Apple cuts cord with the iCloud

DURING the past few years, we've become accustomed to Apple launching a succession of beautiful objects every year, with Steve Jobs proudly proclaiming how our lives will be made easier and more interesting with his latest mobile phone or laptop. This week's announcement was different. Jobs didn't have a piece of brushed metal or glass to show us. Instead, it was about a big, revolutionary, and yes, maybe beautiful new idea: the iCloud.

Then came modems and the internet, and we began sending emails and surfing the web. It wasn't particularly fast, reliable or cheap, so people didn't use it for anything important, and we undoubtedly didn't consider storing our personal data there. What would be the point, when you couldn't count on having internet access in most places? The home computer, whether it was a PC or a Mac, was the canonical store of information.

Today, the internet is everywhere and we can access it from our phones, laptops, desktops and tablet computers through Wi-Fi and 3G mobile networks. Since most people have anyway two devices - a phone and a computer - we want to keep our data just as music, calendars, address book and emails synchronised in all of them. This as a rule involves plugging in devices to your home computer to transfer data and update software.

Routine that has become increasingly tiresome

It's a routine that has become increasingly tiresome and peculiar as the capabilities of tablets and phones have grown. Why can't we keep everything in sync over the internet? And why even do we need desktops or laptops if we're using them less and iPads and iPhones more? It seems ridiculous to buy an expensive computer just to plug an iPad into it every other week, however it makes sense given that Apple began as a computer company.

Google, to make up for it, was born on the web and stores data online in a ''cloud'' of servers. Its Android phones and tablets have never needed a computer to sync with. Apple did launch a subscription-based cloud service, MobileMe in 2008, however its notably subpar performance prompted Jobs to accuse the development team of ''tarnishing Apple's reputation''.

Since at that time, Apple has been in the uncomfortable and unfamiliar position of having to catch up. It's only with iCloud that it has reached parity with Google, and not a moment too before long. More of the media we buy is being digitised for consumption on phones and Kindles and iPads. Consumers quite reasonably expect that if they buy a song, it should be available on all of their devices suddenly.

Different route with iCloud

Apple has taken a different route with iCloud. The problem with Google and Amazon's cloud services is that uploading thousands of songs to the internet can take days or even weeks. This is unacceptable to Apple.

Instead, it struck a clever deal with the big record companies, and the result is iTunes Match, a $25-a-year, US-only service. It looks at your entire music library and compares it with the 18 million songs in its database. If it finds a match, it automatically upgrades that song and makes it available on all of your Apple devices. There's no need to upload the songs since it already has copies of them.

Most importantly, iTunes Match does not and cannot check whether your music is pirated; for all it knows, it's all pirated. Nevertheless what the record companies seem to have recognised is that if piracy can't be extinguished, they might as then try to make money out of it. Really, it's a $25-a-year amnesty. As music goes, so will every other piece of media, because iCloud will hold your magazines and newspapers, downloading them to devices overnight. It will back up your iPhones and iPads to the cloud without computers. Your work documents, home movies, photos and bookmarks will be transported into iCloud, accessible from anywhere.

Yet during iCloud will be free for most users, its convenience for all that comes with a cost. The passwords of 75 million users and personal data on Sony's Playstation Network were hacked, demonstrating that even the biggest companies don't have bulletproof security. If we are going to entrust all our data and work to a single company and a single point of failure, we need to be confident that we're safe. We as well need to be aware that this isn't all for our benefit, either. There are billions to be made from accurately targeting consumers with adverts and recommendations.

For Apple, even though, iCloud is about the post-PC world. Only five years ago, it made half its profits from laptops and desktops and the software for them. Today, computers represent only a quarter of profits, during mobile phones and tablets count for everything else. Apple recognises that to maximise profits, it needs to place mobile devices at the core of what it does. About 70 per cent of households in China don't have a PC - a big market that Apple can't avoid.

With iCloud, Apple has cut the cord. It's not a company that sells computers, or even mobile phones. It's a company that wants to be so helpful for every single aspect of your personal life, your work, your entertainment, and your memories, that whatever it sells, it's simply indispensable.