iMac For Dummies, 7th Edition

Chapter 9

Expanding Your Horizons with iCloud

In This Chapter

Introducing iCloud

Setting iCloud preferences

Managing iCloud storage

If you ask the average iMac owner about what’s available on the Internet, you likely hear benefits such as e-mail, Dropbox storage, Web surfing, RSS feeds, and Google searches. What you may not hear is “instant syncing among all my Apple iOS devices.”

If you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you may have experienced what I like to call the Synchronizing Blues in the past: When you took a photo with your iPhone or created a new document with your iPad, your new additions just sat there (in their original location) until you had a chance to sync your device with your iMac. Ah, but with Apple’s new iCloud functionality, your stuff gets automatically synchronized across the Internet, and you can even keep your iTunes music library stored online!

In this chapter, I show you what’s really exciting about your iMac and that fancy Internet connection. With iCloud, you can automatically synchronize your stuff and manage online backups of all your contacts, calendars, mail, bookmarks, and documents!

So How Does iCloud Work, Anyway?

As I mentioned earlier, today’s ...