Let me illustrate what I *think* you're missing (assuming I've read the article correctly):
You have an image that you've opened and saved to iCloud with Preview. But Preview is a limited tool, so you open the image and make changes via Photoshop at work. When you open the image with Photoshop, iCloud makes a copy of the image you stored with Preview. When you save the modified image, it's tied to the Photoshop workspace; the image stored with Preview has not been changed.
When you get home to the machine that doesn't have Photoshop, you open Preview to look at it—but it's not there, and you see the unedited version instead.
I *hope* that you could somehow still find the modified image via Spotlight search, but it's not clear to me. Unless you also changed the file name you'd need to look at metadata such as modification date/time to find the right image. And you'd still have the unedited (and perhaps now unwanted) image stored in the Preview space.
It doesn't seem that it's possible to edit the original document created in one app with a second app; only copies tied to the new app's sandbox may be changed. That may be good on some levels, but it's not what I personally desire. (Again, assuming I've understood the article correctly.)
Downloaded ML and Documents in the Cloud is almost usable. However, though I can save pdf files to iCloud through preview, there is no way to open them on my iPad since there is no Preview app. Am I missing something?
What does that mean for OSX in the enterprise in a mixed environment? For example, I work on large proposals. There are word docs, PDFs, excel sheets, images (of multiple types). There are multiple contributors, revisions and versions, etc. Right now I can have proposal specific folders, open it up and find what I want. (Not perfect, but quick. Yes I know stuff like SharePoint is out there for managed team collaboration, but I'm talking here of my personal local workflow as a contributor to such systems.)
The only way I could see making this work is if I establish and enforce a naming convention for ALL files associated with a proposal. From experience this is not easy to do when working with an extended team of contributors. (Since most are not on macs, much of this doesn't apply to them anyway, but I'm concerned here with only my workflow.) More importantly, I don't have to implement or worry about enforced naming conventions in order to find my files right now.
Perhaps I'm a bit dense, but this works for a handful of documents best. If you are running a business, or on projects that have dozens of different documents from many different apps, it seems like a nightmare.
So I guess this iCloud thing doesn't really mean much for me in this context? I'll just need to keep everything in a local files system and continue with Dropbox or such?
In your case it would be better to keep your current workflow. Especially considering you can't make local backups if moving your iWork documents to iCloud. And welcome to the forum.
I agree, it took them a long time to fix. iOS 6 is not required, my iPad is still running iOS 5, but my Mac is running ML GM. And yet the Mac Dock reflects instantly when a message is read on the iPad. So maybe it is not the OS on the iPad that is broadcasting the change, but the mail server itself. In which case it may only be fixed for iCloud (my email service) and not all mail services and/or clients.
Thanks for this info. Using iCould (.Mac) email myself as well, so will appreciate this change.
It seems to me that the new direction Apple is heading (removing the visibility of the file system) will be great for people who don’t really do a lot of work on their computers (i.e. just browse the web a bit and create a few simple documents from time to time), just don’t understand folders/files, or just completely lack the ability to organize. It sounds backwards, and I think Apple is shooting themselves in the foot, and in a hypothetical world where this is the only change Microsoft will recapture market share in the next 5 years.
Why?
Like several other people have pointed out, organizing your documents is intuitive, and just like you have drawers and cabinets in your desk at home, you want folders on your computer, so you can store files at intuitive places. Let's say I wanted to look up some work I did during semester 3 of my Master's degree in 2005, but I don't remember anything about the file name, or even what language it was written in. With today's file system I can easily find the file by heading (on my MacBook) to "Documents --> Education --> Master's Program --> Semester 3 --> Projects". In that folder i will find all files that belonged to this project, together at the same place (for example an excel, word, PDF -and zip file). With the new iCloud file system I can only imagine what hell it would be to find these files and view them quickly. I would have to guess file names or extensions to search among "five hundred thousand" files, just thrown together in one folder. And if I, against all odds, find say the word file, I will have to search again, without any idea what to search for, to find the xls, and so on with the other files. A good metaphor for iCloud is to sit and write an essay by hand, and when done you just throw it into an enormous drawer with 500,000 other documents you have written. You will have to remember something about the file (text in the file, or file name, or such) and use a search function to find the file. I am sweating just thinking about it. I don’t remember the name of all the thousands of files that I have on my computer, and they are written in different languages, so i cannot search by content either. With today's file system I can easily find the file by navigating down the folder-hierarchy to the place it was most likely archived.
And PS: SugarSync seems significantly better than DropBox. If I want my "Documents" folder (or any other file/folder) synchronized on all my computers, that is done seamlessly, without having to move my entire folder structure and default saving location, to the "special" DropBox folder. Incredibly surprising to me that DropBox has become so popular without allowing you to choose what folders to synchronize.
Congratulations to Apple Insider and the author of this article. After searching exhaustively for weeks, this is the first comprehensive article I've found that explains iCloud inside and out. Thank you and bravo!
Comments
Let me illustrate what I *think* you're missing (assuming I've read the article correctly):
You have an image that you've opened and saved to iCloud with Preview. But Preview is a limited tool, so you open the image and make changes via Photoshop at work. When you open the image with Photoshop, iCloud makes a copy of the image you stored with Preview. When you save the modified image, it's tied to the Photoshop workspace; the image stored with Preview has not been changed.
When you get home to the machine that doesn't have Photoshop, you open Preview to look at it—but it's not there, and you see the unedited version instead.
I *hope* that you could somehow still find the modified image via Spotlight search, but it's not clear to me. Unless you also changed the file name you'd need to look at metadata such as modification date/time to find the right image. And you'd still have the unedited (and perhaps now unwanted) image stored in the Preview space.
It doesn't seem that it's possible to edit the original document created in one app with a second app; only copies tied to the new app's sandbox may be changed. That may be good on some levels, but it's not what I personally desire. (Again, assuming I've understood the article correctly.)
Downloaded ML and Documents in the Cloud is almost usable. However, though I can save pdf files to iCloud through preview, there is no way to open them on my iPad since there is no Preview app. Am I missing something?
In your case it would be better to keep your current workflow. Especially considering you can't make local backups if moving your iWork documents to iCloud. And welcome to the forum.
Thanks for this info. Using iCould (.Mac) email myself as well, so will appreciate this change.
I will look into it, thanks.
It seems to me that the new direction Apple is heading (removing the visibility of the file system) will be great for people who don’t really do a lot of work on their computers (i.e. just browse the web a bit and create a few simple documents from time to time), just don’t understand folders/files, or just completely lack the ability to organize. It sounds backwards, and I think Apple is shooting themselves in the foot, and in a hypothetical world where this is the only change Microsoft will recapture market share in the next 5 years.
Why?
Like several other people have pointed out, organizing your documents is intuitive, and just like you have drawers and cabinets in your desk at home, you want folders on your computer, so you can store files at intuitive places. Let's say I wanted to look up some work I did during semester 3 of my Master's degree in 2005, but I don't remember anything about the file name, or even what language it was written in. With today's file system I can easily find the file by heading (on my MacBook) to "Documents --> Education --> Master's Program --> Semester 3 --> Projects". In that folder i will find all files that belonged to this project, together at the same place (for example an excel, word, PDF -and zip file). With the new iCloud file system I can only imagine what hell it would be to find these files and view them quickly. I would have to guess file names or extensions to search among "five hundred thousand" files, just thrown together in one folder. And if I, against all odds, find say the word file, I will have to search again, without any idea what to search for, to find the xls, and so on with the other files. A good metaphor for iCloud is to sit and write an essay by hand, and when done you just throw it into an enormous drawer with 500,000 other documents you have written. You will have to remember something about the file (text in the file, or file name, or such) and use a search function to find the file. I am sweating just thinking about it. I don’t remember the name of all the thousands of files that I have on my computer, and they are written in different languages, so i cannot search by content either. With today's file system I can easily find the file by navigating down the folder-hierarchy to the place it was most likely archived.
And PS: SugarSync seems significantly better than DropBox. If I want my "Documents" folder (or any other file/folder) synchronized on all my computers, that is done seamlessly, without having to move my entire folder structure and default saving location, to the "special" DropBox folder. Incredibly surprising to me that DropBox has become so popular without allowing you to choose what folders to synchronize.
--
Magnus
Congratulations to Apple Insider and the author of this article. After searching exhaustively for weeks, this is the first comprehensive article I've found that explains iCloud inside and out. Thank you and bravo!