The 'iCloud' Rolls In: Will Apple's Technology Reign Continue?

With the unveiling only hours away by Steve Jobs, the Johnny Appleseed of the digital age, Apple's new iCloud service has arrived. 

Apple is late again to another dawning realm of digital distr ibution, chasing after the launch of music clouds behind Amazon and Google.

But as with MP3 players, smartphones and notepads, that may not matter.

Also read:  iCloud Unveiled: Steve Jobs Presents Cloud-Based Technology

The iPod, iPhone and iPad came to dominate their earlier competitors. So will Apple's iCloud turn go the same way and be the game-changer of digital leisure?

Among the details that have leaked is  that the iCloud will host music and not yet accommodate movies or TV shows. 

And nowhere is there more cheerleading going on than at the once digitally unfriendly music labels, which have granted Apple licensing rights for a reported $125 million advance. 

The industry support provides iCloud with potent advantages over its unlicensed early rivals where reliability issues, particularly at Amazon, have troubled consumers. iCloud, they say, is easy to use.

Also read: Amazon Slowly Crawls Out From Beneath Its Cloud Problems

Clouds are, essentially, massive third-party servers for storage and access of digital data, relocated from personal hard-drives.

Instead of moving music and movie files from device to device, cloud subscribers may stream their media from anywhere, anytime, on myriad connected devices.

At Amazon, for example, any music you buy at the online giant's marketplace is stored in the cloud for free, and space can be rented for the rest of your digital catalogue, the cost depending on how much digital storage space you need. 

The business-to-business cloud market is much further developed, with such cloud heavyweights as Amazon, for example, hosting Netflix's paradigm-shifting streaming video service.

As for Apple, it already has a cloud starter-system in place with Apple TV, which syncs everything in a consumer's iTunes account for play on his or her home theater system. 

Eventually, it is believed, clouds will replace hard drives for computer users, allowing unlimited space.

It's expected that when Jobs rallies himself briefly from an indefinite medical leave to introduce iCloud on Monday morning, the race will start anew.

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