What's new
Apple iPad Forum 🍎

Welcome to the Apple iPad Forum, your one stop source for all things iPad. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

I Don't Understand iCloud...

WonderPam

iPF Noob
Joined
Aug 8, 2011
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
At the risk of sounding really naive, I don't understand iCloud. Can I have my iPhone backed up to iCloud & my iPad 2 backed up to iTunes? Why worry about the size of gb (I just traded my 16 fb iPhone 4S for a 32 gb & I have a 64 gb iPad 2) when iCloud only lets you backup a total of 5 gb? I posted another thread about this, but though I've backed up my iPad 2 to iCloud, the store setting refuses to let me change automatic downloads for music, apps & pictures even though my iPhone works fine. I've watched the videos on the Apple website & I understand the concept of iCloud, but it just doesn't seem very practical. Can anyone please explain it so hopefully it can make sense to me?
 

richsadams

iPF Noob
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
3,500
Reaction score
99
Location
NW Left Coast
Yes, you can back up your iPhone to iCloud and your iPad to iTunes or vice-versa or back them both up to iCloud.

Not all of your data is backed up so you shouldn't have to worry about the 5GB limit. For instance I have a 64GB iPad and have used about 50GB's of storage. However my iCloud backup total is just shy of 1GB. That's because a majority of my files are music, video, etc. Those are already on my computer, so they aren't moved to iCloud storage. Apps and iTunes purchases aren't counted in the total iCloud storage used either. Here's a list of what is backed up to iCloud:

iCloud: Backup and restore overview

Having said that you can also backup your iDevice to both iCloud as well as iTunes. I use iCloud for daily backups, however I also perform a "manual" backup to iTunes on my computer about once a week. Of course I backup my computer (in my case with Time Machine) hourly/daily, etc. That way if for some reason iCloud is down or something happens to my iTunes backups I can still restore my iDevices.

The name "iCloud" is a little misleading IMHO. Although it does store a backup of your iDevice(s) as well as photos via Photo Stream for 30 days, it's not a true "cloud" storage service like Dropbox.

iCloud's greatest feature really is that it keeps critical information in sync between all of your Apple devices, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Mac computers. I took a photo of our dogs with my iPhone yesterday and within 10 seconds the photo was on my iPad and my iMac. It's pretty amazing.

Other features such as "Find my iPhone/iPad/iMac" as well as document storage for various apps in case you need to restore them is a bonus.

Hope that helps and here's some more info about setting up iCloud:

Apple - iCloud - Learn how to set up iCloud on all your devices.
 

thebirdman7

iPF Noob
Joined
Nov 4, 2011
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Also any purchases such as books, music and any photos do not count towards the 5gb limit. Once the limit is reached all you do is pay for more space, but the odds of you needing it are not that high unless you have a ton of documents and app data.
 

Most reactions

Latest posts

Top