Apple's iCloud Is Coming -- How Much Will It Cost?

Apple announced today that CEO Steve Jobs will show off a new service called "iCloud" -- "Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering" -- next Monday at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. (Join us for live coverage!)

It's reasonable to assume that iCloud will be some sort of Internet-based storage service, potentially including music and movie syncing, and maybe supporting iOS apps, too. And maybe even photos, or even some of the MobileMe and iWork storage for email, calendars, docs, contacts, etc. It's all fair game.

But we're most curious about how much it's going to cost and who's going to pay for it.

* A subscription service where consumers pay a monthly fee, either a flat fee or a staggered fee structure based on storage capacity. (Or possibly part of the MobileMe subscription.)

* A free "value-add" for iTunes and App Store purchases, where Apple makes its real money selling more iPhones, iPads, and Macs. (And some extra pennies selling digital media.)

Apple isn't historically known for giving away services for free. MobileMe is $99 per year or $149 per year for a family pack. Apple takes a 30% cut for App Store sales, some of which goes to pay for hosting and other iTunes services, like push notifications.

Amazon, Dropbox, and others all offer some free cloud storage. Google gives away a bunch of mobile services on its phones (many of which are also compatible with iPhones and iPads).

CLOUD COMPUTING refers to the on-demand provision of computational resources (data, software) via a computer network, rather than from a local computer.

Users or clients can submit a task, such as word processing, to the service provider, without actually possessing the software or hardware. The consumer’s computer may contain very little software or data (perhaps a minimal operating system and web browser only), serving as a basic display terminal connected to the Internet.

Since the cloud is the underlying delivery mechanism, cloud based applications and services may support any type of software application or service in use today.

In the past, both data and software had to be stored and processed on or near the computer. The development of Local Area Networks and the Internet allowed for a system in which multiple CPUs and storage devices may be organized to increase the performance of the entire system.

In an extension to that concept, cloud computing fundamentally allows for a functional separation between the resources used and the user’s computer, usually residing outside the local network, for example, in a remote datacenter. Consumers now routinely use data intensive applications driven by cloud technology which were previously unavailable due to cost and deployment complexity

Thus, A common shorthand for a provided cloud computing service (or even an aggregation of all existing cloud services) is “The Cloud”.

An analogy to explain cloud computing is that of public utilities such as electricity, gas, and water. Centralized and standardized utilities freed individuals from the difficulties of generating electricity or pumping water. All of the development and maintenance tasks involved in doing so was alleviated. With Cloud computing, this translates to a reduced cost in software distribution to providers who still use hard mediums such as DVDs. Consumer benefits are that software no longer has to be installed and is automatically updated but savings in terms of dollars is yet to be seen.

So, The principle behind the cloud is that any computer connected to the Internet is connected to the same pool of computing power, applications, and files. Users can store and access personal files such as music, pictures, videos, and bookmarks or play games or do word processing on a remote server rather than physically carrying around a storage medium such as a DVD or thumb drive. Even those who use web-based email such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, a company owned email, or even an e-mail client program such as Outlook, Evolution, Mozilla Thunderbird or Entourage are making use of cloud email servers. Hence, desktop applications which connect to internet-host email providers can also be considered cloud applications.

Ultimately the goal of cloud computing would be that people (if they so choose) wouldn’t have to have their own hard drive. All their information, regardless of it’s nature would be stored on massive servers and referred to as a “cloud”.

While the initial reaction of most is to flinch away the fact is that we are all already in a cloud. When you log onto FR and check your FReepmail or you trust that FR is keeping all your responses in order then you’re depending on a “cloud”...granted a smaller one than the multipurpose giants that are coming.

“Ultimately the goal of cloud computing would be that people (if they so choose) wouldn’t have to have their own hard drive.”

Or smaller, faster solid state storage?

Don’t some netbooks use solid state storage?

I KNOW my HTC Evo uses solid state. Leo Laporte calls the Evo a nice small computer, which happens to have a phone included.

With the iPads, Android tablets, latest smartphones, I expect most people will eventually settle on perhaps two devices, best suited for them (with a 3rd perhaps being a flatscreen tv as a monitor.)

Such an individual could have one or more portable high volume storage devices, for the data they wanted someplace besides/off the cloud.

DVDs are nearly to the point of being unnecessary, most of the time. The movie we stream is coming from the “cloud” too.

The term “cloud computing” has been perverted from its original meaning just like everything else these days. Originally, cloud computing referred to things like the SETI Project that used dispersed anonymous computers to work in sync as a supercomputer. Now the term has been perverted to mask the truth that you’re not storing your data in a ‘cloud’ but that you’re entrusting it to a for-profit enterprise to do with as they see fit.

“The Cloud” is just the latest fashionable buzzword for idiots with MBA’s to impress each other with at cocktail parties. They really have no clue that it just means one or more remote servers...plain and simple.

Bottom line: There is no ‘cloud’ except in the minds of the technologically clueless.

I’ve only recently heard this term “cloud” and am not sure what it refers to. Can anyone provide a brief explanation?

I use Amazon's cloud and it is basically just storage space that you can stream your music from. It is protected so that it makes it hard to share with other people unless you give them your password and that is against the TOS. So basically it is a useless service that some are willing to pay for. The only reason I use Amazon's is because it is free and if I have a hard drive crash I can get some of my music back if I didn't save it to an external hard drive recently. Otherwise it is useless IMHO.

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