Chapter 13: How Do I Keep My Life in Sync with iCloud?

When you go online, you take your life along with you, of course, so your online world becomes a natural extension of your real world. However, just because it’s online doesn’t mean the digital version of your life is any less busy, chaotic, or complex than the rest of your life. The Apple iCloud service is designed to ease some of that chaos and complexity by automatically syncing your most important data — your email, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks. Although the syncing may be automatic, setting up is not, unfortunately. This chapter shows you what to do.

Understanding iCloud

Understanding iCloud Device Support

Configuring iCloud on Your iPhone

Configuring iCloud on Your Mac

Configuring iCloud on Your Windows PC

Understanding iCloud

These days, the primary source of online chaos and confusion is the ongoing proliferation of services and sites that demand your time and attention. What started with web-based email has grown to a website, a blog, a photo-sharing site, online bookmarks, and perhaps a few social networking sites, just to consume those last few precious moments of leisure time. You might be sitting in a chair, but you’re being run ragged anyway!

A great way to simplify your online life is to get a free iCloud account. You get a one-stop web shop that includes email, an address book, a calendar, and 5GB of online file storage. (If you want more storage, you can get an extra 10GB for $20 a year, an extra 20GB ...

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