Dan Moren:
It’s clear that Apple’s launch of iCloud has the classic idea of a filesystem squarely in its crosshairs. In the future, you’ll no longer have to create a complicated hierarchy of folders, to maintain multiple versions of the same file, or even to remember where your file is stored.
From Apple’s perspective, this is all about making things easier for the user. You no longer have to remember where you put a file on a disk; instead, all you have to remember is the app you used to create or edit it. After all, it’s easier to remember that you were editing an image in Preview than that you saved it seven folders deep on your hard drive. I’ve certainly found myself relying more and more on the Open Recent menu option in apps that have it.
Tying files to apps has its advantages, to be sure. But Apple’s way of implementing has a cost: Sharing files between applications is more difficult and unwieldy now than it was before.
I have exactly two Keynote documents in iCloud. I often share them when I’m out and about in meetings, so it’s nice have them on my iPad. Past that, I find iCloud to be way to restrictive for my tastes.