Apple iCloud is a document management software offering from Apple. It includes features such as access to music, photos, calendars, contacts, and documents, and it is built into every new iOS device.
$0.99
per month
Photobucket
Score 5.2 out of 10
N/A
Photobucket headquartered in Denver offers their cloud services for uploading, sharing, linking and finding photos, videos and graphics. Service plans may include hosting, photo editing, private album sharing or sharing to social media, and caption and title creation and editing.
[I] also had an ImageEvent premium account, and it was far easier to manage images in Photobucket. ImageEvent's UI is very dated, and its feature set has largely remained stagnant. Photobucket has evolved over the past decade and offers a clean enough user interface to quickly …
iCloud is also great to keep access to photos synced across devices. Ex: I can snap a photo at a job site and have access to that photo on my desktop when I return to my office. I can then drop the photo into a document that is stored in iCloud and have instant access to that document on my iPad at a client's office later in the day. Seamless transitions make life much easier.
Photobucket used to be great in the late 2000s to early 2010s. Even free account holders could enjoy many of its features and quickly and easily share photos. However, these days there are so many better alternatives, while Photobucket's feature set has been limited to premium and higher-tier accounts. Cloud storage providers now offer generous bandwidth caps, so offloading media is a thing of the past - even for the most budget-conscious freelancers. Photo-specific features provided by these service providers are constantly improving. [...] As time goes on, the list of reasons that used to differentiate Photobucket grows thin given their [in my experience,] shady past in holding photos hostage without a premium plan, I can no longer recommend this service. Price-wise, only their unlimited plan is worth considering since, for capped storage plans, the usual suspects (Apple iCloud, Google Photos, Amazon Prime) have them beat. Likewise, Photobucket's built-in image editor is very convenient for making basic changes without having to fire up a separate photo editor
Syncing files, appointments, Notes and contacts. If I'm away from home, and set an appointment using my phone, that appointment automatically updates real time to my home laptop and vice-versa.
Customization - iCloud is great at the stuff it does well. But it lacks features that some competitors (in Google Drive or Dropbox) do really well. API support for third-party apps is really great for some other people.
Remote use - Managing or accessing information from iCloud while not on one of your logged-in apple devices can sometimes be an issue. From a work computer for example. It doable, but the experience is much less user-friendly.
Ability to edit documents on the cloud similar to google docs or some other competitors
It's so seamless that I can't imagine another product doing a better job synchronizing all of my devices. I simply do not think about it at all. Everything happens behind the scenes and I'm confident that Apple keeps my data safe and secure. I'm a happy customer as far as this is concerned. I have not had a bad experience with this service.
While it may be great to use with other Apple products, I find it's an absolutist-style workflow to be debilitating and to lead to many problems. When you sign into the cloud, it completely takes over your device in many ways that you don't notice at first until there is a problem.
Occasionally, large files that haven't yet been synced require a few minutes to pull down but I've rarely noticed delays. It does a good job of keeping data cached on my local machines while updating them with changes from other machines transparently.
Apple customer service is fantastic. iCloud is built with Apple in mind and its design is extremely intuitive and user-friendly. Additionally, whenever our team has encountered issues, the speed of Apple support has been more than timely in addressing our issues and solving our request. We have encountered relatively few issues in my time with the platform and this only improves our overall score for those who keep the platform stable.
Apple does offer an alternative to Office & the Google Docs family but trusting to use it with both internal and external parties is tough. Google is more universal and easier for 3rd parties to collaborate with. Apple works well for a closed internal group that is native to Apple's ecosystem. Google offers more storage space than Apple
[I] also had an ImageEvent premium account, and it was far easier to manage images in Photobucket. ImageEvent's UI is very dated, and its feature set has largely remained stagnant. Photobucket has evolved over the past decade and offers a clean enough user interface to quickly accomplish what needs to be done.
If I lose track of my credentials or my continuing education documentation, I could end up not being able to renew my certification. This would lead to a major loss in revenue.
Time is money and having all of my required documents easily accessible in iCloud saves me time and allows me to work more efficiently.
My Apple devices were certainly not cheap purchases. iCloud has allowed me to maximize my productivity through synchronizing my work no matter which device I'm working on.
