Apple launches iCloud Cloud Computing Service

iCloud is a free replacement for Apple’s existing paid cloud storage service MobileMe. MobileMe had an yearly subscription rate of $99 and provided 5GB storage space. It synced your contacts and calendar info across apple devices.

iCloud was announced on June 6, 2011 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). According to InfiniteApple, iCloud uses Microsoft Azure, a service hosted in Microsoft’s data centers, to host files.

iCloud follows Apple’s new philosophy of “no need to save”. Publish a document or take a photo on one device – it gets saved onto the cloud and is then ‘pushed’ to your other devices. Say you bought a brand new album from iTunes. It gets pushed automatically to your iPad and also your iPod in your car.