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SugarSync adds mobile device management, lets you push digital delights directly to iOS (video)
Apple's iOS is great at displaying content already on a device, but transferring documents from your computer to your iPhone or iPad has traditionally been a tedious, inefficient process. SugarSync's new mobile device management sets out to help change that, allowing you to send files directly to your smartphone or tablet using a simple web interface. After selecting a connected device from the sidebar, you can click to upload content, booting it directly to your handheld. A push notification will appear, prompting you to download any or all of the files you uploaded, which will also remain in the cloud -- so you'll be able to access files synched with the SugarSync app from the Web, even when your device is offline. The feature is rolling out for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this week, and will be available for Android and BlackBerry soon. It looks like the concept of emailing documents to yourself just to access them on the go is about to follow iTunes sync and tethered updates to a permanent group home in the sky.
Apple sued for trademark infringement over iCloud name
iCloud Communications, LLC of Arizona is suing Apple for trademark infringement. The company claims Apple's use of the word iCloud is damaging to its business. According to the lawsuit, iCloud offers cloud computing products and services, telecommunication services, video conferencing and other internet services. The Arizona company is asking for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief, monetary relief and attorney's fees. iCloud Communications is also asking for the destruction of all marketing materials bearing the iCloud name. The suit was filed in the US District Court of Arizona.
Rumor: Steve Jobs says iWeb and MobileMe hosting are going away
Those of us with a vested interest in iWeb have been perplexed by the lack of interest shown by Apple in the former iLife web design app. Couple this with the pending demise of MobileMe on June 30, 2012, and that confusion turns into concern. MacRumors featured a post a few hours ago about an iWeb/MobileMe fan who was so concerned about the lack of iWeb love coming from Apple that the user sent Steve Jobs an email. In the email the iWeb user asked, "Will I need to find an alternative website builder and someone to host my sites?" The alleged response from the CEO of Apple: "Yep." iWeb's discontinuation wouldn't be completely surprising. When iLife '11 debuted late last year, the lack of a new version of iWeb frustrated a number of users. When iCloud was announced last week, there was no indication that websites created with iWeb and hosted on MobileMe would have a migration path to the new world of Apple cloud computing. There are many free website alternatives to a MobileMe-hosted iWeb site, such as WordPress.com, Blogger, Tumblr, and Posterous; paid options include Squarespace, Drupal Gardens and hundreds more. In addition, Facebook is an excellent alternative for both individuals or companies who just want to create a simple web presence to inform friends or customers of what's going on. If your needs are for a straightforward yet powerful WYSIWIG web authoring environment, both RapidWeaver and Sandvox deliver much of iWeb's power with more flexibility for non-MobileMe hosting. For those who still want to have their websites designed in iWeb and hosted somewhere other than on MobileMe, you might want to start looking for low-cost web hosting soon.
Switched On: Apple's cloud conundrum
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. It is hard to believe that Apple has been trying its hand at the Internet services space since the year 2000, when it launched iTools. Like nearly all of iCloud, with which it shares its trademark vowel prefix, iTools was free. Unlike iCloud, though, its collection of services was all over the map, ranging from Web page creation to greeting cards. iCloud marks the third reboot of Apple's Web services suite since that foray. In the intervening years, we've seen .Mac (essentially a subscription version of most iTools features), and MobileMe, which paved the way for the contact and calendar synchronization that will be free as part of iCloud. Modern-day Apple has shown an appreciation for seamless network access since the launch of the iMac in 1998, which eschewed floppy drives in favor of network-based sharing. One can even trace a belief in the power of the network further back to eWorld, AppleLink, and even the Mac's early, simple networking technologies, AppleTalk and LocalTalk. Internet services are clearly complementary to advanced devices running sophisticated software -- two areas where Apple excels. So why has the cloud rained on Apple?
iCloud Communications sues Apple for obvious reasons
You probably know the drill by now -- Cupertino introduces a new product with a name that ostensibly belongs to someone else, and for better or worse that someone decides to take Apple to court. Today, it's iCloud Communications charging out of the left corner to sock Apple's iCloud square in the wallet. Arizona-based iCloud Communications appears to be a VoIP equipment and service provider, though in court documents it claims to be a cloud computing company as well, and says that it's been using the term iCloud (and the above logo) to sell such services since 2005. It's asking the court to destroy all of Apple's iCloud marketing materials, pay damages and even invalidate the iCloud trademark that Apple bought from Xcerion -- the only registered iCloud trademark so far -- but what's probably going to actually happen here is a nice little settlement out of court. We'll let you know if there's any reason to break out the popcorn. [Thanks, Tamaine M.]
WWDC Interview: IGG Software
This week TUAW and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak to developers at WWDC about the keynote and how Apple's new technologies will help them and their customers. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll bring you those videos here, MacTech.com and MacNews.com. Also, check out the free trial subscription offer for MacTech Magazine here. In this video, I interview James Gillespie of IGG Software, Inc. at WWDC 2011. James was kind enough to tell us about his thoughts on the announcements at WWDC, and how it will affect IGG's plans moving forward. IGG makes iBank (among other things), which is worth a look if you need a personal finance solution.
How iTunes Match solves my obscure downsampling problem
I have a longstanding audio quality problem with iTunes -- but iTunes Match will finally resolve it for me. Hurray! Hopefully this post will help others in the same situation. It all starts with the sad fact that I'm a perfectionist idiot about audio quality, so I still buy CDs and rip them myself using Apple's lossless codec -- I can't quite bring myself to (usually) pay more on iTunes for a lower quality file. The lossless codec achieves about 50% compression, yielding files about three times larger than the iTunes Plus 256-kbps AAC setting that most people rip in and the iTunes Store uses. It is, however, a complete bit-for-bit copy of the original CD. Note that its not so much that I can hear the difference; more that I don't drive myself mad wondering if I can. I have occasionally, but admittedly not often, picked up the odd rough-sounding cymbal splash in iTunes Plus files when listening on decent headphones; but I am by no means one of those audiophiles who believes in spending thousands on speaker cables and $2000 on a power cord that defies the laws of physics. Still, though, by using only Apple lossless audio codec (ALAC), I know that I can avoid even thinking about sound quality issues. That's the appeal for me. Even if you're unconvinced by my reasoning here (and I admit it has more to do with my own eccentricities than strict logic), there's another reason to prefer ALAC format ripping -- down the road, if I have to change to alternative music formats, I won't need to rip the CDs again. I can turn the ALAC files back into pure WAV format and then transform them into any other format without any further loss of quality. I do this occasionally when I want to put more music on the USB stick that I keep plugged into my car radio, which will play mp3 and WMA files but not AAC. In contrast, running a lossy encoded format file like AAC through the encoding process to another one like mp3 results in a really muddy, horrible sounding file. However, whilst ALAC is fine for use on my Mac where disk space is cheap and for streaming around my house's Ethernet network where bandwidth is plentiful, it's not really much use for syncing to my iPhone, because it's too darn big. I'd prefer to compromise quality a little on the iPhone in order to fit a decent amount music in and because I mostly listen to the iPhone when walking the dogs or in my noisy day-job office, neither of which demand the highest fidelity. Sadly, iTunes really doesn't want to work with me. It has the "convert higher bitrates" option, which is teasingly close to what I want, but it's irritatingly locked to only output 128 kbit/sec AAC. That really is too low -- I can definitely hear annoying compression artifacts. So, for a long time, I've been maintaining two iTunes libraries. One is full of ALAC and I use it for playback in the house; the other is full of AAC and I use it to sync my iPhone with. Hence, when I rip a CD, I have to rip it twice (or do a second pass of conversion from the ALAC files to AAC), and if any track names, album art, or other metadata need adjusting, I need to adjust it twice. This is tedious and annoying. Enter iTunes Match, which might just solve this problem for me at a stroke. I'm hoping it will allow me to rip once as an ALAC file, and upload that converted file to iCloud. Apple says that: [A]ll the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality -- even if your original copy was of lower quality. which implies to me that even ALAC files going in come out at the lower quality 256 kbit/sec setting. I wouldn't even need to cable my iPhone to iTunes to get new music any more, let alone rip CDs twice or juggle multiple iTunes libraries. For $25 a year, I'm in, although it seems that we'll be waiting until 2012 to get iTunes Match in the UK. Although this problem is fairly obscure, I have seen others people post about this problem from time to time (one, two, and many of the comments below). I hope this post will reach those folk and prompt them to look at this little side-effect of iTunes Match more closely.
Windows XP users will finally need to upgrade to enter the iCloud
This got a bit lost amid all the WWDC 2011 hubbub earlier this week, but Apple quietly delivered a bit of bad news to steadfast Windows XP users with its iCloud announcement. Unlike its MobileMe service and recent versions of iTunes, which have somewhat surprisingly supported Windows XP all this time, use of Apple's iCloud service on a PC will require either Windows Vista or Windows 7. Of course, XP users shouldn't feel too bad about being left behind -- as TUAW notes, Apple's only extended support for the Mac version of iTunes 10.3 back to OS X 10.5, which was just released in 2007 (when Windows XP was already starting to tell other upstart operating systems to get off its lawn). [Thanks, Stephen]
iTunes Match not coming to the UK until 2012?
Music collectors in the US will be able to subscribe to Apple's iTunes Match service this fall, but it looks like our friends across the pond will have to wait a little longer before lofting their libraries up to the cloud. According to sources within the British recording industry, licensing negotiations between Apple and the country's major labels have only just begun and likely won't be concluded until 2012. A spokesman for the Performing Right Society, an organization that protects the rights of musicians and songwriters, likened the situation to the launch of iTunes, which only spread to international markets some 14 months after launching in the US. Speaking to the Telegraph, Forrester Research vice president Mark Mulligan echoed these predictions, while offering some insight into the industry's approach: "Apple's cloud music service will not launch in the UK until at least quarter one of 2012. These types of negotiations take a long time... For one thing the UK arms of all the major record labels are biding their time and waiting to see how the service affects download sales in the US before they sign up to anything." Neither Apple nor any of the major labels have commented on the negotiations, but if things drag on we'd be willing to share our cloudy iTunes in exchange for a crack at Spotify.
UK won't get music portion of iCloud until 2012
This is sure to disappoint our UK readers, but it looks like you'll have to wait until "at least" the first quarter of 2012 to take advantage of the music portion of Apple's iCloud service, according to a spokesman for the Performing Right Society (PRS). The spokesman told The Telegraph that Apple was in a "very early stage" of talks with major UK record labels, thus the iTunes Match feature of iCloud that Apple announced on Monday wouldn't be coming to the UK this year. PRS represents UK composers, songwriters and music publishers and makes sure they are paid fairly for their work. "The licensing team at the PRS have started talks with Apple, but are a long way off from any deals being signed...It is very much the early stages of the negotiations and is similar to the launch of iTunes -- which began in the US and took a while to roll out to other countries," the spokesperson said. Adding to the PRS comments, a music executive at a major UK label told the Telegraph that "Tentative talks have begun between the major labels and Apple in the UK. However, all talks are at the really early stages and no one expects to see the cloud music service live on this side of the pond until 2012." Waiting for iTunes Match in the UK will cause early adopters to grumble, but at least they can use the rest of iCloud's features, like email, address book, calendar and document sharing, and redownload of removed apps the day all those features are available to US users.
Banned apps back from beyond with iCloud
Miss your iDOS emulator, or another app that's been punted from the App Store? CDFXapps noticed that the App Store app on their iOS 5-enabled iPad gave them the option of redownloading the no-longer-available DOS emulation app. This is part of the new iCloud feature, already in place, that lets you re-grab your iTunes purchases if you don't have them locally (very handy if you lose your machine or your hard drive dies). Chris Welch also noticed that the original version of The Big Picture found its way back to his phone. Meanwhile, Engadget spotted the option of redownloading the blocked iTris Tetris clone on an iPhone running iOS 4.3.3, so this particular privilege is not dependent on having the beta installed. This may not work for all apps, however; we tried to redownload a tethering application and couldn't get it. Perhaps there's a category for 'terminated with extreme prejudice.' This is certainly handy if you've accidentally deleted or misplaced an app that you bought before it got pulled -- but chances are this particular loophole will get closed relatively soon. [via MobileCrunch]
Apple iCloud brings previously purchased apps back from the dead
Lamenting the time you restored your iPhone and lost that beloved VLC app because it's no longer available on the App Store? Cheer up, there's an iCloud for that. The service allows you to re-download any app you've previously purchased on any of your iOS devices -- including killed apps. We decided to give it a whirl, testing our luck with an iPhone 3GS humming along on iOS 4.3.3. Upon browsing the Purchases section of the App Store, we beheld Tris, an app that hasn't been available in nearly three years. Sure enough, we pressed the iCloud icon and within seconds, the ol' Tetris clone was back in action. So if you were one of the four people that downloaded I am Rich before it was killed, you'll be sure to enjoy that $1,000 investment for years to come. [Thanks, Chris] Zach Honig contributed to this report.
Find My Mac kicks off with Lion
In the latest Developer Preview of Lion, Apple has activated the new Find My Mac feature. Like Find My iPhone, Find My Mac allows users to locate their Macs from any web browser or iOS device. As noted by 9to5 Mac, the Find My Mac setup is available through the Mail, Contacts and Calendars setting in System Preferences. Simply click "Allow," and your Mac is ready to be tracked. Once enabled you can use any web browser or iOS device to track your Mac. When found you can choose to play a sound or send a message, remote lock the Mac or remote wipe the Mac. However, remote locking and wiping will prevent you from locating the Mac again. The Find My Mac feature will be free, all you need to use it will be Lion and a free iCloud membership. This feature is sure to be a bane to thieves, and no doubt we'll be hearing stories about how Find My Mac thwarted more thieves in the future.
Wall Street analysts think iCloud's future has a silver lining
Apple fans and developers apparently weren't the only people who liked the iCloud announcement on Monday at WWDC. As reported by Fortune's Philip Elmer-Dewitt, Wall Street analysts are almost unanimous in their positive comments about iCloud's effect on the financial future of Apple. For example, Credit Suisse's Kulbinder Garcha is quoted as saying "Although Google and Amazon are already offering cloud based offering, we believe Apple has continued to lead innovation in the services space with the introduction of its iCloud, which we believe is superior to existing cloud services from competition." RBC Capital's Mike Abramsky was even more enthusiastic when discussing the PC-Free capabilities of iOS 5, noting that by "'cutting the cord' to the PC, Apple may expand its addressable device market by 4x, addressing the ~3B handset users who have a phone -- but not a PC." TUAW's favorite analyst, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, also chimed in on the ability of future iOS devices to work sans PC, and commented that "Bottom line is that Apple is increasing the likelihood that consumers buy multiple Apple devices ... Apple will be giving away iCloud for free (we had expected it to be priced between $25-$99 a year) ... sharing non iTunes music will cost $25 a year. (As a point of reference, Amazon's Cloud drive could cost up to $200 a year.)" The future for Apple looks as bright as the sunlight in those architectural renderings of the proposed Cupertino campus of our favorite company.
Ask TUAW: WWDC/iCloud Edition
Welcome to Ask TUAW, our weekly (mostly) question-and-answer column. This week we're addressing your numerous questions about Apple's introductions at WWDC. We'll try to tackle questions about Lion, MobileMe and more. By the way, we can never have too many questions. You can't have a Q&A column without the Q, so please go to the comments of this post and ask away. Believe it or not, we've had a little bit of a drought of questions, so now's your chance to get them answered! If you prefer, instead of asking questions in the comments, you can also email your questions directly to ask [at] tuaw.com, or simply ping us on Twitter. Now, questions! John asks: How do you remove iCloud music downloads from my iPhone and iPad? There seems to be no way to do it on the device or in iTunes when connected via USB to my computer.
MobileMe: Some speculation about the transition to iCloud
I'll start this post off by stating the obvious -- there's a lot about how MobileMe services will transition to iCloud that we don't know yet. But I'm going to take a stab at some of the most pressing questions we've received from TUAW readers regarding the transition. As more facts come in, we'll update this post and/or let you know in a new article. First, let's talk about what's available in MobileMe as it stands today. The details are in that graphic above, which is taken directly from the web-based MobileMe service. There are web-based versions of Mail, Contacts (Address Book), and Calendar (iCal); there's Find My iPhone, which has already become a free service; there's iDisk, a "cloud-based storage" solution; and then there are things like Gallery and iWeb hosting. Speculation #1: Web-based versions of Mail, Contacts, and Calendar will be de-emphasized I'd speculate that the web-based versions of Mail, Contacts, and Calendar will get less attention going forward, and might even disappear on June 30, 2012. Seriously -- who needs them? If you have a Mac or three, you'll sync Mail, Address Book, and iCal through the free iCloud service. The same with your iOS devices, which will send Mail, Contacts, and Calendar changes to the iCloud, where they'll all be echoed to the rest of your digital world. For Windows users, you'll be using Outlook 2010 or 2007 to sync to the iCloud. The only scenario in which you might not be able to get to your "stuff" is when you're using a public computer of some sort at a hotel, on a cruise ship, or at a cybercafé in Spain. Of course, you don't want that to happen, so you'll have your iOS device with you. Hook up to Wi-Fi or use your 3G data service, and the problem is solved. That's why they call them mobile devices. [The counterargument would be that dropping web-based access to PIM and email from iCloud would be a pretty big competitive disadvantage for the service, compared to Google and Microsoft offerings. It's equally likely that the web components will simply flip over from MobileMe to iCloud without any new features or engineering effort -- since Apple is already doing a passable job on them. –Ed.] Speculation #2: iDisk disappears Apple's already stated that iCloud will back up your content -- music, photos, apps, and documents. But there's nothing out there about what will happen to your other stuff. I personally have about 15 GB of iDisk storage available to me on MobileMe, of which I've actually used about 3 GB. All of my important data is sitting out in my Dropbox, syncing between my Macs and iOS devices. I personally don't see the need for iDisk in this world of Dropbox, but there are others who may be using iDisk since they either don't know about Dropbox and similar services or don't want to migrate to them. I think iDisk is going to go extinct, but that Apple will provide iDisk users with a variety of third-party cloud storage solutions and warn them to migrate their data well in advance. There is a full year to prepare. Speculation #3: Gallery is toast Gallery was Apple's way of creating web-based photo albums of your photos for sharing with friends and relatives. Once again, I can't see a need for it in the post-MobileMe world. Apple has already provided an "out" to those who want to share their photos to the world -- iPhoto supports sharing pictures to both Flickr and Facebook. I don't know what Flickr's membership is these days, but Facebook has well over 600 million users, and a good number of them may be former or current MobileMe subscribers. Those two services are perfect for photo sharing, and I'd be willing to bet that the current number of photos hosted in Gallery is a tiny fraction of the number out on Facebook or Flickr. Another reason I think Gallery is going away is the tendency for people to use iOS devices as a sort of electronic photo album. I don't know how many times I've seen my wife show off photos of our trips to friends or complete strangers using either her iPhone or iPad. It's a lot easier than telling them to go out to some long-winded MobileMe URL to see a gallery of pictures. Speculation #4: So long, iWeb hosting As the author of several editions of a book on iWeb, I have a vested interest in the future of this Apple product. However, the future just doesn't look all that bright for iWeb. The software hasn't been updated recently, and there is a lot of rumbling out on the Apple Support Forums about what will happen when MobileMe disappears. My guess? Apple will once again tell MobileMe users that they need to find their own hosting. iWeb can publish websites to a number of hosts, so it's no big deal to republish on a new one. I even wrote a post almost two years ago about how to use free Dropbox space to host an iWeb site, so there's a solution. Finally, a significant portion of the people who set up iWeb sites initially were putting together personal sites. Many of those people have probably gone the easy route and are either letting friends know about their lives via Twitter and Facebook, or have set up sites with free services, like Blogger or WordPress.com. Nevertheless, judging by the frustration and concern on Apple's support boards, this may be one of the trickiest transitions to manage. Conclusion Before some of our readers who are adverse to change go all ballistic on me in the comments, remember what I said at the beginning -- we don't really know what's going to happen to some of these services between now and the demise of MobileMe on June 30, 2012. All of this is speculation about what will happen, based on my personal perspective. If you have an alternative idea, or you're a disgruntled MobileMe employee who wants to spill the beans, please let us know about it in the comments or send us a tip via the "tip us" button at the top of the page.
Apple's steps toward backup in the cloud tread lightly on third-party developers
Jenna Wortham of the New York Times wrote, "How do you know if you've created a really great, useful iPhone app? Apple tries to put you out of business." That's a pretty common reaction to Monday's WWDC keynote, and the shock and awe was not limited to iPhone apps. On Friday, TUAW mused about what Apple's return to cloud services might mean to backup-in-the-cloud developers. On Monday, Apple introduced iCloud, a way to push your music, photos, calendars and other data to the cloud so that it's "always accessible from your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac or PC," with instant access to that data across all your devices. While it does not appear that this service is any kind of substitute for a comprehensive backup strategy, it does show Apple continuing to move in the direction of taking charge of users' data protection needs. TUAW was curious how third-party cloud developers would react to Apple's entry into an arena that might step on the toes of their current offerings. We talked to the developers of Dolly Drive, CrashPlan and Arq to ascertain their reactions to iCloud. What we found was this: iCloud isn't about to drive Mac backup solutions out of business, the way that the keynote announcements challenged products like Readability, Instapaper and Sparrow. Dolly Drive Dolly Drive provides online backups using Apple's Time Machine technology for Mac OS X. Its cloud storage solutions merge the Mac Time Machine user experience with offsite safety to guard against a calamity that takes down your local backups as well as your computer. TUAW contacted Dolly Drive to see what they had to say about Apple's iCloud. Dolly Drive's spokesperson Leigh Kessler told TUAW, "iCloud is an example of Apple ingenuity and excites us as a solution for sharing among Apple devices. But we hope Mac users are not confused into thinking that iCloud's convenience is a substitute for true data backup and we think Apple would agree. Time Machine is still the most comprehensive way to protect and recover everything on your Mac and Dolly Drive is still the only way to do that in the cloud." Kessler provided the following table to differentiate Dolly Drive from iCloud. iCloud lets you iCloud doesn't Dolly Drive will see all your itunes library from all your mac and apple devices stream a limited number of photos from your iOS devices onto your mac and Apple TV sync documents that have been integrated into the iCloud framework. Backup a set of items that are on your iOS devices provide Mac desktop or laptop backup provide automatic iPhoto sync backup for music that is deleted from your music library backup or sync of documents that don't comply with iCloud backup all and any OS X computer file to Dolly Grid cloud storage recover from a crash with Dolly Clone backup from anywhere your computer is multiple times a day CrashPlan CrashPlan provides an always-on cloud-based solution for online data backup. Instead of using a Time Machine interface, CrashPlan runs in the background of your Mac performing regular updates to remote servers. CrashPlan's Mike Evangelist told TUAW, "We are still absorbing the many facets of Apple's announcements, but our feeling is generally positive. First and foremost [iCloud] will validate cloud options for the average user. In a sense [it's] assuring non-technical people that the cloud is nothing to fear." He explained, "As is typical with Apple's solutions, iCloud is stripped down to a few essential features. We see it as an opportunity to continue to provide robust, cross-platform solutions for home and business users. Small and large businesses have needs that are clearly not addressed by iCloud, including security, monitoring and management, the ability to run local servers, and a lot more. That's where CrashPlan PRO excels." Arq and SyncPhotos Stefan Reitshamer is the developer behind Arq, whose backup solution is built around Amazon's S3 cloud-based data storage infrastructure. He was intrigued by what Apple's new technology means. "Apple is trying to get rid of the file concept in OS X, just like iOS. There are no files in iOS -- there are only apps and their data. In the keynote we never saw a Finder window or a file -- only the new Launchpad. Likewise, the iCloud backup stuff is built into apps. So unless all your apps have added iCloud integration, iCloud backup isn't going to suffice." "The syncing stuff looked very single-user," Reitshamer continued, "aside from the calendar sharing. The photo stream stuff was cool but it only synched to a single person's devices. You still can't do what my SyncPhotos app does (sync new photos from someone else's computer). It's not surprising. They've never been very interested in groupware; they're usually more focused on the individual user." Conclusions While iCloud approaches the notion of moving your data to the cloud, it still has a long way to go if Apple decideds to take it to a full backup solution. iCloud will ship with 5 GB of free storage (not counting purchased items like music and apps), with additional increments likely purchasable by the user.
Verizon iPhone not ready for iCloud sneak peek
When Apple announced iCloud yesterday, there was the usual excitement over a new Apple service, but said service wouldn't be rolling out until the fall. However, Apple also announced an iCloud sneak peek via iTunes 10.3 and iOS 4.3.3, which allows users to download past purchases and try out automatic downloads. Sadly, though, Verizon iPhone users have been left out in the cold. Verizon iPhones still run iOS 4.2.8, which isn't compatible with the iCloud preview. Apple hasn't publicly said why iOS on a Verizon iPhone lags behind iOS on an AT&T iPhone, but it does. Do you have a Verizon iPhone? Not to worry. Though Apple hasn't made an official announcement, you can bet both companies are working to bring parity, which should allow Verizon iPhone users to preview iCloud as well. The only question now is when Apple will release the compatible iOS update for Verizon users.
Windows XP users will be lost in the iCloud
It's a subtle change but an important one: Apple's published Windows system requirements for iCloud are a bit different than they are for MobileMe and the current version of iTunes. Per the company's press release: Using iCloud with a PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7; Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for accessing contacts and calendars. Emphasis mine. What's missing? Only the world's most popular operating system (still!), Windows XP. While iTunes 10.3 and MobileMe both include XP SP 2 in the support list, it looks like the next stop on the road to the cloud is a no-go for the older OS. Considering that Apple's backwards-compatibility on iTunes 10.3 only goes back four years for its own operating system, it's kind of surprising that the ten-year-old XP has stayed on the short list for as long as it has. This shift, however, may mean that some PC users will search for alternatives to Apple's tools for iOS support (assuming that iTunes itself will move up to match the iCloud specification). Are you running Windows XP on any machines you currently use with iTunes or MobileMe? If so, is the prospect of iCloud requiring Vista or Win7 keeping you up at night?
Video of "PC-free" iOS 5 setup
One new feature in iOS 5 is PC Free setup, which lets you activate your iPhone without connecting it to your computer. You enter your Apple ID, configure the Cloud services including Find my iPhone and then finally activate your device right from the phone. Even in this early release, the setup process works smoothly. You can see the activation from start to finish in this YouTube video provided by XcodeDev. [hat tip MacRumors]
