iPhone iCloud – Removing Backup Message

Instead of going to Preferences -> General -> Usage, go to Preferences -> iCloud -> Storage & Backup -> Manage Storage.

This screen will list your devices and by selecting the current device (like your iPhone if you're looking at it on your iPhone) you can see the list of applications that saves data to the backup. Here you can see the backup size per app and you can also disable/enable them individually. To modify the settings for your other devices you need to go to the same screen on them.

So much confusion over iCloud, so little help from Apple.

iCloud was introduced as an sync service between all your Macs and iDevices. Yes, one can buy storage beyond the free 5GB ... but I'd look closely at the specifics of backing and and restore, and also give it a trial run. Too many posts on lost data and the like on Apple Discussions to think Apple's got the cloud down pat, not yet.

Backing up to your Mac, however, is solid, you've probably got more than enough free space (check that out.) In many cases, I just zip a copy of the relevant folder and drop it into ~/Users/Shared.

BUT, you really want a second location for irreplaceable things like photos. This could be on a portable USB drive, which could also serve as a clone--nothing like having a copy of your whole computer on a start-up disk. I recommend spending also a few bucks a month on off-site backups to A3, using Arq, by Haystack Software, for automatic timed backups of files that change. The restore function is easy and impeccable.