The consumer facing Web version of iCloud has just gained support for uploading images to the iCloud Photo Library, a feature which was previously limited to the beta site.
With Apple set to hit the big 'GO' button on iOS 8.1 come Monday one of the features that users will see arrive alongside it is the iCloud Photo Library functionality that has everyone wondering whether Apple has finally given us all somewhere to keep our photos instead of having to rely on third parties. It's still in beta, but it's there.
Apple's iCloud has never truly competed with the likes of Box, Google Drive et al because while it's fine for backing up, storing documents and other content like a virtual hard drive was never possible. This will all change thanks to the introduction of iCloud Drive, but while Mac users will have to wait for the official unveiling of OS X Yosemite 10.10 to begin using it, Apple has already rolled out a version for those on Windows. Details after the break.
In a fortnight that has seen Apple's iCloud slandered and deemed culpable for the spate of celebrity image leaks, it's certainly been a test of the online storage service's mettle. But with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch having all appeared during the past 48 hours, all seems forgiven - at least, for now - and so with the world completely distracted by these shiny new gadgets, the Cupertino company has taken this opportunity to bring its new pricing structure into effect.
The security of Apple's iCloud servers has had some considerable focus of late after a host of celebrities had their accounts raided and personal, intimate photos of them distributed online. After initially appearing to have been hacked, iCloud suffered quite the bloody nose over the incident.
This week's headlines have been dominated by yet another incident regarding the compromising of mobile devices, with several celebrities and news outlets having outlined Apple's iCloud as the wrongdoer in this particular sequence of events. But while, after an internal investigation, the Cupertino company has since stepped out and inferred that private photos wouldn't have leaked out if two-step verification were present, one reporter has done a little digging of his own, and found that in certain pockets of the Web, folks are using law enforcement tools to snatch iCloud backups of unwitting victims.
Big breaches of security are never fun, but when you're the provider of cloud storage that holds all kinds of personal data, things can get particularly hairy when someone finds a way through. That's the situation Apple finds itself in today, or at least, that's the claim.
Apple's introduction of the various CloudKit APIs within iOS 8 and OS 10.10 Yosemite at this year's Worldwide Developer Conference was greeted with much glee and excitement from attending developers. The creation of CloudKit will ultimately afford developers with the ability to focus on creating impressive and immersive client-side experiences rather than having to deal with the issues that come attached with server-side cloud storage code. As the APIs are being developed and ironed out it seems that testers will need to put up with some bumps in the road with Apple once again notifying developers that all CloudKit data will once again be wiped at some point today.
A couple of weeks back, it was reported that an individual, operating under the pseudonym 'Oleg Pliss', was conning iOS device owners in Australia out of hundreds of dollars using a very simple but effective scam using Apple’s Find My iPhone infrastructure. Initially, it was reported that Apple's iCloud infrastructure had been compromised somewhere along the line, but with the Cupertino outfit having swiftly stepped out and refuted these claims, it now appears that the group behind the well-organized scheme has finally got its comeuppance.
Apple has been in the cloud computing game for quite a while now, but while iCloud has allowed iOS and OS X users to keep their devices and files in perfect sync with one another, it certainly hasn't competed, feature-wise, with some of the more versatile offerings like Dropbox. This looks set to change after today's announcement of iCloud Drive, with cloud-syncing app support that spans iOS, OS X and even offers support for Windows.
