iCloud

Today at WWDC, Apple has revealed their upcoming cloud service for the Mac, iPhone and iPad which will unify the file system into the cloud.

So, the digital hub, a concept that Apple launched with the iPod 10 years ago, is being moved to the cloud. All devices can talk to the cloud whenever they want, with instant propagation to all other devices. With iCloud, users get of free online storage for mail, documents and backups, music, apps and books.

Some people think a cloud is just a hard disk in the sky, but it's way more than that." iCloud stores content (think contacts, calendar, photos, music), with wireless push to all your devices, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and your Mac. But the kicker is, it's completely integrated with apps. Everything happens automatically.

For example, users can edit a Word or Excel document in iWork on a Mac, and it gets instantly pushed to iCloud, where it can be accessed on an iPad or an iPhone. All data is saved and backed up in the cloud. This functionality is built in to Pages, Numbers and Keynote. File transferring seems totally automatic and effortless.

Tweak an existing document in Pages on the iPad or iPhone, and it immediately gets saved to iCloud and changes are immediately pushed to an all your other devices and is instantly visible.

Apple has been working for 10 years to get rid of the file-storage system. It started with iOS, and has made its way to the Mac. iCloud entirely removes the concept of file-storage. Apps manage presentation of its own documents. Apps can store documents in iCloud, documents pushed automatically, with automatic updates on all devices when content is changed anywhere.

This concept was first brought forward by Google and is what they're trying to push with Chrome OS, but their implementation is nowhere near as elegant and spot on. For a more detailed explnanation (with pictures), visit their site. They do a much better job explaining it than I do. http://www.apple.com/icloud/what-is.html

Best of all? It's free for anyone with an iPhone or iPad. You can watch the live event and demo of this amazing service here.

Must admit, this is interesting in a sense. Even though I do not own any Apple products, I am always interested in Cloud related backups and implementation. Also better when the service is free. Not that 5GB of space is impressive, but it is surely is not bad either compared to other services I heard of.

Thanks for sharing the info, Imperial.

I too own no Apple products whatsoever and I still find this to be quite cool. Maybe it'll grow enough to be used on the things i actually own (PS3 + PSP)