Apple forced me into doing something today that made me feel dirty - I had to walk into a shop and buy a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium

The reason being, after buying an iPod Touch for my wife for Christmas, and in order to use it how I intended with iCloud, I have discovered that Apple are refusing to give the millions of Snow Leopard users access to iCloud without forcing them to upgrade to the iDevice inspired Lion.

However, 99% of my applications won't run in Lion unless I upgrade them at a cost of hundreds of pounds. But ironically, iCloud supports Windows Vista and Windows 7, and so in Windows 7 running under Boot Camp, I can sign-up for iCloud to set-up my wife's iPod. In the end, I needed Windows in some form to properly keep my golf GPS device up to date because it isn't Mac compatible, but Apple are starting to drop a fair bit in my estimation these days.

I'm off for a shower, and I haven't even installed it yet!

Nerd

Good to see you're finally catching on ...

A sign of the (Apple without Jobs) times or just an illustration that Apple are far more ruthless about supporting older operating systems than Microsoft can be because of the kind corporate inertia that has prolonged the life of Windows XP, IE6, Office 2003, etc.

I've nearly finished reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs and one of the very few major arguments that he lost on his return to Apple was the decision to port iTunes to Windows - so he might be turning in his iGrave to see Windows Vista clients accessing iCloud.

However, his main thrust with iCloud seemed to be to deny it to Android users; eventually, he saw that developing client apps for Windows would help Apple sell more iPods and he probably saw that the future battleground was mobile devices and not desktop PCs. Anyway, because of Virtualisation software, most modern Macs can run Windows in VMs or by using emulation.

It will be interesting over the next year how apple does without jobs. He clearly was the main driving force over the critical parts of the company. iphone probably has jobs stamped all over it, but iphone 6 will be the decider.

Jobs is irreplaceable because his combination of skills - design, vision, communication, drive, determination and ability to get all parts of the Company working together - was probably unique.

If Apple continue with his key strategy of producing completely integrated hardware and software solutions, it will be fascinating to see if they can retain their current market position.

Maybe for different reasons than I thought though, Razor

Apple will I am sure still be running how Jobs wanted for a good while yet as I am sure he will have insisted on a road-map for the company long after his death. But this, I am afraid, stinks.

Boot Camp, freely bundled with Leopard onwards, makes this a simple task, I believe. I will let you know once I have Windows up and running just how easy it is!

I'm shocked....Apple trying to force you to only buy the exact item they want you to buy as nothing else will work with their product

Definitely this.

Yep, I think it will be a while yet before the head honchos @ Apple have to start thinking for themselves...

I am sensing sarcasm On the whole I have never seen the close control Apple want to keep with their hardware and software as a problem, but to not support iCloud on an OS that only 6 months ago they were still openly selling and promoting is a step too far. Besides, the more I read into iCloud, the more I don't see it is really what I need. Problem is, I have an email account with Apple which will have to be ported to iCloud before June of this year.