iCloud Drive in Practice

Apple has its cloud storage service with iOS 8 with the name iCloud Drive. The service provides functionality similar to other cloud storage services. We talked about a generalized evaluation of cloud storage and cloud storage gateway before. Also read Do I Need a Cloud Storage? These previously published articles will help you to understand the technical part of this article named iCloud Drive in Practice.

Introduction to iCloud Drive

Apple’s new iCloud service Drive, as reported uses the existing iCloud storage with 15 GB allocated storage. (We noticed it is 15 GB for us, 5 GB is written elsewhere.) However, iCloud has not only supports storing backups, pictures and files but also can run Apple applications like Pages, Numbers and Keynote. iCloud Drive can now store all types of data and use mobile. The storage of data also possible with an Apple ID, if you are not using an Apple device. iCloud Photo Library stores every image and video from your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Macs in one central location. Best way to activate for OS X Yosemite is via iPhoto.

Apple wants to offer cheaper storage upgrades in future, so that enough disk space is available for the discerning tastes. Music, programs, books, TV shows and “My Photo Stream” will not count against the storage space.

Common Features of iCloud Drive

iCloud Drive can be used on iOS devices and also on Windows clients and Mac OS X version 10.10+ . To register, use your Apple ID and its password. Download data from a source device to iCloud Drive, this data will be also available on other devices. Here, iCloud Drive does not differ from its competitors. The new extension is particularly beneficial for users who want to use their data to multiple devices and edit, for example iPhone, iPad and Mac own or Windows machine.

While this was already available with Google Drive, OneDrive and OneBox and Dropbox, iCloud Drive is newer to this segment. But who needs to save a large amount of data, should go parallel with another option or alternatively use a physical device.

For security and privacy reasons, we can not recommend iCloud Drive for saving sensitive business and personal data. Using a physical device is a more safer option and keeps the NSA guys out. The total iCloud service has more resemblance with VNC, however; a VNC server with own networking and tight security is more appropriate to secure sensitive data.

A centralized data saving saves the user’s time but it is also saves the time of the person(s) breeching the security.