Fresh fruit
Tech juggernaut Apple has just pre-announced what it will unveil at the keynote to kick off its worldwide developer conference (WWDC) at 6pm UK time next Monday, an unusual move for the fruity gadget-maker.
The will see the eighth major release of Mac OS X - called Lion this time, the fifth major version of iOS and, most intriguingly of all, the launch of iCloud - Apple's cloud services offering.
That's all Apple is saying for now, but the fact that it chose to preannounce all this stuff at all is noteworthy. We must assume part of the motivation is the start of Computex, as which Intel has launched a new notebook category to challenge the MacBook Air and the second wave of iPad rivals are taking a bow. It will also be interesting to see if Apple introduces things like NFC support.
Precisely what iCloud consists of, however, will be the most newsworthy. At a basic level is will presumably be a revamp of things like MobileMe, but the word on the street is that Apple might be about to get into the music locker game, but unlike Amazon and Google, with the consent and full cooperation of the major music labels.
If this is the case you will not just be able to buy and consume music from a variety of Apple devices, you'll be able to replicate your (presumably iTunes) music collection in the cloud to be consumed wherever you want. This will put additional pressure on Amazon and Google to offer a bit more in their music lockers.
All will become clear in a week.
