If you haven’t visited iCloud on the web in a while, you’ll soon be in for a surprise.
As reported by MacRumors, users who are part of the beta program for iCloud.com woke up today to find that Apple has completely redesigned the user interface on the website. The old version of iCloud.com simply showed you the available app icons upon login. Choosing one of those apps would, of course, take you into it but, outside of seeing the app icons themselves, the only insight you got into each app on the home screen is a notification dot.
With the new redesign that Apple is testing in the beta version of the website, your homepage will look more like a bunch of widgets rather than app icons. As you can see from the screenshot below, the homepage contains widgets for Photos, Mail, Calendar, and iCloud Drive. Within each widget, Apple will give you a preview of your most recent photos, your calendar appointments, the newest emails in your inbox, and more.
This version of the iCloud website is currently only available to those enrolled in the beta program, so it is currently unclear if Apple plans to release this version to the public. It’s also unclear that, if it chooses to do so, when that release may happen.
iCloud on the web has always been a secondary consideration for Apple as the company tends to focus more on building out iCloud features for its devices. The iCloud experience has always been faster and more feature-rich on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV.
However, it’s good to see that iCloud on the web is still getting some attention from the company. There are some times when you need to fall back on the web version of the service and Apple’s willingness to continue to improve it ensures that, no matter where you need to use one of iCloud’s services, you’ll have a good experience.