OSX LION + iOS5 + iCloud: How It Will Change Everything Yet Again.

Apple revealed Mac OS X LION, iOS5 and the iCloud service at the recent WWDC 2011 Conference, with Steve Jobs himself as the keynote speaker. I have a blog post about the Mac OS X Lion over here, so I will be focusing more on iOS5 and the iCloud on this post. 

The iOS5 is an operating system upgrade for your iPhone 3GS, iPhone4, iTouch, iPad and iPad2. I'm relieved that you don't need an iPhone 5 or an iPad 2 to run it, so I guess my first generation iPad will be getting the much deserved O/S makeover once it's out. I'm sorry iPhone 2G, you have to stay the way you are.

To check out the features: http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html

The Apple microsite for the iOS5 said that there will be 200 new features, but I'm not sure if you will be able to notice all the changes. Major upgrades include:

Notification Center - Allows you to view all your text, email, friend requests..etc in one convenient interface. 

iMessage - If you're at a Wi-Fi Spot, you can send text messages to all iOS5 users, whether it's on the iPad, iPod Touch or the iPhone, for free. Good luck to our telco carriers, as there are 200 million iOS users out there. If Android tries to create its own FREE SMS app, add a few more hundreds of millions of users to that. 

New Reminders - Better calendar and To-Do-List, integrates with iCal and Outlook.

Twitter Integration - I sort of figured out this for - Twitter will be integrated seamlessly on the iOS5.

New Camera Interface - You can now open camera on your lock screen beside the "SWIPE TO UNLOCK" thingy. New actions such as grid lines, pinch to zoom gestures, single tap focus and exposure locks are all coming to the camera interface.

New Safari features - New web-browsing features make it surfing the web easier.

And 190+ other features which we will not know about, unless we take our time to count. I guess even an additional font is a feature change.

Great updates, but what is going to be really awesome is Apple's answer to the Google cloud service - the iCloud. Basically, It helps you synch all of your stuff to all of your devices (Macbook, iPhone and iPad, even you PC) by storing your data on the web. So you access your documents, music, events, reminders and other important content anywhere, anytime and whatever device you have with you. It kinda reminds me of the Mac app I'm using called EVERNOTE. What it does it when I write a note or idea on my laptop, it automatically updates on my iPhone and iPad as well, so I have the same data wherever I go. Same principle for the iCloud, except this one connects to most of the major applications such as iTunes, Photos, iCal, and Contacts to name a few. Take a photo, it saves to the cloud, and access it in all your devices. Save a song once, and listen to it wherever you go. The cord you use for synching will not matter that much anymore, since everything will be synched through WI-FI or 3G. 

I'm sure this will be a paid service, but the good news is if you sign up, you automatically get free 5GB of storage. Not much, but good enough to store most of your important stuff. 

I'm really looking forward to downloading OS X Lion, iOS5 and signing up on iCloud.