Item: Apple iCloud
Rating: 8
Author: Michael Timms

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I want to start this review off by saying that I am not an Apple fan. That being said, I do not hate the product, in fact, it has saved my tail on at least one occasion. I have also seen $400 devices turned into a paperweight because they were locked to an iCloud account and unable to be recovered. I am an IT Supervisor at my company. All of the management that I support have iPhones as their company phone, and a few have iPads. The feature of iCloud(and any cloud software) that jumps out is that all of your documents, photos, music, and videos are accessible from any device. This is great for when someone has a meeting, and has a presentation on their phone and need to pull it up on a PC so that it can be projected.

Pros and Cons

Provides a cost-effective way to store big data
Gives the user access to all of their files, on any device anytime and anywhere
Provides added security to mobile devices.

My biggest gripe is the difficulty of resetting your password. More on this later in the review.
More data could be provided for free (Apple gives you 5G, Google gives you 15G)
Customer support is basically non-existent.

Return on Investment

Positive: I have saved a very important document on a device that crashed, and I believed lost but upon logging into iCloud, there it was.
Positive: easy to change devices and have all of your files.
Negative: I have 4 devices that are unusable from termed employees that used their business emails to log in, and left without removing them from their iCloud. Apple customer support was no help at all.

Alternatives Considered

Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive

I prefer Google Drive to Apple iCloud. That being said, iCloud does have a huge and very loyal fanbase, and as I have seen in my career it is not going anywhere. If you need a cloud platform just for filesharing, I would pick Dropbox or Google Drive over iCloud. If you need a device management software to be able to access your files on other devices One drive and iCloud are both excellent.

Other Software Used

Dropbox, Google Drive, Adobe Connect, Zoom, Cisco Data Center Network Manager, Oracle API Platform Cloud

Performance

I am giving iCloud this rating because even though I do not like it, it is still an excellent platform. It is very secure, relatively fast and it does work. For a tech-savvy user, iCloud would be an ideal choice. I do not like the fact that iCloud locks your device to your personal iCloud, and I would prefer if this was optional.

Usability

I gave iCloud a very good rating because even though it has flaws that I do not like, it is very usable and very handy. It is easy to access what you need anywhere you are as long as you have an internet connection. It is fairly fast, and it looks good.

Likelihood to Recommend

iCloud is well suited in many different business and corporate environments, but, in my opinion, the users need to be fairly tech savvy. See, the issue with iCloud arises because a certain subset of users will create an iPhone when they first set up their new company iPhone, then never use it again. This is fine until they need to change phones, then suddenly they can't remember their password or the phone number that is tied to it so that it can be reset, and believe me I speak on this with these exact experiences.

Cloud Storage and Device Management All in One

Overall Satisfaction with Apple iCloud