A few years ago I tried Apple's magical MobileMe to synchronise my calendar between iPhone, iPad and PC, but whatever I did it duplicated entries. Thinking I must be doing something wrong I contacted Apple support, but after three hours of messaging with their "expert" the only difference was now the entries were triplicated.
It appears that I was not alone as even Steve Jobs said MobileMe wasn't that great - but he also said that things would be different with iCloud.
So it was with hope in my heart that on Wednesday I started the update to iOS 5. Well that took 6 hours - from 6pm to midnight - just for the iPad. Eventually I got both the iThings up to date, downloaded the iCloud control panel for Windows and was able to tick all the boxes and upgrade my MobileMe to the iCloud.
Hurrah!
Then following the instructions carefully I uploaded my calendar from my iPhone to the iCloud servers sitting somewhere in South Carolina. Logging into the web site, yes there they all were.
Right, thinks I lets give this a whirl and create a new event on the iPhone and watch it appear on the iCloud web site as if by magic.
Nothing happened. Oh yes, I forgot to switch on push/fetch, so turned that on and had a look on the web and what did I see but - duplicate entries appear. One by one the events over the last few weeks were being replicated like an out of control virus.
Noooooooooo!!!!!
So I switch off push/fetch, delete the iCloud calendar and spend a very boring time deleting duplicate entries on the iPhone.
Huh.
What to do next? Should I contact Apple tech support - given they failed this task last time? Should I switch to a Samsung while I can before Apple's legal department bans them here too?
Apple's iCloud - for me it just doesn't work.
9 comments:
Have you thought about using the calendar in G-Mail? One calendar, in the cloud, accessible from all devices. The first time you access it from the iPhone, you're prompted to install the web app for the calendar, which takes just a few seconds. A simple app, but it may work for you.
Have you thought about using the calendar in G-Mail? One calendar, in the cloud, accessible from all devices. The first time you access it from the iPhone, you're prompted to install the web app for the calendar, which takes just a few seconds. A simple app, but it may work for you.
Yup, have considered the gmail calendar.
I'm running Google Apps on my own domain (natch) so that *should* work - though they said that about MobileMe and iCloud.
At the moment I'm a bit fed up with tech configuring though!
Our entire enterprise (30-some newspapers) is in the throes of switching to Google apps, beginning with mail.
Oh, the humanity!
How are you finding Google Apps?
One thing I've spotted is that Google apps need a browser that can handle rich text fields - and neither the browsers on the iPad or Android equivalent do
Though it is rumoured that Chrome is coming to Android and that might
We've just started with GMail in a corporate environment this week, so I'm just getting started, although I've had a personal GMail account for a while. First impression is it's cleaner, easier to use. First gripe is 'filters' aren't nearly as good as Outlook rules - something that matters at work, but not at home.
So far, I've only used it on Windows, with Chrome. My wife has an iPhone, but I'd been waiting to get one until the latest came out. I guess I could have gotten one a year ago without missing much.
I fear leaving things in the Cloud!
after a move in august, I could not access the internet from the new place when the provider company I used went on strike for weeks. Can you always count on connecting to your network?
and, I back up everything like mad. I suppose you can back up even though you release your work to the Cloud, yes?
Those are good points.
3G mobile broadband is still poor with low data rates, black spots and inability to cope with speed (e.g. on trains).
So if you are (say) Google Apps based then you need an offline mode for those situations - and I think they are working on it.
As to backup, I have a local hard disk but up-times of web services are getting a lot better. The availability of Google Apps is mostly driven by the availability of the last mile connectivity. And local hard disks aren't much good in a fire!
I may be too much the futurist, but I can envision a time when, for ultimate safekeeping, digital data is printed out to sheets of paper and stored in metal filing cabinets.
....or see video in updated post on magazine vs. iPad ;)
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