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iOS 8 beta 3 indicates iCloud Drive will also be accessible from iCloud.com

 

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iCloud Drive was first announced at WWDC. This feature is Apple’s new approach to iCloud file syncing, replacing Documents and Data. The new interface acts more like Dropbox, with one central folder containing all iCloud documents in one place. This gives more flexibility over the model used by iOS 7 and Mavericks, where iCloud documents are siloed within their own app’s containers.

At WWDC, Apple announced that iCloud Drive could be accessed from Mac, iOS devices or even PC’s (as shown by the iCloud Drive preview page). However, a new setup screen present in iOS 8 beta 3, released earlier today, shows that Apple is also planning to expose iCloud Drive on the web. Although people were surprised by native PC support, bringing iCloud Drive to the web enables even more flexibility, bridging any OS with a modern web browser.

It seems that Apple will soon add functionality to iCloud.com that enables viewing of iCloud Drive’s contents. Currently, documents for Apple’s iWorks apps are the only iCloud files visible on iCloud.com. It is likely that iCloud Drive will work in a similar way, although inline editing will not be supported as is possible with Pages, Keynote and Numbers documents.

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Comments

  1. rogifan - 10 years ago

    Maybe I’m being really dense, but how would iCloud Drive be available on Windows if not on the web?

    • PMZanetti - 10 years ago

      Probably through iCloud control panel app for Windows.

      • rogifan - 10 years ago

        Does that exist now?

      • Richard Smith - 10 years ago

        iCloud control panel works fine in Windows, been using it for about a year on Win7 & 8

    • could sync a folder on your windows pc

    • Matt Hoffman-Whiley - 10 years ago

      I’ve added iCloud drive but its deleted everything from my iCloud folder, any idea how to retrieve them??

    • mikhailt - 10 years ago

      iCloud Drive will be available on Windows, alas Dropbox folder. People can install iCloud Drive on Windows and it’ll sync their data between iOS, OS X, Windows, and the iCloud.com site.

      I don’t know if Apple will provide it for Android in the future, that’ll be interesting to see.

  2. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    Finally a full and complete Dropbox replacement, built right in. Cannot wait to ditch Dropbox.

    • crichton007 - 10 years ago

      I think that would be a nice possibility but I’ll believe it when they prove it. When John Gruber doesn’t even use iCloud for his app I have doubts about how good things are/will be.

      • freediverx - 10 years ago

        I believe you’re confusing document storage with 3rd party data syncing.

      • crichton007 - 10 years ago

        Not necessarily, Dropbox does both and now iCloud is hoping to as well. I use Dropbox for both but I have heard a lot of complaints from developers about some of the mechanisms that iCloud uses for syncing as not being very fast and/or reliable. Until Apple offers all of the same aspects of Dropbox at generally equivalent levels of reliability then I don’t think that they can be considered a true replacement.

    • Nizam Islam - 10 years ago

      Here’s my issue with iCloud Storage, there has been no mention of an iCloud Storage App for iPhone, therefore the data would only be accessible within apps. Due to this single issue, it is not a complete dropbox replacement.

      • freediverx - 10 years ago

        Of course there’s an iOS app…

        https://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/icloud-drive/images/hero_hero.png

      • Xavier Poirot (@dalaen) - 10 years ago

        The iOS app is a document picker. So it’ll be in apps integrating a document picker.

      • mikhailt - 10 years ago

        You didn’t see the Document Picker they announced at the WWDC keynote? It’s an integrated system file manager on iOS 8, any app can use iCloud Drive to save and read files from.

      • Nizam Islam - 10 years ago

        A document picker although nice is not an iCloud drive app. I think most people would prefer both.

      • Gareth Underhill - 10 years ago

        Having just upgraded this morning to iOS 8, I had been hoping to swap from Google Drive/Dropbox to iCloud Drive, but this omission had totally passed me by. Not having an app that works as a logical file manager, makes no sense to me!?! Do people actually file things by app? I have work folders, such as invoicing, which may contain editable documents such as a pages/word file and also pdfs. To separate them out by app would be a nightmare and illogical. If I were to replace their suggested folders with my own set up, would it break the cross device sync?

  3. Taste_of_Apple - 10 years ago

    Reblogged this on Taste of Apple and commented:
    Makes sense. Can’t wait till iCloud Drive goes live. I’ve been a Dropbox user for a while, but I’m hoping this will be a much better and more seamless experience.

    • freediverx - 10 years ago

      Question re: Dropbox… Users have the option to selectively sync specific folders to any computer. If you have limited storage (say, on a Macbook Air) it follows that you will want to disable folder sync on that machine. Once you’ve done this, is there no way to at least browse the files available on Dropbox via the Finder?

      I’m hoping that iCloud Drive works similarly to iTunes Match, in that every device has full visibility of all available files at all times, even if they’re not stored on the device.

      • Taste_of_Apple - 10 years ago

        I’m not 100% sure. I don’t believe that you can search non synced files from Finder (I don’t recall ever trying to be honest – I’ll check later to see for sure). I agree with you and also hope that’s how it works. I like that you can see everything, even if it isn’t taking up space on the device itself. For me, that would be ideal.

      • Taste_of_Apple - 10 years ago

        Ah just saw this (from Mark Gurman) on Twitter:

        “iCloud Drive is cool, but without a dedicated viewer on iOS (like it has on OS X in Finder), it can’t replace Dropbox.”

        Let’s hope they improve that before final release.

      • freediverx - 10 years ago

        “iCloud Drive is cool, but without a dedicated viewer on iOS (like it has on OS X in Finder), it can’t replace Dropbox.”

        I’m assuming he’s referring to iOS versions of Preview and/or Textedit, which he leaked back in March.

        http://9to5mac.com/2014/03/13/ios-8-apple-works-to-further-push-icloud-as-the-future-of-the-ios-file-system/

        http://9to5mac.com/2014/03/13/screenshots-of-ios-8-healthbook-preview-textedit-icons-leaked/

        It would be silly for Apple to expect users to download a 3rd party app for something as basic and previewing their iCloud documents on their mobile devices.

  4. iCloud web for Developers already allows to access drive files.

    • mikhailt - 10 years ago

      But that’s not what the article is trying to point out, it’s trying to say that it would be open to the public for the first time.

  5. voldzi - 10 years ago

    Great news! Finally all files in one place…

  6. rahhbriley - 10 years ago

    Silly me, I just assumed this would be a feature.

  7. Usman Mohammad - 10 years ago

    Is this going to allow us to back up our camera roll so we can free up space on our phone?

  8. There goes Apple’s quest to hide the file system from end users. Good riddance.

  9. So it’s going to be accessible through Windows, but not OSX Lion. Wonderful.

  10. William Hackett - 10 years ago

    If you’d like to take a look, hit up https://developer.icloud.com/
    Note: You may need to login normally from https://beta.icloud.com/ or https://www.icloud.com/ first before using the develop site.

  11. zachspears - 10 years ago

    This is how you access it on the web: https://beta.icloud.com/#iclouddrive

  12. Rodenbusch Neto - 10 years ago

    How can I see the photos uploaded in iCloud?

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Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.