Apple introduces iCloud. Instead of using your PC as a hub for the syncing, iCloud will take it’s place. Everything is collected, and everything is stored and synced to your devices.
MobileMe web apps have been rewritten to fully take advantage of iCloud.
No advertising, new messages pushed to all devices, and inbox and folders are kept up to date on all devices with @Me.com accounts. MobileMe no longer exists, but the current web apps remain as iCloud, which will be free.
Take the App Store for instance, you can now see all of your app purchases, even if they are not currently installed on that particular device. A cloud icon appears next to these apps, and will allow you to pull them down from the cloud. When you buy a new app, or a new iOS device, everything is propagated across devices. Much the same goes for iBooks. All purchased content such as music, books, photos, videos, device settings and app data is synced.
Documents in the Cloud- Create a document on the iOS versions of the iWork app, and everything is saved in the cloud, and pushed to all devices with iWork on it. In fact, the iOS iWork updates released last week already have this functionality baked in. Stop work on one device and pick up on another. This completes the iOS document storage story. Apple is releasing API for developers, and the service will work across all iOS devices as well as Mac and PCs.
Photo Stream- Photos taken with iOS devices, are beamed up to the cloud and then shared with your other devices automatically. It’s not a separate app, but a separate album in the photos app on iOS devices, on the Mac iPhoto, on the PC, the pictures folder. Photos can also be streamed to Apple TV as well. Works over Wi-Fi, iCloud stores the photos for 30 days, devices store most recent 1000 photos, Mac and PC store all photos.
iTunes in the Cloud- Look at previously purchased content on other devices by tapping the same cloud icon. Anything previously purchased can be downloaded to any of your devices at not additional charge. Buying a song, say on an iPhone, the song will also immediately appear on you iPad, you can turn this feature on and off. You can push up to ten devices.
These nine apps that comprise iCloud are all free. iCloud will be set by default on iOS 5 devices going forward. 5GB of storage for Mail. iCloud will arrive alongside iOS 5 this fall. Content you ripped yourself can be synced over Wi-Fi, buy iTunes music, or use iTunes Match.
iTunes Match will scan your music collection to match to the 18 million songs iTunes has in it’s library, then allows you access to it. No uploading, that would take forever. You get the same treatment that you would if you had purchased the music from the iTunes store. iTunes Match will cost $24.99 a year. If your songs don’t match, they’ll be uploaded. Anything that does match will be replaced with a 256Kbps AAC DRM-less file.
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