It seems like iCloud is designed to store an App's data, but it's not working for me. I am getting Photos and Docs, even Backups, but not any App data. I have selected the Apps I want to sync – Stocks for example – with iCloud on my device, but they are not syncing up with iCloud or my other Apple devices. What are the steps for manually syncing an Apple device to iCloud?
Note: I believe that Backups are not the same syncing data. What exactly is the purpose of a Backup anyway? Why for instance do photos need to "backed up" on the iCloud if iCloud is already a repo for photos.
Best Answer
There’s a lot to digest, but Apple’s iCloud article does a good job explaining what backup does.
In a nutshell, backup is a safety net that helps you a day after you realize you made a mistake deleting photos that synchronize that deletion across all your devices (or worse, if the sync breaks and deletes all your photos from a mistake you didn’t make).
Sync helps if you lose your phone to use a web app version of Apple apps (contacts, mail, photos, calendar) but not so much for third party apps for which there isn’t a web app.
As to performance, you may speed up iCloud substantially by using a Mac on your local network to cache the iCloud data.
This helps especially if more than one device syncs or you sign out and back in to the same iCloud device to troubleshoot.