Apple Move To The iCloud

At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference this week, Apple CEO finally revealed one of the technology companies’ worst kept secrets – the iCloud.The new service aims to, according to Jobs, “demot(e) the PC and Mac to just be a device”. 

Following on from cloud-based services from Amazon and Google, the iCloud service will allow users to synchronise all their music to their Apple devices from another device, or through iTunes, using the cloud.

Interestingly, besides storing music, iCloud can keep hold of documents, calendar appointments, photos and your contacts, making it effectively more of a virtual server. If a user buys a music track, application, or book across one of their devices, it will automatically be replicated on any others they own.

Apple is offering all users 5GB of space for free, with the service itself free for most Apple devices.  The new service will spell the end of Apple’s MobileMe service, currently charged at $99 a year.

Both Amazon and Google have already launched cloud-based services, though they lack licensing deals for music from the major record companies that Apple launches with.

Online perceptive businesses such as web design and web hosting companies have been taking to the cloud for business-related applications for a while now, but consumers have yet to see the value. Apple (and Google, and Amazon) will be hoping that by moving the ever-popular iTunes to the cloud, consumers will gradually adopt the idea for all their media.