iCloud includes 5GB of free cloud storage for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, apps, books and Photo Stream do not count against the storage limit.

Completely BonkersYou have to see the evolution like this:

1./ iTunes lets you rip CD's to your PC and load onto iPod
2./ iTunes lets you buy music for download
3./ iTunes lets you buy music for download then back up to the cloud
4./ iTunes lets you NOT buy music for download, but buy RIGHTS to play music in the cloud
5./ iTunes doesn't let you download or own anything. Music as a service, pay per play

We are evolving slowly from 1 to 5. NO, I DONT LIKE THAT BUSINESS MODEL. But, you have to say, one step at a time, each step is being delivered in a way that 90% of customers believe is useful and adds value to them.

Just not "us".

WrigleyvillainSo my music collection is 120GB. Something tells me that would be an issue.

And the big hit among the services announced would be iTunes Match. The service which will be available for $US24.95 a year, scans through the hard drives of the user devices, including legally obtained or pirated copies, and matches them with the authorized tracks in Apple's iTunes library. It then makes a quality iTunes version of the tracks automatically accessible in the iCloud.

It appears that iTunes Match will act as a music 'launderer' of sorts, which once synced with iCloud cannot be differentiated from the music originally bought from iTunes. Meaning nobody can sue you for illegal downloading or file sharing, should your details are made available to authorities.

Wrigleyvillain^ Yep apparently thats what it does in a nutshell though I am trying to get more details at this point.

Edit: Hmm...sounds like the technical details are cool (for people like me with tunes from all over the place) but this will cost me $25 a year?



www.ibtimes.com/articles/158541/20110607/apple-icloud-itunes-match-digital-hub-steve-jobs-wwdc-why-people-love-icloud-sync-pirate-music-strea.htm

"At first blush, the thought of having your entire music collection available through iCloud sounded like an amazingly awesome deal. And for those of us who have amassed large record collections outside of the iTunes marketplace, it felt as though we were being pardoned for sins against the $.99 download -- whether we came across our mp3s through ripping, legal file sharing, or piracy," writes Audrey Watters.
"But it's important to note that Apple's new offer does not involve music streaming. True, you can have your music collection synced across devices (up to 10 of them). But you will still have to download the music you want to play onto your iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch or Mac. You won't be able to access your entire collection and randomly shuffle between all the glorious gigabytes."
Watters concludes: "Music in the cloud is still very much up for grabs."

mdm-adph"iOS Storage" -- just like Dropbox, only it works on 90% less types of devices.

Why bother?

Dropbox is intensely useful, but in the end it’s just a cloud version of a removable USB thumb drive. I copy a document from here to there, then I pick up another device, launch the Dropbox app, and copy it from there to here. Apple forcefully made the point that iCloud is meant to do no less than replace the PC in its current role as the hub of the digital experience, and relegate it to the status of Just Another Device that syncs data between itself and everything else.

WrigleyvillainHrm no streaming. Subsonic has this?



CNN Tech



It may seem that way at a glance but not exactly...this is automatic, integrated into the OS and it's core apps and "just works" without any real user intervention or config. Ihnatko described it well:



Source