Apple today introduced iCloud, a breakthrough set of free new cloud services that work seamlessly with applications on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and automatically and wirelessly push it to all your devices. When anything changes on one of your devices, all of your devices are wirelessly updated almost instantly.

“Today it is a real hassle and very frustrating to keep all your information and content up-to-date across all your devices,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iCloud keeps your important information and content up to date across all your devices. All of this happens automatically and wirelessly, and because it’s integrated into our apps you don’t even need to think about it—it all just works.”

The free iCloud services include:

• The former MobileMe services—Contacts, Calendar and Mail—all completely re-architected and rewritten to work seamlessly with iCloud. Users can share calendars with friends and family, and the ad-free push Mail account is hosted at me.com. Your inbox and mailboxes are kept up-to-date across all your iOS devices and computers.

 

• The App Store™ and iBookstore now download purchased iOS apps and books to all your devices, not just the device they were purchased on. In addition, the App Store and iBookstore now let you see your purchase history, and simply tapping the iCloud icon will download any apps and books to any iOS device (up to 10 devices) at no additional cost.

 

• iCloud Backup automatically and securely backs up your iOS devices to iCloud daily over Wi-Fi when you charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Backed up content includes purchased music, apps and books, Camera Roll (photos and videos), device settings and app data. If you replace your iOS device, just enter your Apple ID and password during setup and iCloud restores your new device.
• iCloud Storage seamlessly stores all documents created using iCloud Storage APIs, and automatically pushes them to all your devices. When you change a document on any device, iCloud automatically pushes the changes to all your devices. Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps already take advantage of iCloud Storage. Users get up to 5GB of free storage for their mail, documents and backup—which is more amazing since the storage for music, apps and books purchased from Apple, and the storage required by Photo Stream doesn’t count towards this 5GB total. Users will be able to buy even more storage, with details announced when iCloud ships this fall.

 

• iCloud’s innovative Photo Stream service automatically uploads the photos you take or import on any of your devices and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices and computers. So you can use your iPhone to take a dozen photos of your friends during the afternoon baseball game, and they will be ready to share with the entire group on your iPad (or even Apple TV) when you return home. Photo Stream is built into the photo apps on all iOS devices, iPhoto on Macs, and saved to the Pictures folder on a PC. To save space, the last 1,000 photos are stored on each device so they can be viewed or moved to an album to save forever. Macs and PCs will store all photos from the Photo Stream, since they have more storage. iCloud will store each photo in the cloud for 30 days, which is plenty of time to connect your devices to iCloud and automatically download the latest photos from Photo Stream via Wi-Fi.

 

• iTunes in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match, a service that replaces your music with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if we can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, it makes the matched music available in minutes (instead of weeks to upload your entire music library), and uploads only the small percentage of unmatched music. iTunes Match will be available this fall for a $24.99 annual fee. Apple today is releasing a free beta version of iTunes in the Cloud, without iTunes Match, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users running iOS 4.3. iTunes in the Cloud will support all iPhones that iOS 5 supports this fall.

Apple is ready to ramp iCloud in its three data centers, including the third recently completed in Maiden, NC. Apple has invested over $500 million in its Maiden data center to support the expected customer demand for the free iCloud services.

Pricing & Availability
The iCloud beta and Cloud Storage APIs are available immediately to iOS and Mac Developer Program members at developer.apple.com. iCloud will be available this fall concurrent with iOS 5. Users can sign up for iCloud for free on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5 or a Mac running Mac OS® X Lion with a valid Apple ID. iCloud includes 5GB of free cloud storage for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, apps, books and Photo Stream do not count against the storage limit. iTunes Match will be available for $24.99 per year (US only).

iTunes in the Cloud is available today in the US and requires iTunes 10.3 and iOS 4.3.3. Automatic download of apps and books is available today. Using iCloud with a PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7; Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for accessing contacts and calendars.

XM Radio Online will become the exclusive home on the Internet for XM’s commercial-free
music channels, it was announced today by XM Radio, the
nation’s leading provider of satellite radio. The commercial-free music
channels that XM currently contributes to the AOL Radio lineup will no
longer be available on AOL beginning May 1st, continuing AOL’s
transition to an advertising supported business model. XM Radio Online,
available through May 30th for $2.99 per month for the first six
months, offers more than 80 channels of commercial free music and XM
exclusive programming from Oprah Winfrey, Bob Dylan, Bob Edwards, Opie
& Anthony plus a new online-only channel broadcasting the best of
XM’s Artist Confidential series, featuring one-on-one conversations and
live performances with a diverse array of music legends.

“XM is committed to making our industry-leading content available to
consumers in ways that fit their lifestyle, whether it’s on the radio,
web, through cell phones or podcasts,” said Vernon Irvin, EVP and Chief
Marketing Officer, XM Satellite Radio. “XM’s presence on AOL Radio was
a valuable way to introduce consumers to our service free of charge. We
will continue to offer consumer free trials of XM Radio Online. We look
forward to building our online subscription business and are confident
XM Radio Online’s new introductory rate along with new channels and
features coming this spring will help us turn XM fans into subscribers.”

XM also announced the launch of a new promotion for XM Radio Online.
New users of XM Radio Online can sign up for a 14-day free trial at
XMRadio.com starting today. XM Radio Online will be available through
May 30th for an introductory rate of $2.99 for the first six months, a
savings of more than 50% versus the standard monthly rate of $7.99. The
introductory rate will apply for the first six months of service. To
sign up for the 14-day trial and the special introductory rate,
consumers can go to http://www.xmradio.com/aolradio. XM Satellite Radio subscribers can listen to XM Radio Online at no charge.

XM Radio’s programming is also available to consumers through a
growing number of other platforms: a variety of XM music channels are
streamed to AT&T and Alltel wireless customers through XM Radio
Mobile http://www.xmradio.com/mobile; original XM shows can be downloaded as podcasts from http://www.xmradio.com/podcasts or Apple’s iTunes Store http://www.itunes.com/; and XM subscribers can add XM Radio’s full channel lineup to select GPS products.

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