While many people may have seen Apple TV commercials, they are not yet familiar with the benefits of iCloud and how to use it. Understanding and customizing the information synced across your devices will help you keep your important information up to date across all of your devices.
By opening the Settings app on your iOS device and selecting iCloud, you can choose the information you want to sync. To synchronize the information, the device must be connected to the Internet using Wi-Fi or a mobile data connection.
Setting the Mail option to the ON position will deliver your emails from iCloud.com to all devices connected to your account.
You must have an iCloud.com email address for this to work properly. If you don’t have an iCloud.com address, you can get it for free, right from your device. The first time the Mail option is set to ON, the system will recognize that there is no email address. You will be asked if you want to create an email account. Just follow the onscreen instructions to set up your email account.
The service only manages emails from iCloud.com. Any other email addresses you have will not automatically be sent to all of your devices. Email accounts will need to be set up manually on each device.
Contacts, calendars and reminders
Enabling these options allows you to sync your contacts, calendars, and reminders with all your devices. If you update something on one device, it automatically updates on all your other devices.
Safari
If you set Safari to ON, bookmarks and tabs will be synced across all devices. To view tabs for other devices, open Safari on a device and select the icon at the bottom of the page that looks like an open book.
This is where your bookmarks are stored. Select the item named “iCloud Tabs” from the list. This should display a list of all open browser tabs on all your devices.
Notes
Enabling this option allows you to share notes on all your devices. Changes to existing notes or any new notes created on one device are automatically available on all other devices.
Passbook
Passbook keeps your airline boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons, loyalty cards, and gift cards all in one place. The coupon can be redeemed by scanning the iPhone or iPod touch at the point of use. The merchant must create a Passbook-enabled pass or an iOS app for the service to work with Passbook. Current Passbook services are limited, but the list of participating merchants continues to grow. The Passbook app is only available on iPhone and iPod touch.
Photo sequence
Enabling Photo Stream allows you to share photos on all your devices. Photos taken on one device are automatically available on all other devices. You can even create separate photo sequences to share with others.
Documents and data
If you use Apple’s suite of iWork applications (Pages, Numbers, or Keynote) for word processing, spreadsheets, or presentations, this option allows you to automatically share documents between devices. Not all apps are designed to share data, but most Apple apps will have some interaction with iCloud. For example, iBooks will remember the page you were reading on one device and will automatically go to that page when the book is opened on another device.
Find my iphone
This service allows you to locate a device if it is lost. Enable Find My iPhone on each device. You cannot locate a device if this option is not set to the ON position. When a device is missing, you can use the Find My iPhone app on any iOS device to locate the lost device. Also, you can log into the iCloud website from any computer to use the Find My iPhone service.
ICloud storage and backup
Selecting this item provides access to backup and storage options. Enabling the backup feature will automatically backup your data to iCloud. The backed up data includes photos, device settings, application data, messages, ringtones, and visual voice messages.
You can select which applications back up the data by selecting Manage storage. This will provide a list of applications that are currently backing up information to iCloud. Enable or disable backup of specific apps by toggling the slider. Apple provides 5GB of storage for free. If you want additional storage, you will need to purchase an Apple storage plan by selecting Change Storage Plan.
We hope this short summary helps you understand iCloud and its benefits. Customizing your settings can help you keep your important information up to date on all of your devices.
