With Apple products becoming more and more popular, we are seeing an increasing amount of interest in iCloud for PC users. Here are the most important 3 things you need to know about using iCloud on a PC.
1. How to Set up iCloud on your PC
We covered this in Tip 9 of our free e-book, ‘iCloud – 10 Essential Tips’, but here’s a quick reminder of how to set it up:
- Check out the Apple Support page ‘iCloud Control Panel for Windows’ and click ‘Download
- The iCloud Setup File will open, click ‘Save File’
- When it has downloaded, open the file, then click ‘Run’
- When you see the Welcome message, click ‘Next’
- Read and accept the license agreement and click ‘Next’
- When prompted, click ‘Install’
- Click ‘Finish’ when you see the ‘Welcome to iCloud’ dialogue box
- When the ‘Sign In’ box appears, enter your Apple ID username and password and click ‘Next’
- Select which of the iCloud features you wish to use in your Backup (see Tip 4: Manage Your Storage) then click ‘Close’
- To locate iCloud on your PC, go to ‘Network and Internet’ and you will find iCloud listed there
2. Use ‘Photos’ to Set up Two Way Photo Syncing
- On your iOS device, go to Settings > iCloud > Photos – make sure this is switched on.
- On your PC, go to your iCloud Control Panel, select the Photos checkbox, and click ‘Apply’
To delete photo’s from your iPhone, go to Photos > Albums > My Photo Stream > Select one or more photo’s and hit the Trash icon. The changes should then be reflected once you view your Photo Stream on your PC.
To delete photo’s from your PC, go to the side panel in a Windows Explorer window > Favourites > Photos > My Photo Stream. Select the photo(s) you want to delete. Right click and delete. These changes should be updated when you go to your iPhone.
3. Work More Flexibly With iWork
You can use both iWork or Microsoft Office files – simply drag the file from your desktop into the browser window to upload them to iCloud. This can give you the freedom to take work home, use your iPad or iPhone to update things, and generally give you a lot more flexibility. All data you are working on via PC or iOS device will be synced through iCloud, as long as you have the desktop and app versions of iWork operating on both your PC and your iOS device.
While we wouldn’t personally recommend ditching Microsoft Office for iWork, it is much more affordable, and as long as you don’t rely on the full suite of tools in MS Office, you could potentially do well using iWork as an alternative.
Click this link for more details on setting up: http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2704