512 Pixels

Brian Stucki:

To sum it up, it is still possible to use iCloud for your personal stuff, but a shared Apple ID for you and your family. For me, the key was to skip the automated iCloud setup at the iOS welcome walk-through.

[via Shawn Blanc]

Of all the things Apple announced at WWDC, iCloud is the most difficult to explain. After watching the keynote and reading Apple’s site, the whole thing is so big it is hard to think about.

As John Gruber pointed out in this week’s The Talk Show, not everything in iCloud is actually new. iBooks has been using the “it just works” sync-like features since the service launched over a year ago. MobileMe’s contact and calendar sync has been pushing data between devices for years.

In short, iCloud is the iTunes Store and MobileMe glued together with an AppleID. The new bits are exciting, especially the APIs being open to developers for the first time.¹

“iCloud” really is just a term that Apple is using to tie all of these things closer together in the eyes of consumers.

The Elephant in the Room

Of course, it is easy to compare iCloud with Google’s cloud services. So let’s do just that.

iCloud and the Google cloud have very similar features on paper:

• IMAP Email
• Contact Management
• Calendar Syncing
• Photo Syncing
• Device-to-Cloud Backups
• Document Storage
• Push-to-Device Purchasing
• Cloud Music
• Purchasing of eBooks, Apps, etc.

Both sets of services take advantage of a single sign-on based on an email address for these services. However, way the companies approach the cloud, devices and how the two interact differ in a some very fundamental ways.

The Cloud and Devices

Google started with the cloud. Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. all existed before Android came along. As such, there is often a disconnect between the cloud and the device.

Google Docs is perhaps the biggest example of this. For ages, Google Docs was cloud-only, with no ability to edit from mobile devices. This has been added recently, but still seems half-baked. The company started with the cloud, and shoehorned its service onto devices.

Apple, on the other hand, is positioning its cloud services to supplement existing applications on existing hardware. For example, instead of the Google Docs approach, Apple has added file syncing and versions to iWork.

A side effect of this is the software itself. Google views the browser as all you need, while Apple continues to pour effort in rich, fat desktop and mobile applications. While web apps don’t gain many of the features as native apps, it is clear that Google believes that won’t always be the case.

Personally, I much prefer Apple’s philosophy. iCloud is designed so that users don’t have to learn anything new. Google wants users to log in to its servers and go to town on work; Apple wants users to keep on working the way the do now — just in a way that is better.

Price

Google’s services are free. iCloud is free, with the exception of iTunes Match. However, the age old debate concerning Google crops up here yet again — ads.

Google shows ads because it is the only way it makes money. Apple, however doesn’t have this issue. During the keynote, Steve Jobs said that they built iCloud as something that the people at Apple themselves wanted to use, and they didn’t want to look at ads.

I think it is pretty clear that Apple sees iCloud as an investment in its operating systems, even if iCloud — as its own entity — loses money.

Of course, ad-supported free service really isn’t free. Users are paying to use Google’s services with their personal information. That is something that a growing number of consumers are uncomfortable with, and with iCloud being a free service, I think this aspect of Google’s personality will become more apparent.

The New York Times:

They exist for only seconds at most in real life, but they’ve gained immortality in chemistry: Two new elements have been added to the periodic table.

The elements were recognized by an international committee of chemists and physicists. They’re called elements 114 and 116 for now — permanent names and symbols will be chosen later.

You’re not likely to run into any of this stuff. Scientists make them in labs by smashing atoms of other elements together to create the new ones.

Well, my job is boring.

[via @jensized]

Timothy B. Lee:

A new Tennessee law makes it a crime to “transmit or display an image” online that is likely to “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress” to someone who sees it. Violations can get you almost a year in jail time or up to $2500 in fines.

The Tennessee legislature has been busy updating its laws for the Internet age, and not always for the better. Last week we reported on a bill that updated Tennessee’s theft-of-service laws to include “subscription entertainment services” like Netflix.

The ban on distressing images, which was signed by Gov. Bill Haslam last week, is also an update to existing law. Tennessee law already made it a crime to make phone calls, send emails, or otherwise communicate directly with someone in a manner the sender “reasonably should know” would “cause emotional distress” to the recipient. If the communication lacked a “legitimate purpose,” the sender faced jail time.

I really wish my state’s government would spend more time on things that matter. Like schools. Or infrastructure. Or jobs.

This is the sort of thing that excited me when Apple announced the Smart Cover.

Leading off his recap of WWDC:

No discussion of a modern day Apple event can occur without at least some passing mention of Steve Jobs, who now both looks and sounds like he’s dying. I’m sorry to have to write that, and I know people get freaked whenever anyone has the temerity to even mention it, but come on. Aside from the weird psychological needs of a guy who feels he needs to market the hell out of products before an adoring crowd even though he is clearly–and literally–a shadow of his former self, the whole thing is just sad. Suffice to say I’m really pulling for the guy. But I am afraid for him.

Look, I get that Thurrott isn’t an Apple fan. He is a Windows guy. I have no problem with that. But this type of writing is just distasteful. Stick to writing about products, not someone’s health.

Timothy B. Lee:

Steve Jobs is apparently hoping that iCloud will break Apple’s losing streak on building cloud-based devices, and he’s hoping that the tens of millions of dollars the company has poured into its gigantic new data center in North Carolina will make the difference this time. But he may be stuck with the strengths and weaknesses of the company he has built over the last 35 years. We wish him well, but we won’t be surprised to see stories in the coming months about iCloud having performance and reliability issues.

While I think iCloud will be a solid service from Day 1, it is hard to ignore Apple’s failings in this space before.

Joshua Topolsky:

In a bizarre twist to an otherwise exciting news day, during an interview today just following Nintendo’s showing of its new Wii U system and games, company honcho Reggie Fils-Amie told GameTrailers that the sizzle reel of games shown today were not actually from the Wii U. Instead, when asked if they were from PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, Reggie replied “Absolutely, because we’re talking a year away from when the console will launch.”

Editor’s Note: This guest post was written by Marilyn Halpin. She and her husband run mac-fusion, an Apple-Authorized Service Provider in Signal Hill, CA. As such, she knows all about Apple support in the realms of education and business.

Yesterday’s announcement of Lion and Lion Server being only available in the Mac App Store made me cringe. Not because I will no longer be able to sell it. Not because I will lose what tiny bit of profit there was on it. Not because I have a love of physical DVD media. Not because you have to be on Snow Leopard to have this option.¹ I cringe because of how this shift to the Mac App Store works in the corporate world. As of today there isn’t a great way to deploy apps that are available in the Mac or iOS App stores. If you have 50 users that need FileMaker Go I can’t just buy a volume license of it and push it to their iPhones and iPads. I can’t use one Apple ID to manage 50 computers and apps that are only available through the Mac App Store. While there are several work arounds, none of them are optimal:

• Have your users buy their own software and expense it. Of course, this means your business no longer owns this software as an asset. When the user leaves the software tied to their ID, the software leaves too. Not a big deal on a $30 app but what about $300 one?
• Have multiple Apple IDs to purchase all the copies you need — one ID for every 5 Macs you manage. This is OK in a small shop of 10 or so people but getting up to 25 or more and it will get out of hand quickly.
• Assign users a special asset ID email address that they use as their corporate Apple ID and supply users with iTunes gift cards- This gives you your assets back but your user is still responsible for purchasing and installing their own software.

Now let’s move onto the other issues in the “Mac App Store Only” world.

What about bandwidth? You pick your above solution of choice and give the “OK” to move forward on obtaining a newly blessed app for the company. Now you have 10, 20, 50+ people trying to download the app and for the next 3 days you have massive internet slowness. There’s no internal software update server, no “download once, install as many as needed” options.

What about man power? I can install 50 copies of Filemaker Pro, all serialized, personalized and with preferences set in about an hour without disturbing the users, they don’t even know I’ve done it. What happens when your IT person now has to touch each of those 50 computers? What happens if you let your staff do it? What are the chances that all 50 of those users are going to install it correctly and not have issues? The bigger questions is what are those users NOT doing while they play IT guy?

Let’s talk about something I touched on earlier, having to upgrade your Mac to Snow Leopard to be eligible for Lion. Currently if you have an early Intel box that shipped with Tiger you can buy the box set of Snow Leopard as a legit upgrade path (it costs more but you get updated iWork and iLife and don’t have to have Leopard). Under this MAS Only approach you have to upgrade your Mac to Snow Leopard to be eligible for Lion next month. What? Why go through all the growing pains of a new OS twice? Oh, that’s right, so I can have access to the MAS to have access to Lion. Now let’s go back to corporate, my clients have site licenses for OS X. I will say that OS upgrades are not as fast or hands off as deploying apps, but doing each one twice… Start above rant all over again and kick me in my shins please.

There are so many questions right now my little head can barely contain it. I would love to see them institute a VLA (Volume Licensing Agreement) Apple ID. This ID would allow you to purchase as many copies of an app that you need. I would also like the option to download the installer (ONCE) and deploy it like I normally do. Until they find some sort of option for this the words “Mac App Store Only” will continue to scare me.

_Full disclosure: I work for an AASP and my day to day function at our company is outsourced Mac IT for small to mid sized business.
_

Brett Kelly:

To maintain a task list in Evernote is fine and not especially difficult in terms of keeping the data in the app. For me, it gets dicey when I need to access or manipulate the data, particularly on a mobile device. If I keep my tasks in a separate notebook and tagged them all such that I could call them up quickly with a saved search, I’m still looking at what I would consider a prohibitive number of taps + waiting time.

OmniFocus, on the other hand, is an application whose sole purpose is task management, so it’s built with the understanding that the user who opens it is, in all likelihood, interested in creating or performing a task. It provides lots and lots of ways to slice and dice my task data (including grouping tasks based on my current location) and it’s very, very fast. Depending on how you structure you task list in Evernote, it’d also probably be a bit difficult to get a bird’s-eye view of your “plate”. That coupled with a few tactical-level things like dependent tasks, date-based availability and others are what make OmniFocus a clear winner for me.

(A) OmniFocus is awesome.

(B) That bit about mobile sync is why I don’t use Evernote.

I was chatting with Aaron Mahnke this morning about some things concerning iCloud and iOS 5 and I had a thought:

Beta is stressful.

I am not an app developer, by any stretch of the imagination. Programming is the one part about computers that I just don’t understand.

But I do have access to a developer account. So both my iPad and iPhone 4 are running beta software at the moment.

I’m not testing any apps on it. I just like seeing what’s next earlier than most people. I like fiddling with new settings. I like living on the edge.

Most nerds do, in one way or another. I know guys who can’t swim, but play with enough electricity to kill a family. Some nerds can’t talk to girls, but will pour their hearts and souls into some code that others will inevitably pick apart. I’ll risk not being able to use my iPhone to play with some new notifications a few months early.

While it is fun, it is also stressful. There are lots of rough edges and missing pieces in the iOS 5/iCloud picture right now. One of the iOS 3 beta, my iPhone would just reboot when I tried answering it in areas with low cell signal.

Whoops.

Excuse me, my iPhone is buzzing.

David Sparks:

I’ve been thinking about how to take advantage of this iCloud love and am afraid I may have some trouble. My iTunes account is really old and affiliated with an older e-mail address. When I joined .Mac so many moons ago, I created a separate Apple ID, my .MAC account (which later became my MobileMe account). This has never been a problem. I’ve bought lots of apps, books, music, and video with the old iTunes account and the MobileMe account handles e-mail, calendar, and address book.

I am in the same boat. My wife and I share a family account. I’ve used the main ID for years to purchase content on both of our devices, with our family accounts for MobileMe syncing. This has worked great, since MobileMe and iTunes have been separate. However, with iCloud’s smash-it-all-together philosophy, I think I’m going to be going back to my main account for sync, and be buying apps under my wife’s account very soon.

Which bums me out.