If Apple integrated Time Machine with iCloud, would you use it?
It blows my mind that Apple, increasingly a cloud services company, has let best-in-class-by-a-mile-when-it-isn't-broken Time Machine basically languish and deteriorate and never integrated it with iCloud storage. It feels like they could dominate a many-billion dollar cloud backup industry over night if they wanted to? I would happily pay another X dollars a month to them for proper cloud backups of someone else if it meant getting the unlimited retention and interface functionality of Time Machine. Am I crazy? Would you? Would your families?
Big no. I stopped using iCloud after the CSAM debacle showed Apple is eager and willing to weaponize my device against me for the sole purpose of reporting the content of my private files to the federal government. Then I stopped using and sold my iPhone and Apple Watch. I haven't been able to get away from MacOS yet, and there's really no competition for the iPad so I still use both of these.
While Time Machine has languished and deteriorated, Arq Backup [1] is alive and well. Used with AWS Glacier it's practically free, aside from the 1 time cost of the software (in case anyone forgot - there used to be a paradigm where you could buy software for money and own it) and whatever you choose to pay for expedited restore from Glacier.
[1] https://www.arqbackup.com
Absolutely, without question.
For better or worse I’m a fully payed up member of the Apple ecosystem. I love that everything generally “just works” (maybe until
It doesn’t…).
Currently use Arq with S3 but to be honest looking for something simpler. Tried BackBlaze years ago (could be 10 years ago) and found it slow and buggy, probably good now.
Would take an Apple online time machine warts and all.
I think fundamentally I believe that they would get the encryption and security around it correct, as in general they have a good track record with security and privacy.
No, or at least not initially. With Apple's track record with online services I wouldn't trust them to not mess this up. I'd stay with BackBlaze for the time being and let others be the early adopters.
I don't know what I'm missing, but I've tried to use Time Machine many times over the past decade and every time it's the same thing. After a few weeks, it forgets what it's doing and has to rebuild the backup from scratch.
I don’t think it’s accurate to say they’ve let TM languish. They recently did a big update that allows it to work on AFPS-formatted drives that takes advantage of AFPS snapshots. And prior to that, changes to take advantage of AFPS snapshots on the source drives as well.
The UI hasn’t changed, but there have been big changes under the covers.
I'm sure a lot of people would, though most of my friends and family have internet connections that would make uploading 50GB file diffs long, unreliable, and unpleasant (rural USA).
I would not. Honestly I'm still kind of mad that I can't automate iPhone backups to my local Time Machine setup.
It's also a backup model that would benefit to a hilarious degree from deduplication...
Because local data is no longer a relevant matter for the consumer market from the perspective of the corporations. Your media is in the cloud, your communications are in the cloud and apps are re-downloadable. Of course all of this has the capability of being defective down the road or missing something, but so does local storage.
The endgame seems to be local cache, edge-retained warm storage and cloud-based bulk storage, all managed transparently.
Yes. I love not having to worry about my iPhone and iPad. I've been using iCloud backup on those devices for years and years, transferring across devices and it just works.
I don't have a single extended family member who backs up their Macbook's properly. I've tried. No one wants to be bothered with having to periodically attach a USB drive to their laptop. And Time Machine to an SMB share is flakey.
The Macbooks in my home are setup to use Time Machine to an SMB share and Arq to B2 because I can help if something breaks.
For my kids away at college, they have an external USB drive, but neither reliably plugs it in. So their laptops are also configured with Backblaze because Arq's UI is too damn confusing.
It's especially non-sensical to me that Apple doesn't offer this since they already have offer to host your photo library, music library, and documents and desktop folders in iCloud, plus whatever other apps choose to sync to iCloud. They can exclude the OS and apps from the app store.
Now, I personally wouldn't use this as my sole backup. But for family members who aren't backing up at all? Yes, please.
Not unless the client is open-source.
I can trust encryption to some degree but after Apple's CSAM stuff, no way am I letting them do what they please.
Been a big Apple fanboy for a long time and am moving 100% away from all of their tech. Don't want Apple anything anymore.
Apple would have to modify and re-engineer Time Machine to make it fit with iCloud, but yes, I have though about this many times—and I am sure folks at Apple have too. Why it hasn't been implemented yet i don't know, but for all we know it is on a roadmap somewhere, amongst the many things Apple is juggling.
Possibly. I don’t use iCloud storage at the moment because it doesn’t work very well. But I do like Time Machine so a cloud option on it would be interesting.
I think it would need some work though, just mapping a disk image in the cloud wouldn’t be enough. Using TM across a network seems to create problems for many.
Time Machine is completely unreliable even for home use.
No. iCloud sync for Notes, Calendar, and iMessage lose data on a regular basis so I wouldn't trust them with anything not easily replaced.
It would have to work well with multiple users. iCloud backup can be a simpler solution since iOS and iPadOS devices are single-user.
I think the way they do iCloud is better than TimeMachine. I have tons of time machine backup drives that have useless junk from the OS and libraries installed but really all I want is my files that are important. iCloud gives a pretty seamless experience for that right now. I’m not sure time machine adds a lot. Maybe adding versioning (if they don’t already have it) might be a good add but otherwise I wouldn’t change how they do iCloud now.
I wish Apple would build a chromeOS equivalent with iCloud. Just works and with privacy.
no. No way!
I'm ok with Time Machine the way it is.
I stay off iCloud, especially on a work laptop.
Never, I have no assurances that Apple has no ability to know what the data is.
1000% yes. I doubt it'd be economical, but absolutely.
Absolutely, without hesitation. Take my money Tim Apple.
no. no way!
I'm ok with Time Machine the way it is.
I stay off iCloud, especially on a work laptop.