Apple announces iCloud, it’s free!

Steve Jobs took to the stage at today’s WWDC keynote to announce Apple‘s long-rumoured online storage service – iCloud.

A frail looking Jobs said that keeping devices synced has been “driving us crazy”. However, iCloud, according to the Apple boss, solves all this.

“iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices. It automatically uploads it, stores it, and pushes it to all your devices,” said Jobs.”Everything happens automatically and there’s nothing new to learn. It just all works.”

The new service, which will replace MobileMe, stores all your data from apps, videos and pictures, contacts and calendars, and well… basically everything on your iPhone, which is all pushed out and stored in the cloud.

iCloud also introduces Documents in the Cloud, which syncs your Pages, Numbers and Keynote files across each computer or mobile device. One thousand photos are automatically backed up by Photo Stream for 30 days and synced to your devices before disappearing from the cloud too, but they’ll be stored permanently if you file them in an album.

Finally, iTunes in the cloud lets you buy a song or album once and download it to all your devices in one simple click. It also scans the music you’ve already bought and lets you download a new copy to up to 10 devices. iTunes in the Cloud is available today in iOS 4.3 — but only to Stateside customers. Apple will now also recognize music from somewhere else, matching it with music in the iTunes database. The service, called iTunes Match costs $25 (that’s £15) but again is US-only for now.

You may have to fork out for iTunes Match, but  Jobs  shocked the audience with the news that Apple will not be charging for iCloud – it’s free. That’s us sold.

iCloud will ship with all iOS 5-powered devices ‘this fall.’

[Source: CNET]