iCloud has just started offering free desktops from their cloud based service. You heard that right – a free desktop that you can login to from anywhere. It also comes with free storage (3 GB worth). Here are some of the specs:
- Access to your friends, files and digital life on any computer
- 3 GB free storage space to safely store documents, photos and music online
- 30 free applications such as Office, Mail, Music, Video, IM, Sharing, Games, Collaboration and Development tools
- 20 free widgets
- Free backup to provide secure storage, including WedDav
- Zero installation, icloud runs in your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser
I logged in this morning with my free account and it’s pretty nice. At least it looks that way on the surface. If you can get around the little bit of sluggish performance, the reliance on IE (Firefox is only experimental), and the fact that you can’t logout then things run pretty well. Some interesting apps are included that might make this thing actually usable. That’s the big question though – would you use this as your primary machine all the time?
Here’s a challenge. Someone go and give up their machine at home and only use iCloud for a full 15 days. Do whatever you would normally do. Report back here with your findings. Were you able to really get everything done? How did you get all your data up there? How did you get the photos off your camera and into the desktop? It’s things like this that I think everyone would really be interested in hearing. So there it is. If anyone is up to the challenge then I have a $25 iTunes card for the first to respond to the challenge. I guess that’s sort of humorous since iTunes won’t run in iCloud. Anyhow, the offer still stands.
I’d also be interested in anyone else’s experience on what they liked or didn’t like about the offering. Like I said, it has some good things going for it. I just wonder if consumers will stick with it.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Oooh, I love a challenged. Your on. Signing up now. Not sure I will be editing my book in there… but I will do everything else…
April 9th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Just tried it out. Cool concept but pretty much unusable as a desktop OS.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Now, now. I meant everything. If you can't do all your work there what good is it? Why wouldn't you edit your book there?
April 9th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Good to see I'm not alone in that opinion. We've got a ways to go on the desktop side of things as an industry.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Well, OK. I will edit the book. Not the whole book. just a chapter. I'm worried about data loss. This week I had a .docx file corrupt on me. I managed to get most of my stuff back. So, I'm prepared to put my backup chapter into the icloud and work on it there. But I will be cutting & pasting it to a local file just to cover-my-ass.
Also I'm concerned about the security of my data there – in turns of being intercepted by others. But apart from that – I'm going the whole hog – and moving to the iCloud desktop – and only using local apps where there is NO alternative.
Incidentally, there is no styles feature in the wordprocessor in iCloud. Ever tried writing a 700 page book without styles?
April 9th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
That's the kind of stuff I was looking to collect here as data. Please don't kill your book on my behalf though. I'd still give you a gift certificate.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
[...] http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2009/04/icloud-launches-free-desktops-from-the-clo... [...]
April 10th, 2009 at 4:25 am
Interesting challenge, kind of crazy for a beta, but anyway…
Use left menu Support -> Use WebDAV to mount icloud as a network drive in Windows for easier upload / download. You can use that for easy backup.
On the desktop, right click and choose iLauncher, you can now get a desktop icon for web access to services you use a lot, like for instance a web Citrix. They will open as an icloud window, without the browser controls.
Thanks Mike * 2 for good suggestions on improvements, please feel to email us whatever comes into your mind, beta { a-t } xcerion.com
Our end goal is to have built all the applications needed for everyday work (for a normal consumer), so we eventually can go over to run icloud on a stripped down Linux core with Firefox in fullscreen mode from start on more low spec PCs. We will continue to add more and more for every month to come
April 10th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Thanks for the write up. It will be interesting to see where you take
this. Hopefully my readership will give you some good ideas.
Mike
April 10th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Thanks for the write up. It will be interesting to see where you take
this. Hopefully my readership will give you some good ideas.
Mike
May 14th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Daniel,
The idea itself is interesting – I've seen other examples of web pages emulating desktops, and it seems great at the start (you create calculator, a basic word application), but then it turns out that you're not only custom developing an entire OS, but all the applications on it too. The Open Office and MS Office suites alone have had hundreds of thousands to millions of hours dedicated to their development, not to mention the requirements of custom applications for most users and workloads beyond the basic Word/email? How can you compete?
May 14th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Daniel,
The idea itself is interesting – I've seen other examples of web pages emulating desktops, and it seems great at the start (you create calculator, a basic word application), but then it turns out that you're not only custom developing an entire OS, but all the applications on it too. The Open Office and MS Office suites alone have had hundreds of thousands to millions of hours dedicated to their development, not to mention the requirements of custom applications for most users and workloads beyond the basic Word/email? How can you compete?
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