The Apple Worldwide Developer Conference is on-going this week and with today’s keynote there are a lot of much-speculated things being announced. Mac OS X Lion, iOS5, and iCloud are all being discussed.
Mac OS X Lion, the next version of the Mac OS X operating system will be version 10.7, big cat named Lion. It touts over 250 features. The top 10 features include:
- Multitouch
- Full screen applications
- Mission Control
- Mac App Store
- Launchpad
- Resume
- Autosave
- Versions
- AirDrop
- Redesigned Mail app
Mac OS X Lion will go for $29 and be available only through the Mac AppStore in July.
iOS5 is an update for the iPad and iPhone operating system with over 200 new features and 1500 APIs. 10 key features include:
- Notifications
- Newsstand
- Twitter integration
- Safari
- Reminders
- Camera
- PC Free
- Game Center
- iMessaging
iCloud is moving your digital media hub from your Mac or PC into the cloud. It will control syncing music across all the devices and it’s completely free. It’s more than just music though. You can sync apps with the App Store to get your apps on the device you have with you. You can sync iBooks and saved pages across your devices. You can also backup your devices wirelessly to your Mac or to the iCloud. Three more cloud-happy apps: Documents, iWorks, and Photostream.
iCloud works across all iOS devices, Macs, and Windows. It is based on a data center out of North Carolina. You can store 1,000 photos automatically and the last 30 days of photos. You can purchase a song on iTunes and download it to any of your other devices. iCloud supports up to 10 devices and 5 GB of storage for music, documents, or photos – which doesn’t include PhotoStream or purchased apps, docs, or books. iCloud is available today for free on iOS 4.3 with iOS5 shipping this fall.
There’s also an annual subscription service for a service called iTunes Match. It will run for $25/year but will save you from uploading a lot of songs by matching your songs to those on their server and just “copying” it to your account. It will also improve the bitrate of the songs.
No iPhone 5 at this event. Sorry folks. Was there enough other things to make it worth while? It has me thinking the free iCloud might be enough to smooth out some hesitations about getting an iPad2. It’s also a similar service as the Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music Beta but with additional functionality for free (10 devices and 5 GB) and no ads, whereas the pricing model with Google Music is unknown.
iCloud.com is finally resolving to the http://www.apple.com/icloud/
One unaddressed question would be all of the syncing going across devices. If this goes over 3G, this could easily put many people over their bandwidth limits on their phones.
For more details and pictures of the event check out: