After thinking for a while about what could’ve been one of the most useful technological innovations within the last 25 years, I immediately thought of how my iPhones consistently had all my information synced to the device with one simple login – thanks to the cloud, specifically iCloud.
I tend to joke that getting a new phone could take as long as getting a new car, at least before iCloud came into play. Standing at BestBuy or AT&T for hours on end, doing paperwork, and figuring out if you could start using your new iPhone right off the bat or if you’d have to tinker with it at home was always an egregious task.
iCloud came out in 2011, so shortly after I got my first iPhone. Before that, Apple had MobileMe, a subscription-based software that I didn’t use. Before 2011, I vaguely remember writing down all my contacts’ names and numbers from my ancient LG Xenon just to manually enter them into my then-new iPhone 3G. As for the pictures I took on my LG Xenon, those were going to be history as soon as I traded the phone in.
When iCloud was introduced, syncing everything to the cloud made life much easier. I use my iPhone as my digital camera and photo album for everything, so I can have all my photos from my previous phone on my new one without doing any pesky work of uploading them to my MacBook, and back to my phone was a game changer.
Aside from photos, having everything such as notes, files, passwords, apps, and more all accessible and just how I left them on my last phone is a luxury of convenience. iCloud has also done wonders for my phone storage.
Another feature iCloud offers is the Find My Device tool, which has come in handy for me multiple times when locating my missing AirPods, and even my phone before. When I thought my phone was lost, I locked it through Find My Device until it was successfully recovered and returned to me. Thankfully, my phone was at my friend’s apartment the whole time.
Without that feature and if my phone were actually lost, there’s a chance someone could’ve guessed my passcode and had access to my bank account, social media accounts, and plenty of other logins. I think this was one of Apple’s wisest ideas when it comes to lost phone recovery and they’ve made it pretty simple to understand and use which is great for the older generations.
If we didn’t have iCloud now, I can’t imagine the amount of people who would stick to the phone they have until it’s on its last leg just to avoid the hassle of manually downloading and adding everything. Truthfully, I would probably still be using my iPhone 4 if it wasn’t for iCloud. I look forward to seeing what else Apple can do in the cloud technology space.
