to all of your instruments.
I've been fighting in Pages with this boneheaded auto-save el crapo rio system for 2 weeks now, and I have to admit, this is the one and only thing Apple has ever done (since my first Mac in 1985) that I truly, truly find distasteful. It has created so much work for me, it's been frigging brutal.
First of all, it does not save versions as full documents requiring a massive memory commitment. A version is a virtual document, constructed from change pointers invisible to the user and taking very little extra space. And it does not "whisk away" anything.
The fact that you CAN retrieve any version of your document is of no significance whatever if you do not actually do it--no added work, and little cost in space vs. the benefit of being able to see old versions if you need to.
Well, if it does not work for you, switch it off, nobody is forcing you to use it (or iCloud).
You can't switch off Auto-Save or Versions. Those are the problems. They need work, they need much more thought behind them, and they need a way to OPT OUT.
It's truly bad practice to have multiple saved versions of confidential documents floating around, pinned to some text app. It's plainly ridiculous.
And as it goes forward, multiplying one version upon another, ad infinitum, storage space gets gobbled up at an alarming rate. Oh, wait a minute, isn't there somebody out there who wants to sell me more storage space? Whew! What a relief!!
You can't switch off Auto-Save or Versions. Those are the problems. They need work, they need much more thought behind them, and they need a way to OPT OUT.
It's truly bad practice to have multiple saved versions of confidential documents floating around, pinned to some text app. It's plainly ridiculous.
And as it goes forward, multiplying one version upon another, ad infinitum, storage space gets gobbled up at an alarming rate. Oh, wait a minute, isn't there somebody out there who wants to sell me more storage space? Whew! What a relief!!
I do not understand. Do you object to Time Machine? It reveals multiple saved versions of all your documents.
And Versioning does not gobble storage space at the rate that you imagine. The versions are not saved as full documents, simply the history of the changes. The problems you describe are not in the product itself.
First of all, it does not save versions as full documents requiring a massive memory commitment. A version is a virtual document, constructed from change pointers invisible to the user and taking very little extra space. And it does not "whisk away" anything.
The fact that you CAN retrieve any version of your document is of no significance whatever if you do not actually do it--no added work, and little cost in space vs. the benefit of being able to see old versions if you need to.
I never said it saved versions as full documents. I've watched daily over the past 2 weeks how auto-save eats my storage space. Multiple versions of very large documents (1.2GB or more) take up room, even if they're just layers. It's well optimized I think (except for the constant spinning beachball) ... but it still absolutely requires additional space that previously stayed free. I wish it could be disabled.
In my practice, I work on 60-90 contracts a month, often implementing 30-40 changes per document, per day. That's a lot of conference calls, and a lot of words & terms changing.
Dealing with auto-save & versioning is a nightmare. Try sifting thru 2,400 versions of a contract and figure out which one word changed when. It can't be done, I'm telling you. The system is idiotic. The problem dwells in the OS's new demands that when a window is closed, the document gets saved. Documents that no one wants to be saved - test cases, experiments, temporary template alterations - all get implemented, and data is over-written. The system is destroying data.
I suppose if you're in Eighth Grade, you'll be delighted with auto-save when banging out your book report in between giggling text messages & Justin Bieber tracks. In business, having unwanted versions of confidential documents floating about, saved in some app is just really bad practice.
Photostream is no apparent replacement for the current Gallery. I can't see any reason why I would automatically want my photos uploaded to the cloud. I prefer to choose, and the current method looks like it takes away choice. Can your photo stream be organized into albums? Can you share photos or albums with someone else?
Unless Apple is withholding more info on this feature, this is a big step back.
I think you're misunderstanding the feature. Your most recent 1000 photos are visible on all your devices. Any that you like and want to keep should be moved into albums, and those will also be visible on all your devices (and, I believe, can be shared). The photostream just avoids the step of manually moving the new photos.
I never said it saved versions as full documents. I've watched daily over the past 2 weeks how auto-save eats my storage space. Multiple versions of very large documents (1.2GB or more) take up room, even if they're just layers. It's well optimized I think (except for the constant spinning beachball) ... but it still absolutely requires additional space that previously stayed free. I wish it could be disabled.
In my practice, I work on 60-90 contracts a month, often implementing 30-40 changes per document, per day. That's a lot of conference calls, and a lot of words & terms changing.
Dealing with auto-save & versioning is a nightmare. Try sifting thru 2,400 versions of a contract and figure out which one word changed when. It can't be done, I'm telling you. The system is idiotic. The problem dwells in the OS's new demands that when a window is closed, the document gets saved. Documents that no one wants to be saved - test cases, experiments, temporary template alterations - all get implemented, and data is over-written. The system is destroying data.
Pages '08 seems to work fine for me on Lion and certainly does not save versions, as should any version of Pages '09 except the very latest. If the new version does not work for you, just don't use it (which applies to OS versions as well) in particular if you really need your computer for work.
Once their equipments is all tied to the same iCloud account, Apple automatically pushes new photos up to the cloud when captured, and down to the user's various photo libraries on iOS, Mac and Windows PCs.
Apple has demonstrated how to do with with its iWork apps, the first to incorporate support for the new feature.