Here are some interesting facts that were shared during today’s WWDC 2011 keynote for iCloud:
Some choice quotes: “… you want all your content everywhere all the time.” “Keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy.” “We’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device.” “We’re going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.”
“iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it all to your devices. It automatically uploads it, stores it, and pushes it to all your devices. Everything happens automatically and there’s nothing new to learn. It just all works.”
Calendar Sharing
@me.com emails will be synced and pushed across all devices.
There will be no ads and the service is free. I’m guessing just for email, calendar and contacts.
AppStore: See all of your app purchases even if they are not on your device. Tap iCloud button to pull down to your device.
Backup: Automatic daily backups to iCloud over WiFi that includes purchased music, apps, books, camera roll, device settings, and app data.
Documents in the Cloud: Automatic iCloud storing of documents created in iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). “Documents in the Cloud really completes our iOS document storage story. A lot of us have been working for 10 years to get rid of the file system so the user doesn’t have to learn about it. The piece that we weren’t finished with was how do we move those documents around to multiple devices, and Documents in the Cloud solves that problem for us.”
iCloud Storage APIs: For documents, key value data, all iOS devices, Macs and PCs, too.
Photo Stream: “I’m going to bring the cloud to photos.” Take a photo on any device and that photo will be pushed up to iCloud and pulled back down to all other devices. Photo Stream is an album right in the Photos app. Photo Stream will be available on Apple TV too. The last 1000 photos will be stored on iCloud. Photos are kept for 30 days. iCloud stores each photo for 30 days. Devices store last 1000 photos. Macs and PCs store all photos.
iTunes in the Cloud: “It’s the same old story. I buy something on my iPhone and it’s not on my other devices. I grab my iPod and I go to listen to that song and it’s ain’t there! Anything I’ve bought I can now download to any of my devices at no additional charge. This is the first time we’ve seen this in the music industry. No charge for multiple downloads to different devices.” You can automatically download new purchases (including free ones) made on other devices. Limited to music purchased from iTunes, high quality 256 kbps AAC, up to 10 devices.
Free: “These nine apps constitute iCloud, and they are all free.” I can’t believe it. All of this free. “We’re making it free, and we’re very excited about it. So that’s iCloud. It stores your content and pushes it to all of your devices, and it’s integrated with all your apps.” iCloud will be default on new iOS 5 devices and you get 5GB of storage for email, not counting purchased music, apps, books, or Photo Stream.
Ripped songs: iTunes Match matches your ripped songs to those on iTunes. “We give that music the same benefits as music purchased in iTunes.” Now this is interesting. If any songs don’t match the songs will be uploaded. Songs that match will be upgraded to 256kbps AAC without DRM. iTunes Match will cost $24.99 per year. The Scan & Match method will take minutes to go over your library whereas Amazon and Google will most likely take considerably longer, maybe even weeks, to upload all of your music content.
