iCloud is here: Steve Jobs takes Apple to new horizon

Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs unveiled services for people to store more of their photos, music and other data online, giving the iPad and iPhone maker the lead in a fast-expanding new consumer market. Devices to data centres

Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs unveiled services for people to store more of their photos, music and other data online, giving the iPad and iPhone maker the lead in a fast-expanding new consumer market.

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Jobs entered to a standing ovation from more than 5,000 Apple faithful at its Worldwide Developers' Conference on Monday and showed off Apple products meant to help customers keep their iPhones, iPads and computers in sync.

The Silicon Valley icon and pancreatic cancer survivor — animated but again looking very thin — unveiled remote computing services that for now at least push Apple ahead of rivals Google and Amazon.com, which recently launched their own moves into music storage and streaming.

Jobs, whose decision to headline the event assuaged some concerns on Wall Street about his health, didn't say a word about his condition but strode briskly onstage after James Brown's soul classic I Got You (I Feel Good) blasted over the sound system. "We're going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud," Jobs said. "Everything happens automatically and there's nothing new to learn. It just all works."

In cloud computing, data and software are stored on servers, and devices like smartphones or PCs access them through the Internet.