Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces iCloud, shares fall
Smartphones, digital cameras, tablet computers are a lot to keep in synch together. Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed at Apple’s annual developer conference in San Francisco: “Keeping these devices in synch is driving us crazy.”
According to him, Apple will moat its decade-old strategy of placing the personal computer at the center of each user’s digital life. “We’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device, just like an iPhone, an iPad an iPod touch, and we’re going to move your digital life into the cloud,” Jobs said.
iCloud, a free new service available that is expected to synch content on Apple devices with servers in Apple’s data centers, where it can be pushed to all a user’s devices.
The full service will be incorporated with Apple’s new iOS operating system, which is due to this Autumn – except for a part of the service that works with Apple’s music store, which is available instantly via a free software download.
Jobs admitted Apple has struggled with online services previously, acknowledging that the service MobileMe, “was not our finest hour,” Jobs said — doing away with the $99 service and offering all its features for free as part of the new offer.
In additon to free email, contacts, and calendering services, iCloud will add six new features to the old MobileMe offering.
1. The App Store — Buy an app on Apple’s software store, it can be delivered to all your devices with the push of a button.
2. Book Store — Books from Apple’Book Store can be purchased downloaded to all of a user’s Apple devices. Get to a page, bookmarket it, and the bookmark is pushed to all a users other devices.
3. Backup — Rather than backing up purchased music, apps, books, pictures, device settings and app data to a personal computer, it’s all saved to Apple’s servers.
4. Documents In The Cloud — Create a document in an application, and the document will be automatically updated and stored in the cloud, and then pushed to all a user’s devices. Say goodbye to the traditional file system — “A lot of us have been working for ten years to get rid of the traditional file system,” Jobs said, adding that the feature will work on Macs and PCs, too.
5. Photo Stream — Users will be able to take photos on any Apple device and share them with their other Apple devices automatically, as well as PCs running Windows.
6. iTunes In The Cloud — Users can download any music they’ve purchased to any device they own, at no additional charge. New music purchases will be pushed to all their devices.
Attendees at this year’s developer’s conference was excited ahead of today’s announcement, but the talk is falling short of miraculous so far. Apple shares fall hard, down 1.5%.
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