Finally, Apple Unveils iCloud

Cloud-based music service that Apple has been waiting for finally exhibited at the Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, Tuesday (07/06/2011). Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced a service that allows users to access music, photos and documents through any Apple device instantly.

As previously suspected, Apple ensures that iCloud synchronize with iTunes. Every time consumers buy songs on iTunes, the song will be uploaded via iCloud and stored in all of their Apple devices at no additional cost. Jobs said this is the first time the music industry to allow consumers to do a number of downloads at once without having to pay extra fees.

Jobs also announced an additional service, iTunes Match that allows users to store songs from their CD collection on the 'cloud'. This service will scan to whole music library and match if the song had already been uploaded before, so the process does not lasted too long.

Apple provides nine new applications for iCloud service for free. However, users must spend up to USD24.99 per year to be able to store up to 25 thousand songs on the service. Similarly, as reported by the Daily Mail.

In addition to storing music, users can also store photos and other data via iCloud. All photos taken using the iPhone will automatically appear in the iCloud Photo Stream service for some time, before they're copied to the laptops and computers.

Users also can perform data backups through iCloud. Apple provides up to 5GB of storage capacity free of charge to iCloud users. This capacity is much greater than other cloud-based storage which usually provide a capacity of 2GB.

Currently, iCloud beta version already available on IOS 4.3, which unfortunately still limited to the United States. The final version will be launched together with IOS 5 in the fall.