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iTunes (in the Cloud) 10.3 beta available for download, we go hands-on
If you live in the US or Canada then the iTunes 10.3 beta is ready to rumble on your PC or Mac. Automatic downloads and access to your purchase history is limited to iOS 4.3.3 users on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (GSM only, sorry Verizon subscribers), iPad and iPad2, and 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch devices. Once you meet those requirements, the iTunes in the Cloud beta promises to keep all of your newly purchased iTunes music in sync between devices while giving you the choice to download previously purchased tracks whenever you want at no additional cost. 10.3 beta also brings the Automatic Downloads feature to your apps and books, now allowing you to purchase tomes from your desktop while keeping them in sync with the iBooks app running on your iOS devices. Naturally, we couldn't help but test it out ourselves from both a Mac and iPhone 4, so click through for our first impressions.
Waiting for a taste of the iCloud? Check your iPhone
The waiting, a great man once said, is the hardest part. And while seeing all of today's WWDC promises come to fruition will certainly take patience, iPhone owners can take some solace in the fact that the updates have already begun. At least a portion of the new functionality is now available by opening up the "Purchased" tab in iOS 4's App Store, revealing a history of apps that have been downloaded with your account, including those not currently on your device. Those not presently installed will feature a cloud icon, making it possible to re-download them onto the handset. It's not quite iOS 5, sure, but it's a start. [Thanks everyone who sent this in]
What Mac owners need to know after today's WWDC announcements
With Mac OS X Lion coming in July and the free iCloud service coming in the fall, owning a Mac is about to get a whole lot more exciting. Today's WWDC keynote was full of announcements about the new services Lion and iCloud will offer, and whether you're a Mac newbie or an old hand, it's worth looking at a condensed list of what this means for the future of the Mac. Mac OS X Lion 1. Lion will be available in July, and it only costs US$29.99 for all your devices. Quite a few people expected the next version of Mac OS X to be cheaper than the $129 Apple charged for the first five versions, but we were pleasantly shocked to see it being offered for the same price as the current version, Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Not only that, but your OS X Lion install is valid for any Mac you own, meaning "family versions," the more expensive multi-user OS X versions Apple used to offer, are now a thing of the past. That's largely because... 2. Lion will only be available through the Mac App Store. Apple has made it so you no longer need to buy a retail box with a disc containing the Mac OS X installer. This makes it so you can install Lion on any Mac associated with your iTunes account. There are some unaddressed questions about this process (more on that later), but one thing is certain: if Lion is only available via the Mac App Store, that means it's only available to Snow Leopard users. The Mac App Store isn't available on Mac OS X Leopard or earlier versions, so if you haven't updated to Snow Leopard yet, it looks like a Leopard-to-Lion upgrade will actually cost you about $60. 3. If you have a desktop Mac, now's a good time to go get a Magic Trackpad. Apple has gone full-tilt on integrating Multi-Touch gestures into Mac OS X. The company started integrating such gestures in early 2008, but Mac OS X Lion is making them an integral part of the OS. If you want to get the most out of Lion, and you have a Mac mini, iMac or a Mac Pro, you'll need a Magic Trackpad to take full advantage of features such as Mission Control. Meanwhile, almost all Mac notebooks manufactured after early 2008 should be able to use the new gestures. 4. Mac OS X is taking some design cues from iOS. Launchpad, a simplified-app launcher, should be familiar to anyone who's used an iPhone or iPad. Apps can run in full screen if you choose, emulating the "one thing at a time" nature of working on the iPad. Mail is getting a new dual-column layout, with conversation views identical to what we've had in iOS for some time now. Also similar to the way things work in iOS, apps will resume right where you left them when you reopen them. Speaking of which... 5. Saving and backing up files will be easier than ever. The way Apple's described it, you might never need to worry about losing an in-progess file again -- or manually saving it, for that matter. Taking another cue from the way things have worked on iOS, applications will now automatically save your work as you go. The new Versions feature will also keep track of different saved versions of your work, similar to the way Time Machine's worked for file backups since Mac OS X Leopard. With this feature, one of the decades-long bugbears of the computing world has been addressed at last; now, if an app or your computer crashes out, your work will always be safe. iCloud 1. iCloud replaces MobileMe -- for free. If you were always eyeing up MobileMe's services but didn't want to shell out the $99/year Apple was asking for, worry no longer. Everything MobileMe used to do, iCloud will do for free, starting this fall. 2. iCloud wirelessly syncs data across all your devices. If you've got iOS devices or are a multi-Mac household, you'll find iCloud makes it easy to keep data synced from one device to another. This means you can keep your mail, calendar entries, and contacts synced across multiple devices, automatically and wirelessly. MobileMe has done this for years (and .Mac before it), but iCloud will do it free of charge, so there's no reason not to use it. 3. Photo Stream makes syncing recent photos manually a thing of the past. A thousand of your latest photos can be synced between devices immediately over iCloud. So if you take a photo on your iPhone or iPad 2, it'll show up on your Mac right away, without having to hook your devices together first. The latest 1,000 photos on your Mac can also be streamed to an iOS device over iCloud. 4. iTunes Music purchases now appear everywhere. Buy a song in the iTunes Store on your iPhone, and it shows up automatically on your Mac. Buy a song in iTunes on your Mac, and it shows up automatically on your iPhone. This is a feature people have been wanting for years now, and it's finally available. Unanswered questions 1. How can you install Mac OS X Lion on a new, empty hard drive? If the only way to install Mac OS X Lion is by downloading it via the Mac App Store, it's going to be very difficult to put it on a brand-new hard drive unless Apple provides us with workarounds. Maybe you'll be able to burn your copy of Lion to disc after downloading it or install it on a USB drive. At any rate, I hope Apple gives us an answer to this besides "keep your Snow Leopard disc handy" or "use Target Disk Mode with another Mac," because both of those solutions are suboptimal, to put it lightly. 2. Will Lion be available on disk for institutional use (schools, corporations) or for users with poor internet access? Some of us at TUAW think Apple might still offer Lion on disc for institutional use at schools or businesses, but it's too early to tell if that's the case. As for individuals with poor internet access, you're probably out of luck; the writing has been on the wall for those users ever since Apple stopped bundling iTunes installation discs with iPods. Mac OS X Lion will be available for download next month, and iCloud will debut in the fall. Put the two together, and the Mac becomes more powerful than ever before.
What iOS 5 owes to jailbreak developers
There are a lot of apps that will be replaced -- or at least have some very heavy competition -- from the new features in iOS 5. It's easy to look around the App Store and see developers that have been 'Sherlocked' by Apple's inclusion of their functionality in the core OS; Twitter clients in particular are going to have a hard road ahead, and no-frills reminder apps are pretty much done for. That's not the same thing as the wholesale borrowing that Apple has done from the jailbreak community with this new version of the OS, especially in the new notifications tools. Obviously, since JB devs tend to focus on new interaction methods and other system-level tweaks that would be off-limits to App Store products, there are more and different ideas about how the iPhone and iPad should work being tried and implemented there. That makes it fertile ground for Apple to see what does and doesn't work, and cherrypick the best ideas for internal use. That may not be cool, but it's certainly in character for Apple to leverage third-party innovation in OS development, both on the Mac and on iOS. Here are a few examples of some noteworthy 'flattery' from Apple's iOS team to the jailbreak developers who broke trail. One of the main reasons people jailbreak is to get better notifications and a useful lock screen; both issues Apple has finally addressed in a very big way in iOS 5. A few of the popular lock screen apps are David Ashman's LockInfo and Intelliborn's IntelliScreen, and both resemble (if they didn't inspire) iOS 5's new lock screen. In terms of notifications, Apple's taken aim at a couple of favorite JB apps: Notified and the recent MobileNotifier. iCloud syncing looks like a fantastic backup system, so much so that EvilPenguin already feels that its backup tool iBye is no longer necessary. In fact, James Emrich, the developer behind EvilPenguin told TUAW: "iBye was a backup/restore manager for content. Basically what iCloud does without auto backups."
Editorial: Engadget on iCloud and iTunes Match
Today, Steve Jobs revealed a great many things, but the biggest bombshell was this -- Apple's iCloud, which promises to sync all your content, automatically, even wirelessly, to Apple's new server farms... for free. All that processing power in the picture above can't have been cheap, and multiplied by the entirety of those data centers... well, let's just say it's a heck of a promise and we've got somewhat mixed feelings about how it'll play out. Hit the break to see what we thought of Apple's play for cloud storage.
Apple WWDC keynote video now viewable in the cloud
Did you miss out on today's thrill-a-minute WWDC keynote? Good news: now you can relive all of Steve Jobs's magical cloud-based magic. OS X Lion, iTunes in the cloud, PC-free syncing, iCloud, and lots of excited pacing -- it's all there. Of course, if you're more of a reader, there's always the liveblog text. Update: And what's this? Why it's some iOS 5 videos for your viewing pleasure. [Thanks everyone who sent this in]
Seven things iPhone users should know about today's announcment
Short of time? Intimidated by a huge sprawl of WWDC news? Here are the most important things for iPhone users to know about what changes we'll be seeing in the fall when iOS 5 is available for our phones. 1. iCloud Probably the biggest change to how we'll use our iOS devices going forward, iCloud is the glue that binds it all together. It has a number of big features of its own: buy music on your iPhone and copies of the same songs will appear on your Mac and iPad, for example. Work on a Pages document on your Mac, and the same file will be available on the iPhone. iCloud also shows a simple list of all the apps and music you've purchased, so you can easily re-download things you've already bought but deleted. iCloud also plays an important supporting role in many of the other features iOS 5 brings to the table -- I'll highlight them as we go through the following sections. 2. PC free No more cables! With iOS 5, your iPhone will be able to sync your iTunes content over your Wi-Fi network and download new iOS updates on its own without having to connect it to iTunes first. Plus, iCloud will automatically back up important content on your iPhone -- such as game saves and photos -- once per day. When you get a new phone, a quick sign-in with your iTunes account will have it automatically downloading the last backup. Now, more than ever, the iPhone can claim to be a post-PC device.
MobileMe stays live through June 30, 2012
Apple's new iCloud service is a full, free replacement for MobileMe. But iCloud won't officially launch until iOS 5 debuts this fall. What does that mean for existing MobileMe subscribers? Not long ago we advised our readers not to pay for a MobileMe upgrade if their accounts were about to expire. Not to brag or anything, but it looks like that was some pretty sweet advice. Current MobileMe subscribers have had their accounts extended until June 30, 2012, over a full year of additional service. Apple isn't accepting new MobileMe subscriptions right now, and you're also unable to upgrade your current subscription to a Family Pack or purchase additional storage. If you already have a Family Pack, however, you are still able to create new family member accounts. If you took our advice and didn't pay to upgrade your account, you should have had full access restored by now. My MobileMe Family Account technically expired in the last week of May, but none of my services were ever restricted, and I've also been granted the same additional year of service as subscribers in good standing. If you didn't listen to our advice (or didn't hear about it) and recently upgraded your MobileMe account, you can contact Apple for a refund. The refund terms sound a bit ornery, though; Apple only specifically mentions refunds being offered if you have a MobileMe box with an unused activation code. On the other hand, if you paid for an upgrade or started a new account within the past couple of weeks, if you plead your case to Apple (nicely), there's a pretty good chance the company will give you at least a partial refund. MobileMe was down for about an hour this morning for some people (myself included), but the service is back up and running now. MobileMe's replacement, iCloud, will go live later this year, and unlike the US$99/year MobileMe service, iCloud will be free.
Engadget's post-WWDC keynote broadcast, live!
This morning we had a little fun prognosticating about what we'd see at today's WWDC keynote address. We'll, now we've seen it, so join us for some post-event analysis from just outside the event center. We'll be starting shortly, so click "Play" above when things go live. Update: We're done, and we didn't even break UStream this time. If you missed it, or want to relive the experience, however, we'll have a saved version of the video up shortly. Update 2: And it's up! Check out the video after the break.
Apple site updated with exciting news from the WWDC keynote
The Apple website has been updated to show all of the wonderful new features that we'll be seeing in the next few months. iOS 5 "in the fall," Mac OS X 10.7 Lion "in July," and iCloud "concurrently with iOS 5." Each of the major images on the home page points to a new landing page. For iCloud, you see a full explanation of the service and how it's going to rock your world. The Mac OS X 10.7 Lion page touts the $29.99 price tag for all of the computers in your house, while the iOS 5 page describes all of the new features. It's worth browsing these pages to pick up details. What's your favorite feature so far? Tell us in the comments.
iTunes moves to the iCloud, re-download of purchases now possible
Apple announced iCloud today at WWDC and with it the ability to re-download your previously purchased music. Re-downloading of 256 Kbps AAC tracks is now possible for the first time from iTunes, meaning that you can purchase your music once and download it to every device you own (up to 10 devices total), without any additional charge. Like apps and books, music also doesn't count against your 5 GB iCloud storage space. You simply search through your purchased music in iTunes and hit that cute little cloud icon to initiate the download. What's more, Apple has included Automatic Downloads for iOS in the mix, meaning that free and purchased music will be automatically pushed to any device you have connected to the Internet. Buy it on your iPhone and have it pushed to your iPad. Simple. We'll be going in-depth into the new iTunes Match subscription service in a few minutes.
Apple announces iTunes in the Cloud, iTunes Match
Apple has just announced its long-awaited cloud-based music service: iTunes in the Cloud. While not a streaming music service as some had speculated, it will let you download any music you've purchased to all of your devices at no additional charge -- something Steve Jobs notes is a first for the music industry. All new music you purchase can also automatically be downloaded and pushed to up to ten different devices -- and, as with the other apps that make up the broader iCloud service, it's completely free, with a beta version available today (in the US only, unfortunately). What's more, Apple has also announced a complementary iTunes Match service that will let you put your existing collection of ripped CDs in the cloud. That's done by scanning your library and matching songs to the versions Apple already has (a DRM-free 256kbps AAC file), rather than uploading everything -- a process Apple notes takes "minutes," not "weeks" -- although songs will be uploaded in cases where there is no match. It will run you $24.99 a year (for up to 25,000 songs, apparently), and promises to give you all of the "same benefits as music purchased from iTunes" when it launches sometime this fall.
iCloud named as successor to MobileMe, will be free service
Steve Jobs unveiled the new iCloud service at WWDC today. iCloud stores a user's content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes that content to all devices. The services will be free with no ads and be completely integrated with the apps found in MobileMe -- and they've all been rewritten from the ground up. Contacts and calendars that are created or modified on one device are pushed to the cloud, and the changes propagate on all other devices instantly. Calendars have also had sharing features added so that you can send them to friends or coworkers. iCloud also allows users to propagate app and iBooks purchases across devices. Purchase an iBook on your iPad, tap the new iCloud button, and the same book will be downloaded on your iPhone, for example. iCloud also features deep backup sets and automatically performs daily backups over Wi-Fi. Backups include music, books, apps, camera roll, device settings and app data. iCloud also features an app called "Documents." When you create a new document in Pages, Keynote or Numbers, that document is automatically pushed to all the devices the user has Pages, Keynote or Numbers on. The iCloud Documents APIs will be made available to developers so that they can build the feature into their apps. Another new feature: in the Photos iOS app there is a new album called Photo Stream, which allows any photos taken on any devices to be pushed to your other devices automatically. The last 1,000 photos will be stored on the cloud for 30 days and then be deleted from the cloud. In that time, you have the option of permanently saving any of those photos to any device you own. Finally, Apple has extended iCloud capabilities to iTunes. You can re-download (for free) any song you have previously purchased in iTunes on up to 10 devices that you own. "We're making it free, and we're very excited about it. So that's iCloud. It stores your content and pushes it to all of your devices, and it's integrated with all your apps," Steve Jobs told the packed theater at WWDC.
iCloud unveiled at WWDC, free for all 9 cloud apps, MobileMe RIP
Apple tipped its hat early, but now we have the details from the man himself. "iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it to all your device. It automatically uploads it, stores it, and pushes it to all your devices." And by "automatically," he means it: in addition to every day content, such as purchased music, iBooks, photos and videos, device settings, and app data that will be automatically backed up over WiFi, Documents in the Cloud will effortlessly sync Pages, Numbers, and Keynote data between all of your iOS devices. There will be no advertising (contrary to previous rumors), and calendar, mail, and contact sync is free (for up to five gigs). Also in store is the new Photo Stream cloud feature, which is essentially a gallery in Photos that exists on all of your iOS devices, Apple TV, your OS X and even your Windows PCs, and syncs through the cloud. Take a picture on your iPhone and it appears on your laptop and your iPad, and it's stored in the cloud for thirty days. And no, your Photo Stream pics do not count towards your 5GB total. iCloud will be released concurrent with iOS 5 this fall. If that isn't enough, Apple has announced iTunes Match, a $25 per year service that scans your iTunes library library and populates your iTunes in the Cloud account with any of your previously bought and ripped music -- in handy 256Kbps AAC, DRM-free files (as long as the titles already appear in the iTunes store). Last but not least, MobileMe is no more. If you're a current member, you can still access everything as usual through June 30, 2012 (according to Apple), but there will be no new enrollments. And if your subscription has auto-renewed recently? Well, we've received plenty of tips from readers who have received refunds this morning. So at the very least you have that to look forward too!%Gallery-125471% p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'}
WWDC 2011 liveblog: Steve Jobs talks iOS 5, OS X Lion, iCloud and more!
You're in the right place! Bookmark this page and return on Monday at the times listed below to see Steve Jobs take the stage at Moscone West. WWDC 2011 promises a peek at iOS 5, OS X Lion, the iCloud music storage offering and who knows what else. The iPhone 5? Don't count on it, but also, don't count it out. Your town not listed? Shout your time in comments below! 07:00AM - Hawaii 10:00AM - Pacific 11:00AM - Mountain 12:00PM - Central 01:00PM - Eastern 06:00PM - London 07:00PM - Paris 09:00PM - Moscow 02:00AM - Tokyo (June 7th)
MobileMe renewals getting refunded automatically? (Updated)
Here's a tease for what might be coming later today: we have had a couple of reader reports that indicate a change to MobileMe's billing plans, citing service continuations past the expiration date. Now Steve M. has chimed in to let us know that his auto-renewal of MobileMe triggered this week and charged his checking account as usual -- then the charge was immediately refunded back to his account. Odd, to say the least. We already know that iCloud is on the agenda for today, and we know that there's going to be a migration path from MobileMe to the new service (codenamed 'Castle' in development builds of Lion). It seems entirely likely that the new offering will have a different pricing structure than the all-in annual $99 cost of today's MobileMe; this was first suggested by the Wall Street Journal back in February. Update: Corey notes that his renewal date for MobileMe was rescheduled for... today. Hmm. Thanks Steve!
WWDC: Looking back at the past 10 years
Steve Jobs will kick off Apple's WorldWide Developers' Conference (WWDC) on Monday, and the world will be watching to see what Apple has in store for Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud. To help pass the time until Monday afternoon, we have compiled some memorable moments from the past ten years of WWDC. WWDC was first held in Monterey, California in 1983. This small gathering of developers has blossomed into one of the major annual events for Apple's extended community of vendors, engineers and enterprise/academic IT management. In addition to the 'meat' of the event (technical sessions covering hundreds of topics for developers, code labs and face time with Apple engineering staff), WWDC has become an opportunity for Apple to announce new versions of Mac OS X, new hardware and new versions of iOS. The event has grown in importance as Apple has eliminated or scaled back its participation in trade shows like Macworld Expo. Read on for the best of WWDC Past: a funeral for an operating system, a spoof of Steve Jobs and much applause.
Rumor: 'Automatic Download' of app updates in iOS 5
A MacRumors reader reports that iTunes has leaked a new "Automatic Download" function expected to debut in iOS 5. Currently, apps can be updated either in iTunes on a Mac/PC or directly on the iDevice itself, but app updates have always required user intervention thus far. By the sounds of this leaked info, app updates will now be downloaded automatically in the background if the user so chooses. "If your device has Automatic Download enabled for apps, your updates will download to your device without having to sync," the leaked info states. This setting doesn't currently exist in iOS, which suggests it's a forthcoming feature of the iOS 5 update, possibly tied in with Apple's iCloud offering. If MacRumors' source is accurate, and it most likely is given other rumors, we can expect to see this feature debuted at WWDC next week.
Considering iCloud's potential against existing cloud services
There have been any number of rumors floating around in the last day or so about Apple's Time Capsule integrating with the new iCloud service. Ars Technica reports that the updated Capsules might mirror Apple TV's CPU strength with capable A4 or A5 processors that do more than just perform backups and store data locally. Here at TUAW, we think the story could be a lot bigger that just pre-fetching and caching updates for computer-free mobile updates. You don't build a really, really, we mean really big data center like that in North Carolina and use it only for streaming music, do you? Especially when startups like Pogoplug, Dolly Drive and CrashPlan have demonstrated just how useful remote storage can be.
Steve Jobs talks iCloud, iOS 5, OS X Lion and more at WWDC, liveblog starts at 10AM PT on June 6th!
Do you love music? Do you love it in the cloud? Are you still trying to figure out if "the cloud" is "your bag?" Regardless of your mixed emotions regarding the impending iCloud service, that's just a third (based on rough calculations) of what Steve Jobs will talk about on Monday, when WWDC 2011 kicks off in San Francisco. iOS 5 and OS X Lion will also be major topics of conversation, and while we've no evidence that new hardware will be kicking around backstage, we've got history at our backs giving us a sliver of hope. Naturally, we'll be there kicking out the facts as they happen, and you're encouraged to join us at this very link. Bookmark that and return at the times listed below, and if your neck of the woods ain't listed, shout it out in comments. Oh, and any predictions? Anything somewhat sane is welcome below. 07:00AM - Hawaii 10:00AM - Pacific 11:00AM - Mountain 12:00PM - Central 01:00PM - Eastern 06:00PM - London 07:00PM - Paris 09:00PM - Moscow 02:00AM - Tokyo (June 7th) Take a look through the archives with our past WWDC liveblogs! Live from WWDC 2010 Live from WWDC 2009 Live from WWDC 2008 Live from WWDC 2007 Live from WWDC 2006 Live from WWDC 2005
