"Keeping all those devices in sync,'' said Jobs, "is driving us all crazy.''
Cloud-computing, which allows a user to store content on a provider's remote servers and then tap into it easily from any desktop, laptop or mobile device, has been widely used for years now by business and government. With iCloud, Apple now seems to have flung open the doors to the much-vaunted "post-PC world'' and invited the rest of us in -- or at least those of us who use Apple products to increasingly manage our lives.
"I don't know how much easier you can make it for users,'' said Michael McGuire, vice president of research at the tech consultant firm Gartner. "If we keep moving in this direction, putting more and more of our content in the cloud, the next generation of users won't even know what a hard drive is anymore.''
Although some details of iCloud's inner-workings remain a mystery, Jobs presented tantalizing examples of ways that cloud-computing could soon change the lives of Apple consumers, and in a more indirect way, the lives of those who own neither an iPhone nor an iPad.Users of mobile devices, for instance, can use the free iCloud service to automatically upload documents, music and other content to Apple servers, then call them up on any Apple device. In the past, users had to "sync'' their music onto their iPhones, a slow and laborious process that iCloud now eliminates. The PC or Mac, said Jobs, was the hub of all this computing traffic, and it was time for Apple to "demote'' that hardware as the center that all other devices had to go through to grab content.
iCloud will also automatically use Wi-Fi to back up your content each day, including your latest downloaded book or photo or even device settings. Work on a document on your Mac, shut it down, then work on that same document on your iPhone once you've left the house. Photos can be shared seconds after you take them with anyone in your Photo Stream network, or beamed up onto your Apple TV.
"It all just works,'' said Jobs. "We've made it so that you don't even have to think about it anymore.''
Competitors like Google and Amazon, both of which recently announced their own cloud-based digital music services, "will have a hard time keeping up with Apple now,'' said Jeff Buhl, a product manager in Denver for Jeppesen, which provides aeronautical data for pilots, including through an iPad app. "No one else is anywhere close to Apple as it moves into the cloud. And while companies have had access to it, Apple's now making it the consumers' cloud.''
Where it will all lead remains to be seen. Jobs raised
nearly as many questions about the new service as he provided answers for.
Australian researcher Daniel Woo, head of the Human Computer Interaction Lab at the University of New South Wales, was on hand for Jobs announcement. He points out that even while iCloud offers a way for users to seamlessly move documents and photos among their iPhones and iPads and between friends all linking to the same cloud storage locker, "bandwidth constraints are still a huge challenge.
"So with content like movies, which require so much space, we'll have to see what happens," Woo said. "But just starting with documents, cloud computing will fundamentally change how we write and collaborate on projects.'' Apple, he said, "has planted a flag in the sand, and what developers will do with this will be really interesting.''
Analyst Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, said Apple's strategy "will legitimize the cloud for consumers. If they only include their own devices in the new service, that may limit the overall impact a bit, though this also might force non-Apple consumers into the Apple world. Either way, this will also provide an opportunity for others, like Amazon, to grow in the space. And Apple has paved the way.''
