Dust from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference has settled and now we know all about iCloud, iOS 5, and Mac OS X Lion. We also know which rumors from ahead of the show turned out to be true, and which ones didn't.
To Apple's credit, there were very few leaks ahead of this year's show. While a few iOS 5 features came out, as well as functionality that would appear in iCloud, there was a fair bit that was unknown going into it. The one exception being OS X Lion, which Apple had taken most of the wraps off back in October.
Below is a roundup of some of the big rumors, split up by product. Not surprisingly, the more outlandish ones proved not to be true, yet there were a few surprises here and there. Read on to find out how they panned out.
Rumor: iCloud won't be available today, but will be soon.
Outcome: True, iCloud is not available to customers today but will be when iOS 5 launches in the fall. In the interim, Apple is making iCloud available to developers to test.
Rumor: No video in iCloud, just music
Outcome: True. Apple is not syncing video from iTunes across devices, just music files. Though sources have told CNET that Apple has been pushing studios extra hard to let it store user video files on its servers.
Rumor: No music streaming immediately, but it will come later on.
Outcome: True but also false. The system Apple outlined this morning is a sync solution, letting users re-download their files to various devices, not stream them outright, thus saving space on that device. Whether Apple plans to offer that later on in iCloud's life was not disclosed during this morning's announcements.
n the second public appearance since announcing his medical leave six months ago, Jobs, 56, appeared to look “good” but “exasperated,” wrote the popular web site Mac Rumors on its live blog of the event.
“If I acquire a song and buy it right on my iPhone, I want to get it on all my other devices,” Jobs told the crowd. “Keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy.”
The iCloud will let users move their mobile apps, calendar, contacts, ebooks, e-mail, music and photos to cyber storage lockers to be synced across all devices.
Music purchased through iTunes is synced for free, and other music can be synced through the $25-a-year iTunes Match service. Apple reached a deal that gives recording companies more than 70 percent of the new fees.
Amazon’s Cloud Player has a variety of price tiers, like offering 100 GB of storage for $100 a year. Google Music Beta is still in testing phases.
“This has implications not just for the individual consumer but also for families,” said Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies. “Jobs’ observation that they are transitioning the hub of the digital life from the PC to the cloud is pertinent here. Think family calendars, photos, music, etc.
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