On Monday, Steve Jobs introduced iCloud to the Apple developers at WWDC, and we’ve been absorbing what it means ever since. John Biggs and I devote this entire episode of Fly or Die to iCloud, explaining what it is, why it’s important, and where it falls short. Watch the video above.
At it’s heart, iCloud demotes your computer as your digital hub and moves that hub online. This is not just for… → Read More
Amid all the big announcements at this year’s WWDC keynote, there was an undercurrent that was subtle, but important.
“It just works.” Steve Jobs kept saying this over and over again on stage. When Jobs does this, it’s never an accident. It’s a message.
And it’s a message that was underscored by another word. “Automatically.” Jobs must have said it a couple dozen times during the… → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — were rendered iCloudy in the aftermath of Steve Jobs’ WWDC announcements. Even stalwart Google fanboys Taschek and Marks found it difficult to withstand the halo surrounding Apple’s aggressive move to the Cloud and iOS as the dominant platform moving forward. Betaworks’ John Borthwick applauded the… → Read More
In case you weren’t following our WWDC keynote coverage live earlier today, you missed — well, a lot. The event — which ran about two hours — was packed with information. Thousands of articles have already been written covering some of the bigger numbers and features. So I thought I’d highlight some of the smaller (or quickly mentioned) things you may have missed from the keynote.
Warning… → Read More
For the past decade, Apple has treated the PC as the central digital hub which managed and stored all of your digital music, photos, videos, and documents. But managing your own digital hub no longer makes sense. “It worked for the better part of 10 years,” says Steve Jobs, “But it has broken down in the past few years.” When iOS 5 is released this fall, it will move the digital hub online with… → Read More
Apple CEO Steve Jobs just announced his infamous “one more thing” at WWDC and it’s iTunes In The Cloud-related; iTunes Match will upgrade your ripped songs to 256 kpbs AAC DRM-free for a $24.99 yearly subscription.
Basically iTunes Match will scan a users iTunes library for any music you haven’t bought through iTunes and subscribers will be able to get a high quality copy of those songs for… → Read More
One evening last week we sat at the bar downstairs at 1 Market after a long workday. John Taschek and several others were extolling the virtues, no, the imperatives of motorcycle ownership. You know, the usual keep the motor running head on down the highway testosterone. The kind of stuff Gary Busey still can’t get out of his head no matter how much he resists wearing a helmet. Gary, you’re… → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — shuddered with expectant glee at Apple’s presumed iCloud announcement at next week’s WWDC event. It’s clear from all the leaks, most interestingly from Apple itself, that the record companies are finally healthy enough to move into the new streaming era. With Lady Gaga selling five times as many records as the… → Read More
Alex Pham at the LA Times writes that the new iCloud service could be free for iTunes users for the time being and eventually cost about $25. His sources are nebulous here, but it seems like a fair assessment of future pricing for iCloud. → Read More
Once far off in the distance, iCloud is now quickly approaching. It will be a new service with many layers that Apple will first unveil on Monday during the keynote at WWDC. But the most interesting layer, at least from a consumer perspective initially, is the music one. And the details continue to emerge about what’s likely coming.
Today, two reports state that Apple has finalized deals with all… → Read More
Apple is launching iCloud next week. That’s a fact. AppleInsider managed to resolve one of the last questions about the service — besides what the hell it actually is. The icon! Somehow they snapped a rather clear image showing what are already confirmed as the three big announcements next week: OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud. And the icon is a cloud! How fun. Alright, that’s it. → Read More
Apple did something really odd today. Something they almost never do. They pre-announced the agenda for the keynote of one of their events, WWDC, taking place next week. Yes, they probably did this in an attempt to set expectations — read: no new iPhone coming — but in doing so, they also managed to do something even stranger: they outed a completely unreleased product. iCloud.
So what is… → Read More
Pop over to iCloud.com today and you’ll see a doomed web page. The domain, which redirects to Xcerion’s CloudMe software, is sitting on some prime real estate, namely Apple’s new iCloud service.
In a short release, Apple confirmed the existence and name:
Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a… → Read More
There goes all the fun rumors and wild speculation. Apple just released a press release detailing what’s coming next week at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. Apple pre-announced something — iOS 5 and OS X Lion to be exact. Oh, and something called iCloud, too.
It was already generally accepted that the two operating system were going to… → Read More
Next week, Apple will unveil its much-anticipated iCloud service at its annual developer conference, WWDC. Apple even put out a press release this morning pre-announcing the service—something it almost never does. Details began leaking out in March, and then the name was pretty much confirmed when Apple bought the domain iCloud.com. Yet for all the talk and speculation, we still don’t know… → Read More
As we’ve suspected for a long time, Apple is very close to launching an online music service which may go by the name iCloud. The basic idea is that it will mirror your iTunes collection online so that it is available on any device without clunky cable syncing.
While getting rid of those cables will be a big step forward, if iCloud is nothing more than a music locker service it won’t go far… → Read More
Yesterday, French site Consomac.fr did some digging into the latest developer preview build of OS X Lion and found something interesting. Buried in the code are references to a service named called “Castle”. Given the context of one of the mentions — “upgrade from MobileMe to Castle” — this led most to assume that the name referred to Apple’s upcoming cloud service overhaul. We can now… → Read More
Om Malik got a tip from an unidentified source who told him that Apple purchased the domain name icloud.com from a Swedish company called Xcerion (which recently renamed its iCloud service to CloudMe) for about $4.5 million. This is most certainly a possibility.
Last week, we also received a tip that Apple purchased iCloud.com. I immediately followed up with Xcerion and asked the company whether… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
