iCloud: Sharing Done Wrong
Apple’s idea of making all of your files accessible to you from anywhere through iCloud overlooks two specific user needs: Sometimes you want to open files in multiple programs, and sometimes more than one person needs access to a file.
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Apple only cares about the number of users registered to iCloud (the reason why it's almost mandatory to register when you set up a Mac or an iDevice) so that it can show a pretty slide in the keynotes highlighting the huge number of users.
It's a war of figures, not features.
What's interesting, though, is that it seems technically fairly easy to expand the number of devices or apps that can access a file on iCloud. What is holding Apple back IMO is:
- the UI for sharing a document, and how you keep it simple
- security implications: let an app easily open a document created by another app
- privacy implications: let someone else access my stuff (e.g. by mistake)
I wonder which of the 2 sharing mechanisms (between apps or between users) will come first. My guess would be sharing between apps would come first, but on the other hand, sharing between users seems to be a more desirable feature.
