“Keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy. We are going to demote the PC to just be a device. We are going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.”
– Steve Jobs, Apple World Wide Developers Conference, June 7, 2011
Everyone has heard about Apple’s new phone, the iPhone 4S. Apple sold more than 4 million iPhone 4S devices in the first three days after it was introduced Oct. 4, setting a record as customers lined up at stores from Singapore to the Big Apple. Not as many of us have heard about Apple’s iCloud, which was released at the same time.
Steve Jobs, our era’s greatest executive, felt that Apple’s iCloud would become a game changer for consumer computing and possibly become even more important to Apple’s future than the iPhone. Analysts said iCloud has the potential of boosting Apple’s market value by up to $500 billion because of its impact on hardware sales and the purchases of songs, movies and other media.
In the computer world, the term “cloud” refers to the practice of storing information — be it photos, videos, text, applications or anything else — on a group of computers — sometimes referred to as a “server farm” somewhere else instead of on your personal computer. Users access their information stored in “the cloud” over the Internet.
Many companies use cloud storage-and-access technology. This is how iCloud works:
It provides access: Every Apple device — iPads, iPhones and desktop computers and PCs running Windows Vista or Windows 7 — can now be connected to your information in the cloud, wirelessly and automatically. The devices connect to the cloud anytime they access the Internet, via cell connection or WiFi, from any location.
It provides a safe backup of your information, whatever it is, in a remote place, again wirelessly and automatically. Users will no longer need to physically connect their iPhones or iPads to a computer.
It synchronizes your information. No longer will you be searching in vain for a photo or email on a phone, only to remember it was on your iPad or home computer, like a wallet left in your other jeans. All your information can be up to date on all your devices.
A wonderful feature of iCloud is that we might not even notice it working, because it will manage our data and files “automagically” behind the scenes.
How do you access iCloud? All new Apple mobile devices, some older phones and both iPads can download the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system software, known as iOS5. Desktop Macs don’t have to have the latest version of their operating system, known as Lion, but it enables some extra features. A free signup in which you pick a login and password at apple.com/icloud gives you five gigabytes of storage. Purchased music, apps, books and TV shows don’t count against the 5 GB. Up to 50 GB can be rented.
So iCloud sounds useful, but why is it a big deal for Apple? Apple is hoping that it is so useful that people will think twice before purchasing high-tech mobile gadgets running competing operating systems. ICloud’s functionality will be very tightly integrated with both Apple devices and software and third-party applications.
According to an August report by market research firm ComScore, a global leader in measuring the digital world, various versions of Google’s Android operating system, on phones by several manufacturers, lead Apple in market share, 43.7 percent to 27.3 percent in the United States. Software by Research in Motion — maker of the BlackBerry phones — is in third place with 19.7 percent.
Although iCloud promises ease, it does raise potential security and privacy concerns inherent in any storage of data remotely. If one account is hacked or one device is stolen, others could be compromised because they are linked. Cloud vendors could conceivably hand over your private information to marketers or to law enforcement officials.
According to the Apple Museum, in 1977 Jobs asked the art designer Rob Janoff to design a new Apple logo. The result was a simple shape of an Apple with a bite out of it, with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong direction. The bite symbolized knowledge, because in the Bible the apple was the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Going forward, the logo might have an apple nestled on a cloud.
Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
