iCloud was undoubtedly what tipped me over the edge to buy an iPad. It hadn’t launched and few technical details were available, but the idea of iCloud and Apple’s reputation for eminently usable technologies had me convinced that it was going to transform mobile computing. After a couple of months this reality has not manifested itself for me, but the potential is certainly there. There are many good points, there are gaps that have no solution yet (the bad) and there are those gaps for which inelegant solutions exist (the ugly). I’m going to reflect on these from my own point of view as a researcher whose needs are for a) manipulating text documents and b) a mobile library of PDF documents. More…