iCloud in iTunes on iPhone
When Steve Jobs took the stage yesterday, he got a standing ovation – and it was well deserved on many levels. The Apple, Inc. crew revealed their road map to guiding us into the post PC era; with demoes of the new operating system Lion, iOS5, and iCloud.
Lion was already known to take on traits of the iPhone, iPodTouch and iPad iOS system. Gestures are deeply embedded, and as Jobs said, “scroll bars are not present.” Lion also has: auto-save, Time-Machine-like document histories, full screen documents and apps, Mission Control (a mix of Spaces, Expose and the deck), Resume (which is the Mac equivalent of iOS’ app freezing when switching between apps, allowing a state of resuming where you left off in the desktop app,) a new and improved Mail, resize windows from any edge, and AirDrop (allowing you to drag and drop files to others in your network, much like DropBox.)
iOS5 has 200 new features, including: a new notification system, an SMS app that works with other iOS device owners, the camera app has upgrades allowing photo editing right from the app, Twitter baked into the software, a Newsstand app (basically a store for magazines and newspapers,) mobile Safari upgrades and enhancements, a Reminders functionality, camera shortcut right on the lock screen, and of course…the long awaited sync over WiFi; which means, no more cords!
iCloud was also introduced, the reason for that huge data center Apple has been building. iCloud will store your library of music in the cloud, but you won’t have to upload it. Unlike Google and Amazon’s music lockers, iCloud will scan your music in iTunes and will use its own copies for your listening pleasure. How about the CD’s you ripped? That will also be scanned and it will be upgraded to a higher quality if needed. The cost is free up to a point, but in the end will be $24 a year.
iOS5 will be available this Fall, Lion ships in July.
