Apple: iCloud Announcement Coming At WWDC 2011

Apple: Steve Jobs Will Unveil New Product Next Week

Apple announced in a press release that it will be taking the wraps off of a new offering, iCloud, at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday, June 6.

Apple will also be showing off new software for its Mac computers and iOS devices. Apple wrote the company will "unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch; and iCloud, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering."

The company also confirmed that Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave, will be among the "team of Apple executives" that will "kick off" WWDC.

Apple offered few details on what iCloud will look like, though there have been plenty of rumors. The company has reportedly finalized licensing deals with the music industry's top record labels, including EMI Music, Warner Music, Sony Music and Universal Music.

The music service could enable users to store their music in the "cloud," on remote servers, rather than by downloading tracks and storing them on separate devices.

BusinessWeek offers more information on the features iCloud could offer:

Armed with licenses from the music labels and publishers, Apple will be able to scan customers' digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers, say three people briefed on the talks. If the sound quality of a particular song on a user's hard drive isn't good enough, Apple will be able to replace it with a higher-quality version. Users of the service will then be able to stream, whenever they want, their songs and albums directly to PCs, iPhones, iPads, and perhaps one day even cars. And the music industry gets a chance at the next best thing after selling shrink-wrapped CDs: monthly subscription fees, à la Netflix (NFLX) and the cable companies.

See the full release on Apple.com here.

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