Apple iCloud
iCloud - Who ‘gets’ it?
Friday, 2 March, 2012
Over the past week I have had a number of interactions with family and friends (and even my sister’s manager who needed iPad tech support that her organization couldn’t provide!) regarding iCloud on their iPhones/iPads. In a nutshell, they don’t get it so they don’t use it. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a feeling that many people are missing out on some of the pretty cool features of this service.
The story begins about two weeks ago. I had sent out iCal invitations to a large group of people for my daughter’s birthday party. My two sisters discovered three days ago that there was a party, and had no idea as they never received the invitation! Needless to say they were a bit angry and a little confused at being not invited to their nieces’ celebration. So of course I had to troubleshoot; I double checked that I had included them. (I had) I checked that I used the correct email addresses. (yes) I checked with other people on the list to see if they could confirm I had included my sisters (no problems) I finally resent the invitation multiple times, but still no luck. I kind of just left it at that.
Until last night - my sister dropped by for a visit and we were joking about her lack of invitation and her hurt feelings. I asked to see her phone, (I first commented on how it’s an ancient 3GS, mat that was the problem) and went straight to the calendar app to double check that the invitation wasn’t hiding somewhere. Then I got into her settings and into iCloud. As it happened she had almost everything turned off! No calendar sync, no photo stream, no contacts, no iCloud backup, nothing. She said she didn’t understand what it was there for, and had just basically shut it all off.
I honestly don’t know anyone who is ‘angry’ with iCloud, but from my own anecdotal experience I can say that 99% of people with an “iDevice” have no clue what iCloud is and what it can do for them; for me the question is why aren’t customers using this feature?
A recreation of my sister’s iCloud settings on her iPhone. I changed all of them. I turned on her iCloud backup as well.
When we went back to the calendar app in her phone, guess what showed up almost immediately? Of course, the invitation to my daughter’s fifth birthday party magically appeared...she clicked on accept, and my phone updated with her acceptance of the invitation almost right away. So cool, right?
It’s not the only time I have come across this iCloud phenomenon; my neighbours updated their iPad and didn’t turn on iCloud, they got an iPhone 4S and don’t use it. My sister’s manager at work has an iPad and turned iCloud off. My parents didn’t use iCloud until I set it up for them, and so on and so forth. My own personal opinion; it’s a powerful (and free) feature that comes with each Apple product and of course I really like it (even though iDisk, iWeb and Gallery are going away, that’s another story). But for some reason, at least in my limited experience, customers that I know are not “taking up” the iCloud feature, and as such are missing out from some of it’s great features.
Possible explanations? Here are my theories;
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1.Fear of the ‘cloud’ - aka is my information secure? Someone asked me this question the other day...they were concerned that someone else could gain access to their mail/calendar/backed up data. Valid concern, but it’s the least of my worries really; if someone wants to see what I am doing next Tuesday, have at it. That’s just me though.
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2.iCloud feature not explained during the sales process? I don’t know if it’s considered to be an add-on sales $ to your device by Apple, unless you want to upgrade your storage service. Perhaps it’s not something that staff at the Apple store are bringing up in their conversations with customers, focussing instead on up-selling AppleCare and accessories. I will have to listen in on some sales people next time I am there to confirm this.
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3.It’s too complicated? I found that setting up iCloud with all my devices (MacBook/iMac/iPod Touch, etc) is not really that easy. It’s also difficult to explain to most people all the things that iCloud can do; this website does a good job explaining the main features, if you want to learn more have a peak. Of course the Apple website is a fantastic resources as well.
What do you think? And are you using iCloud to its full potential?
Link:
iCloud Explained: courtesy of infographicworld.com
