Wow. Yesterday was a pretty big day for software updates if you use Apple products of any sort. Here are updates that I received:

* iTunes 10.5
* OS X Lion version 10.7.2
* iOS version 5 for my iPad
* an Apple TV update
* The roll-out of iCloud, which is related to the above updates.

In fact, there were so many updates and people trying to access them at once that Apple’s mighty servers took a beating. It took a few tries before my iPad finally updated, but it’s now working. I really like the updates to Safari on the iPad; it’s much more slick opening several web pages at once.

However, iCloud was not so smooth for me. It ended up messing up my ability to sync my calendar and address book with my Blackberry. (The Blackberry outage also affected me, but that was a separate issue.)

Basically, if you use a Blackberry with your Mac, do not use iCloud for your calendar and address book until they fix this issue!

I’m not sure where the blame lies, exactly, whether it’s with RIM or Apple. Or both.

I initially turned on iCloud because it looks like a very handy feature. Update my calendar on my Mac or iPad, and it uploads it to an Apple server which automatically updates my other devices. In theory. Unfortunately, this does not store the calendar on my Mac in a way that the Blackberry Desktop application can read it. So it all broke.

And then to make matters worse, when I tried to revert the iCloud change, my calendar *disappeared* from iCal. Fortunately it did warn me ahead of time and so I was able to back up my calendar on my computer first. However, when I did the same thing on my iPad, it kept my calendar there.

What’s up with that? Surely if my iPad can keep my calendar, my Mac should be able to do the same thing? Silly Apple. It looks like they have a bit of work to do on iCloud… which looks really handy, once the bugs are worked out.

And when I get an iPhone, this problem will be moot since I won’t need to use the somewhat clunky Blackberry Desktop anyway. :-)