The Cloud: Do you, or will you, use it?

So Apple introduced its iCloud today, keeping up with, or staying ahead of, Google and Amazon.

I'm conflicted about this. It would be nice to be able to access my files from anywhere, but it seems awfully risky to put anything of value on the Cloud. It seems like if people moved in that direction, completely leaving behind their old hard drives so they can access their files from their tablet computers from anywhere, that it would create an enormous security risk.

I'm sure they have some kind of military-level encryption, but my theory is the the hackers will always find a way in eventually.

I could see using it to store movies, music and even photos, but I don't think I'd trust anything important to be on it.

 

What does it cost?

 

I don't think I could rely solely on The Cloud. I might use it, but I'd want some kind of physical media stowed away somewhere to ease my rampant paranoia.

 

I read something that said you could only store music that was purchased on iTunes. That kind of sucks...

 

Free.

And Trooper, I'm with you on that too. I'll use the cloud, but I'll still back everything up on my external hard drives too.

 

I use my desktops at home and at work for file storage. I connect to both of them via iPad.
I don't need a cloud; however, they're certainly viable options.
If you use Google Docs or Dropbox, you're already using a tool that's similar in concept.

 

I thought it was only free for 5G of space.

 

Everyone is going to be using the cloud. In fact I'd say everyone already is to some degree. But just as one further example, the iPhone 5 is going to be smaller and more powerful because it will be cloud-based so it won't need built-in storage.

 

Google and Microsoft have had "clouds" forever - Apple is actually a little late to this party.

But I won't use any of them at the moment. I don't have that many devices, and I can keep my files safely on my hard drives and backed up on external drives.

 

I'll be interested to see what happens when people put movies, TV shows and their favorite music on thecloud storage account, then try to access those things on an airplane or somewhere else with no network connectivity. There's going to be a big lack of consumer awareness on that issue that could blow back on Apple.

 

I know a school division that keeps all of their servers (and records) in The Cloud. It saves a ton of money, but there is one little thing to worry about...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/26/block-big-brothers-internet-snoops/

Ruh - oh

 

Definitely maybe. I can see how it would be convenient, but it hardly seems perfect.