Now that Apple has unleashed OS 10.7 Lion, all eyes are on the other major OS release announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June: iOS 5, the new operating system for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch launching this fall.
One of the most anticipated features of iOS 5 is iCloud, which will provide online storage for users’ music, documents, contacts, calendars, apps and more as well as replace MobileMe as the service for updating data across users’ iOS devices and computers. Earlier this week iCloud.com went live for developers, who can now begin preparing their apps for service in iCloud.
Also this week, Apple announced the pricing for iCloud storage upgrade options. iCloud users get 5GB of storage for free; however, purchased music, apps and books don’t count against the 5GB of free storage, nor does Photo Stream. Users who need more than 5GB of storage for their mail, documents, photos and other data can upgrade to 10GB, 20GB or 50GB for $20, $40 or $100/year, respectively.
While we still have to wait a bit longer for the iCloud to fully roll in, beta versions of two great iCloud features—automatic downloading of new music and past music and TV shows purchased from iTunes to iOS devices that meet system requirements—are currently available in iTunes.