Two Reasons iCloud Sucks

I’m an Apple user and ordinarily a happy one, but iCloud is an abject failure.

Here are two (of many) reasons why.

Reason #1: You can’t get there from anywhere intuitive or convenient.

Apple insists that you access your iCloud files either through the application or through a browser.  But I might not want to open the application or a new browser tab to manipulate a file.

All I want is a shortcut in the upper toolbar right next to the ones for Dropbox, Evernote and the like.  Not at the browser level– at the OS level. This is easy to do and standard in the industry (see Dropbox, Google Drive and just about every other cloud storage option).

Here’s a mockup of what I mean:

iCloud_JustAddThis

Reason #2: Once you get there, you aren’t really there.

If you finally figure out how to get to the iCloud web page — which is the only place you can see a high-level view of the contents of your iCloud — it looks like this:

icloudsux_browswerwindowWhile it’s nice to have the “Find My iPhone” app here as well as access to webmail, when it comes to the files I might have in Pages, Numbers and Keynote this is terrible.

Where is the total view of all my files?  What if I want to group files from different programs into one folder?

Let’s say I’m creating a project — for my own business, for a consulting client, for one of my kids — and that project includes a spreadsheet for expenses, a word-processing document for all my notes and a deck of slides about the project. With a normal folder or a cloud-based folder from another provider I can toss all three files into one “Project” folder that is intuitively named and easy to find.

That doesn’t work with iCloud.  I have to go searching through different applications to find things, and I’d better be neurotically tidy about file naming conventions or I’m sunk.

Oh, and if I’m composing an email and then decide that I want to drag and drop a file from iCloud into the email to share with my correspondent?  Can’t do it.  I’d have to download the file onto my desktop and then attach it. And if I “Share” the document from within iCloud I am giving my correspondent access to my original, not a copy.

What is so galling about this is that decades ago it was Apple itself (via Xerox Parc) that innovated the graphical user interface (GUI) that employs a spatial metaphor in which you put files inside of folders and then arrange folders within other folders.  This is the “Windows” metaphor that Microsoft later scaled to every corner of the digital universe.

Generally, Apple is great when it comes to my work, my way, in my environment.

But the flip side is that Apple is terrible at anything involving more than one person.  There’s a reason it’s products are called iPod, iPad, iPhone, iMac and iCloud. The “i” may be lower-cased but it’s narcissistically focused on the individual.

What I want is the WeCloud. Fortunately it exists. It’s called Dropbox.

[Cross-posted on Medium.]

 


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14 responses to “Two Reasons iCloud Sucks”

  1. John Scott Avatar
    John Scott

    iCloud is terrible, you access it with other browsers and you may get some things to work and some things won’t. Its a disaster and just proves Apple knows nothing about cross platform access which is why they will always fail in Enterprise. In many things Apple has simply dumb down their applications and not in a good way. I started with .Mac years ago and it worked flawlessly. Ever since Mobile Me it has been down hill. Yes, Apple exclusive hardware seems to deal with iCloud very well, but don’t stray from Apple products or you will be sorry.

    1. googster101 Avatar
      googster101

      I really hate stupid icloud. all apps kept on downloading to another person’s phone in my family. One tip: Don’t use the same email in your family.

  2. Steve B Avatar
    Steve B

    I came across this in a google search for “iCloud sucks”. LOL. My general thoughts are that Apple is excellent is making good hardware and UI experiences. However, when it comes to “services” such as iCloud (mail, etc), they can never seem to get it quite right.

    Also, their dumbing down of stuff has really got me questioning my decision to buy into the ecosystem. I got an iMac and MacBook Air and an iPhone. I use iCloud for my email, calendar and contacts, etc. The syncing between Apple stuff is so awesome. However, I can build and repair PCs, maintain them. With Apple, I can’t do that because they control it. I like to put my PC knowledge to use and Apple takes that away.

    Someone above said that be careful of leaving the ecosystem because it is true. Apple and cross platform just doesn’t work well at all.

  3. Raven Avatar
    Raven

    I made the mistake of sending a book I had spent 3 months writing on my iPad to iCloud to transfer to my iPod. Tuned off iCloud and bingo book gone forever from all devices.. That sucked.

  4. rob Avatar
    rob

    icloud suck so much, i cloud.com is even worse.

  5. Pat field Avatar
    Pat field

    I absolutely hate icloud…..it does not upload all my pics across my devices. It doesnt even load them to my laptop never mind my ipad. I have been onto apple about this and even their blokes cant find an answer…..tick, check, turn on, do this with all devices blah blah blah…..do my pics appear? course they bloody dont!!

  6. Rhino Avatar
    Rhino

    Disaster … Missed appointments abound … I’ve spent hours trying to synchronise my calendar between iPhone, MacBook and iMac. Some entries transfer, others don’t. Now I can’t even sync directly b/w iPhone and MacBook like I used to. What to do?!

  7. Remus Avatar
    Remus

    On multiple times my contacts would not sync properly and would lose contacts!

  8. Tone Avatar
    Tone

    Icloud aka picture thief … backed up my pics then loggin in to upload them not a picture in sight smh. Apple sucks

  9. Elijah Avatar
    Elijah

    Haha, can’t believe it’s so many of us that find iCloud to be frustrating to say the least. Like a person above I chose “iCloud sucks” words combination in the Google search field without even typing it in and that’s how I found this article. To add a few bitter pills it completely sucks as a timely and reliable syncing Notes and Photos service. I still use older OS X with iPhotos and MyPhotoStream so I have it turned on my iPhone with iOS 12. At times it fails to show me the photos in MyPhotoStream on iPhone that it does show in MyPhotoStream on my Mac. On/off voodoo on iPhone alone didn’t help, I had to turn off\on MyPhotoStream on Mac as well and the photos disappeared here too. I added them manually from my Library again (is it your “just works”? It just sucks big time) and only after that iCloud or whatever process performs syncing picked up these photos and very slowly put them in batches to MyPhotoStream on the iPhone. Train-wreck of dopiness.
    Notes is just as wonky as Photos, especially with every iCloud account of which I have two. One of them still has older Notes: BTW, what’s so big about having a previously tiny app “enhanced” so that only users running ElCapitan and fewer, and iOS 10 and newer can use them, it’s just notes – splash of text and graphics! It’s just as slow to sync as Photos is and prone to failures and users’ waste of time trying to nag them to work. Just today I made a note in the iCloud account using older Notes and switched to the same account on a newer Mac, then popped in iCloud.com to discover that only half of my message showing up, although in older Notes it was kept intact. What’s this? Maybe the answer is that Push technology by Apple has not yet arrived at the required level of decency?
    I also noticed that when Gmail accounts are used for syncing Notes they generally tend to achieve that better than iCloud ones despite the fact that Google doesn’t bundle a separate notes app unlike Apple does.
    iCloud photo Library, iCloud Photos are turned off everywhere as is iCloud Drive. Use Google Backup&Sync instead. Apple still allow only 5GB for free which is a joke, hence “Optimize your storage”: it’s just a way to force people to use their clunky services more.

  10. Dominic Kröper Avatar
    Dominic Kröper

    “Where is the total view of all my files?”

    this is what is driving my crazy the past weeks… I use apple products at my work (office station + phone) and everyday it feels like Apple, on purpose, cripples its own products just to infuriate their customers. Files are not visible or editable in any shape or form. Forcing users to use their os-apps with no functionality. If apple does not seriously adress these things I’ll never get an apple product in the future that’s for sure.

  11. jd Avatar
    jd

    10 years since this article, and iCloud still suck. i really want to like it since i’m a fan of apple, but it has failed me too many times. it’s a stain on apple’s user experience.

    1. Jim Avatar
      Jim

      I hate it!! I bought a new phone, I cloud won’t give me any of my info I uploaded back😡😡😡 No matter what I try or do. Fricker Frack, Frick a Fricker Frack

  12. Maryann Eastman Avatar
    Maryann Eastman

    Just tried to use icoud again for the first time in YEARS. Its virtually useless. completely lame and NON functional. Beyond frustrating every single time. Pretty sure the developers were going for…. “hey, lets see how long users will try to actually use iCloud before giving up.” (insert maniacel laugh here)

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