Another Death in the Cloud As Apple Kills Off iWork 134
Google is retiring the iGoogle page, but on a much shorter time scale, Apple is shutting down an iService of its own: the cloud-storage site iWork.com (linked to Apple's office apps suite iWork) is slated to go offline at the end of this month. Says the article, over at SlashCloud: "As of that date, 'you will no longer be able to access your documents on the iWork.com site or view them on the Web,' reads Apple’s note on the matter, followed by a recommendation that anyone with documents on iWork download them to the desktop." Both of these announcements remind me why I covet local storage for documents and the ability to set my own GUI prefs.
Apple products don't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes sense as they are a consumer brand and not targeting the workplace.
Re:Is this really a "death"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that they are retiring "real" cloud storage like iDisk and only allowing documents... going in the exact opposite direction of Google which moved from only allowing Google Office documents to allowing real cloud storage of all types of files.
It's a weird direction they are going... by getting rid of iDisk they are doing the exact opposite of Google, dropbox, and everyone else.
I think their overall strategy is to move away from the filesystem model since the iPad doesn't expose it to you at all for simplicity, etc. Retiring a service like this makes sense if you keep that in mind.
Doesn't make me want to use it, but that's not the only reason :P
Don't sign up for iCloud (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't sign up for iCloud. They'll probably drop that, too.
"Cloud" services have short lifespans. About two to four years from startup to shutdown seems typical. Google and Microsoft have both dumped many of their online services already. Telco "cloud" services, like Sprint's PictureMail, have been dumped. Many online music services from PlaysForSure to WalMart Music collapsed. Cloud APIs don't last too long, either; Yahoo Search, Yahoo Boss, Google SOAP search, and Hoover's business search are all gone or on the way out.
The shutdowns are getting faster, too. Now, 30 days from announcement to "all your data is gone" is apparently acceptable. Don't put something in the "cloud" and go on a long trip.
Re:Apple products don't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes sense as they are a consumer brand and not targeting the workplace.
I guess the -1 means apple fanboys thought you were trying to slander the company. Funny thing is, Apple will be the first to tell you this. Just as they told me that very thing when we were trying to bring in servers to support ipads and macbooks that some folks in the company had purchased.
Re:Apple products don't work (Score:5, Insightful)
And we all know consumers never work.
Maybe life in the cloud is not that fluffy (Score:4, Insightful)
I have taken to cloud storage in a big way and mostly quite like the convenience of it. But increasingly I am now forced to react whenever someone sneezes in Mountain View and decides to shut down something. I was affected by Google Pages to which I had links from all over the internet. I had some software downloads on that and the new Google sites is terrible. It is not so much having to move your files. The problem is that other things depend on your process and those all are affected. In the case of my free software, I could not be bothered to move the web-pages over to my server so I just deleted the whole lot.
So, I you needed normal map correction software, Lightning fast image sharing through IM you are now missing out on my free software.
I used Buzz a little, got shutdown too. Not too much of an issue but I was considering to put effort in creating a decent following on it. Glad I didn't. Also gral I never jumped on the Google Wave bandwagon either.
However, I have used iGoogle from the moment is became available and right until today that is my control center. The default home page on all my computers.
In one view I can see my appointments, emails, slashdot, bookmarks and recent google documents. Where else can I have that?
So, now the shut that down, I am forced to change the way I do things. And this is really the tip of the iceberg. On Google+ I have a personal and business page. Growing a following takes effort and time but what if they shut that down? In a smaller sense the cloud is also starting to prove downsides.
They are forever "improving" the user interface experience. This means that from one month to the next I am never quite sure how to access my Adsense control panel or other account details. Stuff changes constantly, layouts and styles change and it affects my productivity.
There are real benefits to local software. Although unused, my old Office XP will still run on my windows 7 machine without me having to re-learn how to use the software all the time and forever hunting through menus to find back a feature that I am sure is there somewhere.
I used to blame Microsoft for never sticking to anything (Enter Silverlight) but in all honesty, their OS is remarkable. It will still run very old windows code and I think they do deserve to be recognized for that. In contrast, my new Galaxy S3 android phone will no longer run a $6 racing game I purchased for my Google Nexus One two years ago.
In short: The big providers are their own worst cloud enemy because they keep changing the platform and rules of engagement. And don't give me the "But it is free what do you expect" argument. It is not free at all. I pay for it with information about me and exposure to adverts.
Re:What makes less sense is the file system (Score:3, Insightful)
I seriously doubt user confusion with file systems is the reason. Most people who've grown up with computers basically understand files.
Well files, yes. I mean, they understand that Word Document 1 is separate from Document 2, and has a different name, and different contents. That's kind of like understanding files.
But a large percentage of computer users don't understand the filesystem. (And I don't mean that in the volume-format-structure sense.) Most people don't understand how to navigate to Document 1 in Windows Explorer or the Finder (or whatever) unless it's right there on the desktop. (They do understand how to find it in the Open File dialog, though--because they don't understand that the Open File dialog shows them the exact same thing as Explorer, because it looks totally different and starts from a totally different point) They don't know what a directory is (though they're able to recognize a "folder" if you point at its icon and ask them) or why they might make and use them on their own (though they can make one in an instant if you tell them to.) They don't understand the why sometimes files are moved and sometimes they are copied, they don't understand what a path is, and they don't always understand why deleting a file found in a search deletes that file from the filesystem as well.
For most people, the combination of the Desktop and the My Documents folder are the filesystem, because that's the only two nodes in the structure that they can reliably find. (And My Documents only exists in the Open File dialog!)
Re:What makes less sense is the file system (Score:4, Insightful)
On Windows those tend to be the only two places most users need to find. Most users can create folders in those places, understand the concept of folders, and of folders within folders. At that point they understand file systems even if they don't understand the arcane specifics of all the other places different OS's keep files.
No doubt Apple did this because it is simpler for users, but its a simple fact they had to do it that way
because the OS and every app is sandboxed, and you don't really want general purpose file browsers or access to the whole file system when everything is sandboxed. It dramatically enhances security and maintainability if no user or app can get to the operating system's files, and apps can't get to each others files unless they go through carefully controlled protocols.
There is nothing stopping apps from having file systems of their own and subjecting users to them, Dropbox certainly does.
Re:Apple products don't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has been doing in the pro line I have a feeling Cook will just wash his hands of X86 completely instead.
First, you really aren't seeing much of Cook's influence yet. Apple is a big-ass battleship which takes some time to maneuver, and the "turns" you are seeing now were plotted out and called down from the bridge by Admiral Jobs, not Captain Cook.
Also, I can't remember where I heard it (Tim Cook, actually, IIRC); but "Apple" has stated that the Mac Pro is going to get some serious love in 2013.