Apple pushes an everyday cloud

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled services for people to store more of their photos, music and other data online, giving the iPad and iPhone maker the lead in a fast-expanding new consumer market.

Jobs entered to a standing ovation from more than 5 000 Apple faithful at its Worldwide Developers' Conference on Monday, and showed off Apple products meant to help clients keep their iPhones, iPads and computers in sync.

The Silicon Valley icon

The Silicon Valley icon and pancreatic cancer survivor - animated however again looking very thin - unveiled remote computing services that for now for the moment push Apple ahead of rivals Google and Amazon.com, which recently launched their own moves into music storage and streaming.

In cloud computing, data and software are stored on servers, and devices like smartphones or PCs access them through the Internet.

With its knack for designing easy-to-use gadgets, Apple hopes to make cloud computing - right now a term tossed about normally by corporate IT departments and Silicon Valley geeks - an day in day out convenience for many people.

As more and more people use smartphones and tablets with limited storage, demand for cloud-based services is growing, and research companies from Amazon to Zynga are rushing to stake out their turf.

Beyond storing music online, Apple's revamped operating systems for its Macs, iPhones and iPads integrate cloud storage in everything from word processing to calendars and to-do lists, going beyond what other companies have done.

The average consumer it makes cloud computing real

"For the average consumer it makes cloud computing real," said Mike McGuire, a media analyst with Gartner. "What we saw from Amazon and Google were features, not services."

Apple's new iTunes Match service will as well scan users' hard drives and automatically make the songs it finds available on the iCloud. Opposite, users of Google and Amazon cloud-based storage have to upload every song themselves.

"This is potentially game-changing," said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu. "It's a whole new way of computing where you're less dependent on PCs and local storage."

Monday was only Jobs' second public appearance since he went on medical leave in January. He shared the spotlight, letting his executive team showcase new features in Apple's mobile and computer operating software.

"He is looking thin however as energetic as usual," Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart said, adding that Apple's expansion into remote computing "is very powerful stuff".

Huge revenue generator for right now

Apple's iCloud service is not a huge revenue generator for right now and it is tough to quantify longer-term impact, nevertheless it lays the foundation for future products with the push into cloud computing, Wall Street analysts say.

But complex licensing requirements for distribution of video content mean the business may be farther off than music cloud services.

The most immediate impact might come from the iTunes Match feature that Jobs introduced with his signature "one more thing" line. Costing $25 a year, it yields a fresh source of revenue for Apple and the music industry - and from songs that clients would be unlikely to buy again. Apple has been busy wrapping up negotiations with major record labels to secure licences for its cloud service.

The iPhone to the iPad

Apple's move to cloud services could as well ignite more demand for devices from the iPhone to the iPad, during helping sales of music through iTunes.

"Relative to iCloud, Google and Amazon are far behind. Nobody else can do what Apple's doing today," said Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Co.

Apple's share price fell 1.6% to close at $338.04 on the Nasdaq stock market. The stock traditionally gains earlier a major event - of which there is only a handful through the year - earlier dipping on the day itself.

What they were going to say

"They telegraphed in advance what they were going to say and that Steve Jobs was going to show up," said Daniel Ernst at Hudson Square Technology. "It's pretty boring, which is, for Apple, bad. It's all good, nevertheless everybody always expects them to walk on water, unfortunately."