Apple iCloud Goes in the Cloud
Apple introduced Monday iCloud, a set of free cloud services that work with applications on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.
When anything changes on one of your devices, all of your devices are wirelessly updated almost instantly, says tech major Apple.
“Today it is a real hassle and very frustrating to keep all your information and content up-to-date across all your devices,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iCloud keeps your important information and content up to date across all your devices. All of this happens automatically and wirelessly, and because it’s integrated into our apps you don’t even need to think about it—it all just works.”
[ Also Read: Ali Shadman Reveals the Secrets of Cloud Computing ]Apple is ready to ramp iCloud in its three data centers, including the third recently completed in Maiden, NC. Apple has invested over $500 million in its Maiden data center to support the expected customer demand for the free iCloud services.
The iCloud beta and Cloud Storage APIs are available immediately to iOS and Mac Developer Program members at developer.apple.com.
iCloud will be available this fall concurrent with iOS 5. Users can sign up for iCloud for free on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5 or a Mac running Mac OS X Lion with a valid Apple ID.
iCloud includes 5GB of free cloud storage for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, apps, books and Photo Stream do not count against the storage limit. iTunes Match will be available for $24.99 per year (US only).
iTunes in the Cloud is available now in the US and requires iTunes 10.3 and iOS 4.3.3. Automatic download of apps and books is available. Using iCloud with a PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7; Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for accessing contacts and calendars.
