iCloud sucks

Conceptually I like iCloud. This magical service that devs utilise so that your data is stored safely and securely. You don’t really need to worry about how your data is stored, where it’s stored, as long as it is stored and you can access them.

My problem with iCloud is that it just doesn’t work in real life.

I can’t SEE my data. How do I access my files outside of the application? You can’t.

Here’s my anecdotal story of how iCloud is a piece of crap.

I use an app called 1SE. You take videos and store 1 second video clips against a particular day. I’ve been doing this for the past 8 months so as you can imagine this takes up quite a bit of space. But thankfully I have iCloud right? It backs it up! Great! Now I don’t have to worry about losing all my files!

But wait…what happens if I need to swap phones?

Using iCloud restore, 1SE just refused to restore…it was stuck on “loading”. After rebooting it was stuck on “waiting”. Great.

Being impatient, I downloaded iExplorer. Navigated tot he app directory and did a copy-pasta of the 1SE app directory. Thankfully that restored all my settings/videos just fine.

Now it makes me wonder, vast majority of users would have been FUCKED if this happened to them.

Instead of restoring the app AND the data. iOS should first restore the app and once opened allow users to select to restore from backup. Currently, if you delete your app accidentally and reinstall it…all your data is gone unless you restore from your entire phone. This is a serious design flaw.

I also thought about restoring from itunes backup but for some reason it didn’t restore any apps :S I remember there used to be a sync apps checkbox in the apps tab but couldn’t find it in the new itunes. Ah well…