Perhaps it's time for a different name.
However, like all things Apple, the iCrowd will eat it up, and Apple will make a mint from something that others have been doing better for a long time.
Apple today confirmed that CEO Steve Jobs will give the keynote address at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) which kicks off Monday, June 6, 2011 in San Francisco.
In a press release issued this morning Apple said that it will use the WWDC stage to showcase Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud, Apple’s “upcoming cloud services offering.”
The release is notable because Steve Jobs is in month five of a medical leave of absence from the company. In 2009 Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Philip Schiller gave the WWDC keynote address in Steve’s absence.
While Jobs will quarterback the keynote, he’ll be bringing up a parade of Apple executives to do some of the heavy lifting in the demos as he usually does.
The other — arguably more newsworthy — tidbit in the release is Apple’s public use of the term “iCloud” for the first time. Apple reportedly purchased iCloud.com for $4.5 million in April 2011.
Details are scarce on the mechanics of Apple’s cloud services offering but it’s largely expected to be a mashup of its current MobileMe service, Dropbox and a cloud music streaming service resulting from its acquisition of Lala.com in December of 2009.
What would you like to see out of iCloud?
Related coverage on ZDNet:
- Steve Jobs to present Lion OS, iCloud at WWDC 2011 keynote
- Major mobile players getting desperate thanks to Apple
- Google Maps: Five reasons that Apple, others shouldn’t even try to compete
- Apple kicks off MacBook ‘Bottom Case Replacement Program’
Image: Silicon.com
