by Tom Nelson
Apple’s iCloud provides a host of cloud-based services you can use on your Mac, including Mail & Notes, Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Documents & Data, Back to My Mac, Find My Mac, and more. Each service lets you store data on the iCloud servers, and keep your Mac and all of your devices, including Windows and iOS devices, in sync.
Screen shot © Coyote Moon, Inc.
What You Need to Use the iCloud Service
iCloud on the Mac requires OS X 10.7.2 or later.
Once you have the proper version of OS X installed, you’ll need to turn iCloud on. If you updated to OS X 10.7.2 or later after the launch of the iCloud service, the iCloud preferences pane will open automatically the first time you boot your Mac after updating the OS. If you updated to OS X 10.7.2 or later before the iCloud service launched, you’ll need to access the iCloud preferences pane manually.