Apple announce iCloud, mostly free, some paid services

published 07th June; by Ollie Ford

stored in: All News, Apple, Mobile Devices

Apple have officially announced their iCloud service which has been heavily rumoured already, and the best news? It’s almost completely free.

The introduction today marks the end of MobileMe, which will continue for existing users until June 2012, but there’ll be no new features, or new users. This Autumn, iCloud will roll out alongside iOS 5 allowing you to use all the free features as well as iTunes Match for an extra $25pa.

So, for free you’ll be able to have yourself music, books, photos, videos, documents all backed up automatically over WiFi, or optionally 3G . Without any user interaction, these files will sync across all your specified iOS devices.

Apple has also introduced the Photo Stream feature, which is basically a folder of photos that syncs across all your devices – be them iOS, OS X, Windows, or Apple TV.

Contrary to rumour-belief, there is no advertising in the iCloud services – it is truly free, except iTunes Match.