Not quite clear? Confused? If you had to read this several times and it still doesn’t make sense, then it is clear that the software engineers who made these design decisions did not do a good job (in the Apple parlance). Apple isn’t perfect because it is made up of different groups of people. Some engineers are great at distilling the complex and turning them into easy to understand solutions. Other engineers come up with solutions that other engineers understand but don’t necessarily make sense to those less technical. iCloud in general should be designed to be simple and easy to understand considering the target demographic. When a complete technophobe is presented with a warning saying all my documents and data will be DELETED from my device when turning off that iCloud setting, it seems counterintuitive because to most people, turning off that setting means you want to have your documents and data saved on your device because you are turning off using iCloud for your documents and data. Furthermore, it isn’t clear to the user that there is another toggle for turning off and on the use of iCloud for individual applications (and even this isn’t consistent because not all applications have a pane in Settings). Personally, I think the ability to toggle an apps use of iCloud should exist right inside the program (a small iCloud icon can be displayed in bar at the top; the icon would also indicate state as to whether iCloud is on or off; and touching the icon will bring up the ability to toggle it off or on).
I’m not sure if some of the document vanishing issues is in any way connected to this convoluted structure of settings. Because what I have now is working fine (where its saving both locally and to iCloud), I’m going with my gut instinct not to even try fussing around since I’ve been bitten too many times in the past trying stuff out of curiosity only to get my head handed to me on a shiny silver platter.
