Apples annoucement yesterday that it was lauching its own cloud computing service got people(even tech savvy guys) asking what its all about.
Cloud computing is basically the ability to save your files (music, documents, pictures, videos etc) on a remote server rather than on your computer and device, and still have the ability to access them even when youre online.
Think of it this way; Say you have over 10,000 songs and with so limited space on your computer to Save them. You can transfer all those song to an external server (cloud) and then access them on your devices online. Companies like, Google, Amazon, Youtube and now Apple offer Cloud services though in diffrent forms.
Whilst Youtube and Flikr offer cloud services in a public way, the others make it more private. For example, you can save all your photos and videos on Flikr and youtube respectively but do not have restrictions on who to view them as they can be viewed by the general public. As for the others its more private as only you can access them from your own account.
Basically by saving your 10,000 songs in your assigned cloud, you can just play them from you iPod or iPad or any accessible device anywhere you are provided you are online. You are hence free of the hasles of syncing the same music to your iPad, iPod and computers every time you add new songs.
I dont know if we can access the clouds yet in Nigeria as google cloud (called ‘Music Beta’) is currently not provided for the Nigerian market. As for apple, well not sure too. Meanwhile the difference between Google service and that of Apple is that, with Google you will have to upload your files to an external server manually whilst with Apple they just mirror your playlist without you having to save or upload which atiles take days or weeks. So which would you prefer?
The pro's and cons should be weighed as well. Judging from my major in Information Systems management, the only thing you mentioned here that is a clear distinction from what is obtainable from Google cloud is the privacy, which is yet another option if not properly translated to users will still be prone to default which is public viewing.Security is key in every case. Now tell me, how do you bring in say 1 million files of MP3 and house in Apple cloud: Have you asked yourself the question they will ask. These are song retailers whose key business is in making sure you buy every piece of song dumped on their site. Have you thought of the piracy implications?Brother lets discuss another data, movies: Same shit exists. Lets swing to private documents: whats the guarantee that this server is still not managed by the FBI? Virgin ideas is still first scrutinized by the world leaders, America. Where is the privacy?Finally, market limitations: why is there so much limitations in giving same access to endless service and applications to Africa and the Middle-east, ie, the Sub-Saharan regions.Finally, streaming: every data accessed walks on the thread of P2P principle. Have you thought about listening to your songs or watching movies, and the buffering content isn't optimized and all that you get is crappy and epileptic rhythm from songs and videos.There is so much limitations bro and I will pause here for now.Zaza.
Joey good points!! I am really a cloud computing skeptic. Relies too much on the Internet. I'm not sure we've even factored in the data cost of accessing the content