As you may or may not be aware, Apple has released the iCloud web apps in beta to developers, but it’s only available to a small number of users through its "iCloud Beta Developer Sign In". Thankfully, there’s a ridiculously easy trick you can perform that will – sort of – let you use all the web apps even if you don’t have access: in fact, even if you don’t have an Apple ID.
Right now, if you head to iCloud.com and enter your credentials, you should see an error message claiming that you don’t have access. This happens because these web apps are currently in closed beta mode and will likely remain that way for quite some time.
While this method won’t actually let you use the iCloud apps, it will let you get past that pesky login screen. Why? To impress your friends, I guess, make them think that you have super iCloud powers. Yet, this trick requires no super powers at all, just some JavaScript code and a browser.
Step 1: Point the browser of your choice, preferably one based on WebKit such as Safari or Chrome, and point it to iCloud.com.
Step 2: Now you’re going to “right-click” on any empty space on the iCloud page and then click on “Inspect Element”, then click on “Console” and paste in the following:
javascript:CloudOS.statechart.gotoState("active.springboard")
then hit enter.
If you’ve followed the steps correctly, you should be taken to iCloud’s main dashboard (shown above). How far will you be able to go with this? Not much: once you attempt to launch any of the 5 iCloud apps, you’ll simply be handed an unknown error. iCloud will still be as inaccessible to you as before, but at least you were able to look at the app dashboard. Better than nothing, right?
If you’re wondering, clicking "Reload" will simply bring you back to the login page you were attempting to get around in the first place. If you were expecting to be able to try out the iCloud web apps, we are sorry, we hoped for that too. Evidently, it’s fairly easy to write some JavaScript code to dismiss a specific dialog box, even if there’s no visual option to dismiss it, but the iCloud apps still won’t function since they were expecting a valid Apple ID, yet no Apple ID is being used at all.
Nonetheless, all users will have access to these apps free of charge once iCloud is released to the public this fall.
(thanks to @devongovett for the hat tip!)
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