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technoshaman for the link: As most of you reading this likely know by now, Apple Inc.'s grand poohbah, Steve "We Don't Need No Steenking Desktop!" Jobs, announced yesterday that his company is introducing a new 'iCloud" service to encourage people to store their personal data and applications on Apple's servers instead of a desktop computer's or local server's hard drive. Legendary industry pundit and author Bob X. Cringely suggests in his latest blog article that Steverino's real aim in introducing iCloud is to destroy Microsoft Corp. and its longstanding IT hegemony.
As I posted on TS's blog awhile ago, my response is: I'm sorry, I ain't buyin' it (in either sense). Much though I respect Mr. Cringely, I think he and Jobs are both vastly overestimating consumers' willingness to entrust all their data (some of it quite private and potentially embarrassing, if not outright dangerous if made public) to someone else's server God and Apple's techs alone know where.
I worry enough already about hackers and other miscreants accessing my data through my web pages and the DSL pipe into my home, which is one reason my computers are never, ever left on when I'm not using them (the others are energy savings and reduction in wear and tear). The privacy argument gets even stronger for businesses with tons of precious proprietary data; to them, putting all that in "the cloud" is practically begging for industrial spies to hack into it and make off with their competitive advantage. I predict most CEOs—and their IT heads—will take an exceedingly dim view of the notion of leaving their company's data and software on any system they cannot directly monitor and control.
And what happens if the phone lines go down in a storm or terrorist attack? Unless you have a backup close at hand, you're screwed. I don't even keep my personal files on my computer's internal hard drive; I use an external one in case the Mac goes on the fritz, so I can access it from a working computer. (With the laptop, I don't have a choice but to use the internal drive...but I keep a backup externally.)
For both mechanical and security reasons, the locally-owned-and-controlled PC, server(s) and LAN are not going away anytime soon no matter what SPJ thinks he can muscle users into. Readers with more knowledge of the industry and the systems involved than I (which is to say about 2/3 of my f-list) are welcome to try arguing me out of this opinion.
technoshaman for the link: As most of you reading this likely know by now, Apple Inc.'s grand poohbah, Steve "We Don't Need No Steenking Desktop!" Jobs, announced yesterday that his company is introducing a new 'iCloud" service to encourage people to store their personal data and applications on Apple's servers instead of a desktop computer's or local server's hard drive. Legendary industry pundit and author Bob X. Cringely suggests in his latest blog article that Steverino's real aim in introducing iCloud is to destroy Microsoft Corp. and its longstanding IT hegemony.As I posted on TS's blog awhile ago, my response is: I'm sorry, I ain't buyin' it (in either sense). Much though I respect Mr. Cringely, I think he and Jobs are both vastly overestimating consumers' willingness to entrust all their data (some of it quite private and potentially embarrassing, if not outright dangerous if made public) to someone else's server God and Apple's techs alone know where.
I worry enough already about hackers and other miscreants accessing my data through my web pages and the DSL pipe into my home, which is one reason my computers are never, ever left on when I'm not using them (the others are energy savings and reduction in wear and tear). The privacy argument gets even stronger for businesses with tons of precious proprietary data; to them, putting all that in "the cloud" is practically begging for industrial spies to hack into it and make off with their competitive advantage. I predict most CEOs—and their IT heads—will take an exceedingly dim view of the notion of leaving their company's data and software on any system they cannot directly monitor and control.
And what happens if the phone lines go down in a storm or terrorist attack? Unless you have a backup close at hand, you're screwed. I don't even keep my personal files on my computer's internal hard drive; I use an external one in case the Mac goes on the fritz, so I can access it from a working computer. (With the laptop, I don't have a choice but to use the internal drive...but I keep a backup externally.)
For both mechanical and security reasons, the locally-owned-and-controlled PC, server(s) and LAN are not going away anytime soon no matter what SPJ thinks he can muscle users into. Readers with more knowledge of the industry and the systems involved than I (which is to say about 2/3 of my f-list) are welcome to try arguing me out of this opinion.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 09:29 pm (UTC)It is important to note, however, that a large number of the people responsible for MobileMe found themselves looking for work soon after the launch; and perhaps Apple learned a thing or two from it.
In the end, it is only supposed to duplicate your data, from any source (computer, iPhone, iPad, etc). The failing of MobileMe was that it was always assuming that your computer was the "master" copy- and if the sync order got mixed up in any way, you could be in a world of hurt.
Fortunately, iCloud is opt-in. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 09:24 pm (UTC)And, while there's a copy in the cloud, it's only used to sync between your computer and iOS devices. So, while there is a privacy concern, there shouldn't be a data loss concern. :)
You end up paying for the privilege by buying an iOS device. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 09:22 pm (UTC)Traditional cloud services are a large fabled disk in the sky; and you use some form of controlled gateway to access your data. T-Mobile's Sidekick comes to mind here, as well as the Google and Amazon offerings that have you accessing through a website.
There is, however, a newer paradigm that was introduced by Dropbox. This paradigm isn't, "The Cloud is centralized storage".. it's something different. This paradigm is, "The Cloud is simplified *communication*."
If you use Dropbox, yes, they store data (up to 2GB free) you choose in some undisclosed data center. *But your data is also* kept on your local hard drive. Any change you make in the Dropbox folder on your hard drive is sychronized to *all* systems that you have a Dropbox folder tied to your account.
My mother lives in Florida, and I manage her computer. What's the easiest way for me to get pictures or business data to her? Dropbox. I work on presentations sometimes on my home machine, and use Dropbox to pick up the file on my desktop machine at work.
A convention I work with uses my Dropbox for all our files. All I did was share one folder in my Dropbox and the entire concom has access to the central documentation for the convention.
The important thing to remember is that Apple is not likely to abandon data loaded on an individual device. Ever. It's *very* deep in their DNA- they sell engineering and devices; not an online store. This is part of why their cloud offerings have failed so miserably in the past.
iCloud is Dropbox on steroids... if you are an Apple iOS user. It's pretty much useless for anyone else.
If you take a picture on your iPhone, it's downloaded to your Mac by the time you get home. There's a song you bought on iTunes, and you want to hear it but you hadn't put it on your iPod touch? You can download it direct from the cloud.
Not stream. Download. This is a significant difference.
Make a change in your address book? Update it on your Mac, and it's synced to your iOS device(s) with *no* activity on your part. It's completely automatic.
If you turn it on. :) Yes- it's opt-in.
At the end of the day, iCloud is a service for iOS to help make iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads computer independent (which they've needed to be for quite some time). If you have no computer, you can have your data backed up to iCloud- so if your device gets stolen, it's all restored.
And if the iCloud has an iStorm and iLightning destroys service? Your data is still on your device.
Now, note- I haven't specifically said whether I think it's a *good* thing or a *bad* thing- it is simply a *different* thing than traditional cloud offerings; and your data is always on a local device. This addresses the "my data is going away with the service" fears- but admittedly doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the more-than-valid privacy fears. :)
Cheers. :)