ICloud
Encyclopedia
iCloud is a cloud storage
and cloud computing
service from Apple Inc. announced on June 6, 2011 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The service allows users to store data such as music files on remote computer servers for download to multiple devices such as iPhone
s, iPod
s, iPad
s, and personal computers running Mac OS X
or Microsoft Windows
. It also replaces Apple's MobileMe
service, acting as a data syncing center for email, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, notes, to-do lists, and other data.
in 2008.
According to an Apple support page, MobileMe will be discontinued after June 30, 2012, and anyone who had an account as of the unveiling of iCloud has been extended to that date, free of charge.
The official website, www.icloud.com, went live in early August for Apple Developers.
On October 12, 2011, iCloud became available for download via an iTunes Update.
iCloud had 20 million users in less than a week. In June 2011 the Canadian bank RBC Capital Markets
found that 76 percent of iPhone owners planned to use iCloud when the service launched, and predicted that 150 million people could eventually sign up for iCloud.
for WWDC revealed the iCloud logo five days before the official launch.
In the WWDC 2011 keynote speech, Apple announced iCloud will replace MobileMe
services and that the basic iCloud service will be free of charge.
Each account has 5 GB of free storage; content purchased from Apple is stored without charge. Any music files purchased via iTunes
are automatically downloaded to any registered devices e.g. iPods, iPhones and computers. When a user registers a new device, all iTunes content can be automatically downloaded.
, iPod touch
or iPad
. A user can see the device's approximate location on a map (along with a circle showing the radius of inaccuracy), display a message or play a sound on the device (even if it is set to silent), change the password on the device, and remotely erase its contents.
free AAC file format that match tracks in any supported audio file format such as Apple Lossless
and mp3
in the customers' iTunes libraries. Customers can also upload any music that is not available in the iTunes Store for download onto other supported devices or computers. There is no indication of Match becoming available outside the USA; this would require negotiations between Apple and each country's music companies to sort out copyright and ownership issues. Apple Australia said in October 2011 "iTunes Match and TV shows are US-only".
If the user stops paying the annual fee of $25, the user's iCloud library would revert to the songs he previously purchased from iTunes. Music already downloaded to a computer using iTunes Match is unaffected as it is in DRM
free AAC
format.
that have Back to My Mac enabled.
running OSX Lion
to create a new account; synchronising with a PC requires Windows Vista or later, iCloud control panel, and optionally Outlook
2007 or later to sync Calendar, Contacts and Reminders. Online access to iCloud requires a compatible web browser
.
In addition to the free 5 GB, MobileMe members were automatically given the extra 20 GB tier, until the close of the MobileMe service on 30 June 2012.
, sued Apple for trademark infringement
shortly after Apple announced iCloud. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Arizona and demanded that Apple stop using the iCloud name and pay unspecified monetary damages. iCloud Communications changed its name to Clear Digital Communications in August 2011 and dropped its lawsuit against Apple shortly thereafter.
Cloud storage
Cloud storage is a model of networked online storage where data is stored on virtualized pools of storage which are generally hosted by third parties. Hosting companies operate large data centers; and people who require their data to be hosted buy or lease storage capacity from them and use it for...
and cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
service from Apple Inc. announced on June 6, 2011 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The service allows users to store data such as music files on remote computer servers for download to multiple devices such as iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
s, iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
s, iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
s, and personal computers running Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
or Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It also replaces Apple's MobileMe
MobileMe
MobileMe was a subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. Originally launched on January 5, 2000, as iTools, a free collection of Internet-based services for users of Mac OS 9, Apple relaunched it as .Mac on July 17, 2002, when it became a paid subscription...
service, acting as a data syncing center for email, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, notes, to-do lists, and other data.
History
iCloud is the latest branding of Apple's cloud computing services. It has previously been branded as iTools in 2000, .Mac in 2002, and MobileMeMobileMe
MobileMe was a subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. Originally launched on January 5, 2000, as iTools, a free collection of Internet-based services for users of Mac OS 9, Apple relaunched it as .Mac on July 17, 2002, when it became a paid subscription...
in 2008.
According to an Apple support page, MobileMe will be discontinued after June 30, 2012, and anyone who had an account as of the unveiling of iCloud has been extended to that date, free of charge.
The official website, www.icloud.com, went live in early August for Apple Developers.
On October 12, 2011, iCloud became available for download via an iTunes Update.
iCloud had 20 million users in less than a week. In June 2011 the Canadian bank RBC Capital Markets
RBC Capital Markets
RBC Capital Markets is a Canadian investment bank with assets of $711 billion. It is part of the Royal Bank of Canada and has one of the highest credit ratings in the world by Moody's and Standard & Poor's.,According to Bloomberg, RBCCM is consistently ranked among the top 20 global investment...
found that 76 percent of iPhone owners planned to use iCloud when the service launched, and predicted that 150 million people could eventually sign up for iCloud.
Announcement
The first official mention of iCloud from Apple came on May 31, 2011, when a press release announced that it would demo the service at the WWDC on June 6, 2011. A banner hung at the Moscone CenterMoscone Center
Moscone Center is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California. It comprises three main halls: Two underground halls underneath Yerba Buena Gardens, known as Moscone North and Moscone South, and a three-level Moscone West exhibition hall across 4th Street...
for WWDC revealed the iCloud logo five days before the official launch.
In the WWDC 2011 keynote speech, Apple announced iCloud will replace MobileMe
MobileMe
MobileMe was a subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. Originally launched on January 5, 2000, as iTools, a free collection of Internet-based services for users of Mac OS 9, Apple relaunched it as .Mac on July 17, 2002, when it became a paid subscription...
services and that the basic iCloud service will be free of charge.
Features
The cloud-based system allows users to store music, photos, applications, documents, bookmarks, reminders, notes, iBooks, and contacts, as well as serving as a platform for Apple's email servers and calendars.Each account has 5 GB of free storage; content purchased from Apple is stored without charge. Any music files purchased via iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
are automatically downloaded to any registered devices e.g. iPods, iPhones and computers. When a user registers a new device, all iTunes content can be automatically downloaded.
iOS Device Backup and Restore
iCloud allows users to backup iOS devices online; they can be restored from backup without connecting to a computer.Find My iPhone
iCloud allows users to track the location of their iPhoneIPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, iPod touch
IPod touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
or iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
. A user can see the device's approximate location on a map (along with a circle showing the radius of inaccuracy), display a message or play a sound on the device (even if it is set to silent), change the password on the device, and remotely erase its contents.
Photo Stream
Photo Stream is a service supplied with the basic iCloud service which allows users to store the most recent 1,000 photos on the iCloud servers up to 30 days free of charge. When a photo is taken on a device with Photo Stream enabled, it is automatically uploaded to the iCloud servers; from there, it is automatically pushed to the rest of the user's registered devices. Apple has announced that the service will be integrated with the Apple TV set-top box, allowing users to wirelessly view their recent photos on their HDTV.iTunes Match
iTunes Match debuted on 14 November 2011. For an annual charge of $24.99, customers can scan and match tracks in their iTunes music library, including tracks copied from CDs or other sources, with tracks in the iTunes Store. Apple lets customers download up to 25,000 tracks in 256 kbps DRMDigital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
free AAC file format that match tracks in any supported audio file format such as Apple Lossless
Apple Lossless
Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced...
and mp3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
in the customers' iTunes libraries. Customers can also upload any music that is not available in the iTunes Store for download onto other supported devices or computers. There is no indication of Match becoming available outside the USA; this would require negotiations between Apple and each country's music companies to sort out copyright and ownership issues. Apple Australia said in October 2011 "iTunes Match and TV shows are US-only".
If the user stops paying the annual fee of $25, the user's iCloud library would revert to the songs he previously purchased from iTunes. Music already downloaded to a computer using iTunes Match is unaffected as it is in DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
free AAC
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
format.
Back to My Mac
Back to My Mac, previously part of MobileMe, is now included with iCloud. This service allows users to login remotely to other computers configured with the same Apple IDApple ID
Apple ID is an authentication system that Apple Inc. introduced for many of its products, such as iWork, the iTunes Store and the Apple Store. Apple ID serves as an all-in-one account that allows users access to a variety of Apple’s resources...
that have Back to My Mac enabled.
System requirements
iCloud requires a device running iOS 5 or later or a MacMacintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
running OSX Lion
Mac OS X Lion
Mac OS X Lion is the eighth and current major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers....
to create a new account; synchronising with a PC requires Windows Vista or later, iCloud control panel, and optionally Outlook
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
2007 or later to sync Calendar, Contacts and Reminders. Online access to iCloud requires a compatible web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
.
Pricing
On introduction in 2011, 5 GB of storage was available without charge. Additional storage could be purchased in tiers of 10, 20, or 50 GB (50 GB being the maximum) for US$20, UK£14, or €16 per 10 GB per year.In addition to the free 5 GB, MobileMe members were automatically given the extra 20 GB tier, until the close of the MobileMe service on 30 June 2012.
Name dispute
iCloud Communications, a telecommunications company in ArizonaArizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, sued Apple for trademark infringement
Trademark infringement
Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attaching to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees...
shortly after Apple announced iCloud. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Arizona and demanded that Apple stop using the iCloud name and pay unspecified monetary damages. iCloud Communications changed its name to Clear Digital Communications in August 2011 and dropped its lawsuit against Apple shortly thereafter.