Apple’s really nailed down its presentation strategy. The company doesn’t leak features before they’re absolutely ready for mass consumption (not counting the old AppleTV of course), and then it announces the product, shows just how awesome it is, and puts a release date just close enough that the world will stay excited until its release. iCloud is no different. Apple’s unveiling made Google Music look like a high-school project by comparison.
I’m really impressed by what Apple put together. There are a few recent Apple policies that have really made me question whether the company is worth supporting in any capacity. But iCloud is free, and iTunes Match, maybe the single greatest part of the iCloud rollout, is just $25 a year. None of this is to say that I think Apple has pioneered anything amazing. In fact, pretty much everything about the iCloud service has been available through Google for quite some time. It is clean, pretty, and looks incredibly easy to use, which is exactly what Apple is good at. It also further ties consumers into the iOS ecosystem, making it harder to consider leaving.
For the non-Apple users of the world, there is some good news here. Google is looking at iCloud and thinking of ways to do it better (and they can’t be happy about Apple taking the notification bar pretty much directly from Android). The next version of Android will almost certainly try to best iCloud in some serious ways. Google knows that Apple is going for brand loyalty with iCloud. Whatever the company releases to compete will have to be good enough to pull people away from iOS.
