icloud news, reviews & info

Future of cloud services threatened

By Miguel Barroso on January 24, 2012

Guy Fawkes Cloud Services
Even though SOPA & PIPA was postponed by congress, file sharing site Megaupload was shut down and their owners arrested, risking a whopping 55 years in jail. Numerous other file sharing sites, most notably Filesonic and Fileserve have begun restricting access to files of other users, limiting the spread of content. There are even reports of mass deletion of user files on these sites and banning of US IP addresses as means of escaping prosecution.

YouTube, Dropbox and Facebook among others have technologies in common with these file sharing sites. The step to closing down all sites where users upload non-original content has become significantly smaller. The fact that the witch hunt for file sharing sites started without a solidified policy has had a deterring effect on cloud service start-ups, Torrent Freak reports. Is this the kind of Internet we want? Is this the kind of business climate the US can afford? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Torrent Freak

iTunes Match rolls out to international listeners

By Jason Yip on December 16, 2011

iTunes Match, Apple’s brilliant music-library-in-the-cloud, has finally launched to the international community on Thursday. Previously, it was thought that an international release would be next year, but Apple has ended its negotiations with British record companies earlier than expected which allowed for an early release of a fully functional Match for users around the world. Users from Canada, Australia, France, the Czech Republic and other countries are reporting that the service is showing in the iTunes Store and is fully functional. Guess Apple’s going to get a lot more subscribers now, and users will get high quality (256-Kbps AAC) music.

iCloud.com launched, take advantage of iCloud features in web browser

By Mike Bednarsky on August 2, 2011

iCloud is getting set to go! The next major step for the new feature from Apple: launching the website. iCloud.com is now live! Developers can log into the new website with their Apple ID and view what iCloud has to offer: access to Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Find my iPhone, and iWork documents. Everything that syncs on iOS devices through iCloud can be accessed through iCloud.com. Changes in iCloud.com will subsequently sync back to the device. iWork documents (Keynote, Pages, and Numbers) can be synced through iCloud between computers, iOS devices and iCloud.com. Check out screenshots of everything below, after the break!

Vimeo and iCloud come to Apple TV in iOS 4.3 software update

By Mike Bednarsky on August 1, 2011

Apple has just released a firmware version 4.3 update to the Apple TV. This update adds Vimeo to the device, allowing a user to watch any video posted to Vimeo from the comfort of the television. iCloud was partially added to the Apple TV. In this update, iCloud allows users to stream movies purchased from iTunes to the Apple TV. Previously, only rented movies could be watched on an Apple TV. 4.3 also contains bug fixes and minor app updates.

Check out the always up-to-date list of Apple firmwares for all iOS devices, after the break.

Amazon brings updates to Cloud Drive and Cloud Player; unlimited music for $20

By Jason Yip on July 7, 2011

Amazon Cloud Player Today, Amazon announced some upgrades to it’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, bringing in unlimited storage for music files for $20 a year, plus 20 GB of storage space for any type of files included in that price. Free users will still have 5 GB to start of with. Any music purchases through Amazon will be hosted for free on their storage; these songs won’t count in your storage space. Furthermore, Amazon has announced that it’s Cloud Player is now optimized for Safari on the iPad! Now, all we need to worry about is the bandwidth to upload our library into the cloud…

Apple iCloud comes with data & documents sync, Photo Stream and iTunes Match

By Stephen Huot on June 6, 2011

iCloud Apple has during today’s WWDC conference announced iCloud, a service that “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.” Content such as purchased music, iBooks, photos and videos, device settings, and app data that will automatically be backed up to iCloud over WiFi, while Documents in the Cloud will let you sync Pages, Numbers, and Keynote app-data between all of your iOS devices. The service takes over from MobileMe, which is terminated, and will contain no advertising. Calendar, mail and contact sync is free for up to 5GB.

Another iCloud feature is the Photo Stream, which is a special gallery in the Photos app that syncs photos across all your iOS devices, Apple TV, your OS X and even Windows computers for 30 days.

Lastly, Apple has announced iTunes Match for $25 per year. The service scans your iTunes library, matches, and adds to your iTunes in the Cloud account any of your previously bought or ripped music, which you can listen to through the cloud on any of your supported devices. For titles that aren’t available in iTunes, you will have the option to upload the song and let Apple host it for you.

iCloud will be released together with iOS 5 this fall, 2011.

iOS 5 announced by Apple, here’s what you need to know! (Updated)

By Mike Bednarsky on June 6, 2011

I am typing this as Steve Jobs is finishing up the WWDC 2011 Apple Keynote, in which he talked over some Apple stats and unveiled some awesome new stuff. One thing in particular is iOS 5, the next operating system that will power iPhone 3GS and 4, iPod touch 3G and 4G, and iPad 1 and 2. Apple notes that not all features available in iOS 5 will be available on all products, which means older devices (iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3G) will probably be lacking some major processor-heavy changes but will get the little tweaks. Apple did not go into specifics as to which features will be left out for which devices. Of course, features that use a camera need a device with a camera, etc. iOS 5 is available NOW for developers. It will be available for everyone this Fall. Let’s jump right into the new features that iOS 5 will bring to your device. (Read after the break.)

iOS 5 rumors and expectations for what will be announced at WWDC

By Mike Bednarsky on June 4, 2011

WWDC 2011 is coming up fast. In fact, it is just a couple of days away. On Monday, June 6, Apple will hold a conference in which they will discuss Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud. For now, we have no details on iOS 5 and iCloud other than rumors. Let’s gather up those rumors to see what the future of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 5, may be.

We are expecting iOS 5 to be one of the biggest updates to iOS since it was first introduced many years ago (with iOS 4.0 probably being the biggest update). Here are a few things that we are expecting to see in this next major update: (after the break)

Apple confirmed to announce iOS 5, iCloud, and Mac OS X Lion next week

By Mike Bednarsky on June 1, 2011

Apple has issued a press release that confirms the announcement of three new things: Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud. Apple executives, along with Steve Jobs, will talk about these three things on Monday, June 6 at the WWDC keynote.

Apple has already unveiled Mac OS X Lion at a previous keynote and has already started seeding beta versions to developers. It is expected that Apple will thoroughly run through new features and differences that OS X Lion brings to the world of Mac.

While Apple has not yet released any info regarding iOS 5, there has been much speculation surrounding some important changes that consumers are requesting to be made in the operating system, running on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Some of those changes are a new music service, an improved notification service, lock screen widgets, widgets on app pages, and a cloud-based structure that will carry most of everything on the device (including the operating system, which would call for over-the-air updates).

Speaking of a cloud-based structure, Apple will also unveil a new service called iCloud. Like iOS 5, massive amounts of speculation have aroused this new service. We will finally be hearing official word from the big Apple about it. For now, we can tell you that iCloud is expected to be a cloud-based music locker that can connect to iTunes so that you can access your iTunes library on any internet-connected device. It is also expected that iCloud will tie into iOS 5, bringing over-the-air syncing and storage of music, photos, videos, and apps.

While the rumors continue to surface, stay tuned to thegadgetsite for the official word from Mr. Steve Jobs on Monday, June 6.