iMac For Dummies, 8th Edition

Chapter 11

Expanding Your Horizons with iCloud

In This Chapter

Introducing iCloud

Setting iCloud preferences

Managing iCloud storage

If you ask the average iMac owner what’s available on the Internet, you likely hear benefits such as e-mail, photo storage, web surfing, and Google searches. What you may not hear is “instant syncing and document sharing among all my Apple iOS devices, Macs, and even PCs.”

If you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you may have experienced what I like to call the “Synchronizing Blues”: 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 iCloud functionality, your stuff gets automatically synchronized across the Internet!

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, access your documents with any Internet connection, and manage online backups of all your contacts, calendars, mail, bookmarks, and documents!

So How Does iCloud Work, Anyway?

Today’s Apple iOS devices ...