iCloud Drive

When it comes to file storage for Mac and iOS users, there are multiple options. Today, I want to look at iCloud Drive vs Dropbox.

When I think back to the early days of iPhone and iPad (and even my Mac life around that time), Dropbox was so ingrained into my workflows that I couldn’t ever see it leaving. On the flip-side, I’ve have been using Dot Mac/MobileMe/iCloud since before the iPhone was released. Years ago, Apple’s storage solution for Dot Mac/MobileMe was iDisk, and it was not good. Dropbox came along and made everything else look ancient.

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Apple’s iCloud Drive feature has matured to the point that several months ago I stopped using Dropbox on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad without having to dramatically change any workflows. I still interact with Dropbox on the web once a week to produce the 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast, but iCloud Drive could totally replace Dropbox for me with a few additional features…

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Apple has quietly added a new data restore feature to iCloud.com, enabling users to rollback accidentally deleted documents, calendar changes and contacts. The new ‘Restore Files’, ‘Restore Contacts’ and ‘Restore Calendars’ features are hidden in iCloud.com Advanced Settings pane.

Seemingly unrelated to iCloud backup, Apple shows snapshots of your recently deleted documents and lets you put them back onto iCloud Drive. This means there is now a way to recover accidentally deleted iCloud documents for the first time, because there is no equivalent to the Trash folder in iCloud.

Similarly, Contacts restoration shows timestamped snapshots of  your iCloud contacts database. Restoring to an earlier version reverts all changes made since the backup date. Unlike with files, you cannot individually restore single contacts. The same is true for Calendars.

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A new iCloud Drive setting in iOS 9 enables a hidden app that lets you manage your entire file library. You can find the setting at Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Show on Home Screen. After activating it you’ll find a new icon on your home screen for the iCloud Drive application.

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For the first time in several years, Apple is changing up its annual iOS and OS X upgrade cycle by limiting new feature additions in favor of a “big focus on quality,” according to multiple sources familiar with the company’s operating system development plans. We first reported in February that iOS 9, codenamed “Monarch,” would heavily feature under-the-hood optimizations, and we’ve now learned that Apple is taking the same approach with OS X 10.11, codenamed “Gala.” Sources have revealed additional new details on how Apple will optimize the new operating systems for improved stability and performance, add several new security features, and make important changes to its Swift programming tools for developers…

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Update: As of 6.30am PT, Apple had updated its status page as showing all services back to normal. The company said that 40% of users had been affected.

Apple’s system status page is showing a substantial issue with iCloud services, the problems affecting eleven different services and persisting for four hours and counting at the time of writing.

While Apple lists the services as “may be slow for some users,” many users are reporting that the services are either completely unavailable or time-out when attempting to login … 
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Apple has released an update to its iCloud for Windows beta, the service that lets Windows users access files and photos stored in iCloud and Apple’s new iCloud Drive feature.
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Dropbox for iPhone and iPad users is getting a lot more powerful today as the latest version includes a new action extension for iOS 8. This allows you to save information from various apps to Dropbox on iOS without having to open the cloud-syncing app.
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Microsoft is today rolling out an update to its Office apps for iOS devices bringing the ability to save to iCloud and tap into storage from other services across all three apps.
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In line with our report from earlier this week, Apple has released OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 via the Mac App Store. The update brings the changes that we detailed in our previous report:

• Resolves an issue that may cause WiFi to disconnect
• Resolves an issue that may cause web pages to load slowly
• Fixes an issue that caused Spotlight to load remote email content when the preference was disabled in Mail
• Improves audio and video sync when using Bluetooth headphones
• Adds the ability to browse iCloud Drive in Time Machine
• Improves VoiceOver speech performance
• Resolves an issue that causes VoiceOver to echo characters when entering text on a web page
• Addresses an issue that may cause the input method to switch languages unexpectedly
• Improves stability and security in Safari

Apple also released iOS 8.1.3 with various bug fixes today.

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Apple is having a bad month. Sure, the company launched two new iPhones, introduced the world to their first wearable device, and debuted a brand-new NFC payment system, but for everything that went right something somewhere also seems to have gone horribly wrong.

It started with a heavily-promoted live stream that failed within minutes, then moved to a massive, probably overblown “scandal” over bent iPhones. There was also the sudden discovery of a critical flaw that prevented a key iOS 8 feature from being available at launch paired with the subsequent botched update that was supposed to fix the problem but instead left owners of the latest iPhones potentially stranded without cell service for well over 24 hours.

And that’s not even counting the highly-publicized scandal in which a number of celebrity iCloud accounts were allegedly compromised due to Apple’s insufficient security measures on certain functions. Oh, and let’s not forget about that U2 album nobody wanted but everybody got anyway.

The last thing Apple really needs is one more big problem mucking up its image this month. Unfortunately, that seems to be exactly what the folks at Cupertino are getting today, as a newly-discovered bug in the iOS “reset settings” function runs the risk of permanently deleting all of the iWork documents stored in your iCloud account.

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Image via MacRumors

Apple has started sending out invitations to AppleSeed users inviting them to take advantage of a new beta seed for Windows, as shown in the screenshot above. The beta will enable features that would normally be reserved for OS X Yosemite or iOS 8, such as iCloud Drive, on the Microsoft-built operating system.

Developers were previously able to download this software for testing, but this is the first time that non-developer users have been granted access. Only a limited number of applicants have been added to this program so far, it seems.

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Dropbox has today slashed its pricing and doubled the maximum storage space from 500GB to 1TB. Up until yesterday, you’d have been paying $500/year for 500GB; today you can pay just $120/year (or $99/year when paying annually) for a terabyte.

The new deal finally brings Dropbox into line with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Apple users may want to hold off for now, however, with Apple’s new iCloud pricing – which includes iCloud Drive – expected to be broadly similar … 
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Apple’s release notes for OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 4 reveal that the company will be wiping CloudKit data tomorrow.

This data has to do with the new iCloud storage APIs in iOS 8 and Yosemite as well as with the upcoming iCloud Drive online storage feature. It’s best to safely store anything of importance before tomorrow’s wipe:

CloudKit Note: All public CloudKit databases are scheduled to be emptied on Tuesday, July 22nd.

Apple previously wiped CloudKit data ahead of iOS 8 beta 3 and OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 3. Thanks, Genady!

Update: Apple has emailed developers about the wipe, noting that iCloud Drive, Photos, and other iCloud-related products besides CloudKit storage will not be wiped:

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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.

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