Apple introduced iCloud at its developers conference, a new service for customers to store downloads and data in the cloud and share Apple purchased content across multiple devices. The service will launch this autumn on the upcoming iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod and OS X Lion for Mac computers. iCloud incorporates the former MobileMe services, for sync and back-up of contacts, calendar and e-mail hosted on the me.com domain. iCloud also automatically backs up other data on iOS devices, daily over Wi-Fi when the device is charging. This includes content purchased from Apple, photos and videos, device settings and app data. Documents created using iCloud Storage APIs are also backed up, with changes pushed automatically to all devices sharing the documents.
Apple released a beta version of iTunes in the Cloud for users running iOS 4.3. This allow iOS device users to share iTunes purchases across multiple Apple devices. iCloud also allows users to share content purchased on the App Store and iBookstore with up to ten devices at no additional cost. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can benefit from the iCloud services. The iTunes Match service replaces it with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if Apple can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store. iTunes Match will cost USD 24.99 per year. Finally, iCloud’s Photo Stream service automatically uploads photos taken or imported on any device and wirelessly pushes them to all the user's devices and computers. iCloud will store each photo in the cloud for 30 days.
iCloud will offer users a total 5GB of free storage for their mail, documents and backup, and the storage for music, apps and books purchased from Apple, and the storage used by Photo Stream doesn’t count toward the 5GB total. Users will be able to buy more storage, with details announced when iCloud ships this fall. Apple will support iCloud from its own three data centres. The iCloud beta and Cloud Storage APIs are available immediately to iOS and Mac Developer Program members.
