KEY FEATURES

Photos

Turning on iCloud Photos (known as iCloud Photo Library in earlier versions) means every photo you take or import also appears on every other Mac or iOS device on which you’ve enabled it, and all your albums are organised the same way everywhere. You can view photos straight from iCloud on your Apple TV, too. Just remember iCloud is a synced copy, not a backup… Read more on page 24.

Two-factor authentication

If you’re still ignoring the nag messages that appear every time you go near iCloud or your Apple ID or just cough in Apple’s general direction, and haven’t yet enrolled in two-factor authentication – we’re going to nag you again! Well, mainly we’ll just explain why it’s a good idea and less hassle than you think. There’s more security stuff to be aware of, too. It’s simple to sort, so turn to page 30.

Files

iCloud Drive has evolved into a secure online storage space for everything you want to have available on all your devices or to share with other users. It gets even more flexible to browse and organise in iOS 13, coming this autumn – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, there’s plenty you can do with it right now, both from your Mac and iOS devices. Find out how to make the most of iCloud Drive on page 26.

Family sharing

Picture one of those shmaltzy circle-of-life TV adverts. A young Apple user logs in with their Apple ID to access all their stuff on all their devices. It’s so simple! The sun shines! Then they meet another Apple user (nobody wants a green bubble spouse, ugh) and soon there’s a patter of tiny feet. But now (clouds gather) how do they all share their digital stuff? Gen up on Family Sharing on page 26.

Personal data

For features like Contacts, Calendars and Reminders, iCloud is the magic that makes the same information appear on all your Apple gadgets, available on one device as soon as you enter it on another. It also syncs your Safari bookmarks, reminds you which websites you’ve got open on other screens, and securely transfers Keychain secrets to ease logins and payments. Take a look at page 29.

Privacy

The next most important thing to having easy access to all your data is nobody else having easy access to all your data. Actually, that’s the other way round. Fortunately, Apple is more interested in using privacy protection as a feature to sell you products and services than using your entire existence as a feature to sell to data brokers. Discover how Apple makes data security easy on page 30.

iTunes

iTunes and iCloud. iCloud and iTunes. Which is which? What do they do? Why is iTunes the name of an app as well as an online store that sells films and TV shows as well as tunes? Wait, what about apps and the App Store, that’s another thing again? It’s all got so confusing. OK, let’s just slow down… We’ll try to clear as much of this up as possible as we go along. Find explanations as to what’s what on pages 26 and 32.

Find my devices

Losing a gadget is more than just annoying – Apple devices cost a fortune and have all your stuff on them. Fortunately, Apple devices are good at detecting where they are in the world, and iCloud’s Find My… feature is good at helping you track them down on a map, find them under the sofa or in the fridge, and if necessary lock or wipe them to thwart evildoers. Turn to page 31 for info.

iOS backups

If you lose or replace your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, how do you put everything back on the new one that you had on the old one? It turns out all you have to do is keep iCloud Backup turned on. Well, that and make sure you have enough space for all your backups in your iCloud storage plan. We discuss storage plans in further detail on page 26. And you can find out more about backup options on page 33.

Access anywhere

The great thing about having everything in the cloud is that it’s not a real cloud, it’s actually a chunk of storage on a server in a massive Apple data centre powered by solar panels in a remote desert region of America, and since it’s on the internet, you should be able to get at it from just about any kind of computer. And you can! The secret is iCloud.com. Read more on page 32.