Category Archives: iCloud
Cook: iCloud has 100 million users, 3 million Apple TVs sold last year
Tim Cook spoke at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, and he’s shared a few up-to-date numbers about a few of Apple’s platforms and services. iCloud is probably where he shared the most fascinating insight: The service now boasts over 100 million users, which is a very sizable user base. I don’t know offhand how many Apple accounts are out there, but that seems like a significant amount of growth for a service that’s not all that old (although MobileMe customers were obviously migrated).
Apple TV is also growing — we’ve already heard this year that it was big, but Cook says that Apple sold over 3 million set-top boxes last year, and a million last quarter already. He confirmed that the Apple TV was still just a “hobby” for the company, but noted Apple still wants to see more mainstream acceptance of the streaming media device before really dumping in.
How To Copy All iOS 5 Photo Stream Images Automatically To A Folder On OS X Instead Of iPhoto
The public release of iOS 5 in October 2011 brought a number of new and exciting features for the average consumer as well as iOS developers.
A number of these new features are well documented and are heavily featured whenever iOS 5 or the iPhone 4S are mentioned and include things like the Siri, iCloud integration and the new Notification Center. iCloud is more often that not, referred to as a feature in its own right, which is generally not a problem, but it is worth noting that iCloud is effectively a wrapper for a number of new additions to the iOS platform.
Apple and Motorola scuffle over iCloud and push email
Motorola scored a victory against Apple today when it won a permanent injunction against the company’s iCloud and MobileMe push email service. According to FOSS Patents, the injunction is “preliminarily enforceable,” which means Motorola can enforce the ruling right away by posting a 100 million euro bond. Posting a bond and enforcing this ruling is risky, though. If Apple appeals and wins, then Motorola will be liable for damages from enforcing this injunction early.
If enforced, Apple must disable the push email portion of its iCloud and MobileMe service. Customers in Germany affected by this injunction will have to turn off push email and configure their mail clients to pull down emails periodically. This permanent injunction resulted from a complaint filed by Motorola in April 2011. Apple has the right to contest this ruling and will likely file a formal appeal with the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court.
Siri VC Morgenthaler weighs in on iPhone 4S bandwidth badmouthing
Back in early January, wireless optimization firm Arieso released a report on the bandwidth usage profiles of various smartphones and other devices. It noted a surge in download and upload usage for the iPhone 4S, moving the new phone ahead of the iPhone 4 and various Android devices to take over the top spot for smartphone bandwidth consumption. At the time, coverage by Reuters (reiterated by several sites, sorry to say, including TUAW) put the onus for this bump in the pipe on one of the marquee features of the 4S: the voice-controlled digital assistant, Siri.
Fast forward a few weeks: an op-ed from Paul Farhi in the Washington Post dives back into the Arieso report, recycling the charge that Siri is singlehandedly responsible for pumping up the load on America’s cellular networks and degrading data service for everyone. (Farhi stopped short of blaming her for fluoride in the water and the rise of reality television.)
This time, however, some consideration of the facts in evidence led us to question his (and our) original conclusions; we don’t know whether he came up with the idea independently or based his column on the Reuters coverage, but we know that the math around Siri’s data usage just doesn’t add up to a consequential amount. We also reached out to Arieso for a copy of the full report, which the company happily and promptly provided.
Photo Stream is helping a man find his stolen iPad
We’ve heard a lot of stories about Find my iPhone helping people track their lost and stolen iOS devices, but here’s one of the first stories involving Photo Stream. According to this Fox 5 Dallas report, it all started late last December in Dallas, TX at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
Ken McLellan had just arrived home from a business trip. While he reached to pick up his checked bags, he put down his iPad along with his carry-on bag. You probably can guess what happened next. With bags in hand, he turned to get his iPad, and it was gone.
iCloud now has 85 million users
In its recent conference call discussing its record-smashing financial results, Apple revealed that its cloud syncing service, iCloud, currently has 85 million users signed up. iCloud debuted alongside the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 as a free-of-charge replacement for Apple’s old MobileMe service, and its growth over the past three months has apparently been explosive; during the same period, iCloud signups exceeded unit sales of Macs, iPods, iPhones, and iPads combined.
Apple has called iCloud part of its “strategy for the next decade,” and as an iCloud user myself I can see why. The cloud syncing service runs much faster and much more seamlessly than MobileMe ever did, and it’s very hard to argue with the price: $0 gets your email, calendars, contacts, and documents synced across all your devices with almost zero effort.
