Apple iCloud: a beginner's guide

What is the 'cloud'?

Once, you would do your work on your personal computer and save it onto your hard drive. And there it would sit, accessible only to you (and maybe a few other select users on a local network), and could only be manipulated (edited) if you had the right software on your device. The cloud overcomes this limitation – all you need is connectivity (pretty much universal, with the internet), and a cloud provider (a company that facilitates access to the cloud or their data servers). This means that any computer which is connected to the internet (including mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets) is connected to all the same applications and files. In terms of online storage, it creates better conditions for collaborative work; for example, a change made to a Word document would be available to users on different computers because the information is synchronised across all computers. The need for carrying around physical storage devices is eliminated. Hundreds of millions of us already use the cloud everyday, to share photographs, music and video clips. It is, like love, all around. The cloud signals, by and large, the end of "stuff".


Where is all the information in the cloud actually stored?

The information in the cloud ranges from the personal but unimportant to the highly sensitive. So where is it all kept? If it is lost, can it be recovered? And is it secure? The data in the cloud exists on servers, and these are mirrored onto other servers to keep data secure and available. That way, if one cluster of servers falls over, then data is available from servers in another data centre or elsewhere in the same location. For example, Google's index is mirrored across thousands, if not millions of servers. So if your data was to be lost, it is more or less guaranteed that they would find it.
While it would be easy to find the information, it is no surprise that organisations do not willingly yield the details of where the physical servers are located. And why would they? No one wants to be held to ransom or attacked. Even so, if an attacker were to gain physical access to the servers, it is unlikely that they would gain any really useable data.

Uses of the cloud

Web-based email (like Gmail or Hotmail) has been acting in the cloud for a long time. People use their email accounts to back up the files on their personal computers – and this information can be held securely and indefinitely in the cloud. In addition to being a hugely successful online retailer, Amazon also provides cloud-computing services by renting out space on its powerful servers to customers worldwide. In April an Amazon cloud failure took out social-networking sites Foursquare, Reddit and Quora.

What is the iCloud?

It is, quite simply, a content-sharing service on the cloud. Sources from the music industry have indicated that Apple has signed up with the four major music labels – EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner Music, to provide a music-streaming service in the US. Some are suggesting that the iCloud is designed to be the new iTunes – in which music, videos, podcasts etc will be available for streaming.

What are the best cloud-based sites?

Dropbox.com and YouSendIt.com are just two of the most used cloud-based sites. Dropbox was created in 2007 by two MIT students who were "tired of emailing files to themselves to work from more than one computer". It's a free service that let you share your documents easily. YouSendIt.com allows you to store and send large files over the web.
Spotify is a music-streaming service launched in 2008. Previously free, it recently capped its free usage at 10 hours a month, with a premium membership allowing for unlimited listening at £9.99 a month. It has approximately 10 million users.
Amazon launched its cloud player in March, which gives users 5Gb of storage space to upload songs and play them from any number of Android devices.
Google Docs is a free web-based storage service. It allows users to create and edit text, spreadsheet and slide show documents in real time with other users. Google has also released Music Beta, a streaming service announced last month.

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