What is APPLE planning?

[Gansan]

Keynote stream: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/11piubpwiqubf06/event/

NetViper, shouldn't we be glad that competition fosters improvement? It seems like a good thing that Apple should plug each of the holes where people say they need improvement. They seem to be methodically addressing each item of complaint with a good quality implementation.

 

[NetViper]

Today's announcements were all about integration. Making everything available all the time and every where, regardless of where it was created or where you are and making it as automatic as possible. Invisible to the user to the degree that it's possible.

You might be able to most those things today (although I'll disagree about "all") with Android or a jailbroken iOS device, but it's a rat's nest of vendors and methods that must be maintained apart from the software that came with the device. The advantages of having this stuff right out of the box are attractive to me.

Oh, it is for sure a great thing for iOS users. It makes an already good OS even better and plays catch up in a lot of areas it was falling behind. It is a solid upgrade. Just don't call it innovative. (not that you did)

I am looking forward to trying it on my wifes iphone in the fall.

 

[NetViper]

Keynote stream: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/11piubpwiqubf06/event/

NetViper, shouldn't we be glad that competition fosters improvement? It seems like a good thing that Apple should plug each of the holes where people say they need improvement. They seem to be methodically addressing each item of complaint with a good quality implementation.

See my post above this one. I agree with you.

PS. I would watch the video but I don't want to download quicktime.

 

[Jimbo]

Major new stuff!

While any given feature might not be brand new, the level of integration and functionality has never been seen. Highlights for me were...

iPhone and iPad are now true standalone devices. You don't need to tether them to a computer. This is major.

Icloud is free! 5GB and that does not include music, books, etc.

The level of seamless integration. Between all of the iApps, photos, music. There's nothing like this today. The matching (without uploading) is particularly cool. Google's version is looking real lame. Say you're traveling and taking photos with your iPhone 4. They can be automatically sent to the iCloud and then the images could be viewable on an Apple TV or iPad halfway around the world right away. I can think of numerous business uses for this.

The iCloud API is available to developers too.

The whole effort with Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud will be hard for other competitors to effectively duplicate.

But at least now the competition knows what direction to head.

 

[heySkippy]

The iCloud API is available to developers too.

That is where the real potential is. The next year will be interesting.

 

[flaminio]

iPhone and iPad are now true standalone devices. You don't need to tether them to a computer. This is major.

You mean like Android phones have been since, like, forever?

Apple copies a bunch of features from Android, calls it iOS5

:biggrin:

 

[Jimbo]

No, nothing at all like Android.

The combination of iOS 5 and iCloud is nothing like anything provided by Android.

Oh, sure maybe some of the basic features on the surface - but once again Apple is going to show everyone else how it's done.

Android has so many other problems - heck, they can't even get apps to run on all the various fragmented models/versions (i.e. Netflix which only runs on four HTC model phones (the Incredible, EVO 4G, G2, Nexus One) and the Samsung Nexus S)

 

[NSXrebel]

Pretty neat stuff. Sure, some of it may not be new, but the way it's all being implemented/integrated is definitely new and innovative. MobileMe is going away, it's features are now part of iCloud and it's free, no ads, thank you.
iTunes Match is a steal, (pun?) to legitimize all your "ripped" music, unlimited songs for $24.99/yr and it upgrades your songs to 256kbps AAC DRM-free.
OSX Lion is only a $29 upgrade, no complaints there. Can't wait for this to come out.

 

[NetViper]

http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/07/apples-ios-5-already-jailbroken/

Everyone’s favorite muscle-bound nerd brought iOS fans great news on Tuesday: iOS 5 has already been jailbroken. The Dev Team’s “MuscleNerd” posted on Twitter that he has successfully jailbroken Apple’s iOS 5 software using Limera1n. Right now his jailbreak is tethered, meaning the device must be connected to a computer each time it is booted, but this version of the jailbreak will never reach consumers so it doesn’t really matter. MuscleNerd says the exploit used to jailbreak the iOS 5 beta will still work on the final release version, so iOS users can sit pretty knowing the latest version of the operating system will likely be jailbroken immediately following its release this fall.

 

[flaminio]

The combination of iOS 5 and iCloud is nothing like anything provided by Android.

Serious question: What does iOS5+iCloud give me that Android+Dropbox doesn't?

 

[NetViper]

Serious question: What does iOS5+iCloud give me that Android+Dropbox doesn't?

Higher Data Charges?:wink:

 

[heySkippy]

Serious question: What does iOS5+iCloud give me that Android+Dropbox doesn't?

I don't know much about Android or Dropbox, but can you do this?

Take a picture with your phone. Without doing anything else, the picture is instantly available on your wife's phone, your laptop, your desktop, and your tablet.

The above scenario can be modified in any number of ways. The source of the picture might be your SLR and it's offloaded to your desktop or it might be a spreadsheet that you created on your tablet, or etc.

 

[flaminio]

I don't know much about Android or Dropbox, but can you do this?

Take a picture with your phone. Without doing anything else, the picture is instantly available on your wife's phone, your laptop, your desktop, and your tablet.

Yes, if I made the folder where pictures are saved visible to Dropbox. This is easy to do.

The above scenario can be modified in any number of ways. The source of the picture might be your SLR and it's offloaded to your desktop or it might be a spreadsheet that you created on your tablet, or etc.

Dropbox is likewise filetype agnostic. It doesn't matter if it's a picture, music file, spreadsheet, video, whatever. If it's in a location that is sync'd by Dropbox, it'll show up on my work computer, my home computer, my Mac, and my Droid. Automagically.

Dropbox provides only 2 GB for free, while iCloud gives you 5 GB, so that's nice. You can of course buy more space if you want. Note however that Microsoft's SkyDrive (a similar service) gives you 25 GB gratis.

This has been available for years. I have not read anything about iCloud yet that sounds revolutionary to me, but I am still learning about it, and welcome any clarification.

 

[Jimbo]

You guys should visit www.apple.com/icloud

Here's an example. You buy a song from iTunes. It shows up automatically on all your devices, including Windows iTunes. No extra charge.

You take a bunch of pics with your iPhone. These images can automatically appear to someone on their flat panel TV via AppleTV. Windows PCs uses the Pictures folder as a repository.

Same with books and documents.

iCloud is built into the apps, so it's smart enough to do delta updates (just the changed data). So you use way less on your data plan.

If you want to upload your own music that you ripped, unlike Google and Android you don't have to upload all your music which could take weeks and kill your data plan. iTunes Matching just scans the titles. It also upgrades to 256 AAC.

Another difference from Android and Dropbox is that all your settings and layouts are preserved. So if you're editing a presentation on your Mac and closed it on page 22 at a certain zoom level with certain tool palettes open, the all that will be maintained even if you open it on a iPad or iPhone.

Jobs went out of his way to say iCloud is not just a big hard disk in the sky like Dropbox. With Dropbox things stay on Dropbox. iCloud actually pushes the files to your local devices. And anyone who tried to edit a large file on Dropbox over a slower connection will appreciate.

There's much more too. Take a moment and check it out.

-Jim

 

[NetViper]

You guys should visit www.apple.com/icloud

Here's an example. You buy a song from iTunes. It shows up automatically on all your devices, including Windows iTunes. No extra charge.

You take a bunch of pics with your iPhone. These images can automatically appear to someone on their flat panel TV via AppleTV. Windows PCs uses the Pictures folder as a repository.

Same with books and documents.

iCloud is built into the apps, so it's smart enough to do delta updates (just the changed data). So you use way less on your data plan.

If you want to upload your own music that you ripped, unlike Google and Android you don't have to upload all your music which could take weeks and kill your data plan. iTunes Matching just scans the titles. It also upgrades to 256 AAC.

Another difference from Android and Dropbox is that all your settings and layouts are preserved. So if you're editing a presentation on your Mac and closed it on page 22 at a certain zoom level with certain tool palettes open, the all that will be maintained even if you open it on a iPad or iPhone.

Jobs went out of his way to say iCloud is not just a big hard disk in the sky like Dropbox.

I am not following you on how this isn't a huge data hog.

Example. I take a photo on the iPhone, its 4 meg or so (just guessing), then it has to upload to the cloud. I take 10 photos, thats 40 meg of data uploads that day. Yes, I could do it wifi, but let's say there is no wifi avaialble.

Then, I am taking pictures with my SLR camera, where the photos are 10-15 meg. I upload them to the cloud. So I want to pull one up on my iphone, that is 10-15 meg download every time.

Now to powerpoint. I have a 50 meg powerpoint including video. I want to use it on the ipad. That is a 50 meg download over 3g to my ipad. ( again no wifi).

So how is this not a huge data hog? Am I wrong on my assumption of how this works?

 

[NetViper]

I don't know much about Android or Dropbox, but can you do this?

Take a picture with your phone. Without doing anything else, the picture is instantly available on your wife's phone, your laptop, your desktop, and your tablet..

It cannot be instant. It won't happen within a fraction of a second. It has to be uploaded to the cloud. So that isn't really correct. If I take a 20 meg video with my iPhone, it has to upload to the Cloud. That takes a long time over 3g and its not all that fast on wifi either.

Dropbox works the same, you "drop" something from your desktop to it. It copies over -- ie uploads -- and then you can access it anywhere with an internet connection. It doesn't do a lot of what it sounds like iCloud does in terms of placeholding or checking your music files, but it is essentially the same idea. Basically a hard drive in cyberspace.

It sounds liek Apple has taken Dropbox to the next level, but ask yourself how much of your data do you want out there to be potentially stolen.

One more thing... you said it is instantly avaialble to your wifes iphone. Doesn't each Phone have its own account? Otherwise you could share music and video downloads etc..without paying for them... or can you do that? I can see how you could have a phone, ipad and pc on one account, but two phones I don't know about.

 

[flaminio]

If you want to upload your own music that you ripped, unlike Google and Android you don't have to upload all your music which could take weeks and kill your data plan. iTunes Matching just scans the titles. It also upgrades to 256 AAC.

This I understand. If you've bought in to the iTunes world, there's no need to actually upload your music, as it's all already in the cloud. Just identify what you own, and iCloud will provide it to you on all your devices.

Now, how this would help someone like me, who has never purchased a single track from iTunes and has over 500 GB of ripped music, I am unsure.

Jobs went out of his way to say iCloud is not just a big hard disk in the sky like Dropbox. With Dropbox things stay on Dropbox. iCloud actually pushes the files to your local devices. And anyone who tried to edit a large file on Dropbox over a slower connection will appreciate.

1) Dropbox doesn't work this way -- files are local on each device; delta changes are sync'd just as iCloud does.

2) When you say "iCloud actually pushes the files to your local devices", doesn't that contradict your earlier concerns about "killing your data plan"?

 

[heySkippy]

One more thing... you said it is instantly avaialble to your wifes iphone. Doesn't each Phone have its own account? Otherwise you could share music and video downloads etc..without paying for them... or can you do that? I can see how you could have a phone, ipad and pc on one account, but two phones I don't know about.

Up to 10 devices is what I'm reading. We only have one iTunes account for the household.

 

[Jimbo]

This I understand. If you've bought in to the iTunes world, there's no need to actually upload your music, as it's all already in the cloud. Just identify what you own, and iCloud will provide it to you on all your devices.

Now, how this would help someone like me, who has never purchased a single track from iTunes and has over 500 GB of ripped music, I am unsure.




1) Dropbox doesn't work this way -- files are local on each device; delta changes are sync'd just as iCloud does.

2) When you say "iCloud actually pushes the files to your local devices", doesn't that contradict your earlier concerns about "killing your data plan"?

Yes, there is a cached local copy with Dropbox, but you really can't work with this. When you put a file onto Dropbox the effect of it - is to move the file and not copy it.

Much of the advantage comes in using the whole infrastructure.

If you have 500GB of ripped music, you could pay Apple the $25 per year and pull these songs into the system. Once under iCloud control they would be available on all your compatible devices. And you may find that many of these songs were updated to 256 AAC quality. Any songs that Apple doesn't have in their library, it just copies it to their servers. And keep in mind all this doesn't affect your free 5GB.

Perhaps it's not for you. I'm sure a lot of folks will like it. Since it's not out yet, I guess we really don't know the impact of network speed and data plan limitations. My only point is that Apple is doing delta updates whenever possible (i.e. Lion Mac OS X upgrade over the MacAppStore).

Could you come close in duplicating this functionality with macros, scripts and Dropbox? Probably.

-Jim

 

[flaminio]

Yes, there is a cached local copy with Dropbox, but you really can't work with this.

I must have been doing it wrong these past couple years. I've been working with local copies of Dropbox files without issue.

I have a client who has purchased the largest amount of storage available with Dropbox. He does all his work out of Dropbox, whether he's at his office computer, his home computer, his vacation home computer, his laptop, or his netbook. And, god love him, he's a real PITA client. If there was a speed issue, I would have heard about it.

 

[Jimbo]

I am not following you on how this isn't a huge data hog.

Example. I take a photo on the iPhone, its 4 meg or so (just guessing), then it has to upload to the cloud. I take 10 photos, thats 40 meg of data uploads that day. Yes, I could do it wifi, but let's say there is no wifi avaialble.

Then, I am taking pictures with my SLR camera, where the photos are 10-15 meg. I upload them to the cloud. So I want to pull one up on my iphone, that is 10-15 meg download every time.

Now to powerpoint. I have a 50 meg powerpoint including video. I want to use it on the ipad. That is a 50 meg download over 3g to my ipad. ( again no wifi).

So how is this not a huge data hog? Am I wrong on my assumption of how this works?

Well, there's no magic or tricks. Other than doing delta updates, there's going to be internet traffic, sure. But if you had a 50MB Powerpoint on Dropbox you wouldn't want to be trying to edit it over the net, right? So, in that regard, there's no difference with Dropbox.

But the nice thing with iCloud is that it's all integrated into the iOS apps. You know that with iPad and iPhone there's no visible file structure to the user. You launch an app and then you see all the documents associated with that app. With Dropbox you'll only see the files when you run the Dropbox app. Right now, app developers are having to include Dropbox support from with their app in order to have Dropbox support and not all of them do this. So, with iCloud it's just part of the system.

With iCloud everything looks the same to the end user. They don't have to DO anything to make it happen. No training or setup required. When you open a spreadsheet app like Numbers, all your files are there, whether they're local or on iCloud.

BTW: All iCloud communications are encrypted.

It's a question of elegant implementation I suppose.

-Jim

 

[Jimbo]

I must have been doing it wrong these past couple years. I've been working with local copies of Dropbox files without issue.

I have a client who has purchased the largest amount of storage available with Dropbox. He does all his work out of Dropbox, whether he's at his office computer, his home computer, his vacation home computer, his laptop, or his netbook. And, god love him, he's a real PITA client. If there was a speed issue, I would have heard about it.

When I move a file onto to my Dropbox it appears (to the user) as a move and not a copy. The local file moves to the Dropbox. Depending on the size of the file, it takes a while to sync-up and for the Dropbox icon to appear green. So, in other words, when I have a file on my desktop and move it to my Dropbox the file in question disappears from the desktop. (Of course, I could hold down the "control" key (or option key on a Mac) and make a copy.)

Are you saying your Dropbox experience is different?

My experience is - if I put a large CAD file onto the Dropbox, the delay is unbearable compared to keeping the file local and ready for quick read/write access with my SSD. If I make a copy (control key) then I retain a local copy but it's not the same file as the one on the Dropbox.

 

[flaminio]

When I move a file onto to my Dropbox it appears (to the user) as a move and not a copy. The local file moves to the Dropbox. Depending on the size of the file, it takes a while to sync-up and for the Dropbox icon to appear green. So, in other words, when I have a file on my desktop and move it to my Dropbox the file in question disappears from the desktop. (Of course, I could hold down the "control" key (or option key on a Mac) and make a copy.)

Are you saying your Dropbox experience is different?

My experience is - if I put a large CAD file onto the Dropbox, the delay is unbearable compared to keeping the file local and ready for quick read/write access with my SSD. If I make a copy (control key) then I retain a local copy but it's not the same file as the one on the Dropbox.

Well, you could move your Dropbox location to your SSD -- this might help with your CAD files and speed.

But I would say, yes, my Dropbox experience is different. I don't move files in and out of the Dropbox on a regular basis -- I just edit them directly out of the Dropbox folder. I've not experienced the unbearable delays you have, but then again, I don't have an SSD, so perhaps I'm just not noticing it.

 

[Moses]

I don't know much about Android or Dropbox, but can you do this?

Take a picture with your phone. Without doing anything else, the picture is instantly available on your wife's phone, your laptop, your desktop, and your tablet.

The above scenario can be modified in any number of ways. The source of the picture might be your SLR and it's offloaded to your desktop or it might be a spreadsheet that you created on your tablet, or etc.

You can do this with Windows Live SkyDrive and you have 25gb of storage

 

[Jimbo]

Well, you could move your Dropbox location to your SSD -- this might help with your CAD files and speed.

But I would say, yes, my Dropbox experience is different. I don't move files in and out of the Dropbox on a regular basis -- I just edit them directly out of the Dropbox folder. I've not experienced the unbearable delays you have, but then again, I don't have an SSD, so perhaps I'm just not noticing it.

OK, so then you're not editing local files (files actually residing on your HD). I thought you might have some way of editing the local cache file.

I suspect on apps that have a lot of file i/o, like CAD or video programs, then here is where you'll see the difference. If you have an app and files that mostly reside in RAM, the only slow down will be when you originally launch the app over the network. file i/o will all take place in RAM - very quick.

-Jim