CEO Steve Jobs showed off the company's long-anticipated cloud
service, an update to its mobile operating system and an update to its
PC operating system at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference
on June 6 in San Francisco.
First up Jobs unveiled Mac OS "Lion," which brings an iOS feel to
the desktop and notebook computer by displaying apps in a grid and
letting users swipe between them as they do pages of apps on an iPhone
or an iPad. Its new "Resume" feature lets users return to an app in the
same condition as when they last left it. The new "Mission Control"
feature pans out to let users see what applications they have running
and allow them to move between apps.
Lion, which will retail for $29, goes on sale in July and will be available as a download through the Mac App Store.
Jobs also pulled back the curtain on Apple's long-awaited cloud
initiative, iCloud. The free cloud service will let users sync content
and push it to other devices via the cloud. Contacts, calendar and mail
are all now cloud-centric, with updates being pushed to different
devices.
For business users, Apple's new Documents in the Cloud automatically
pulls any documents from Apple's productivity suite -- software
including Pages, Numbers and Keynote -- into the cloud to share across
devices. Photos will also be uploaded into the cloud.
Music is also getting the cloud treatment through an updated iTunes,
sharing music across a user's devices. Non-iTunes music purchases and
downloads can be uploaded to Apple's cloud for $25 a year.
iOS 5 has refined the notifications screen, boosted iOS
interoperability with Twitter and iMessage, a messaging platform that
will allow users to carry on a conversation across multiple iOS devices
that could give BlackBerry's Messenger platform a run for its money.
The new Newsstand feature will consolidate users e-periodical
subscriptions.
The new iOS 5 makes photography easier with a camera shortcut available from the lock screen.
During his presentation, Jobs said Apple has sold more than 200
million iOS devices and that it has 44 percent of the mobile OS market.
Both iCloud and iOS 5 are expected to launch in the fall.
