> Finally, the new Tailscale client allows an Apple TV to be an exit node itself for other machines in your tailnet.
Pretty huge. Many non-techy users don't like the idea of keeping a computer on 24/7, but a smart TV is just fine.
Also, the Apple TV 4k only draws 0.5 watts at idle and less than 3 watts when streaming movies[0], so I imagine it pulls less than 1 just tunnelling traffic. Computers pull 15W+ at idle, and that's with low end components.
0: https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/appletv/Apple...
Neat, maybe I can sell my M1 mini server
Nah, you'll still need that to synchronize iCloud content locally so that you can make backups of it, as Apple stubbornly refuses to allow TimeMachine (or anything else) to actually backup stuff that is only stored in iCloud, and provies no easy, scriptable way, of doing so otherwise.
It may just be a problem for me, but as i have ~3TB of photos in iCloud (2 x 2TB), and unless i want to buy laptops with 2TB storage, there is no practical way of backing up the contents of iCloud, so i use a Mac Mini M1 with an external drive, syncrhonize data locally, and then back it up from there.
I need to backup my iCloud data soon too. How sure are you that the data is all downloaded from the cloud when you copy it to the external drive?
Do you use any special tools?
I just configure each users account on the Mac Mini to download everything from iCloud, and then backup each users directory.
It does require each user to login again every time the mac mini is rebooted, but fortunately that only happens when new releases come around, so 3-4 times every year.
I do periodically check if new photos have been downloaded. I care less about documents as the relevant documents are more likely to also be stored on the laptops, and thus backed up through the normal backup routine on the laptops.
I do wish Apple would come up with a solution to this problem though. The official instructions[1] feels like something from 2003.
> I do wish Apple would come up with a solution to this problem though.
That wish is in the opposite direction of Apple’s brand identity: “let us handle everything for you with our white glove service [you can pay, right?]”
Pretty much everybody agrees that you need to backup your cloud storage as well as your local computer, and Apple even backs up your i-devices to the cloud, and yet, there is no automated way of backing up your iCloud storage.
About a decade ago, Google initiated the Data Transfer Framework[1] that allows you to transfer data from one cloud provider to another, directly from provider to provider instead of downloading it first. It sadly appears to not have gotten enough traction to be of any use.