The Hidden Treasures of iCloud.com

Even on Android or Windows!

“What is your most valued possession?”

This was a question that popped up during some recent office banter. Answers from the team in my lab invariably ranged from cars and technology to family heirlooms or childhood trinkets. Nobody mentioned their smartphone because, well none of us are 15 :)My answer was one that caught people by surprise though: my data.

It’s important that we clear up at this point what I was talking about. I am not referring to my digital footprint, that is my web browsing history or social media profiles. I’m not sure this data can ever truly be considered ‘ours’ because it has become the unfortunate ticket price of using the internet. It’s not great that large tech companies track our browsing habits to sell us advertisements but without that brokerage we’d be paying an upfront cost to use ubiquitous web services. Sadly it is a necessary evil.

No, I mean data that is personally mine.

I have thousands of MP3 files in my iTunes library many of which are one of a kind. I have over 10,000 images stored in my Photos app that detail the history of my relationship and my family going back 20 years. I have documents from the last century I wrote when I was 16 years old that I used to post on Geocities. I have videos of my kids shot on grainy pre-smartphones. I have scans of old video game magazines and roleplaying rule books that are all decades out of print.