Apple's iCloud: what is it?

This week, a gaunt-looking Steve Jobs unveiled Apple's new "iCloud" service at the 2011 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). For non-techie types, Cloud-computing sounds far more complicated than it is. What is essentially means is that things like your photos, songs, calendar entries stored on one device will be available on other Apple devices with an internet connection.

"Some people think the cloud is just a big disk in the sky," said Jobs. "We think it's way more than that."

Here's the lowdown:

• iCloud will let users store data as well as emails, music, calendars, contact lists, photos and similar files on a remote server and access them from any Apple machine.
• iCloud will support up to 10 devices for free.
• Up to 5GB of storage for mail and document backup will be free.
• It'll cost $24.99 a year (UK prices unconfirmed at the moment) for access to non-iTunes purchased music on all devices, via iCloud.
• Once you've bought a song, it'll automatically push it to all of your devices.
• iCloud will automatically back-up connected Apple devices via WiFi.
• Customers will be able to turn on a feature that automatically downloads a copy of content to other devices. Taken a picture on your iPhone and now you want it on your laptop without having to email it or use pesky cables? Done. 

iCloud's arrival was inevitable but, like most recent Apple innovations, it'll undoubtably be a game changer. It'll kill off Apple's own much-maligned MobileMe service, as well as heavily damage file hosting services like Dropbox.

Its seamless integration will streamline how you work and browse the internet much more, and will mean no more starting a document on your laptop and then having to email it to yourself so you can finish it on your iPhone, or buying CDs and having to copy them over to each device.

It's all intuitively but it's bound to take Apple, who recently revealed they're bigger than Microsoft and Intel put together, even higher. 

Steve Jobs presents iCloud: