coming soon, Apple iCloud

Earlier this week, it was announced that Apple bought iCloud.com for $4.5 million. And now, AppleInsider reports that iCloud will be the new online data service for Apple products, taking over from the MobileMe service (which used to be .mac and before that iTools).

Quote:

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Apple is preparing beta versions of iOS 5.0 and Mac OS X Lion that hook into a service called iCloud, which will let users store and synchronize a wide range of data on Apple servers, according to report citing people familiar with the matter.

iCloud will let fanbois store and synchronize the same sorts of data they can now sync through the Apple's MobileMe service, including email, bookmarks, contacts, and calendar events.

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Between Microsoft's To The Cloud, Amazon's CloudDrive and now this new iCloud, looks like we will continue to be inundated with promises of nowhere-land storage, apps and computing power for years to come.

The difference with Apple is they are moving itunes to cloud based as well. Unlike Amazon that doesn't have the blessing of the music labels, Apple will have a master copy (not an user uploaded one like Amazon uses) and it looks like the service will kick some major ass.

I've been a .Mac/Mobile Me subscriber for a long time. It seems a little tired now. I hope Apple will offer more tools than just storage, something innovative and Apple-y. >Mac used to offer GarageBand loops and some other cool things. Now I use it mostly for sharing photos with the gallery feature.

I abandoned Mobile Me because uploading was dirt slow for $99/yr. I will try Yahoo's, and probably Amazon's - for free.