iCloud

pedz

pedz

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I'm somewhat out of touch. I thought you guys here might know more.

With the new (furture) iCloud, I'm worried that Apple will do the same thing that it did with the .mac accounts. They were free to start with. That got me hooked. Then they started charging. I can especially see this when Steve Jobs is replaced. I think he is right that iCloud and its features will draw people to the Mac and other Apple products. But when he moves on and someone less visionary steps in, that seems like an obvious piece of "fat" (perceived fat) to trim

Has anyone seen any agreements from Apple and the iCloud yet? Do they state any promises like "free for life" or "free for N years"?

The iTunes cloud service for $25 per years is very attractive to me. I don't want to buy my music from the Apple store. Call me weird but I want the real CD in my hand so I can sell it or re-rip it with newer codecs as they come out, etc. I think really, I'm just an old fart and don't trust the new fangled ways. So, perhaps I will be "protected" if Apple starts charging for iCloud since I'll already be coughing up $25 per year. I'm still worried. The $99 per year for Mobil Me (what I call the .Mac accounts) seemed outrageous.
 
I don't think Apple has really given any timeline to how long iCloud will be free, thus I'm hoping it will be indefinite. The fact that Apple will sell Lion for $29 just like Snow Leopard makes pretty obvious that they get their money from somewhere other than Software. Maybe they do expect to get money from iCloud later because you need to either have Lion or iOS 5 to use it and iOS 5 is free. It does seem logical for them to charge.

However, obviously you need the hardware to run the software and their tablets and laptops are selling like hotcakes. I'd say, go find a financial and I'm sure they could tell you what Apple is really thinking.

I am curious though if they will be offering more than 5 Gb of space for a price. They say 5 Gb will get you far, but I have to disagree. If they plan on keeping recently imported photos, they'll have to provide a lot more than 5 Gb. Most of my photos are in RAW format and I like keeping them that way and sure don't want iCloud to convert them all of the time.


Oh and will iCloud mirror all of your songs in iTunes? Afterall, I don't see how it could tell the difference between songs that came from your CD's or another "source."
 
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When I watched the key note speech introducing the iPad, what I saw was three stores... three places to suck out your money. Its sorta like the lottery which taxes the poor. The stores feed upon the weak that this culture has cultivated -- the ones in debt up to their ears, can't wait for anything, rush rush rush. I saw a brilliant concept... Who cares about the iPad or the cost of it at all. Having three siphons into your pocketbook is what they want and where they make money... seems to me.

Re: iTunes. That is what the extra $25 per year is about. iTunes knows if you bought it from them. If you have not, then you have to pay $25 / year to have it in the cloud. I guess it is unlimited (currently).

One thing that stuck me as odd. I don't have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch... but about three or four of the "new features" caused me to go "What? you mean, I can't do that already?"
 
pedz said:
Re: iTunes. That is what the extra $25 per year is about. iTunes knows if you bought it from them. If you have not, then you have to pay $25 / year to have it in the cloud. I guess it is unlimited (currently).
Click to expand...

Yah, but I'm curiously as to whether or not they will know if it is pirated music or not. Meaning that Apple would probably give you a better copy of the music to use from the cloud even if the music is pirated. I guess they don't really care.
 
Somehow I just know that stashing music in the cloud will be a problem.First off, I'll have to upgrade all my equipment to handle Lion and second I'm like the OP. Third,when Icloud goes up it will most likely be a hackers no.1 target and I don't want to be part of that. I like to control backups my self. Time Machine for me works great and I also have my photos and music backed up to a second HD just in case! I use Google Docs and Dropbox for everything else Dropbox is especially handy in moving docs over to my Touch and windows partition.
Apple gets enough of my money as is don't need to give them anymore!
 
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