Josh Ong
The trademark application surfaced shortly after Apple confirmed on Tuesday the upcoming service, which will be unveiled at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference. In a rare move, Apple tipped its hand by preannouncing the service ahead of the conference's June 6 keynote.
MacNN reports that the application reserves the trademark under 12 International Classes, such as "delivering digital music by telecommunications," "online social networking services," "multimedia content for a fee or pre-paid subscription," "electronic books and magazines," "photographic services," "games" and "headgear."
According to the report, Apple first applied for the iCloud trademark in Jamaica last December. It is common practice for corporations to file first in Jamaica before eventually applying in the U.S. and Europe.
Though trademark applications are often overly broad, the scope of Apple's iCloud filing appears to serve as further evidence that the service will provide more than just streaming music. Sources told AppleInsider in April that iCloud would span beyond music and was being used internally by Apple for several products currently under development.
People familiar with the matter also indicated on Wednesday that Apple may offer the service free to Mac OS X Lion users in hopes of driving adoption of the upcoming OS release. The music streaming component, however, is not expected to be free, though Apple may offer an introductory or trial period.
Sources claim that iCloud will scan users' iTunes libraries for music and mirror the contents on Apple's servers. Apple is also said to be negotiating new licensing deals with movie and TV studios to offer remote storage and streaming of video content via iCloud.
Alongside iCloud, Apple will present iOS 5 and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion at next week's conference. iOS 5 is expected to contain tight integration with iCloud and is rumored to offer improved voice commands.
Apple first previewed Mac OS X Lion last fall, promising to bring iOS features "back to the Mac." Those features include home screens, multi-touch gestures and full-screen applications with auto-save and auto-resume.
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Europe is where iCloud will probably have the biggest problem. Spotify is now very well established, supports just about every mobile platform out there and offers a massive library of music all streaming for a flat rate every month.
There is only three things I need iCloud to do, in addition to MobileMe functions:
1. Send whatever media files I tag on any iDevice/computer up to the cloud and back down for full wireless syncing or just streaming. I don't want only the copyrighted music stored by Apple that Apple decides *they* want to stream to you. That is nonsense, requires stupid, pointless and time-wasting negotiation with idiotic media conglomerates and is usually crippled outside the US - outside the US being where most of Apple's growth in the next five years is going to take place. If Dropbox can stream and sync any media file I put up there, why can't Apple?
2a. Send and sync any file such as Dropbox and hence make iCloud the "default file system" for iOS devices. You want a file structure, local file management? Yes, you can, and it's cloud-enabled. Dropbox and other apps have proven that obviously more than one app requires access to the same files, and we cannot get away yet from needing to see all our files at once. Because even if it is not so relevant for a mobile device, remember that it is usually mirrored through the cloud on a desktop or laptop computer - where one is used to seeing files and file structure.
2b. Integrate 2a above with all iWork apps on iOS and Mac, essentially making iWork a legitimate Google Docs competitor.
3. In iOS 5, enable fully untethered operation and OS updating of any iOS 5 device.
Key words: Tag as Cloudify, then, from the cloud, Stream or Sync. Any file. Plus, iOS 5 Untethered.
This is what I believe Apple needs to do. Otherwise, all this iCloud stuff is going to be yet more too little, too late and exposes their Achilles heel for Google and others to chip away at even more.
Including one 'headgear' category? Interesting. Headgear + Cloud source.
Including one 'headgear' category? Interesting. Headgear + Cloud source.
If they can replace my iPod Shuffle with 3G connected AIO in-ear phones that will play my iTunes .Store playlists and have Nike+GPS I'll be very, very happy.