iMore

Hello

Most of the questions here are more advanced than mine. I just don't understand if or why I need Icloud. I activated solely to keep my me.com address. I have no idea what settings to use. I have no Iphone. I have an Ipad but it is used as a remote for my audio system and Itunes. Most of my Itunes stuff is ripped CDs. I live in Japan and there is no Match as far as I know.



I have Time Capsule backups by the way, so am not sure what the Cloud gives me.

My questions:


1) Will the Cloud back up mail on Mac Mail or Ipad Mail, even though I am not suing Apple's me.com but my own providers?

3) Why do I need it if I have IMap mail anyway through my provider?

4) Most of my music is ripped CDs. As far as I understand, they are not in the Cloud unless I buy Match. I do use Itunes sync to keep the same music in both devices. Total amount of memory used for Itunes i am not sure. It says 25 GB on my 64GB IPad 2. Not sure if that is the ICloud limit or what I actually have.

(5) The menu choices: Do I lose some capabilities if I enable them?


a) First, I am set automatically for the most expensive plan. If I try to downgrade, I cannot select DONE. It looks like it will be automatic and I will have to downgrade retroactively. Is this correct?

6)Mail is off by default. If I turn it on, how is it different than now, where the Mail app on my computer and the IPad already show me the same stuff more or less? Also, this is not mail from me.com but stuff forwarded to my non Apple account using the mail apps.


7) Photostream and documents & data are on. I do not have an Ipad or Iphone camera soi don't think I need this. It would be nice to see some of my Iphoto shops, but I suspect this is a whole 'nuther thing.

8) Re getting photos from my Mac onto my Iphone, do I continue to use Itunes to sync some of that if I want?

9) With stuff in the cloud (maybe not my CDs? How about my IPhoto stuff?) I am worried that stuff will disappear from my computer and ONLY be in the Cloud. How can i make sure I don't lose stuff?


10) With documents and data on, should I be expecting to see copies of my Word docs and a pages doc on my IPad? Or do I manually have to move stuff?


(e) ICloud backup is off. Do I want it on? It will not let me use Sync with ITunes if I enable that. Is that good or bad? I like that I can update my ITunes playlist on the Mac and have the same one on my IPad downstairs...this updates wirelessly. I am guessing this is different, but the whole thing is baffling.

I suppose most of my questions reflect my ignorance of the way it works, but I find all the talk about the cloud baffling when so far things are working the way I want. I would be nice if I could see the same Word or Pages docs on the Ipad for the rare times I take my Ipad out of the house, and if that can be done painlessly ok. There is not a lot of public WiFI in Japan, for what it is worth.

Thanks for bearing with me.

PS

After installing ICloud I found I did not turn backup on. Now it is on and I have a message saying I have 24.7 GB available. Clearly I am not making use of it. Am I doing something wrong?
And how can I continue to sync my Itunes so that my computer and Ipad are the same?


paul