Apple’s iCloud is the perfect solution for the road warrior Realtor and here’s why
Whether you are an Apple freak like me and own / use all Mac gear, or at the very least have an iPad or iPhone, you might have heard the news yesterday about Apple’s forthcoming product called iCloud — a service that will “store your content and wirelessly push it to all your devices.” But beyond the consumer services iCloud will revolutionize (like sharing music, or photos of the kids from one device to the other), there are a ton of business applications that Real Estate agents who are comfortable with this technology can use and use well from the first day the service goes live. What’s more, the service should give a freedom for agents everywhere, allowing us all to re-examine how we function, not only in the field, but even while in the office.
Here are a few of the services that iCoud will be offering and some ideas for how to apply it to the day-to-day.
Apple says: “iCloud stores music, photos, apps, calendars, documents and more, and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices — automatically. It’s the easiest way to manage your content. iCloud stores your content so it’s always accessible from your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.”
Real Estate Agent iCloud Application 1: Storage means — Bye Bye Drop Box
As a user of Drop Box, Evernote, and Google Docs, I have always found server based applications useful. However, there were always too many steps to make sure different devices had the most recent versions of my documents. From what Apple is claiming, not only will this be fixed because of the automatic nature of the syncing, but I will not even have to download them after it syncs. Now I understand that this will need to be put to the test, but by the examples shown during the Keynote at the World Wide Developer’s Conference, it should be pretty wonderful.
Real Estate Agent iCloud Application 2: The Mobile Real Estate Documents Library
My office does a lot of Maryland business. In those cases a fully ratified file is 53 pages. By using the cloud I will be able to not only store the documents but have print capability on whatever network I am on, including someone’s home. And if I forget something, someone else can send me something through iCloud and — poof — it’s there. Bye bye thumb-drive too!
Real Estate Agent iCloud Application 3: The Mobile Listing Presentation / The Mobile Buyer Presentation
Using the iPad as a presentation tool has been a great use of the hardware I splurged on last year. But, I always had to use strange work arounds to get the file from my Mac to the iPad. iCloud will definitely solve that, and should be even more helpful as the presentations change over time and I use different machines and devices. For you road warriors out there who love presenting buyers and sellers using an iPad but haven’t enjoyed the process of document transferring, it looks as though your troubles are over.
Real Estate Agent iCloud Application 4: Real-Time Calendar and Contact updates for Teams
Teams have long had the challenge of syncing calendars and contacts. Even with the advent of Google Docs people, at least in my office, have been searching for a better Contact Management and Calendar tools open to all, but that does not involve a “company owned” server. iCloud looks like the solution. Based on what the Keynote presentation showed, the sharing and updating capabilities going to help a lot of people not on an Exchange server. Now we have heard of this before, (see .MAC) but we will see. Maybe they’ve got it right this time.
Real Estate Agent iCloud Application 5: Real-Time photo transfer for field personnel
Being out and about at a listing and sharing photographs on the road is a nightmare. For all logistical purposes you need to wait to sync to your Mac to then sync to iPad to do anything with them unless you upload directly to a service. With iCloud that should be over. As an iPhone “photo-phile” who never uses my iPad for photos because of the syncing hassles I may finally get to enjoy editing on my iPad.
Real Estate Agent iCloud Application 6:Backs up Everything across all devices
Nothing like back-up services and peace of mind. We’ll see if the automatic back-up services are as good as they are hoping. If they are, that alone is worth the price of admission.
In a world of so many options, I prefer to stay Apple loyal when I can, but I have been disappointed by .MAC .ME and other options Apple has tried. Hopefully, the iCloud service will prove itself. Only time will tell.
BONUS! Get 
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