One of the features that I was really looking forward to in iOS 5 was iCloud. Mainly because I've gotten quite used to using the iWork apps, Pages and Numbers, on my iPhone/iPad. (Well, mostly Numbers really - but that's just because my interests tend towards me needing spreadsheets a lot more than page layout or word processing apps.).
The file management for those programs though was a very weak link. I eventually settled on a semi workable solution where I kept all of my iWork files on iDisk. I'd download individual files of interest onto whatever device happened to be most convenient to use for viewing or editing. Then when done I'd upload it back to iDisk if I'd made any changes. It was a little clunky on the iOS devices but it worked seamlessly on my Mac, where a mirrored copy of my iDisk lived, and OS X did all the syncing transparently in the background.
I was expecting that with the launch of iCloud, I'd simply get that same seamlessness extended to my iOS devices as well. Once iOS 5 and iCloud and OS X 10.7.2 were all available and installed I eagerly migrated my MobileMe account across to iCloud. I updated all available apps, grabbed my iPad and started up Numbers.
Hmm, no mention of iCloud. That's okay, I'll just grab a file from iDisk to start with and..... Yep, it's syncing that file across to iCloud. Cool. Well, I don't want to do all my files one by one, I'll just jump on my Mac and move everything else across. Errrr, there's no iCloud interface on the Mac!? Ok, a quick google and... Oh, I have to upload my files through the iCloud website? Well, that's a bit clunky but I can live with it for now. After all, I only need to do this because I'm moving a bunch of existing files across. Whenever I create an iWork document from now on it'll go straight to iCloud. Right, let's start up Numbers and edit one of these new "iClouded" files. Hmmm, how do I open my iCloud files from Numbers? I guess I need to google that too, I thought it would've been more obvious.... You're kidding me. I can't open them directly? I need to manually download them via a web browser from the iCloud website, edit them, then upload them again? Isn't that the SAME PROBLEM WITH iOS THAT iCLOUD WAS MEANT TO FIX?!??
It was then that I realized that iCloud is a lovely integrated solution for syncing files across iOS devices, but its current Mac implementation is significantly worse than iDisk in MobileMe. Apple have essentially taken a system that worked great on Mac and so-so on iOS, and made it work very well on iOS and terribly on Mac. I'm more than a little underwhelmed. It's such a glaring issue that I'm sure Apple must've aware of it. I'm guessing there'll be an update to the Mac iWork apps very soon that addresses the problem. But I'm going to be very grumpy about it until then. With a workflow involving both iOS devices and a Mac, I think the old system worked better.
On a side note, I saw that theres at least one game which is making use of iCloud to sync progress between devices. Finally. This seemed like a no brainier to me as soon as apple announced that iCloud was going to be open to 3rd party developers. I hadn't seen anything in the press, or from any game companies, about planning to use iCloud in this way though, so I was starting to get nervous that it wasn't gong to be possible for some reason.
4 comments:
This bugs me, too. Especially as having your docs in sync between iOS devices isn't really that useful (how often do you use iWork on an iPhone).
The clunky nature of the current system has actually made me more likely to reach for the iPad instead of the computer at home to do small changes. Maybe it's a marketing strategy?
Honestly when I wrote this, I expected it to be resolved with an update to the desktop software within a week. Here we are, two months on, with still no solution in sight.
Very disappointing Apple.
How's Numbers on ios? Can it still handle fairly complex spreadsheets?
I've been fairly happy with it, haven't run into too many limitations that aren't in the desktop version as well. Much better than say Documents to Go on palm devices was. (Going back a few years, but I haven't really tried anything in between then and now.)
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