Apple Bows iCloud Content Storage Platform

6 Jun, 2011 By: Erik Gruenwedel

Company also says it has sold 25 million iPad tablet computers

Apple Inc. June 6 unveiled a proprietary cloud-based digital locker system that allows users to store and access wirelessly music, photos, apps, books and documents to their Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, in addition to Mac and PC computers.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs made announcement of iCloud’s fall launch during a keynote presentation at the first day of the media company’s annual WWDC 2011 developers confab in San Francisco.

“We think this solution is our next big insight,” Jobs said.

The free service, which will ship with Apple’s iOS 5 operating system, does not at the moment store digital movies and TV shows — functionality studios are currently addressing through UltraViolet and separately, Disney’s All-Access (formerly KeyChest).

Separately, the iTunes in the Cloud platform goes live today. The company also announced it has sold 25 million iPads.

The iCloud will support up to 9 devices for free, with users allocated up to 5GB of storage. A matching service for non-iTunes music will be $24.99 per year.

Apple is readying to ramp iCloud through its three data centers, including the recently completed facility in Maiden, NC. Apple says it has invested over $500 million in the Maiden data center to support the expected customer demand for the free iCloud services.

Indeed, it remains to be seen how iCloud will work in reality ,considering Apple’s previous foray into digital storage, MobileMe, an ill-fated e-mail system that was supposed to provide the seamless synchronization among devices and instead lost emails, among other shortfalls.