Apple Needs an iCloud Plug-In For Windows 10 Browsers Or Re-release Safari for Windows

If you're on a Windows 10 machine, Apple offers an iCloud app and associated extensions for use with Windows more popular browsers, Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. It was more than I thought were supported by Apple for its cloud service but there should be more support for Windows users for iCloud. After all, Apple has an equivalent webapp for its OS X app like iWork apps, mail, and other major iCloud services. Barring that, Apple should reintroduce Safari that has built-in support for iCloud services.

Right now, you can use any of the above three mentioned browsers use access iCloud.com but you are met with a warning that the browser does not fully support iCloud features. You can download iCloud for Windows that offers a direct integration with iCloud data and Windows.

For most people, what Apple does offer now is sufficient. But as a writer and blogger, I would like to be able to sharing links and information from one app to another more seamlessly than what is currently possible now on Windows. I had tried to sent an URL in my browser on the Macbook and all I had do was to click on the share icon in Safari and all the options that I have set up for sharing pops open.

When I'm on a Windows machine (unfortunately, I cannot be on a Mac all the time I'm at work), I have to copy and paste the URL in another tab where iCloud.com apps are on and then go through an extra couple of steps to do the same thing. If Apple had build a better extension or even a Windows version of Safari with the same functions as on OS X, I could save myself a lot of trouble. As it is now, I'm forced to spread my links on Feedly, Twitter, Instapaper, or another social network.

It is unlikely I'll see Apple build a more robust iCloud for Windows app that offers a similar experience as I do on the OS X. As it is now, new and old iPhone and iPad users can use their iOS devices entirely free of a traditional computer - all their data are cloud-stored. Sure, a vast majority of businesses still rely on PCs but more and more are work entirely on their tablet or phone. And Apple has been positioning the iPad as a laptop replacement, this is especially evident with the release of the iPad Pro. And iOS will only mature more and more with each annual update and gain added features that make using PC in businesses and schools more obsolete.

I started off writing this post to name the hole that is glaringly evident in Apple's iCloud services and its use on Windows, where Wintel machines still dominate the computing landscape. I've come around to the fact that iPad and mobile computing is where Apple is focused on and directing its innovative visions towards. Still, it will not happen overnight or even in the next few years. Tablets will have a lot of growing to do.