So were just digesting all the news from the WWDC from Apple. The main headline; no new hardware. But Apple did put on an impressive show with their new software focus. A future where all Apple devices talk to each and update themselves autumagically – all made possible through the iCloud which be free.
Their big announcement was left until the end and was unveiled by Steve Jobs himself. iCloud is a set of free services that work seamlessly with applications on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store all of your content in iCloud.
When anything changes on one of your devices, all of your devices are wirelessly updated almost instantly.
“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.”
MobileMe has bitten the dust and has been re-architected and rewriteen to work seamlessly with iCloud. Users will now be able to share calendars with friends and family, and the ad-free push mail account is hosted at the me.com. And better still your inbox and mailboxes are kept up-to-date across all your iOS devices and computers.
The App Store and iBookstore are getting the iCloud lick of paint too, now when you download an app or book on one device it will seamlessly and automagically will be on your other devices too. This has been something users have been asking for a while now.
In addition, the App Store and iBookstore now let you see your purchase history, and simply tapping the iCloud icon will download any apps and books to any iOS device (up to 10 devices) at no additional cost.
Steve Jobs went on to explain iCloud backup next. It will backup you devices over the Wi-Fi so when you change handset all you have to do is sign in and the iCloud will transfer all apps, music, books, camera roll, device settings and app data. So your devices will always mirror each other, even if you happen change one of them. In theory it sound amazing.
iCloud Storage does a similar job but for all documents created using iCloud Storage API's. And will then push them to all your device. When you edit a document one device it updates on your other devices. This will apply for Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Users will get 5GB free storage for their mail, documents and backup. Users will be able to buy even more storage, with details announced when iCloud ships this fall.
Photostream is a new service that aims to push all photos taken or imported to all your devices and computers. You will be able to store 1,000 photos on each device so they can viewed or moves to an album where they will be save forever. Once a album has been save it will automatically be stored on a users Mac or PC – . iCloud will store each photo in the cloud for 30 days, which is plenty of time to connect your devices to iCloud and automatically download the latest photos from Photo Stream via Wi-Fi.
One of the most exciting announcements from Apple was how iCloud will work with iTunes. It will let you download previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS device at no charge (up to 10 devices, the first for the music industry. And in the future all music purchases will can be downloaded automatically to all your devices.
No more buying tracks and not be able to listen to it on your family of devices - you'll be able to have it on all devices through iTunes and the cloud. But if you download an album on your iTunes on Mac you can already put it on your iPhone, Shuffle and iPad as far as were aware - so were not entirely sure about the merits of this functionality. Of course if you buy from your device you can't do this. But the iCloud does all this automatically and seamlessly.
The interesting part comes now. Steve Jobs announced that they will launch iTunes Match, a service that replaces your music collection with AAC DRM-free version if Apple can match it to one of their tracks from 18 million strong song collection. Apparently it is done in minutes rather than weeks.
iTunes Match will be available this fall for a $24.99 annual fee. Apple today is releasing a free beta version of iTunes in the Cloud, without iTunes Match, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users running iOS 4.3. iTunes in the Cloud will support all iPhones that iOS 5 supports this fall.
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.
So Apple’s WWDC was a bit of disappointment from my perspective, call me old-fashioned but if there’s nothing new or shiny then it’s not that exciting. iCloud is a good move for Apple. But personally, I don’t use documents or anything like that, I only ever buy CD’s or buy music from stores that has nothing to do with iTunes. So for some it won’t make a blind bit of difference. And it’s only available in the US for the time being. And there’s no sign of Apple data centres in Europe yet so how long we have to wait is unclear.
What do you think of the WWDC announcements ? Excited ? Or totally underwhelmed ? Let us know below.