Apple iCloud Preview
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Apple iCloud was announced at the WWDC in June 2011. It is due to be launched around September 2011. iCloud can store your music, photos, apps, documents, etc. in the network (on Apple's servers) and wirelessly synchronise them onto all your iOS devices. It is not simply storage but, it can keep your email, contacts, and calendars up to date across all your devices.
When you sign up for iCloud, you get 5GB of free storage and your purchased music, apps, and books, as well as your Photo Stream, don't count against your free storage allowance. That leaves the 5GB free for your mail, documents, Camera Roll, account information, settings, and other app data.
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Let's be clear about why Apple have launched iCloud though. It is a way to lock people further into the Apple eco-system and to make sure that those that have one Apple device buy another. The fact that Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads and Apple TV now share the same Apple ID, apps, music, video and other doucments seamlessly is a compelling reason to stay with Apple products. Ironically, it is exactly the reason why we won't.
iTunes in the Cloud
Music and videos purchased from Apple are automatically stored in the cloud and can be downloaded onto any other device your own (that uses the same Apple ID). Note that this is download and not streaming and is not comparable with services like Spotify.
You can also download music you've previously purchased to all your devices. iCloud stores your purchase history, so you can see all the music you've bought, no matter which device you bought it on.
iOS 4.3.3 & iCloud
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iOS 4.3 already has some iCloud services exposed. With in the Apps Store app there is now a 'Purchased' link which provides a view of purchased apps as stored in the iCloud.
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The 'All' view is not very helpful as you get along list of every app you have ever purchased.
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The 'Not On This Phone' view is both annoying and useful, mainly the former. It basically displays all those old apps that you don't want any more including all the free trial versions of apps that you may have bought. There really needs to be a way to delete old apps completely. The only usefl bit is that it also shows which ones need updating but, there is a lot more noise than signal.
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iTunes Match
If you want all the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you haven't purchased from iTunes (pretty much everything in our case), iTunes Match will let you store your entire collection, including music you've ripped from CDs or purchased somewhere other than iTunes for just £24.99 a year.
iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store, so you don't have to upload it all. This is just as well because in our case this is a lot of data to upload. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device but, in the AAC format and only at 256Kbps. iTunes matches plays back at 256Kbps 'iTunes Plus' quality, even if your original copy was of lower quality. In this respect, some of the main beneficiaries might be those with low-quality, illegally downloaded music, which be converted by Apple into something much more playable. This will also be a step-down in quality for some people though, who have ripped at a higher bit rate. Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can't match.
It is interesting that Apple is sticking wih the model that you should carry all your music with you on an Apple device, rather than moving towards the cloud streaming models like Spotify. We do wonder how long this will last and we are sure iOS 6 or 7 will incorporate streaming in the future.
Photo Stream
Take a photo on an iOS device or import a photo from your digital camera to your computer, and iCloud automatically sends a copy of the photo over any available network to the Photos app on your iOS devices, iPhoto on your Mac, the Pictures Library on your PC, and the Photo Stream album on your Apple TV.
With Photo Stream and Apple TV, you can view your recent photos on your HDTV. A special Photo Stream album lets you access photos stored in iCloud.
iBooks
We haven't really been a fan of iBooks so far. The Kindle experience and apps seems a more flexible and open model for eBooks.
The iBooks app on your iOS device or the iBookstore on your Mac or PC provides a personalised reading list from your past book purchases. Just like with apps, you can download these books again to any of your devices. Buy a new book and it appears 'everywhere'. When you start reading on one device, iCloud remembers your place. Leave a bookmark, highlight text, or make a note and theyre automatically pushed to all your other devices too. But all this only works on iOS devices. You can shop in the iBookstore via computer but cant see anything you buy on one; iBookstore purchases can only be read on an iOS device.
