Despite rumours before the event, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs failed to tell the crowd at the company’s World Wide Developers Conference that movies and TV shows are part of the new iCloud service.
However, users can upload their videos to the service. In a statement, Jobs said: “Today it is a real hassle and very frustrating to keep all your information and content up-to-date across all your devices. iCloud keeps your important information and content up to date across all your devices. All of this happens automatically and wirelessly, and because it’s integrated into our apps you don’t even need to think about it—it all just works.”
The new iCloud service will incorporate iTunes in the Cloud, which lets users download their previously purchased iTunes music to all their iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match.
In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match, a service that replaces your music with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if we can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store®, it makes the matched music available in minutes (instead of weeks to upload your entire music library), and uploads only the small percentage of unmatched music. iTunes Match will be available this fall for a $24.99 (€17.14) annual fee. So far, the service will only be available in the US and no details were issued about an international launch.
Apple has released a free beta version of iTunes in the Cloud, without iTunes Match, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users running iOS 4.3. iTunes in the Cloud will support all iPhones that iOS 5 supports this fall.
The App Store and iBookstore now download purchased iOS apps and books to all users’ devices, not just the device they were purchased on. In addition, the App Store and iBookstore now let customers see their purchase history, and tapping the iCloud icon will download any apps and books to any iOS device (up to 10 devices) at no additional cost.
Movies and TV shows are still the missing link and the absence tells a story that making the right connections with the studios is a hard job. Microsoft tried to steal the show at the E3 event in Los Angeles by announcing the addition of live TV to the XBox Live service, but also failed to give concrete information about deals done with content owners.
