iCloud.com developer beta opens, includes full-featured web interface
Remember when I told you there would still be iCloud web apps once the service took over MobileMe, despite what some other sites were saying at the time? Not to brag or anything, but I was right. Today, Apple launched the iCloud.com beta for developers. Web apps on the service include Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Find my iPhone, and iWork.
The interface looks to be heavily overhauled from its earlier MobileMe incarnation, and iCloud.com's design seems to have taken many design cues from the iPad's iOS interface. Of note, if you're not a fan of the "real object" design of iCal and Address Book on the iPad or in OS X Lion, you're not going to like the web app design either, because it's essentially the same.
Since many of us are under NDA at TUAW, we're not providing screenshots; 9to5 Mac published a few, which you can check out here.
The iCloud.com beta does require installing the OS X Lion 10.7.2 developer beta before you can use iCloud for OS X Lion beta 5, so if you're not a developer and were hoping to check this service out for yourself, you're out of luck for now. iCloud.com should launch to the public this fall, alongside iCloud itself and iOS 5.
Apple has also released pricing data for iCloud storage upgrades. All free iCloud accounts come with a standard 5 GB of online storage, but Apple will be offering three upgrade options:
10 GB for US$20/year (15 GB total)
20 GB for $40/year (25 GB total)
50 GB for $100/year (55 GB total)
Before it became free to all, MobileMe was $99/year and included 20 GB of iDisk storage, so these new pricing tiers for storage are a much better deal than MobileMe was.
