Advice on setting up iCloud Flashcard sync

[Paul Duke]

I haven't used flashcard sync at all and I'd like to turn it on.

Any advice? I want to make sure I don't delete everything.

I have two devices I use a lot. iPad mini and iPhone.

I've basically consolidated the flashcards I'm studying on the iPad mini.

But I still frequently use the iPhone to look up a word, then make a flashcard from it.

So what I'd like to do is:

Overwrite the iPhone with the flashcards now on the iPad mini (maybe 30 or 35 categories with about 100 words each, plus some other random categories like HSK lists).

Then be able to add cards from the iPhone when necessary.

So should I first delete all the cards currently on the iPhone, then turn on syncing on the iPad mini, then turn syncing on on the iPhone? Will that work?

Does iCloud syncing occur automatically when new cards are added on one of the devices, or do you have to do something to force the sync?

TIA, PD

 

[mikelove]

When you enable sync, if there's already another set of flashcards in the cloud it will put up a prompt asking whether you want to use those or replace them with the ones on your device. So no need to delete anything, just turn sync on on the iPad, wait a few minutes to make sure that database is up in iCloud, then turn it on on the iPhone and tell it to use the set that's there / replace the set that's on your iPhone.

And yes, syncing does indeed occur automatically - not instant, though, since that would eat up a lot of extra battery life.

 

[ballyeden]

I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 7.1.2 and and iPad 4 with iOS 8.1.1 History on both devices syncs quite regularly, so I know the devices are communicating with each other. However there seems to be no syncing of flash card databases. I went so far as to delete the Local and iCloud databases on the iPhone and then re-enabled iCloud sync but I get no message about which version to use. It simply creates a new database for the iPhone rather than using the existing iPad iCloud database. Any suggestions?

 

[ballyeden]

I suspect the difference is in the iCloud. iOS 8 uses iCloud drive while the iOS 7 uses the old iCloud. If that is the case what would you suggest?

 

[mikelove]

That would indeed explain it, yes. Honestly the only thing I can think of to fix that would be to set up a brand new iCloud account on your iPhone 4 and then make sure *not* to choose the option to migrate it to iCloud Drive when you set it up on your iPad - that should keep them able to sync with each other. Or you could use our "Share Files" screen to share backup databases between the devices and restore them manually.