Do you need to download icloud?

The easiest way to describe Apple icloud is as a “virtual hard drive” on which you can store your music, your documents and your photos amongst much more. In fact, you can store almost everything you have ever download on icloud. Once all your files are on icloud they can then be wirelessly pushed to all your compatible Apple devices, including your iphone, ipad, Mac, notebook and ipod. Apple icloud ensures your calendar, contacts and email are all up to date across all the Apple products you own without any syncing whatsoever, which is a very useful feature. The most useful feature of icloud is the ability to use it on all your Apple devices, so if you only use a Mac or an ipad or an iphone, Apple icloud really isn’t going to be of much use to you.

In order to use icloud and itunes icloud on your ipod, iphone or ipad you will need the latest iOS 5, which is supplied on all new devices. This means you can use icloud on the devices straight from the box with no setting up. If you decided to jailbreak your ipad or iphone in the past you will have to update to the latest operating system to use icloud, which means you will no longer have access to the android apps. So, before updating your device to use icloud you have to ask yourself which is more important. Is the ability to use the features of icloud more important that the ability to download and use android apps, or vice versa? Unfortunately, you can’t do both. In order to use icloud and itunes icloud on your mac you will need the latest OS X Lion.

All these Apple products can be used with icloud

When you sign up to icloud you get 5GB of storage for free. On the face of it this is a measly amount, especially when you consider you can get a single SD card that hold over six times more than that amount. However, it should be noted that the 5GB does not include your purchased apps, books and music, nor does it include your photo stream. Media uses a lot of storage, so remove this from the equation and 5GB actually goes a long way. Besides, if you want more storage space it is possible to buy some more as and when you need it.

On the face of it icloud seems like a great thing and one that is very useful, however what is it like in reality? How useful would icloud be to you? Do you really need to download icloud?The answer to this will depend on your specific circumstances and a number of different things, such as the amount of Apple products you own and use, the operating system you have on each product (although this can obviously be updated to the latest version as necessary), whether you decided to jailbreak your products and whether you use android apps and want to continue to do so in the future amongst many other things.

I can see the advantages of icloud and whilst I do use a lot of Apple products I am not overly bothered about syncing them. Besides, I like android apps and want the ability to keep on using these in the future. As for storing purchased media and all the stuff on itunes, that is what my external hard drive is used for.