iCloud is here! But it may take a while to get…
Apple have now released the long anticipated updates to OS X and iOS to enable iCloud, it's cloud based syncing and storage system.
iCloud, which will enable users to effortlessly sync there content wirelessly between their Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, is now live for public consumption, having been in Beta since the summer. It takes elements of Mobile Me and becomes the syncing method for iOS 5 devices, just as Google Chrome allows you to keep it synced across different computers. The update became available yesterday, with Mac users running Lion having to download the 10.7.2 update, with others needing the latest copy of iTunes in order to install iOS 5 onto their devices. For many, this may be the last time they need to connect to iTunes to update, from now on iOS 5 means that your iPhone or iPad will be able to update itself, over the air.
Best pop the kettle on...
Downloading 10.7.2: Not this quick for long...
It's not been a quick process for many though. It was inevitable that traffic for this update from Apple would be high, but not this high. With the update to Lion weighing in at over 800mb itself, there has been a big spike in internet traffic over the last 24 hours. When we commenced the update on our MacBook, we had an initial estimated download time of 19 minutes on our 16mb broadband. This soon leaped to nearly 3 hours, meaning it was left to finish overnight.
Apple have been pushing much of its software distribution to online recently, most notably Lion itself, which is primarily available through the Mac App Store. The download figures show much success for this, but the experience has highlighted the need for Apple to make sure its servers are up to it. If the cloud is the future, then the bandwidth needs to be able to cope with this much demand.
Is it worth the wait?
Definitely worth the wait. Ok, so to get your Mac and iOS device fully up to date, its going to take some time. Stick with it though, as iCloud based backups of your iPhone are worth it alone.
iOS 5 is available for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, 4S, iPad 1 & 2 and the 3rd and 4th generation of the iPod Touch. iCloud requires an iOS 5 compatible device, a Mac running OS X Lion or a Windows Vista or 7 PC.
