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Posts tagged with "iCloud"

iCloud Logo Spotted at Moscone Center

 

Apple started the WWDC 2011 preparations at the Moscone Center a few days ago – we tweeted pictures of the Apple logo and outside banners going up, though we weren’t able to see what Apple was working on inside the conference building. As tweeted by @stop, the photo above shows the official logo / icon of iCloud that Apple will unveil at the WWDC keynote on Monday.

What do you think? Judging from a first photo, it looks like iCloud is going to replace MobileMe entirely – several rumors in the past weeks claimed iCloud would be a service within MobileMe, but from the looks of the icon it appears iCloud will simply replace Apple’s previous cloud offering.

We should receive more photos from Moscone Center later today and we’ll update this story with the new shots. Look past the break for more updates!

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New Time Capsule To Cache Software Updates, iCloud Media?

Following last night’s reports on AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule stock running low at several Apple retail store locations in the United States, speculation has arisen claiming that Apple may either discontinue the line, or refresh it altogether bringing major new functionalities that integrate with iCloud and allow iOS devices and Macs to access content stored in the cloud faster. 9to5mac has received word that Apple has been internally testing a new version of the Time Capsule which is capable of downloading software updates for connected iPhones, iPads and Macs in the background, and distributing them locally once they’ve been downloaded from the Internet. According to the report, the Time Capsule would recognize devices owned by a user that are connected to the local network, automatically find and download software updates in the background, keep them in its cache, and send them quickly to a device once it’s ready for the upgrade without having to force a user to wait for the download process.

What we do know is that Apple has been internally testing Time Capsules to cache Software Updates for both Mac and iOS devices. The way we’ve heard it works is that the new Time Capsule learns which devices connect to it via Wifi. It then goes out to Apple’s servers and downloads Software Updates for those products.

When the user wants to install the software update, the Time Capsule, which is also the router, routes you to the locally stored update, rather than downloading the whole thing over the Internet. This works for iOS updates as well, though the updating still happened via the Mac.

This new smart technology would know which devices are connected to the local network and, unlike Mac OS X Server, (which can download software updates for clients but it’s not as smart as the proposed solution above) it would be capable of precisely knowing which devices need or can install what kind of software update. Imagine a system that based on user’s behavior always downloads updates related to iPhoto for Mac, but asks with a popup box whether you want to grab the latest OS X version. The possibility offered by a “smart router” with local caching functionalities are practically endless when combined with Apple’s fast pace of weekly software updates.

9to5mac also speculates the new Time Capsule could be used to cache content stored on Apple’s iCloud – such as music or movies and TV shows – so that iOS devices with limited Flash storage would be able to quickly start streaming without having to wait for an Internet connection. If the rumors are true and Apple is building a service to backup music collections to the cloud or simply mirror existing songs after a scanning process, Apple might come up with a solution to keep most consumed content in a local cache for when you’re listening to music or watching a movie on your iPad from the couch. Another idea is that Apple could store snippets of media locally (as a patent suggested), and let iOS devices start playing back music instantly. Or then again, the opposite may be true: instead of acting as a bridge between the cloud and iOS devices to provide content, the Time Capsule could back up content and settings from Macs and iOS devices to the cloud.

Update: John Gruber suggests the rumored new Time Capsule could handle iOS updates without tethering an iOS device to a computer – that certainly sounds like a possibility, and something a lot of people have been wondering about on Twitter today.

There might be something to this. What if this is a way for iOS devices to do software updates without being tethered to a Mac or PC?

A rumor in May claimed iOS 5 would finally introduce over-the-air updates on a carrier’s network – considering iPhone and iPad owners are used to updating their devices at home, with their desktop computers, Apple could simply update the Time Capsule to make sure new OS updates are downloaded in the background on a local network (not a slow 3G connection), bypassing the need of iTunes.

OS X Lion To Be Priced Aggressively, Offer iCloud Features for Free?

Ahead of the official Lion and iCloud announcements set for the WWDC keynote on June 6, AppleInsider reports today sources familiar with Apple’s plans claim the company will offer some iCloud features and services for free to users who decide to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion this summer. In the press release issued yesterday, Apple touted iCloud as “upcoming cloud services offering”, leading to speculation that Apple has built a series of services and not just a cloud-based music application for streaming to desktops and mobile devices. According to recent speculation, iCloud will offer a set of tools to replace MobileMe, which currently comes with calendar, email, storage, contact organization and photo gallery services. It was rumored before that a MobileMe revamp could also see Apple making more services free (besides Find my iPhone), though AppleInsider claims free functionalities will only be enabled for Lion users, with older OS X versions and Windows PCs getting access to iCloud for an unspecified fee.

People familiar with Apple’s plans indicated to AppleInsider that at least one of those secrets is expected to be that at least some of the services included in iCloud will be offered for free to Mac users who make the upgrade to Lion. iCloud is expected to replace the company’s existing MobileMe service, which offers e-mail and remote file storage, along with syncing of bookmarks, contacts and calendar events, at a price tag of $99 per year.

That price tag may remain for users who do not make the upgrade to Lion, or for Windows users. But it is expected that the cloud services will become free to Mac users who run the latest version of Mac OS X.

Music streaming is not expected to be offered for free, as Apple has been working closely with music labels and publishers to get deals done to launch a music service this year and, considering the licensing fees Apple will have to give back to them, users will likely have to pay an annual fee or monthly subscription in order to have their songs mirrored to the cloud and available for streaming on any device. Another report from March indicated the new MobileMe cloud music service would cost around $20 per year.

AppleInsider also reports a source “with an unproven track record” has said Apple will follow a similar pattern to Snow Leopard to price OS X Lion “aggressively” and persuade users to upgrade early without waiting for possible discounts or online deals. Snow Leopard was released with boxed copies priced at $29 as Apple considered it a “minor” upgrade to Leopard still worth purchasing and, if Lion will also be released digitally through the Mac App Store as recent speculation pointed out, Apple might try to cut the price of Mac App Store digital download and increase the price tag of boxed copies / (rumored) portable USB key distribution. Or, Apple could simply offer all versions of Lion at a lower price to convince all kinds of Mac users to upgrade early, get some iCloud features for free, and stay on the latest version of OS X. Apple has usually priced major OS X releases at $129 with Snow Leopard being the exception at $29. It’s unclear from today’s report whether “aggressive” pricing could refer to Lion being available at $29 as Snow Leopard, or simply below $129.

It’s possible that the lower price could also be tied to purchasing Lion through the Mac App Store. The company already does this by selling its professional photography software, Aperture, for $79.99 in the App Store – a price more $120 lower than the $199.99 Apple charges for a boxed copy of Aperture 3, and even $20 less than the $99 Aperture 3 Upgrade.

Whether Apple will choose to go with the same sub-$30 pricing of Snow Leopard when Lion goes on sale is unknown.

Mac OS X Lion was initially rumored to be scheduled for a summer release in late July or August, although a report from last week claimed the OS is nearing public release after widespread internal testing.

Update: 9to5mac reports iCloud could be offered for free to students and teachers with educational discounts tied to a Mac purchase. Apple could announce such an initiative as part of the Back to School promo rumored to be unveiled at WWDC next week.

A source with some success in the past has passed along that iCloud will have educational-tiered pricing, perhaps being free for students and teachers to a certain level or with the purchase of Apple products.

Example: Buy a Mac, get an iPod and two years of iCloud for free.

Apple’s Data Center Makes A Google Maps Appearance

As noted by Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune, Apple’s new data center in Maiden, North Carolina, is now visible in its entirety from Google Maps’s aerial view. The tidbit of information isn’t particularly interesting as far as the building goes – it’s the same white, anonymous construction we’ve been seeing in other shots from the past months – but the timing is interesting: according to Fortune, Apple started allowing Google to display the data center in their Maps service soon after the official WWDC announcement yesterday. In that announcement, Apple confirmed the WWDC keynote would see Steve Jobs and other executives on stage to unveil iOS 5, OS X Lion and iCloud. The data center was rumored to host a bevy of Internet services and online iTunes content, but the press release and the timing of this sudden Maps appearance seems to confirm that, yes, Maiden’s massive facility will be used for iCloud and all the cloud-related features of iOS 5 and OS X Lion.

But if you asked Google Earth or Google Maps to show you the intersection of U.S. Route 321 and Startown Road – where the data center is located – the current satellite imagery stopped a few yards short of the construction site. West of Startown Road, there was, as recently as two weeks ago, nothing but woods and farmland and a bit of driveway that ended abruptly in the middle of a field.

After Apple’s announcement Tuesday that Steve Jobs was ready to reveal iCloud – the “upcoming cloud services offering” presumably based in Maiden, N.C. – we thought we’d give Google Maps another try.

Lo and behold, there it was: A huge, white, nondescript building with a road leading in, a road leading out, and almost no employee parking.

The data center in Maiden, North Carolina, is rumored to go under an expansion at 1 million square feet (from the current 500,000) and other reports claimed Apple was using highly custom equipment and a unique design to power its new Internet services and applications. As speculation is running wild on how Apple will use the data center with iCloud and iTunes, the company has reportedly already commissioned a new, smaller data center in Santa Clara, California.

iCloud To Feature Films and TV Shows Too?

After today’s press release that confirmed Apple will hold a WWDC opening keynote on Monday, June 6, to officially unveil Mac OS X, iOS 5 and iCloud, Cnet reports the launch of the new cloud service from Apple next week may see a last-minute surprise that will make movies and TV shows available on the online “locker”. No details on how users would be able to upload, stream or purchase films and TV shows they don’t own have been posted, but it sounds like iCloud would provide a solution to store files on Apple’s servers to stream them later to a variety of devices.

Feature films could be part of Apple’s iCloud launch next week.

In the past several weeks, Apple executives have stepped up their attempts to convince some of the major Hollywood film studios to issue licenses that would enable Apple to store its customers’ movies on the company’s servers, two sources close to the negotiations told CNET. Apple began discussing a cloud service with the studios over a year ago.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Cnet also reports content providers and Hollywood studios will be harder to convince than record labels and publishers, mainly because of the deals that in the US tie some studios exclusively to a cable company that airs films and shows. For instance, Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and NBC Universal have an exclusive distribution deal with HBO that would prevent Apple from making their films available through iCloud immediately. As Time Warner’s CEO Bewkes (Time Warner is parent company of HBO and Warner Bros) has made several positive remarks on the new Ultraviolet video standard in the past, however, industry sources claim a deal with Apple and other cloud services could get done, and the exclusive HBO deal reworked to accommodate more distribution methods.

So if Bewkes is a believer what is the holdup? Film-industry sources have say that there’s nothing to worry about, that a deal with Time Warner to relax the HBO window will get done. But can something be completed before June 6?

Whether it can or not, Apple could still roll something out with the other three studios that are without HBO blackout agreements: Disney, Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures.

Apple has officially announced the iCloud name today, referring to it as “upcoming cloud services offering” that seems to suggest it will go beyond music to offer a broader set of tools for online sync and storage. With the launch of the Apple TV 2nd-gen last September, Apple began offering rentals from ABC and Fox at $0.99 only through streaming, as the Apple TV doesn’t allow for local movie storage.

Apple Confirms: June 6 Keynote with Steve Jobs To Unveil iOS 5 and iCloud

Apple just confirmed with a press release Steve Jobs will be on stage (alongside other Apple executives) at the WWDC keynote on Monday, June 6, to officially unveil iOS 5, Mac OS X Lion and iCloud, the upcoming cloud service from Apple. The WWDC ‘11 was long rumored to be focused on new software announcements with Mac OS X Lion set to debut this summer and an iOS 5 beta ready to be seeded to developers, but the iCloud launch was far from certain as Apple was rumored to be closing deal with music publishers, but negotiations could still fall off before the WWDC. It’s not clear yet whether iCloud will be a music service or a much larger set of tools part of a MobileMe rebrand, though Apple’s press release seems to suggest just that.

Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS® X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®; and iCloud®, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.

Previous reports indicated iOS 5 would be released publicly this Fall, with betas seeded throughout the summer to developers. The OS was reported to feature new music, location services, “completely revamped” notifications and widgets, as well as a heavy cloud-based underlying structure that, at this point, we assume will be directly connected to iCloud for the web, desktop and mobile. Other rumors in the past months pointed at iOS 5 with new features called “Photo Stream” and “Media Stream” to instantly share photos and videos with your friends through the Cloud, similarly to how a separate report claimed the new MobileMe would be a mix of Facebook and uStream for social functionalities and video sharing.

Spotify on the Back Burner as Labels Sign Deals for iCloud

According to an article by Eliot Van Buskirk at Evolver.fm (republished by Gizmodo), US record labels are waiting for Apple’s rumored iCloud music service to launch publicly before closing the remaining deals that are preventing Spotify, a popular music streaming service, from launching in the United States. Several rumors claimed Apple is working on an online interface for iTunes to allow users to upload and stream their music collections from the cloud, with a report from last night suggesting Apple will adopt a system similar to Lala (which they acquired last year) to scan a user’s library and mirror songs to their servers, also offering subscriptions and possibility to get access to higher-quality versions of the same songs.

We heard an interesting theory the other day from a well-connected source: Record labels accustomed to receiving big checks from Apple want to give Steve Jobs and company a crack at offering a music subscription service to Americans before Spotify enters the ring, so they’ve been dragging their feet (i.e. demanding too-high payments) in their negotiations with Spotify, preventing it from launching here until after Apple’s cloud music service does.

Spotify has long been rumored to be getting ready for a US launch, though the European company never managed to ink the final deals with the Universal Music Group and Warner Music group. It was previously reported that Spotify had signed papers with Sony Music and EMI for a US launch, alongside the fact that record labels were demanding the adoption of premium subscriptions only, forcing Spotify to ditch their freemium model if they wanted to launch in the US. On the other hand, Apple is believed to be approaching the final stages of negotiation with Universal Music Group, as EMI, Sony and WMG are already on board for the iCloud announcement at WWDC. Others have also reported Apple will have to finalize deals with music publishers, besides labels, before launching any music service, with negotiations also quickly moving forward on that end.

Evolver’s article reminds of an old rumor that claimed Apple executives (including VP of Internet Services Eddy Cue) were pressuring labels to decline Spotify’s offers to prevent the European company from launching a freemium music service in the US. However, the new theory seems slightly different in the way the labels are willing to wait for Apple’s iCloud to become available before closing deals with Spotify. Spotify currently offers desktop and mobile applications to listen to an online music catalogue thanks to the deals the company has signed with European labels. Apple’s new service is rumored to offer a similar setup, with iOS devices capable of streaming music from the cloud and iTunes for Mac and Windows handling uploads and other functionalities.

iCloud Will Scan iTunes Libraries, “Mirror” Songs Online

In a post detailing the current state of cloud-based music services from Google and Amazon, Businessweek relays some information on Apple’s upcoming iCloud service, rumored to include streaming of iTunes collections to a variety of devices and computers and said to be formally introduced at the WWDC keynote on June 6. Similarly to a rumor posted a few months ago that indicated Apple was working on a solution to let users backup & upload their collections to the cloud directly from the desktop, Businessweek says “three people briefed on the talks” (between Apple and music labels) have suggested Apple will provide a scanning tool that quickly mirrors songs to iCloud’s servers, also offering a way to replace those songs with better-quality versions if quality is not deemed “good enough.”

Armed with licenses from the music labels and publishers, Apple will be able to scan customers’ digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers, say three people briefed on the talks. If the sound quality of a particular song on a user’s hard drive isn’t good enough, Apple will be able to replace it with a higher-quality version. Users of the service will then be able to stream, whenever they want, their songs and albums directly to PCs, iPhones, iPads, and perhaps one day even cars.

Businessweek also briefly mentions Apple could use a subscription-based model to give users access to these functionalities and stream songs they purchased or uploaded. Whilst the general consensus among bloggers seems to be that Apple will either allow users to upload entire music collections or listen to songs they don’t own like Spotify enables subscribers to access the company’s online database with a subscription, the technical details on Apple’s iCloud service are still unclear. A patent design suggested Apple could make users sync small bits of music locally and fetch the rest online to avoid buffering between songs; others claimed it will be a simple system revolving around uploads and streaming like Amazon’s Cloud Player; several reports also pointed at Apple building a new service that combines subscriptions, partial uploads and scanning tools to reduce upload times on a user’s end. Businessweek seems to believe the latter option, with a subscription-based payment and a desktop utility that scans iTunes and somehow mirrors everything quickly to the cloud.

MG Siegler Affirms “Castle” Speculation, Internal Name For Cloud Services

Apple’s cloud ambitions have been resurfacing over the last week with several rumours surrounding Apple’s reported purchase of icloud.com and now references to a service called “Castle” in Lion. Trusted Apple blogger, MG Siegler, tonight weighed into all the speculation, endorsing previous speculation by TUAW that “Castle” refers to Apple’s internal nickname of their new cloud services.

The discovery in Lion by Consomac.fr last week found references files that cited an “upgrade from MobileMe to Castle”. Siegler provides some more information in that the internal codename had originally been “Newcastle” but was recently shortened to “Castle”. Furthermore, as far as he is aware, the official shipping name may not yet be decided and “Castle” is still being used internally. The recent speculation over the icloud.com domain may just be one of the potential names for Apple’s cloud service.

On the rumours that AppleInsider reported on Friday, Siegler is reasonably confident that Apple is testing their cloud service internally with new versions of iOS and OS X but with the “Castle” codename rather than iCloud that AppleInsider reported. The cloud service being developed is highly likely to be revealed at this years WWDC, just five weeks away now, whether it be called iCloud (Siegler believes it to be a frontrunner for the name) or something else.

[Via TechCrunch]