Hot off the rumor that Apple will be offering a cloud service under the “iCloud” name, we’re now hearing reports that it will be offering much more than just music.
Until now, many expected the Apple iCloud service to be a digital locker for music. You’d be able to access your purchased iTunes tracks on any iOS device (as long as you have Internet connection) and this would mean you don’t have to worry about how much storage is on your device. Additionally, you won’t have to worry about having to re-downloading content.
Apple has reportedly inked the deal with music labels for the music but Apple Insider is reporting we can expect more from our iCloud:
. To this end, reports dating back to February characterized Apple’s plans future internet service plans as including a digital “locker” that would hold all of a users personal memorabilia, including photos, music and videos. That would negate the need for future Apple mobile devices like an iPhone to have a great deal of internal and costly flash memory storage.
This makes a lot of sense for the Apple iCloud to include more than just music but I’m not quite buying that future versions will have a lot less internal storage. Sure, the latest MacBook Air units have lower internal storage than “normal” laptops but the key for these devices is that many rely on mobile data networks.
These mobile data networks also come with somewhat-restrictive data caps. Sure, streaming tunes from Apple iCloud may not kill your data caps (although it can add up), but streaming HD movies to your iPhone or iPad might.
You could always switch over to WiFi when you’re at home but that wouldn’t be as fluid as just using mobile data networks. Apple was able to keep the WiFi restriction on FaceTime though, so you never know.
[Via Apple Insider]