iCloud

iCloud is an online service from Apple and was officially introduced in June 2011. It follows the MobileMe online service, which was offered for a fee from 2008 until spring 2011. From fall 2011, iCloud is available together with the also new iOS 5 for the iPhone.

Functions of iCloud

iCloud updates a user's data files between their iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Macintosh or a personal computer( PC). Purchased music, apps and books, photos and videos, device settings, and app data are transferred wirelessly and automatically to all of the user's devices. After a change on one device, a push service synchronizes the content on the other devices.

With iCloud, the user gets 5 GB of free storage in an Apple data center. Purchased media and music are not included in the free storage, as they are available in an Apple data center anyway. Pricing for additional storage has not yet been determined. A purchase history in the App Store and iBookstore downloads all purchased apps and books to ten of the user's iOS devices at no additional cost. When users start using a new iOS device, they enter their ID and password during initial setup so that the device is automatically synced with their other devices.

Apps for iCloud

Since Apple's iWork office suite apps also support iCloud, documents are synced between the manufacturer's hardware platforms. The "iCloud Storage" feature backs up documents via the "iCloud Storage APIs" and pushes them to all of the user's other devices. From MobileMe, a user's contacts, calendar, and email have also been transferred to iCloud. If iCloud is to be used with a PC, Windows Vista or Windows 7 and Outlook 2010 or 2007 are required to access the contacts and calendars.

iCloud also includes a Photo Stream service that transfers self-taken and imported photos to all of a user's iOS-enabled devices. Due to space limitations, only the 1,000 most recent photos are stored in iCloud for 30 days, unless the user moves them to an album on a device for permanent storage.

In the U.S., the paid" iTunes Match" feature replaces a user's music not purchased in iTunes with a version free of digital rights management( DRM) with AAC compression if the desired track is in the iTunes Store, with its more than 18 million songs.