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Jobs enjoys a day in the sun to unveil his Cloud: Now Apple customers can access their music anywhere, any time

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 18:50 EST, 6 June 2011

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Steve Jobs appears on stage to rapturous applause
New iCloud service will be 'the centre of your digital life'
Day one of Worldwide Developers' Conference in San Francisco
Lion OS X and iOS5 also announced

To the strains of James Brown's I Feel Good, gravely ill Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage yesterday at the Apple Worldwide Developers' Conference in San Francisco.

He was making a rare appearance in public to unveil his company's latest revolution, the iCloud - an online storage service that automatically synchronises all of a user's Apple devices.

One of the main benefits of the service will allow users to access their music collections on iPods and iPads without having to upload the tracks.

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Standing ovation: Apple CEO Steve Jobs gestures as he receives a warm welcome before a keynote address to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco

Handing over: After a brief address on the importance of software - the 'soul' of Apple - Mr Jobs handed over to Phil Schiller, the senior vice president of international product marketing, to explain the Lion operating system

iCloud announcement: Before too long Mr Jobs was back on stage, saying the iCloud would totally integrate Apple devices - iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac etc

A song purchased through iTunes will upload through iCloud and be 'pushed down' to all devices owned by Apple customers - iPad, iPhone, Mac etc - at no additional cost.

Mr Jobs said that this represented the first time in the music industry that customers could have multiple downloads at no additional charge.

Mr Jobs received a standing ovation as he walked on stage at the Apple worldwide Developers' Conference in San Francisco. One member of the audience shouted: 'We love you!'

After a short introduction, in which Mr Jobs talked about software being the 'soul' of Apple's products, he introduced Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing chief, and allowed him to take over and show details of the new Lion operating system.

Revolution: iCloud will integrate into nine services - updating contact, calender, mail, app store, book, design, photo and music services - without users having to learn anything new. Mr Jobs said: 'It just works'

But Mr Jobs returned for an extended tour of the new nine-app iCloud service, all of which he revealed would be free.

The service would totally integrate Apple devices - iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac, for example - and could also be synced to the devices friends and loved ones.

He said that everything had been integrated so that there were no new things for current Apple customers to learn.

He said: 'It just works.'

The iTunes in the cloud portion is available today on iOS 4.3. The full version will ship with iOS 5 in the autumn.

Costly set-up: Mr Jobs stands in front of a photo of the equipment inside a sprawling and spanking new data storage facility in Maiden, North Carolina - a building he said was 'full of expensive stuff'

Into the cloud: Users can buy music from the iTunes store, which will automatically synchronise with their Apple devices - phone, music player, PC, laptop and tablet - at no additional charge

Synchronised: A graphic during the presentation shows how buying a song through iCloud will automatically upload it to iPhone, iPad and Mac - up to ten devices

While iCloud would have a file of everything you'd bought from the iTunes store, most users would also have music from their own uploaded music collection, or songs downloaded from elsewhere.

Mr Jobs addressed this problem by announcing iTunes Match, which will scan your iTunes library to find any music you have that was not purchased from the iTunes store. Through that service, you will get a copy of that music in the cloud, which you can then listen to on all your Apple devices.

This service would cost money, $25 a year, but Mr Jobs said this flat fee was cheaper than competitors Amazon and Google, which has not yet revealed a price structure for its service.

He gave a couple of examples of how this would change people's lives. In one, he said Apple customers could be reading a book on their iPad and then have to leave the iPad behind. He said they could simply bookmark where they were in their book 'to the cloud', and then pick up where they left off on their iPhone.

In another example, he said that iPhone users who had lost or replaced their phone could instantly download all their numbers and information to their new handset.

Price matching: iTunes Match, which updates all non-iTunes-purchased music, will cost $25 a month. Apple claims a similar Amazon service is slower and twice as expensive, while Google has not revealed its pricing

There was other stuff too: The iCloud seemed to cast a shadow over yesterday's other announcements. Mr Schiller shows a presentation and speaks about the improvements to OS X Lion operating system

Mr Jobs said the world had been living with the limitations of PCs, adding: 'Keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy. We have a great solution for this problem. We are going to demote the PC to just be a device. We are going to move the digital hub, the centre of your digital life, into the cloud.'

And, in reference to the notorious MobileMe service - Apple's most embarrassing failure, he quipped: 'You're thinking "Why should I believe them? They are the ones who brought me MobileMe". It wasn't our finest hour.'

He revealed that the $99-a-year Mobile Me would cease to exist, replaced with free iCloud.

Jobs highlighted how iCloud will work with several different apps, including iBooks, the App Store, and iWork.

Contacts that are added to an iPhone would be sent to the cloud, then synced across all other Apple devices a user has. Likewise, a Calendar update would be pushed across multiple devices.

Mr Jobs noted that iCloud would regularly and automatically back up certain information, via WiFi, such as purchased music, device settings, and photos.

Mr Schiller revealed that Apple is expanding the ways finger-touches can be used to control the software. For instance, with the swipe of the fingers over the Mac trackpad, the user can switch from one program to another.

In another nod to bringing the computer closer to the iPhone and iPad, Apple is adapting more of its programs to run in a special full-screen mode, in addition to the traditional 'window' mode.

Waiting outside: Attendees line up outside San Francisco's Moscone Center ahead of the conference

Lion will be available to consumers next month for $30. A preview version was made available Monday to software developers.

Mr Jobs, who has been on medical leave for months, last appeared publicly in March to present the iPad 2.

Any appearance by the Apple head is usually closely scrutinised by Wall Street, given that the fortunes of the $320 billion company are so closely linked with the co-founder.

The iCloud will eliminate the need for users to save all of their music on their computer since Apple will store songs in its vast databases, which can be accessed online.

The expansion into cloud computing is seen as crucial if the company is to stay competitive with increasingly popular open-sourced software, such as Google's Android operating system, according to analysts and investors.

'Post-PC world': Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS Software, unveiled new versions of the software for iPhone 3GS and 4, later models of the iPod Touch and all iPads

The iCloud has the potential to make Apple's iTunes even more powerful, making it tougher for rivals to keep up, Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu said.

'It looks like Apple will likely offer some base service for free,' Mr Wu said. 'Competitors, including RIM, Google, Amazon and Microsoft already have a hard time competing with iTunes as it is, but we believe will likely find it even tougher with iCloud enhancements.'

Scott Forstall, the senior vice president of iOS softare, took the stage after Mr Schiller to talk about iOS5 and a range of new services and apps.

He also introduced a new section of the app store, Newsstand, which lets people see all their subscriptions to newspapers and magazines in one place. The Newsstand service downloads new issues in the background.

The Moscone centre in San Francisco - ground zero in the launch of several iconic Apple gadgets such as the iPad - was a hive of activity this week as workers put the finishing touches on banners featuring a giant Apple logo.

Apple has been busy wrapping up negotiations with major record labels to secure licences for its iCloud service, which is also expected to include a revamped version of its little-known MobileMe storage service.

The licences will help Apple introduce scan-and-match technology that scans a user's hard drive and provides access to music found there from the company's own servers.

Currently, Google and Amazon require users to upload their library of songs, meaning it will have multiple copies of the same song on its servers. Apple will just need to stream the its single copy of a song or album to as many customers who want it.

Some analysts say the iCloud has the potential to be a new model for media consumption, which could also spark more demand for Apple devices.

It could also enable the consumer giant to design new devices around the service, said Trip Chowdhry, managing director of Global Equities Research.

'iCloud by itself will not be a billion dollar revenue opportunity,' Mr Chowdhry said.

'It is an enabling technology ... once you have things in the cloud, you can create new devices that (have not) been created right now.'

Illustrated flow diagram explaining cloud computing

It has been rumoured that the iCloud service will be free for iTunes users for the first year, but Apple is believed to be pondering a $25 a month subscription fee after that.

The lion's share of profits from the service will go to record labels, who will take a 70 per cent cut, with music publishers taking 12 per cent and Apple taking the remaining 18 per cent.

The company, notorious for keeping its agenda under wraps, has been unusually open about what it plans to show at its annual developers' conference, a five-day extravaganza for developers that began yesterday.

Apple has used the WWDC venue in the past to unveil a new iPhone, but it is believed the new model will not appear until September.

Mr Jobs went on medical leave in January, handing over day-to-day control to chief operating officer Tim Cook.

Company executives have said Mr Jobs, who is credited with rescuing Apple from near death in 1996 after a 12-year absence from the firm he co-founded, has still been involved in strategic decision-making at Apple during this medical leave.