What makes Apple's iCloud different from Google and Amazon services

[snooper2]

San Francisco (CNN) -- Consumer technology giants are battling to provide the place where you store your files, and Apple is not about to be left out.

Capping a slew of software announcements on Monday, Apple unveiled iCloud. The free service lets users synchronize documents, photos and applications between Apple devices over the Internet.

Music purchased through the iTunes Store can be downloaded from any device connected to your account, and for an annual fee, tracks bought from other stores, ripped from CDs or procured through other means can be synchronized.

When iCloud drops this fall, Apple will join Amazon.com and Google, two major players that have already begun rolling out storage services.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/06/06/apple.icloud/index.html

[MyrnaLoy]

1. Well

they are all three equally worthless.

[snooper2]

3. somebody should tell that to the 100+ million I-Phone users

[MyrnaLoy]

5. are you saying

there are 100 million cloud users or that there are 100 million iphones. There is a huge difference.

[Occulus]

8. No, cloud computing is still a bad idea on its face

Just in general. I certainly would not recommend making the cloud your only storage space for anything you either wish to keep or wish to keep private. The very idea of running an OS server-side doesn't sit well with me, either; I'm having bad VAX flashbacks.

You should always have three copies of your data, at least two of which are on different media, with one offsite completely (which can be "in the cloud"). It's called the 3-2-1 solution, and it pretty much guarantees that there won't be any loss so significant that you can't recover from it.

I would definitely be leery of online backup services, even if they claim to be encrypted. The best way to use those is to encrypt your data using your file encryption solution of choice before backing it up online.

The single greatest threat with cloud computing is a loss of connection to the cloud. If you can't get to the cloud in the first place, you can't access any of your data; to protect against that, you need physical, local storage (or physical remote storage, but that can be cumbersome). If you have that in the first place, you don't really need the cloud. In addition, hard drive prices are dropping like a stone, so there's no real reason not to have a couple TB of space at home to begin with.

[Electric Monk]

2. Saviour Barcodes

If we don't save our barcodes, how can they save us?

ymmv

[Old and In the Way]

4. Marketing? nt

[dmallind]

6. Amazon doesn't charge you for other-source content for one, nt

[dipsydoodle]

7. Apple to finally charge you for things you already own

Apple has finally entered the lucrative market of repeatedly charging people sums of money for things they already own, with the launch of its iCloud service.

For many years Apple has exploited its position among Mac users by selling them just about everything they launch on the promise of it being something new, but iCloud marks a startling change in direction.

Gartner analyst Mike Williams told us, “Apples model has always been about building overpriced devices, and then convincing potential users that life is not worth living without one.”

“But now they are telling you to give them some money for that stuff you’ve already paid good money for – and not only that, but to keep doing it, year after year after year.”

http://newsthump.com/2011/06/07/apple-to-finally-charge-you-for-things-you-already-own/