iCloud unveiled at Developers Conference

NEW York – On Monday Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled iCloud, which is a free wireless storage and syncing service, at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in downtown San Francisco’s Moscone Center. The service automatically stores a user’s content to all their Mac Computers & Apple devices. This is definitely not a feature to be overlooked! Both Google and Amazon users have to upload the songs themselves. Users will receive 5GB of storage for free, with the option to upgrade. For a $25 fee users can store up to 20,000 songs on iCloud, which is a great deal compared to Amazon’s $200 price tag. We may indeed be seeing a bidding war in the future.

iCloud is comparable to Amazon’s Cloud Drive, but integrates seamlessly with iTunes, which currently is the software that controls all syncing of media to Apple computers or devices. A feature known as iTunes Match, will scan users’ hard drives and automatically make the songs it finds available on iCloud.

Besides music, iCloud will be able to sync apps, books, documents, contacts, photos, and videos to any apple device the user owns. Set to be officially released this fall, and is said to replace Apple’s previous cloud service, MobileMe. Being fair, Apple plans a refund for users already paying the $99 a year for the same service. Anyone having an active MobileMe account as of today will have their service extended at no charge through June 30, 2012.

The plan for this service is undoubtedly to sell more iPods and iPads, and seems like the next necessary step for Apple to compete with Google and Amazon. Definitely something to keep in mind when it comes time to plan your online media storage.