In 2009, Steve Jobs met with the CEO of Dropbox and offered to buy the company. Dropbox refused. Jobs, in his typical style, later declared that Dropbox was just a feature and not a product that could turn into a profitable company. In 2011, Jobs showed the world iCloud, Apple’s own cloud storage service.
And at the time it sounded spectacular. iCloud is advertised as a “just works” service. You won’t need to see where files are stored, which apps save which files, etc. When you save a file in iCloud on one device, it’s synced to a compatible app on the other device.
There are a few problems with this. First, it doesn’t really work. More often than not, it’s unreliable. Second, it is limited. Very, very limited. A file saved in an app, such as Byword on iPad, can only be opened with the Byword app for Mac or iPhone, no other apps.
Why is all of this important?
Because in theory, iCloud Drive is meant to fix all of this. By – wait for it – becoming more like Dropbox.
Can your iCloud Drive store a cat? Dropbox: Store Anything by Jason Rozet. Original image via Kenneth Benjamin Reed.
Where will iCloud Drive work?
iCloud Drive is an updated version of iCloud, and you need to specify that you want to upgrade. The problem is that iCloud Drive is only compatible with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. If you’re running earlier versions of iOS or OS X on some of your devices and upgrade to iCloud Drive, those devices will essentially have cloud sync disabled.
So, before upgrading to iCloud Drive, check the OS version on all your devices.
About Archives and Photos
With iCloud Drive, like with iCloud, you get 5 GB of free storage. But in iCloud, photos don’t count towards free storage. To do that you have to use PhotoStream, it’s a mess. PhotoStream will back up your photos and sync them for free between all your devices. But it will keep the photo for only 30 days. Then, if you don’t have a copy of it stored on one of your devices, the photo is essentially gone. Too much for “cloud storage”.
But with iCloud Drive, that problem is solved. Any photos currently uploaded through iCloud Photo Library will stay in iCloud Drive until you explicitly delete the photo or until your storage is full. And 5 GB is pretty easy to fill, especially when you consider device backups.
However, you can pay more for more storage. $0.99 will get you 20GB more storage while 200GB will cost you $3.99.
Hello folders
In iCloud Drive, each app has its own folder with the app’s icon embossed on the folder. But the good thing is that this is not a secret path that you or other apps don’t know about. If you or an app can access iCloud Drive, they can access each and every folder created by any app, or even yourself for that matter.
Yes, this means you can create your own folders in iCloud Drive and store files there, just like you would on Dropbox.
Access iCloud Drive on Mac
When enabled, iCloud Drive will show up in the sidebar in the Finder. Just click and you will see all the folders listed there. You are free to mess with them here. You can delete files, display files from your Mac, move them, etc.
The only thing is that iCloud Drive doesn’t have a status indicator like Dropbox does. Dropbox’s menu bar app clearly shows when it syncs data and when the sync is complete. There is no such indicator for iCloud Drive.
Access iCloud Drive files on iPhone and iPad
This is where we hit a wall. There is no iCloud Drive app on iOS that lists all the files stored there, like Dropbox does. What you get instead is something called a “Document Selector”. It’s a feature that third-party app developers need to enable.
On iOS, iCloud Drive is still in a sense limited to this file-to-app approach. But when you find an app with the Document Picker, you get access to all the files stored in iCloud Drive.
Apple’s own Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps support the Document Picker. Same goes for third-party apps like Dropbox, Transmit, GoodReader, etc. Currently, the number of third-party support applications is really not much.
For example, in GoodReader, you need to tap Import button and select Import from iCloud Drive for the Document Selector to display. And by the way, the Document Picker is not limited to iCloud Drive. It also supports Dropbox.
Will you use iCloud Drive?
I hope you now know what iCloud Drive is and what it does. Knowing what you do, are you inclined to use it instead of Dropbox or Google Drive? Let us know in the comments below.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
