Apple announced their new iCloud service yesterday and while I know several die hard Apple fans that were impressed, I have to admit that the announcement was really rather unimpressive. In many ways the service is nothing more than an attempt to catch up with Google as far as keeping email, contacts and calendar in the cloud. Granted the news of iTunes being available in the cloud is a step in the right direction but this service is certainly not any threat to online backup services.
During the announcement I noticed several people tweeting that they will be cancelling their Dropbox or Backblaze subscription in favor of the new Apple iCloud service. This might be possible if all you create and do is photos or a part of iTunes. The reality is the majority of people create and have more documents than what iTunes manages.
I know my clients that use Apple desktops use more than iTunes and photos and the information and files they want and need to protect are more than just their photos and music. They have financial documents, spreadsheets, presentations, graphic files, website files and more. iCloud will make it easier for them to access some of their files and documents on their iPhone and iPad devices, but it will not eliminate their local and online backup.
What do you think, do you think the Apple iCloud service will eventually replace your current online backup service?
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