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iCloud introduced by Steve Jobs

iCloud introduced by Steve Jobs

Posted: 06 Jun 2011, 14:10, by Ray S.

Categories: Apple Apple Software Software Bookmark

Discuss 31

Today at WWDC, Apple has unveiled its online storage and content management service - iCloud. Well, that wasn't actually unexpected, but here come the details, folks, straight from the horse's mouth!

Naturally, iCloud will first before most act like a normal storage service - it will enable seamless cloud syncing for your iDevices. For example, if you have taken some new photos with your iPhone, once it gets connected to a Wi-Fi network, the pics will automatically get transferred to your iCloud, and from there - to your iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or even PC, without requiring any additional effort. Simple as that! But just how big is the scope of it?

Most of Apple's iCloud will be offered for free. The free services include:

1. Contacts, Calendar and Mail - the former MobileMe services - which have been completely rewritten in order to work with iCloud. These will be free of any (i)Ads, and the push Mail account will be hosted at me.com. So, there you have it - everything from contacts, through calendars to inboxes will be easily kept in sync.

2. App Store and iBookstore - this is pretty straightforward - purchases of apps and books can now be downloaded on all your devices. In addition, users will now be able to see their purchase history, and with the tap of a single button, will be allowed to download any apps and books to any iOS device.

3. iCloud Backup - the purpose of backup is self-explainable - everyday, while you're charging your iDevice, and it's connected to a Wi-Fi network, its content gets backed up to iCloud. The backed up content includes music, apps, books, photos, videos, settings and app data. So, now, when you decide to get a new device (by Apple, apparently), you'll simply have to enter your Apple id and pass and voila - all your data will be downloaded.

4. iCloud Storage - this service takes advantage of the new iCloud Storage APIs in order to manage your documents in the cloud (Pages, Numbers and Keynote docs). It keeps track of any changes, and makes sure to apply them to all your iDevices. The apps from the iWork suite already take advantage of that funcitonality.

5. Photo Stream - thanks to this sweet service here, you'll be able to have your photos synced across your iDevices, Mac and even PC. Note however, that iDevices will keep the last 1000 pics made, if you don't move them to an album or something. Macs and PCs won't have that limitation. Photos sent to iCloud will stay there for 30 days.

6. iTunes in the Cloud - now, music that you've previously purchased through iTunes will be downloadable on any of your iOS devices, for free. Nice, huh? Same for new purchases - those, you'll be able to automatically download to all iOS gadgets. But what about songs that are not purchased from iTunes? Thanks to a special service called iTunes Match - Apple will... match your music with content from iTunes, and if it finds a certain song, it will simply replace it with a 256kbps AAC DRM-free version. Why do that? Easy - because it would make your music available online in a matter of minutes, instead of having to upload your entire library to the cloud. The bad news is that iTunes Match will cost you something - $24.99 a year, to be exact.

Apple iCloud and its services will be available along with iOS 5 this fall. However, the good news is that iTunes in the Cloud, along with automatic download of apps and books, is available right away in the U.S. for users on iTunes 10.3 and iOS 4.3.3.

source: Apple

Images courtesy of Engadget

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1. Droid_X_Doug posted on 06 Jun 2011, 14:12 4 1

What about the poor sods who just renewed their subscription to MobileMe? Do they get the middle-fingered wave?

16. 123jdl posted on 06 Jun 2011, 23:02 0 0

Apple extended their subscription to June 30, 2012 at no additional cost. This will give those users a chance to migrate over to iCloud services.

19. Droid_X_Doug posted on 07 Jun 2011, 03:14 1 1

The subscription to MobileMe was extended to June 30, 2012. However, there are some services like iDisc that Apple has so far been silent on what is going to happen after June 30, 2012. There are small businesses using Quick Books for Mac that are also using iDisc for secure, remote archiving of the business data from Quick Books. If iDisc goes away, those folks are screwed come June 30, 2012.

39. Lucas777 posted on 07 Jun 2011, 21:00 0 0

why dont u give them a small amount of time to tell u... they just freaking introduced the service... and it is free? so why wud it be a huge problem to update?

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2. taco50 posted on 06 Jun 2011, 14:31 0 6

mobileme hasn't been sold by Apple for months I believe

21. Droid_X_Doug posted on 07 Jun 2011, 03:16 1 1

I know 2 friends who had their MobileMe subscription auto-renewed as recently as last week.

40. Lucas777 posted on 07 Jun 2011, 21:01 0 0

welll obviously they like it enough too kep it...

3. Xpple (unregistered) posted on 06 Jun 2011, 15:51 0 0

Sound more like iSync than iCloud.

20. Droid_X_Doug posted on 07 Jun 2011, 03:14 0 0

But iCloud sounds sexier than iSync.... :-)

32. Xpple (unregistered) posted on 07 Jun 2011, 09:03 1 1

NO. . . no it really doesn't. It sounds stupid like most apple device names.

The Mac was a good name and fit the company. All this iDevice bs is just stupid. The fact that so many other people follow and name their products with a lower case i shows just how lame people are these days. . . people can't even think anymore.

37. protozeloz posted on 07 Jun 2011, 12:42 0 0

actually iSync could be related with only synchronization services wile iCloud represents cloud services in general (like storage and others) not only Synchronization so my guess is that iCloud was more fit to the job

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36. Gozer the Gozarian (unregistered) posted on 07 Jun 2011, 12:21 1 1

Look...Apple stole the "Cloud" concept and made it their own. Now I bet Apple will sue everyone else for copyright infringement and intellectual property rights, claiming they invented it, own it, and run it. Plus, they own the rights to the sky, ground, outer space, and the letter "i".

Steve Jobs is such a hypocrite.

41. Xpple (unregistered) posted on 08 Jun 2011, 10:09 0 0

Yeah, they'll sue anyone that uses sync to the "cloud" for multiple devices. . . cause it hasn't been around before iOS5.

Kind of like Apple trying to sue MS over the Mac gui when both companies blatantly copied Xerox--before anyone says apple paid licensing fees, etc. . . no, they paid to take home an alto, not to blatantly copy the OS. Xerox was just too stupid to realize what they had.

4. Rich (unregistered) posted on 06 Jun 2011, 15:51 3 0

this looks amazing... will my phone come with another battery to last me through all this auto photo syncing on the go?!?!

5. Sniggly posted on 06 Jun 2011, 16:01 0 0

And the way I understood it, the iTunes match isn't just the subscription fee- you have to rebuy the music you obtained elsewhere through that functionality. The individual songs are NOT free. Unless Jobs and MacRumors totally botched their explanation of the service, that is.

10. 530gemini posted on 06 Jun 2011, 18:45 1 0

You don't have to rebuy it. But there is a subscription fee if you want that service. The fee is a flat rate of $24.99 compared to Amazon's $50. Google has not named their price yet, but I really doubt it would be free. Google does not have data centers as huge as Apple's, that's for sure.

11. Sniggly posted on 06 Jun 2011, 18:57 1 0

Gemini...are you and I discussing something here without insults or stupidity?

Wow...okay, let me take this in...all right, taken in.

Your explanation makes more sense. One thing Apple has done very well is build an incredibly robust music store. I can't fault them for that.

33. Xpple (unregistered) posted on 07 Jun 2011, 09:07 1 0

Google has the largest data centers in the world. Apple is finally putting some money it centers but they are far behind Google. That's Google's bread and butter--they need massive data centers just to carry out all the web crawling they do not to mention all their online apps they've had for years that Apple is just now starting to add.

Dude. . . really, get off the apple juice and realize they aren't #1 at anything.

Like their products, love their product, but please stay in reality.

38. protozeloz posted on 07 Jun 2011, 12:44 0 0

Google has mail and other services, they store data from users in lots... so yeah their servers should be bigger than apples

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6. 530gemini posted on 06 Jun 2011, 17:11 0 0

I still don't get this icloud service. How can data from my 32gb iphone be transferred and fit into my 16gb ipad? Or maybe it's not really saved into my ipad? I don't know. I'm lost.