iCloud Predictions

Last October I wrote about the potential of MobileMe:

When MobileMe re-branded and re-launched in July 2008 it was somewhat of a disaster. In an internal email to Apple employees, Steve Jobs said that “The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious.”

In its current state as “exchange for the rest of us” MobileMe seems neither exciting nor ambitious. As a web-app, me.com is beautiful and extremely functional. But I for one never use it. Instead I use the native OS X apps. And iDisk? Well, that is also collecting dust.

What would be exciting is an open service that bridged the gap for all the data which is shared between our Macs, iPhones, and iPads. What could be more ambitious than killing the USB cable?

Software development is no longer a contained relationship between a single piece of hardware and the software installed on it. Just as people who are serious about software should make their own hardware, people who are serious about mobile software should make their own cloud.

We know Apple is serious about mobile software and hardware, and it looks like they are getting ready to prove that they’re also serious about the cloud.

There have been many rumors about an iTunes digital locker, a rebranding of MobileMe, and a major software / hardware announcement in the fall. It is exciting to think that in the next several months we may see some significant new software products from Apple.

And so, as any respectable Apple-centric blogger knows, it’s part of the job description to post wild speculations about what we think will happen and when. Below you will find my iCloud predictions.

iCloud

Here’s an unordered list of what I think iCloud will look like in 2011:

  • iTunes Music Locker: Available at a subscription cost, you can use iCloud to store your songs and movies in the cloud and then stream them to any computer or device running iTunes or iOS, such as your Mac, Apple TV, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.1

I see this as being one of two premier features of iCloud touted at WWDC. I also imagine it will be one of the main focal points of the September iPod event.

  • Syncing of 3rd-party app data: Free for everyone with an Apple ID and part of the iOS 5 SDK announced and made available on June 6.

I see this as being the other premier features of iCloud when announced at WWDC. Because this will allow 3rd-party developers to use iCloud as a server so users can sync an app’s information between multiple iOS and Mac devices.

It will be great for Developers and could replace what Dropbox has become for apps like 1Password and the multitude of note-taking applications that use Dropbox for sharing of text documents.

This feature will also be huge for the average user. All they’ll need is their Apple ID and they can set up their app to sync with their other iOS devices.

  • Contacts, calendar, and bookmarks: Just like it works in MobileMe right now, but it will become free for everyone with an Apple ID.

  • Find My iPhone: Will continue to be free for everyone with an Apple ID, just like it already is.

  • iBooks Syncing: Will continue to be free for everyone with an Apple ID, just like it already is.

  • Email: The @me.com email addresses will still be available but at a subscription cost like they currently are within MobileMe. However, I suspect the cost of a subscription will be less than the current pricing of MobileMe’s $99/year.

  • File-storage: 2 GB for free and meant for sharing and accessing your documents on multiple computers and iOS devices. More than 2 GB for a price.

I don’t think iCloud will be a Dropbox killer as nerds and power users like us might think. It may be one day, but Apple is focusing on making mobile apps and data stay in sync more than they are worried about improving how nerds and power users like us move, share, and sync our large working docs.

In short, it’s likely that we will keep on using Dropbox just like we always have been.

  • Wild Card: iWork.com and the iWork suite: I have no idea if Apple will address the nightmare that is file-syncing and file-sharing of iWork documents between your Mac and iPad. I could totally see them making this simple and cloud-based as soon as Lion or as late as iOS 5, but I could also see them completely ignoring it for now.

iCloud Pricing

My guess is that there will be two pricing plans for iCloud: free and paid.

The free features, available to everyone with an Apple ID, will include the basic syncing services (contacts, calendars, bookmarks, 3rd-party apps) and small amount of file storage for sharing documents between devices.

The paid service will include the above, as well as the iTunes storage and streaming, email addresses, and extra storage. And I bet the price is dropped from $99/year to something closer to $49.

Rollout Schedule

Here are my wild guesses of when I see these features being rolled between now and the end of the year:

  • June 6: iCloud announced at WWDC; new beta of Lion; beta of iOS 5 and corresponding SDK

At the June 6 keynote of WWDC I suspect we’ll see a preview of iOS 5, an announcement of iCloud, and an explanation of how integral iCloud will be in bringing OS X and iOS together.

It’s also likely that the iOS 5 beta will be made available for devs, and the updated SDK will allow for 3rd-party devs to utilize iCloud in their apps, and allow users to sync their app data between multiple iOS devices using their Apple ID.

  • July / August: Lion Ships

Lion is scheduled to ship this summer we may see it in July, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it shipped in early August. Apple has never shipped a version of OS X in June or July — 5 of the 7 major public releases of OS X have shipped in the fall (August, September, or October).

I expect that iCloud will first become available to the public as part of Lion and include the basic OTA Mac to Mac syncing and perhaps OTA Mac to iPhone syncing.

It’s probably that the iTunes locker will ship with iTunes on Lion. While it seems to make more sense that this feature would ship in September along side the music-centric iPod event, I think Apple is chomping at the bit to get iTunes streaming out to the public. Who knows, maybe it’ll come as a major update to iTunes in June.

  • September: iOS 5 Ships

Since the September iPod event is always focused around iPods and music, in some ways it makes sense that this is when the iTunes Music Locker feature is rolled out. But, as I said above, I think Apple wants iTunes streaming out sooner than the Fall.

I think the September event will focus on iOS 5 and will be the final stage of the iCloud rollout. This is when we’ll see the iTunes streaming come to our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, and hopefully our Apple TVs as well.

  1. Something else interesting about iCloud and the storage of our online media is that it would make Solid State Drives much more reasonable. I would not be surprised if the MacBook lineup got a refresh sometime this fall after Lion comes out and all of Apple’s notebooks begin shipping with SSDs as the default. ↵
iCloud Predictions

[Sponsor] KanjiPictoGraphix: Essential Kanji Mnemonics  →

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[Sponsor] KanjiPictoGraphix: Essential Kanji Mnemonics

Tools of the Writing Trade  →

And here’s another good piece by Surat Lozowick, this one about the tools we use for writing. Isn’t it funny how easily we get caught up in the what and the why of writing (or anything creative for that matter) in the hopes to improve our work, all the while knowing that what will most affect our work for the better is to simply do it. We love to philosophize about writing and to study it and to think on it and to search out new tools to make writing more enjoyable, but we hate to shut up, sit down, and do some writing.

Tools of the Writing Trade

Remarks by the President on Osama Bin Laden  →

Transcript from president Obama’s address:

Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.

We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.

The video of the president’s address is here.

Remarks by the President on Osama Bin Laden

Chris Bowler’s Intrvw  →

Ian Hines interviews Chris Bowler:

On the topic of attention and consumption, it’s becoming pretty clear to most people that the internet is changing us and our habits. It’s pervasiveness into everywhere is having a cumulative affect. This I have felt (keenly) in my life, but is also coming into focus for much of our culture. So I know I’m not just pushing this onto others.

As I’ve come to a time in my life where I desire to create more than anything else, many of the habits formed in the past five years are a detriment to that. I struggle greatly to focus on one task for any length. Even if I achieve that focus, I still find myself switching spaces, letting my thoughts drift to other subjects, my fingers seeking that source of new input.

Twitter is the best example of this tension in my life. I love it, I hate it. My career would not be where it is without it, yet I know I could have created more, done more over the past three years if I removed all the time I spent on the service. It brings me useful information and in contact with amazing people, but also can daily cause me to miss important events in the life of my children.

Where then is the balance?

Chris Bowler’s Intrvw

Lithium  →

My thanks to Lithium for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote their SNMP monitoring software. Lithium is built for Mac and iOS users in need of professional-grade monitoring of their server, network, and storage. It is feature rich, highly customizable, keeps tabs on your devices and applications, offers alert notifications, and more. Not to mention Lithium has well-designed and native apps for your Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus an attractive web interface.

Lithium

Using the iPhone As My Only Camera

Though I love to snap photos I don’t pretend to be a photographer. I own two cameras: an older digital Kodak point and shoot with a dead battery and my iPhone 4.

I don’t know if this is a new trend or if I’m just one of a kind, but my photographs and snapshots seem to have a shorter lifespan than they used to. I don’t print out my photos anymore. Instead I text message them or email them to my friends and family. I upload them to Flickr and I share them on Twitter. It used to be a big deal to print out all your photos and archive them into an album. People do that digitally now using iPhoto I guess, but I don’t even use that.

They say the best camera is the one you have with you, and I always have my iPhone with me. In fact, I haven’t used the digital Kodak since June of 2007. This is fine by me because, like I mentioned above, I am at most just a snapshot enthusiast.

However, there is a huge shortcoming to using my iPhone as my best camera: some of the most memorable moments are also the ones where you do not want your iPhone anywhere near you.1

Anna and I are currently on vacation in Hawaii. Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Hapuna Beach which has been called one of the most beautiful beaches in the United States. Hapuna Beach is gorgeous. The water is all shades of blues and greens, and to the south side there is a gorgeous volcanic rock wall with several coves.

But our camera (my iPhone) was locked up in the rental car. There was no way I was going to bring my $400 iPhone down to the beach to get sand in it and risk it getting stolen while Anna and I were out bogie boarding.

If the best camera is the one you have with you then the worst camera is the one you refuse to take. Funny how that can simultaneously refer to the same device.

In many ways the iPhone punched massive holes into the inexpensive digital camera market. But there are some instances when the iPhone is the worst option for a camera. Because there is something to be said about the fact that there are some places where you really want a camera yet you are not going to take your iPhone into that situation.

This is why I think the Flip video recorder still had a good market and why digital point and shoots also have a place: they are inexpensive, easy to replace, and they don’t carry all your personal information on them.

  1. Not counting the fact that the iPhone doesn’t come close to using a high-end Nikon or Canon DSLR. ↵
Using the iPhone As My Only Camera

Holy Crap! Mint Plugin  →

Same idea as Greg Reinacker’s aforelinked plugin, except Tyler Hall’s will notify you based on certain domains showing up in your referral’s list (such as Digg, Slashdot, and Daring Fireball):

Why the name Holy Crap!? Because that’s generally the first thing you say when your website hits the front page of Slashdot.

And coincidentally, today is the 3rd birthday of Tyler’s plugin.

Holy Crap! Mint Plugin

Traffic Threshold Pepper  →

This is a great idea for a plugin from Greg Reinacker. You set a minimum threshold for how many pageviews per minute would be “big” for you, and then if your site exceeds that threshold you get an email. It’s a clever way to wean yourself from that awful habit of checking your Mint stats every 15 minutes to see if you’re getting a spike of unusually high traffic or not.

And, if you don’t want to start checking your email every 15 minutes instead of your Mint stats, set the “send alerts to” email address to your cell phone provider’s text message address. This way you’ll get an SMS if you’re site starts getting lots of traffic, and so in the downtime you can stop thinking about it.

Traffic Threshold Pepper