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iCloud Drive iOS App: When Is it Coming?

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iOS 8 an OS X Yosemite come with a new feature called iCloud Drive, which is essentially Apple’s equivalent to Dropbox and Google Drive. However, while OS X Yosemite has an iCloud Drive folder where you can drag and drop various files in and out of, where’s the equivalent app for iOS?

The image below was taken from Apple’s website and it shows off iCloud Drive on both iOS and OS X. What’s shown in the image looks to be a file explorer iCloud Drive iOS app, similar to Dropbox or Google Drive. However, we have yet to see such an app from Apple.

Redditors have questioned this as well, but it turns out that what you see in the image is merely just iOS’s document picker, which can be used within other apps that support iCloud Drive, such as iWork. It’s actually not a standalone file explorer app of any kind.

With that said, it doesn’t seem like Apple has plans to release a standalone iCloud Drive app, which isn’t too surprising considering that iCloud was never meant to be a file explorer of sorts, but if the company wants to compete against the likes of Dropbox and Google Drive, a file explorer app of some kind is a must.

iCloud Drive iOS app

However, there used to be an app called iCloud Drive Explorer that allowed you to browse files in your iCloud Drive folder on your iOS device, similar to Dropbox and Google Drive, but Apple quickly pulled it from the App Store.

Of course, Apple could release a standalone iCloud Drive app for iOS devices in the future, because we like to say, “Never say never,” but the chances of that actually happening are extremely low.

iCloud Drive has been one of the more popular features of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, but it got off to a shaky start when an iOS 8 bug would involuntarily delete iCloud data. According to several users, using the “Reset All Settings” option by navigating to General > Reset has caused files to be permanently deleted from a user’s iCloud Drive account.

Of course, the “Reset All Settings” option says that it won’t delete any data, so this was no doubt a glaringly huge bug in iOS 8.

However, OS X users could recover these deleted files through a backup, but you were pretty much screwed if you didn’t back up at all.

iPhone 6 Plus Problems - 1

This isn’t the only bug that has fallen upon iOS 8, though. Ever since the new mobile operating system released earlier this month, users have been experiencing all sorts of issues, especially when iOS 8.0.1 was released less than a week after the initial launch. The minor update was supposed to fix a handful of small bug fixes but instead introduced a world of bigger problems, including breaking cellular service as well as the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 6.

Apple quickly pulled the update from its servers, but the damage was already done for the most part.

Apple quickly released iOS 8.0.2 to fix issues that iOS 8.0.1 brought, and that has done the trick for many users, but the residual effects are still left over for some users.

Some users reported that even after updating to iOS 8.0.2, the Springboard crashes and restarts constantly. Furthermore, other users are still reporting that they can’t get any cell service after updating to iOS 8.0.2.

Of course, the iCloud Drive deletion bug has been fixed, but it certainly doesn’t help bring back any deleted files for Apple users.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. hitoshianatomi

    10/24/2014 at 8:04 pm

    Apple is expected do something about the vulnerability that their Touch ID brings: Biometrics operated with a password in the OR/disjunction way (as in the case of iPhone) offers a lower security than when only the password is used.

    Biometrics can theoretically be operated together with passwords in two ways, (1) by AND/conjunction or (2) by OR/disjunction. I would appreciate to hear if someone knows of a biometric product operated by (1). The users of such products must have been notified that, when falsely rejected by the biometric sensor with the devices finally locked, they would have to see the device reset.  It is the same with the biometrics operated without passwords altogether.

    Biometric products like Apple’s Touch ID are generally operated by (2) so that users can unlock the devices by passwords when falsely rejected by the biometric sensors. This means that the overall vulnerability of the product is the sum of the vulnerability of biometrics (x) and that of a password (y). The sum (x + y – xy) is necessarily larger than the vulnerability of a password (y), say, the devices with Touch ID and other biometric sensors are less secure than the devices protected only by a password.

    It is very worrying to see so many ICT people being indifferent to the difference between AND/conjunction and OR/disjunction when talking about “using two factors together”.

  2. David

    10/25/2014 at 9:03 pm

    I was all set to drop Dropbox and SkyDrive and use iCloud Drive. But without a separate iCloud Drive app, forget it. Apple seems to think that I should open a compatible app then find my file on iCloud Drive. That would work only if I knew what the file type was in advance. But I need to browse to see what s there first.

  3. Sammy

    10/26/2014 at 8:56 am

    I was REALLY hoping to use iCloud Drive as well, but Apple pulled a fast one on us. Zero iCloud Drive app, what fresh hell is this? I wanted to store some private photos and movies via iCloud and be able to privately access them on my iPhone WITHOUT having to use the iPhoto on my Mac and iPhone, BUT to access them thru the iCloud Drive app. Oh well, it is their lost as I have become a new customer of Dropbox – SO so easy to use and it works!!

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